e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you're on all right welcome back to our unfortunately um budget Workshop whatever we got going on here Mr Donaldson I understand you have um figured out all the One problems and are ready to let us know well well I have a proposal but during the break uh this we had discussions about the transfer disadvantaged program um and uh their their reductions in how to help uh fulfill their the the continuing the service that they provide um commissioner campy I know came when we talked talked a bit about it and also with Stephanie about where in the budget are are areas that we can find and and we do have a lean budget and it's it is hard to find anything that's even 250,000 so um recommendation is is that we um increase the TD budget by 150,000 from general fund um and that when we do our fund balance in the mid year that we have an opportunity to look at perhaps F funding the rest of it um in the meantime I knew we'll also have some discussions about just transportation and Marty and other things between now and and February to kind of have a better chance to have a bigger picture of discussion so that is the recommendation is a 150,000 increase would go into the no's budget for transportation disadvantage and Public Works um and uh we would take it from uh uh we just increase our general fund uh contribution by 150,000 and look at uh fund balance when we look at that first of the year yeah so moved second okay any other discussion we have a motion by commissioner herd seconded by commissioner Smith all in favor I all opposed motion yes sir are we going to let are we are we going to let them know yes okay great thank you absolutely motion passed unanimously okay moving on to non departmental tentative budget so last but not least is the non- departmental um fy2 tentative budget and what is non-departmental it's it's exactly what it sounds like um it's includes all revenues and expenditures that are either intrinsically countywide and or not assigned to any specific County department you'll see things such as um our annual audits for the countywide or other post-employment benefits actuarials um indirect costs grant writing investment and so on um it's broken up into a few different programs you have the general non-departmental risk management Economic Development the grants and AIDS and service contracts Debt Service budgeted transfers and reserves so just looking at non- departmental as a whole it can be a little overwhelming because it contains so much um components of the county that can't really be specified but this is the breakdown um of non- Department Al non-departmental where the majority of it resides in the reserves so in the particular non-departmental program um you're going to see things such as the payments to the county and City CR your FPL uh tangible personal property grant our wellness clinic and indirect costs um our Parks mstu indirect cost and then PTO and leave payout lesser programs include the economic development Debt Service risk management and budgeted transfers Economic Development there is a slight increase this year of $155,000 based on the uh board approved bdb contract just the past few meetings ago our debt service it's decreased based on the principal and interest that's due each year for the board approved bonds loans and capital leases risk management is an increase due to both our health insurance and property insurance premiums which are the health insurance are expected to go just under 5% increase and then budgeted transfers which are a little confusing because they're just a government accounting procedure um they just vary annually depending on the necessity to move dollars in and out between funds just for accounting purposes so with the fy2 tenative budget for Grants and AIDS everything is exactly the same same dollars as the previous year um we have contracted services that are the organizations that provide Direct Services to us um grants to governmental agencies grants to private organizations and other Aid to organizations and I'll break them down a little bit so for contracted Services no changes from the fy2 24 adopted budget um The Humane Society for the service they provide via contract our Treasure Coast Wildlife and Historical Society I think it's um management agreement that we have with historical society and then the lifebuilders of the Treasure Coast what's that that is a grant agreement with um Diamond ly's office to provide um I don't remember the exact specifics of it but she provides a $10,000 grant for I don't know exactly I'm sorry it helps with the transition of those that qualified who are have um get it right uh um in the court system to help people transition uh back into society okay it's a good program that he's been doing for a number of years years ago yeah thank you she also said we can call her on her cell phone if she I was gonna say she's probably yeah yes that's a so our continuing the program grants and AIDS we have our a lot of our state statute mandated and local ordinance um mandated items such as the County Indigent hospitalizations Medicaid hospitals and then the Health Department New Horizons as well as the immunization program at the health department the um Healthcare responsibility act Children's Home Society and then Indigent medicine could you say again that a majority of those we don't that're not discretionary they're paid for by law almost every single one of those we have an unfunded mandate or state statute to provide those services or local ordinances that mandate those [Applause] thank you the grants and AIDS grants to private organizations um we've seen this list um year-over-year and this represents no changes from last year's ten uh adopted budget was Special Olympics supposed to be a recurring item I believe I wasn't told otherwise so I believe so no anybody else think that it was um other Aid to organizations I'm the Dory slurg which is a fee funed um item in the court system to provide a driving school through the Martin County School District as well as the portelo fishing dock Authority um lease no changes with that and then finally the biggest part of the non- departmental budget is our reserves um these reserves represent fully funding our restricted reserve requirement in the general fund um as well as other various reserves in the county funds for future Capital outlay um contingencies and long-term care can you go back I was going to say can you go back a second go first I've heard some folks talking about the fact that our reserves wouldn't really take us that far can you give us sort of a little quick tutorial on how the reserves work and you don't traditionally calculate them by how many days we would be able to run the government can you share a little of that right so we have a restricted Reserve policy that is one of the best practices for the government Finance officers associate Association to to require a 10 % restricted Reserve in just the general fund operations but those aren't the only reserves we have each funding type has its own type of Reserve in order to meet any kind of catastrophic needs as well as we have a disaster fund Reserve that is not reflected in this because well it's it's hurricane season and I can't really estimate what I might need or not need in the middle of hurricane season but that's an additional about $9 million um it is best practice to to keep 10% you don't want to have too much Reserve and then it looks like you're amassing large fortunes of money um but you want a responsible Reserve in order to take care of if everything stops for 30 to 60 days you have that you'll see those types of reserves even from the building department fund um as well as even down to small funds such as the tourism Fund in the event of an economic downturn um but realistically speaking if all else fails and we collect nothing in in society is I guess in a nuclear event um we would be okay well financially financially good to know financially speaking it's it's it's important to note that um your Capital program you know they right grat we would there's a lot of things you put those on hold so there's gas tax uh assigned to various projects that we would shift to be able to use on road repairs um utilities as funds that we could do debris man management before FEMA funds kick in things like that so our our funds are able to get us Bridges until those other state or federal funds kick in to to be able to help you deal with the problem so there's the general fund reserve and then then um and I think a big part of your action is is to you rep prioritize what you're working on when something catastrophic happens and all the money you assigned let's say till next year saving up for a project you spend this year on your Disaster Cleanup that's a big part of how you strategically manage for um unintended uh events and I will say to add to that our recuitment of all of those disaster funds has been actually very good on recruitment so we're floating it for not a very long time anymore it seems it seems to be quicker than it used to because we're good at what we do cuz we're good at what we do I was going to say part of that is there I remember after one of the Hurricanes even how you picked up vegetative waste and what trucks and technique you used if you did it incorrectly you got zero reimbursement and if you went through the more difficult way of understanding how things had to happen like you're in panic mode because it's a hurricane and people rush out to do stuff we don't do that we did it the proper way so that when it came time to get FEMA reimbursement I think we were almost 100% when other counties we heard from Commissioners that didn't do it the right way got nothing back so we do it right the uh Disaster Response has become its own business type it I think if you go back in the beginning of my career um which was a while ago um the government was very generous in how you could get reimbursed today it's uh it's it's as much about your accounting and finance and documentation um because quite frankly the Federal government everybody is tighter on funds and they want you to account for it and and that it's become its own business that's all I have for non-departmental so unless there's any questions move tenative approval second okay we have a motion by commissioner herd second by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously so now we've reached the end where we're do the tenative um set the tenative millage rate um so now with the change that we have discussed for the 150,000 to be added to our general fund that is requiring a countywide millage rate of 6.57 S6 and then your separate fire Parks storm water and road emis to use to be set at 2. 6677 parks and wreck at 0.596 storm water at 2771 road maintenance at 3077 for our total mstu is at 34121 um so our total millage countywide in MST would be set at 99896 representing a ne. 625 increase yeah decrease sorry sorry and then we have discussed our commission District mstu previously and last but not least our little special district Hutchinson Island it's maintaining the same dollars as the previous year which is also showing a reduction of 8.80% with a millit rate of 01805 it's a lot of numbers M so I could entertain a motion for countywide and separ mstu and that would be most helpful do you have so what do you uh what do you want to read what set the tentative millage rates as presented decrease that's it as a decrease I mean I don't have to read off anything specific not not this time okay I would move that we set the tenative millage rate um as presented throughout the morning and with the uh correction to the transportation disadvantage funding that was added to the budget which gets us to a uh which one you want which which two numbers 57 great okay 6. 5776 with an overall reduction of3 66% that's for the general fund countywide yes do you want to do you want them separate or do you want them yeah we can do it separate that's fine so I'd make that motion second motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I I motion passes unanimously I would move the uh Municipal uh the municipal service taxing units mstu um for a total millage rate of 3412 one right correct with a reduction of [Music] 1.17 correct second okay we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner herd all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimous you want the total nope just the hudon island uh hudin Island okay uh special district uh a61 Hutchinson Island uh millage to be set at a tenative millage to be set at um .1 1805 with a reduction of 88.8% second motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner herd all in favor I all opposed carries unanimously the commission District mstu I already got an approval with the discussing the mstu so we've come to our our close um we've currently set our tenative millage rate so o andb will then transmit these rates to the property appraisers um office by August 4th um the next steps are the trim notices are going to be mailed um from the Property Appraiser's office to the property owners and I believe that the property appraiser will be speaking to the trim process on August 6 we'll have our first public hearing on these millage rates on September 10th 2024 at 50:05 p.m. and then we'll have our final adoption of these millage rates if nothing changes on September 24th 2024 at 5:05 pm and with that I am complete and I want to thank my little staff of 11 for working so hard these months um the department heads for dealing with me this year my first go round as the Director and then for County Administration the County commission for giving me such nice clear Direction great job you did a wonderful job and I tell you for some reason I understood the presentation um wonderfully that whole way you laid it out it warms my to hear that my I see cold heart commissioner her yeah I also want to thank uh Miss merly and her staff you did a terrific job this is a great understandable lean budget and also want to thank our department heads for also um responding to their Direction which is a flat budget and it's I think it's remarkable that with all the inflation that we're having that of of the board's 1,137 position we added one and it was in it that that's shows remarkable conservative restraint so I want to thank everybody for they're doing their part thank you appreciate it that's all I have you got budget Workshop done lost my cheat sheet so um I guess we're down to um 505 public comment let's do that anybody want to do 5 public comment well there's nothing there oh signal comment do we have any commission comment yes sir uh something I was going to bring up this morning and I and I had a note and I glossed over the note um two weeks ago uh we had an individual in Martin County that was um hit and killed bicycling um across one of our causeways um I happen to go not happened I went to the service um for Mr Drummond um there were probably 300 people there um his best friend growing up did a remarkable job um his daughters did a remarkable job and actually told more about him than I certainly ever knew about him um and as sort of occurred to me with with that kind of outpouring of the community for an individual that was a part of our community that somewhat was um maybe under the radar screen uh was something amazing to see and so I don't know if you're all interested but I thought maybe and I have not talked to the family at all about what I'm going to ask you all but maybe we could uh correspond or send a correspondence to fot to see if there wasn't some way that maybe we could name that portion of the bike lane or something going across the bridge as maybe the Drummond um bike lane or something like that that would recognize him but also kind of put it in perspective for our community that um he played a much more involved role in our community than I think I ever knew um but certainly learned a lot at his service so I just throw that out there for thought that I think that's a great idea use a you know I tried to be careful not to conly be the guy who's giving obituaries up here but certain people in our community deserve that recognition from all of us and Martin Drummond was absolutely one of them so if if it's okay if the chair could maybe staff could put a letter together to F do to inquire as to the the desire and maybe we could put a sign up on the bridge or something for that section of that bike lane cuz he biked it from what I understand like every day this one of the most beautiful celebration of lives I've ever seen it was really something okay that's all I have thank you that's all I'm good you're good done good everybody else is good all is good we are adjourned thank you thank you all for that --------- e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you're on all right Welcome to our January 22nd uh 2024 uh Board of County Commission meeting budget workshop and we do have one agenda item uh but we're going to start off by uh invocation will be a moment of silence followed by uh a pledge of allegiance that we have to lead ourselves say I think so I pled allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay we have a 9005 public comment 505 public comment we have no additional items no agend no consent a items no supplemental memos um and we will take a motion for commissioner Smith uh Mr chairman good morning and move approval of the agenda with no additional items no consent polls um and that's it I'll second all right we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I I'll opposed motion carries unanimously okay we are going to now move off to public comment we have two things uh Mr Michael circus would be first up to bat and then no apparently the next one's been rejected Mr circus if you wait one second I'll happily late thank you sir um since we are in an election season politicking is prohibited which is defined is advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office either partisan or nonpartisan this includes the use of word State Signs props and or wear wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons thank you sir I didn't mean to Exhale in the microphone like that uh good morning Mike circus Palm City uh I've going through the budget I know we got the budget we're speaking about today and the whole purpose of a budget is to lay out your anticipated expenditures for the next fiscal year and when I went through it something that I found that was noticeably missing was a grant for the bright Line Station I know we talked about this at the CIP meeting and it was said that it was likely going to be put in Grants and AIDS on the budget side because it's not going to be a physical asset owned by the county yet that is $155 million of principle and somewhere between 7 and12 million of interest that we didn't put into the grants and AIDS and I understand that nothing's set in stone yet but if it's an anticipated expenditure in fy2 you'd figure it'd be inside the fy2 budget I also notice when you take a look at our general reserves we included $3 million into our general reserves as an anticipated repayment that has not yet been actuated so if we're going to put into our savings account anticipated repayment it would make sense that we would carry the same logic into our expenditures an anticipated expenditure so I was just hoping to get some resolution are we going to abandon the train station and by all means I really really love that idea we shouldn't be building a private train station so uh I just want to see if we got some resolution as to where this money is coming from if we're going to do it if we're not going to do it or what the story is thank you you okay with that apparently Taran doesn't want to talk so no um commissioner comments commissioner Smith all set this morning sir I'm all set I'm all set commissioner ready to go okay sir all right um with that let's move on to public hearing um quasi judicial public hearing number one public hearing to consider the adoption of amendment to the Martin County zoning Atlas to change the zoning classification for Mr Dennis seago seag seago um c172 d002 and if you would correct that name since I've and um it's going to be uh Mr John Senate got it it's all you quas oh it's quasa I'm so sorry all right um all that's going to uh give um testimony please stand and be sworn in raise your right hand do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth it has all the proper paperwork in your resume and notice has been turned in yes I copied my work history and the agenda item it's being turned in as exhibit one proof of public notice mailers was turned in at the LPA hearing this past Thursday do we have any interveners there no interveners um uh do we have any um h x exp parte I don't know why right uh commission I do and they're filed um I have none and they've been filed I don't believe I have any but they if I do they've been filed I have none and they've been filed I have none and they've been filed okay with that it's all you thank you Mr chairman good morning members of the board I'm John Senate senior planner with growth management I'm presenting the rezoning application for property owned by Mr Dennis seago Mr seago is requesting to reone from the current A2 agricultural District to the r2a rural estate District the property is located in Western Palm City on the south side of Southwest Citrus Boulevard approximately 8 Miles Northeast of the um Hemingway EST Hemingway Estates residential subdivision the property is currently vacant the future land land use designation of the property and the adjoining properties to the East and the West is rural density and to the north of the property across Southwest Citrus Boulevard and to the south of the property we see the agricultural future land use designation the property is currently zoned A2 the properties to the north west and south are also zoned A2 the A2 zoning district is a category C zoning District the East adjoining property currently has the r2a rural estate designation because the existing A2 zoning is a category C District this application is being processed as a mandatory rezoning to a category a district which implements the policies for the rural density future land use designation there's one standard zoning District which implements the policies for Rural density and that is the r2a rural estate District the new PUD zoning is also an additional option however Mr seago is requested ing the r2a district these are the development standards for the r2a district minimum lot size of 2 acers maximum Building height of 30 ft minimum open space of 50% the front side and rear setbacks are all 30 ft these are the conditions supporting the requested r2a District the r2a district is consistent with the existing future land use designation of rural density for both the property and the surrounding areas on the south side of of Citrus Boulevard the existing Hemingway estate subdivision to the southwest of the property and the adjoining property to the east currently have the r2a district the r2a zoning District provides development standards which are compatible with the rural character of the surrounding area this matter was heard before the LPA this past Thursday July 18th the LPA voted to approve 4 to zero with one absence development review staff have found the seago reone application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report we recommend to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as exhibit one move that the board adopt a resolution amending the Martin County zoning Atlas to change the zoning District designation on the subject site from A2 agricultural District to r2a rural estate District I'm here for any questions any questions for staff seeing none does the applicant have a anything good morning Commissioners audre Cree with Cree land use and Zoning PA I'm here on behalf of Mr Dennis cago uh I'm here to answer any questions uh if there are any otherwise we'd like to proceed and we ask for approval of this uh change to the zoning Alice okay uh commissioner Smith just pending public comment okay any questions for the applicants representative seeing none any public comment okay commissioner Smith uh move staff's recommendation second okay we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you Commissioners okay moving on to uh work one Board of County Commissioners fiscal year 2024 2025 budget Workshop Mr Donald son yes Commissioners uh today we'll be presenting our proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 uh Miss merley will be making the bulk of the presentation I just wanted to uh speak to a few things that are um are not included in the budget that will be brought up as we move through one of them is the transportation disadvantage bus service that was discussed a few weeks ago and in the prep ation of the budget was already done so that will come up during the um uh in public works uh during the no discussion as where that would occur where the current funding is um and the public comments this morning regarding bright line there is uh an anticipated um um uh payment to the city of Stewart for that um that would come out of our general fund uh we will have to borrow for the bulk of the property uh that would uh come as a separate agreement in mid year as a as a budget amendment um in that particular case uh in terms of Grant proposals um we have to wait for the legislative session to make our application since uh we do not have um any guarantee of that process it would not be um brought forward or encumbered into the budget until we did actually receive the grant for that so um we do have some grants that are um applied for and either already authorized or have been um issued in a number of uh enough years that we can anticipate the revenue as a maybe not a guarantee but more than a a good chance that we get them we will anticipate those revenues in those particular cases um there's some other things that are looming out there uh uh there's a Department of Justice uh item that came about web accessibility and how we put things on the web for for reading uh that will probably be dealt with next year as we get information it two is not shown as a budgetary item it's that Mr stokus has been working on that and that while it is uh it it the anticipated costs or that are are are somewhere less than a half a million or less we're not going to take action on that till we actually know what needs to be done um and so it may not even occur next year so uh the other issue that has been happening uh over time and you'll see in our budget uh the the discussion based upon the board's Direction last year moving inmate uh medical out of administration uh into a non-departmental item um but also just to let you know that that is an ongoing issue um with the actual expenses and we do anticipate inmate medical cost um um exceeding the existing contract uh uh that for last year so those are just some uh intangibles that we weren't able to uh accurately reflect at this time but they are on our on our watch list so to speak on and and we do have a plan to deal with them so with that Miss merley if you could take us through um uh presentation on where we are this does I will just highlight this does reflect a a reduction in your in your in your Mill rates uh a number of them and uh uh we're looking for today is um any amendments or adjustments and then finally it would just simply be your your job is to um uh uh approve a budget and a millage tentative millage uh that would then be advertised and presented to each uh uh property owner uh uh with a uh Hearing in September that would actually be the time where you vote uh um for the various millage rates uh to be to be considered um with that Miss merley please good morning commissioner Stephanie merley director of OMB I'm here to present to you the fiscal year 2025 budget Workshop so on today's agenda we will I'll provide an overview of the Martin County budget in the process the basis for the FY 25 tenative budget development the tenative budget as a reflection of total revenues and expenditures a tax-based analysis the budget impact from the July 1 2024 valuation the budget development summary a review of the Constitutional officers and County department budget and then ultimately set Martin County's millage rates so a little bit about the Martin County BCC budget timeline um the budgeting process begin shortly after the fiscal year began back in December with the development of the capital Improvement program concurrently OMB and the Department's analyze review and refine the operating budgets and departmental needs through February April and May back on May 14th the board atively approved the CIP which was the first step of the development of the fy2 budget the Property Appraiser's office then provided preliminary taxable values to the county on June 1st to give us a good idea of where our tax base would be and then on July 1 the certified taxable values were provided by the property appraiser and the county uses those values to calculate the proposed millage rate that we're working with today so today is July 22nd when the board has the opportunity to review the budget as a whole and set tentative mil rates based on discussion here today so after the tentative millage rates are set the county reports the rates to the Property Appraiser's office who will then sent out send out our truth and millage or trim notices to Property Owners making them aware of their FY 2025 proposed taxes the board will then have two more opportunities to review the budget with public hearings in September to ultimately adopt the final millage rates for the fiscal year that begins in October so why are we here the law tells us we have to be here the County Administrator is required to prepare and submit the operating and capital budgets per Florida State statutes the budget as submitted is considered a working document and changes made may be made throughout the workshop and we have't allotted an additional day for the workshop if needed so some characteristics for the FY 2025 budget the budget as presented is balanced which means that the total of all revenues equals the total of all expenditures this budget reasonably anticipates all estimated receipts expenditures reserves and balances and finally this budget provides sufficient resources to conduct the business of the county so how do we budget I'm going to talk a little bit about our budgeting methodology which we use an incremental budgeting method so Martin County utilizes an incremental budgeting approach which takes the previous year's adopted budget and uses it as a base for the new budget non-recurring budget requests such as a one-time piece of equipment are deducted from this base budget then OMB and departments carefully monitor the revenues and expenses of the base budget and make line item adjustments or reallocations as necessary to maintain the current level of service as well as identify efficiency opportunities these adjustments include contractual Andor mandated oblig of current County programs and services incremental budgeting provides stability and predictability of County Services and prevents drastic fluctuations in service level and budgetary needs so developing the fy2 budget the fy2 tenative budget reflects the best efforts of County staff and the County's constitutional officers to maintain the levels of service as expected by County residents and to provide the financial approach to execute the county strategic priorities the vast majority of the County's budgeted is attributed to contractual or mandated obligation that the count is required to fulfill such as Retirement rates set by the state of Florida responsible insurance coverage for County property and contribution to the community redevelopment agencies of both the city EST store and the county in this budget County departments were directed to maintain current budget levels with the exception of those items that could not be absorbed many departments maximize current line it budgets by reallocating within the respective departments based on their most current needs and trends of each division you can stop me at any time if you have any questions so Martin County's economic landscape this is a new little slide that I wanted to mention just looking at trends that we're seeing around us in the county and in the nation so for Martin County this comes straight from the non-t taxable valuation due to Value limitations save our home non-homestead Agricultural and property tax exemptions impact the county significantly and account for 39% of the County's Total Property valuation so we all talk about inflation and while inflation does seem to be stabilizing it is still well above the federal targeted guidelines of 2% South Florida has seen has even seen higher inflationary pressures than the national averages the cost of items remain elevated in comparison to pre-pandemic times and then the housing market for Martin County is also indicative of the South Florida inflationary Trends with the median sale price of a single family home coming in at $574,500 so while the median sale price is that the median assessed value of a single family home in Martin County is significantly lower so our 2024 taxable values as of July 1st 2024 overall the county saw approximately a 10% increase over the previous F previous fiscal year delineated are each of the districts and then our fire Hutchinson Island roads and Parks storm water mstu so the fy2 tenative sources of revenue the tenative budget accounts for total estimated revenues of 67255 $15,700 the county budget is comprised of various Revenue sources adorm accounts for 45% of the total budgeted revenues while other sources of revenues such as fees state and local shared revenue and fund balance account for 55% of the remaining budget and that's 672 million 672 million I'm sorry that'd be great huh and our tenative expenditures so if our budgeted revenues equal 672 million the budgeted expenses also have to equal 672 million so the breakdown is as follows with transfers in reserve accounting for 19.6% personal services Personnel 19.9% operating 28.9 Capital 9.3 debt 2.8 and constitutional officers at 19.5% so what were our budget drivers for our adorm and impact our total new adval arm generated if the millage remained constant would have equated to just under $28 million the Count's actual Ador need based on budgeted expenditures amounted to 25.9 million which resulted in the reduction of the total millage rate from the fiscal year so the Ador impacts are as follows cumulatively the Constitutional officers accounted for 11.2 million of these dollars the e911 at the Martin County Sheriff's Office was $944,000 the capital Improvement plan that was tentatively approved in May was 5177 thou 517,000 our County CRA was approximately 910,000 the city of Stewart was 422,000 our iff contract year 2 is approximately 2.6 million Florida retirement system or FS was approximately 2 million countywide property insurance about 250,000 technology needs which we'll go into depth a little bit further down in our presentation 633 th000 the inmate medical that Don mentioned was approximately 730,000 and then we amongst all the funds reserves equated to 5.6 million so where do the tax dollars go everybody asked that in every single care session that I do so we came up with this little dollar here for the typical unincorporated Martin County taxpayer approximately 64% of each dollar goes towards Public Safety which includes Sheriff fire E1 e911 and Emergency Management 26% goes towards General governmental expenditures which include all other constitutional officers County Administration County Attorney General Services Public buildings and information technology 7% goes towards Road storm water and environmental expenditures which seem small but those dollars leverage millions of grant funding opportunities through fdos T FD legislative Appropriations and more and then finally 3% of each dollar goes to culture and recreation type programs and includes the Martin County Public Library system and general park operations the County's long-term debt continues to reduce as a result of principal payments budgeted within our debt service divisions which represents 2.8% of the total County budget governmental bonds and capital leases have been reducing the Last 5 Years while utility septic to sewer bonds and state revolving loans has increased which is in line with the board strategic priority of the septic to se conversion program could you pause a minute Camp Miss merley can you go back a slide and explain more clearly the utilities um Deb there please on how those that number is what it is you said septic to sewer but can you explain that a little more how that exactly works so through our septic to sewer programs we have assessments that the um people that benefit from those septic to sewer conversions pay into um the state revolving fund loans are very very small interest um loans that we get from the state that are also repaid through utilities fees and assessments so maybe I can uh clarify so when we do a project that's let's say $20 million and um the residents are are paying um half of that or or or or a third $10 million of that um they don't pay it all at once so it shows up on their tax bill um they can pay it upfront if they want or we have it a program to allow them to uh we borrow the funds and our cheapest rate of getting the funds right now is through the state revolving phone Pro program uh and then that goes on your tax bill as a non-ad arm assessment but of course we have to pay our contract is all at want so that's that loan piece of it and it shows up uh in in our debt service but it's the obligation is actually to each and individual property owner that chose to borrow the money um with our assistance uh through the non- avalor assessment so that's just so that would as you do more septic to sewer that would go up those loans are typically 20 years so you would have an accumulation over time um as you add uh your infill for septic to sewer so another words thousands of people we paid for the project up front and thousands of people over the course of 10 15 20 years depending on the project are paying back against that debt number so it's not like it's a county debt number it's we prepaid for residents and they're paying in and it's not the resident it's the address it's the home so if the resident moved that remaining debt stays with the property and is paid by the next person corre correct believe so thank you commissioner Smith and and I know you said this but it just Bears repeating and the only people that are paying are the rate payers that are using the service it's not everybody under the general fund correct all right so moving on the Martin County bccc Personnel summary includes a total of 1,137 positions and the only new position is a cyber security manager for the information technology department based on the increasing and prevalent needs of data security related to County operations the fy2 budget also includes 780 FTE for the Constitutional officers which reflects new positions for both Martin County Sheriff's Office and the clerk's office and with that that is the conclusion of my overview so if you do not have any questions we can move on to the Constitutional office officers I I just wanted to interject that the uh in the in years past at times we would have the department submit all of the issues they felt that were necessary in order for them to um accomplish their the objectives um this particular year um I asked each department to come in with the absolute minimum to try to maintain a a low tax Bay so uh just to let you know that they did uh we did not um include any um of the Department's asss uh in this in this budget that's it um so the Constitutional officers we have the Martin County Sheriff's Office here today to discuss their budget but I just wanted to um quickly look over the other constitutionals who could not be here today um so the clerk is requesting an additional 469,000 which is attributed to mostly Personnel related expenditures and keeping up with the market um same with the property appraiser the sheriff non- departmental as Don mentioned previously was that the inmate medical transferred from our administration department after discussions from last year's budget Workshop over into the sheriff non- departmental so even though it's not 289 per increase that looks terrifying it is not um the state judicial and state agencies are showing a reduction because we removed the 450,000 onetime mental health court that was requested last year um the supervisor of elections it's not an election year next year so she had a slight reduction and the tax collector while it looks as though she's increasing 23% that's not a real accurate number because we have to factor in our payments to the tax collector for collecting those and then also there's a revenue offset for that as she collects but with that I will turn it over to the Sheriff's Office Mr Young Blood welcome Sheriff welcome Sheriff we get to say that one more time thank you very much uh commissioner chairman Jenkins Commissioners uh don Donaldson our County Administrator Sarah woods and staff that work so hard uh thank you for allowing me this opportunity to uh share with you what I think is our our minimum needs for the sheriff's office if I could and I want to be very careful with our time and I I'm very aware of it I'll be careful but I think because this is God willing the last time I will appear before you as sheriff for for a uh a budget I did I did reflect back as I prepared my thoughts on the last 12 years and some of you have been here on and off through those 12 years but I I was thinking the first time I came up here it was uh it was following the uh pre-stained retraction in the American economy you all remember those years the Sheriff's Office office when I I had the privilege to take the helm was down 35 positions our previous administration was was compelled to reduce so I started off 35 positions in the whole then uh our salaries we had not funded I say we the the county all of us had not funded U uh our step plan for years and the I don't recall exactly but if there were increases they were very many minimum and so as a result of that uh our our Personnel had fallen far behind the curve and we we had a Dickens of a time trying to keep Personnel hired Palm Beach is to our South and I know there's a talking point out here we're not Palm Beach but I do hire people that can drive to Palm Beach so it is a factor and I wish I could just say well if you don't like it here go to go to Palm Beach I can't say that and so salaries had fallen behind our fleet was in was in utter chaos dis repair it uh was dilapidated uh unfortunately the rank and fire were driving cars all of them over 100,000 miles and for a first responder vehicle that's not safe uh these cars are driven hard you all you all know what we do with our cars they're they're 20 they're they're uh when they turn them on they run for 12 hours and it's hard stop hard stop our helicopter fleet was in disrepair we're still flying helicopters that flew over Vietnam in the late 60s and70s our Boats were in disrepair our technology was pathetic it had collapsed it was not keeping Pace it was not only not futuristic it was in the past we were keeping statistics literally and I I think we could still find you paperwork uh for our our UCR statistics they were keeping them with pencil Strokes one 2 3 4 five burglaries one today we have uh so so there was so much that was going on in the last 12 years you all have been more than generous more than gracious and more than understanding and I know we've had a couple of little hardly discussions but I feel like you all have been very attentive to my budget and held me accountable and I've done my best to explain through the years exactly uh where I am with the budget but but the needs of the sheriff's office because of your uh understanding have been met I go some of you have heard me uh speak publicly we are fully funded as a sheriff's office we have we have a state-ofthe-art uh realtime crime Center people come from all over the State of Florida and tour our crime Center you all have been in the crime Center you can't get in or out of Martin County for the most part and I I never talk about sources and means but we catch bad guys here and uh our reputation is known Wherever I Go people know that criminals will hit Palm Beach County run from the cops till they till they get to Martin County and they turn around and go back so we catch bad guys we put bad guys in jail and and I I'll say this as I bring this historical perspective in for landing I have a clear conscience that we have been faithful with the taxpayer dollars we don't go on junkets you could my my records a public record we have I've never been on a junket I think I've been out of the stayed on training a handful of times and th those have been uh those have been mandatory we don't waste taxpayer dollars we're very careful with it every dollar we spend and this is not just rhetoric I feel it in my chest when I come before you and ask for this money I know how hard this is I you know I've been an appropriator uh and was for years and so this is the hardest job you have I have tried to be a faithful partner I have tried to be careful with the money you've entrusted me with I have tried to make Martin County in the 12 years I've been honored to serve as safe a county as exists in the State of Florida we have a we have a a a uh all handson debt crime briefing every uh Wednesday and and week after week I have a slide of every one of your districts broken down zero burglary zero all thefts zero robberies time after time sometimes we get some but our crime rate is low and I think we've been faithful and effective with the tax taxpayer dollar so I come today in in with a clear conscience and a clear heart knowing that I've done my best not to let you down and to represent the Sheriff's Office to you and to the to the voters of this County Faithfully so this morning I will be careful of time I have some notes I'll share with you the drivers of our increase uh we we have asked for a 7.9% 99.6% increase so our total requested budget it must is it on the screen above you it's a uh 109 million 694,000 that's a total increase of $8 million 90 here's the breakdown law enforcement is the bulk of it $74 million I'm going to just round if that's okay I see all the numbers and so to you Corrections is Right close to 2 7 million the judicial is right at five our school resource officer program there's so much I could talk about there uh what I think is a disparity in what the public school system should be paying and what we're paying but over and above it's 2.5 million our crossing guards cost us a million Animal Control is half a million and there you have the total uh so here are the drivers why is why is our budget gone up we have a previously negotiated Creed Cola with our with our staff which is 3.2 million our healthc care uh insurance premiums have gone up 575 ,000 that's a 5% increase or overtime we've asked for an additional $638,000 and we spend every penny of it just I could go off on a side Trail I won't but for the most part our jail is is is underst staffed but coming up but the UN unexpected expenses there are mindboggling it just takes one person to say they want to kill themselves and and I have to have a Corrections Deputy staring at them for 24 hours a day because that's what state law says they cannot be unattended I can get two or three four of them at a time saying they want to kill themselves if if one of them wakes up and and has chest pains I have to send two deputies to the hospital with them sometimes it could be 24 hours a day for weeks on end you know if we hurt somebody in arrest I have to say and two deputies we can't staff every day for those contingencies or it would even be higher so we we it's always on overtime we're asking for eight new positions of which four would be in Corrections three would be in law enforcement as detectives and one would be a courthouse Deputy uh our other expenses I can give you the breakdowns if you want Kevin has it right here our it Communications has increased jail operating cost has increased we talk about inflation and I know there's somebody out here pushing on you all to to ask me some really hard questions which I welcome and and and and trying to maintain that our budget is disproportion to inflation I would tell you right now if all I went up is inflation we would close tomorrow because my growth has to keep track with the crime rate it has to keep track with growth in the county so the idea that my my increase is disproportionate to uh to to inflation is ludicrous I I would be embarrassed to run for office saying something that asine uh the other our other outlays that are expensive are are new vehicles and vehicle purchases how much Kevin has has uh have cars gone up average 35% of the last 35% it cost me more than 35% now to buy a car than it did a year or two ago now how in the world does that equate with an inflation rate which is currently what it's I know it's over the the uh the national the hope for average that's what we have that's what we that's where we are those are the main drivers that explains it holistically but I think I would like to stop at this point and certainly answer any questions that that you all have campy Sheriff thank you so much um in the next several months I'm going to say that to you every time I see you um you didn't really mention and if you could I know last year was much more of a theme about how you're combating mental health issues not just in the streets and in the neighborhoods but also in your jail can you share a little bit about how that's going sure thank you commissioner campy I actually have our jail administrator here today our our captain Perkins is here she shared with me I sent it to you as a matter of fact I think I sent you all an email a very sobering statistic and I think it was right at on that particular day 35% of our inmates were diagnosed with metal illness and were receiving psychotropic drugs throughout the day that's the diagnosed ones of the remaining 65% of there's no telling how much of that is mental illness so the a lot of the drivers of what we're seeing in society today the drive the drivers between not only my budget but my fire rescue brothers and sisters is that impacts on Society of mental illness it's it's very expensive they they drive our calls for service they're suicidal they're overdosing they're they're threatening their neighbors and so it does it's a it's a big driver thankfully our state representative uh John Snyder got a $500,000 half a million Grant from the state uh which we're going to put to good use and begin a real holistic layout of what a new facility would look like that's on your CIP I'm going to stay around for that if that's helpful but so so I think the answer uh commissioner Camp nutshell is we know that we have to change the way we're doing business all of law enforcement has come to that it's been a rolling epiphany uh putting M ill people in jail is a human rights issue and we're doing the best we can it is a big driver of our budget though thank you one followup goad um I know that even started last year with a microscope on our budget and yours being a large portion of the budget I think what happens is it sounds crazy but you might be you and and all the men and women that work for you are victims of your not necessarily success but of your efficiency and when when there is not the level of crime and and violence that we've seen and on television and other communities people I think start to get a little comfortable and complacent uh with that strategy like why is his budget so big but in my mind having been to some of the communities where uh through no fault of their local law enforcement uh an explosion of violence in rioting or some other terrible set of circumstances totally you know uh obliterates a community Through no fault of their own in in an afternoon in an incident one little incident can blow everything up that you've worked so hard for so you know look I make it publicly I have no apologies for us uh funding you and fire rescue because I think and I've never had any Resident come up to me and say otherwise that's what they expect of us they expect it of you and fire rescue being on the front lines but if we didn't fund you properly and one thing happened then all of a sudden everyone's pointing fingers to say h h how did you let this happen on your watch and so for your 12 years uh you know God's blessing it hasn't and then hopefully it won't in the future but knowing that no matter how much you and your your team prepare something could happen but it's our responsibility to make sure that when you come forward and you're always very gracious and humble in your request but I mean that's the first dollar that our residents expect us to pay and um and I appreciate that you are definitely looking for all of the savings and keeping the numbers down as much as possible I know that there'll be some push back from residents that don't completely understand have sort of been lulled into a false sense of you know things are fine here so we don't have to pay as much as we are but things are fine here because we pay as much as we do and I thank you commissioner I would either stand before you and say my increase is generated by the fact that crime is up or my increase is generated by the fact that I'm keeping crime down so to that extent it's an I can't extricate myself from that uh uh that dilemma and and that the budgets go up to accomplish either task and you can ask Commissioners around the country that have gone with this defund the police which I do understand there's someone pushing on you to defund us that uh it hasn't worked and that when law enforcement doesn't keep up keep up with the problems of society uh crime generated problems homelessness goes up drug addiction goes up burglary goes up crime rates go up vandalisms grow go up uh people that own businesses leave town uh property values go down I'm an insurance policy that's expensive that you don't want to ever use thank you commissioner Smith morning Sheriff morning commissioner how are you this morning fantastic you seem like you're in a good mood I could go either way commissioner I well I'm I'm guessing seeing is there is a potential Horizon not potential there's a horizon for you it's probably looking pretty good I everything that Ed said I I wouldn't repeat anything cuz I don't need to cuz Ed said most of it uh I would say this about your legacy um and not that any of us do this for a legacy um but Martin County um and its Legacy and your involvement in that Legacy is enormous um you have come before us for all the years I've been doing this and and you have asked for what you thought it took to run a department that kept us safe and you've done and your staff have done a remarkable amazing amazing job at doing that there's a reason Stephanie had a a chart up earlier that I think it was 574 th000 was the average household um value in Martin County I would say by and large a large part of that is it's a really safe County to live in people would not come here and you just said it businesses wouldn't stay people wouldn't stay people wouldn't invest their their life savings in a community if it weren't safe um and we are the re recipient of you and your staff's amazing work all these years um and we are grateful for that um as Ed said uh and and I have said this before I will always vote to support your budget and your request um and your and your Sheriff to come um and I have the utmost confidence that we will have an amazing Department moving forward with the Next Generation Um but you have set us you have set us in a in a place um that is really unmatched around the state I mean I defy any other Sheriff Department to come even close to what you all do and what you pull off um that crime Center world class and and people shouldn't necessarily have to worry about it and understand it all um but putting that whole thing together just continues to move us forward and to be on the edge of making sure this is the safest place to be and we really appreciate it I very much appreciate it I know our board appreciates it uh and I certainly know our community appreciates all the energy and all the work you put into this all this year we're going to miss you SM thank you we're a great time for me to segue into saying I'm so proud of my staff first of all Kevin young Youngblood my uh my Chief Financial Officer his assistant is here and the staff that sits behind me I couldn't be more proud of them they are really a great bunch it always makes me uncomfortable Commissioners to receive compliments I've just not ever been good at it receiving them but because they really do the work and I yeah I'm standing up here and representing them but they do the work and uh I I'll say this and then I'm done I really believe law enforcement should be a lot like government we shouldn't wake up every day wondering what's going on you take a look at Washington you just ask yourself this question what the heck is going on up there we don't know it's it's jarring it's part of our everyday life I I strive to make the Sheriff's Office a background home that you don't even realize is there so that when you go to work and you come out your car is not broken into when you drop your children off at school the SRO take care of them they get in there and they go home it's my Deputy sitting over here protecting you willing to get up and move towards gunfire God forbid if somebody walks in here I don't want us to be in the people's face I want us to be quiet in the background I want a quiet and safe Society for my children and my grandchildren and that's because of their hard work and our civilian staff that work so hard that's why we have what we have it's not me so I I will say it for you um they are world class and they are fantastic um but so is their leadership well we'll call it draw commissioner thank you commissioner heatherington most everything has been said but I'll just say I was across the state uh last week and Martin County is known to be one of the safest and most responsible counties in the state and I'm proud because and that's because of your leadership your personnel um the technology that you have at the sheriff's office is absolutely amazing and Baran I think we have one of the best Sheriff's departments and Public Safety in general across the state and I was really proud to to talk to some of my colleagues around the state and be known for that so um I appreciate what you're do and never have I had a resident come up to me and um not prioritize public safely so I very um gladly support what you have proposed and um preciate your leadership and thank you for everything that all of your men and women in the department do thank you commissioner commissioner herd I will join the love train thank you can I just say this commissioner her I love you and uh for 12 years I've prepared this budget for 12 years I've said does this is this going to work for Sarah I mean commissioner hard of course but so and you I'll say this real fast you you all have been very faithful and okay so we do have a great reputation but if you all had not funded me I would not have what I have I wouldn't have a state-of-the-art helicopter flying over this County as many hours as it does I wouldn't have a a crime Center you can't get in or out of this County without us figuring out who you are we have a solve the solve rate I could not have done it without you I say it publicly all the time and your support for me has come I know what it cost you all last year I know the criticism you got I felt your pain I and I never wanted you to feel that I wasn't standing by you uh you all have fully funded our budget and to you goes a line share of the credit because you took the political risk to support me and I appreciate it m heatherington I just want to mention the um why we're all sitting here that when we come to um establish our priorities I think inmate medical we know that that is is a really um drastic cost increase so for this legislative session I believe that um addressing the inmate medical cost increases should probably be one of our highest priorities in the in our legislative priorities and my comments is my lack of yammering about your budget I hope does not diminish my enthusiasm of supporting your budget you know we've sat down and and I understand it and I am very supportive of it obviously thank you commissioner Jenkins being that this is both our last times facing each other over the budget thank you very much for what you've done and I'd like to publicly say I thank God for your your how well you you've recovered thank you I appreciate it thank you sir all right do we need a tely what you can do I would move tenative approval of the sheriff's budget okayy we have uh a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you sir God bless you Commissioners thank you all very much yes you and your team thank you for the prayers Stephanie oh I'll let them vacate the room real quick follow that George yeah to quote July 9th I don't have that much flare anyway oh you have flare George yeah and I said I don't have flare and Paz do we need to to approve the rest of the Constitutional yes that would work great move tenative approval the rest of the constitutionals um budgets second thank you sir motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously so now we'll go Department by Department in alphabetical order with the exception of non- departmental um each department head will give a little overview of their um their budgetary request um and I'm here to assist when needed uh good a uh excuse me good morning Mr Chair George stok assistant count administrator before you is the fiscal year 25 tenative budget for administration as you can see overall a 31.0 2% change uh for this uh Department we look to consider uh maintaining our current level of service through all of our divisions uh the reduction of 5.2 million is attributable to the reallocation of the inmate Medical Services I won't belabor that point because we've discussed that uh our goals will be continue to legisl uh advancing legislative priorities for the county provide critical services to eligible populations and then keep Pace with the growing public records requests that have been growing exponentially uh with this this is my only slide I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you may have you want tenative approval correct yes you may per Department don't mind uh if if there are no further questions I would move tenative approval of the administrative um 2025 budget second motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I I all opposed motion carries nously thank you Mr Bean mc mc Bean morning good morning Commissioners airport director uh Andrew McBean uh I have here before you today is the uh fiscal year 25 tenative budget there's an 8.14% change overall in the budget bringing the budget to $2,557 the budget considerations for fiscal year 25 is the uh the cost of doing business that we have in a couple of our line items as well as ensuring the ongoing maintenance and operation of Witham feel in a safe and ser serviceable condition as required by our uh federal and state Grant insurances our fiscal year 25 goals include completing the taxway alpha hold bait design completing the taxway Bravo Rehabilitation design completing the runway 1230 uh papy design and installation various security enhancements and continuous professional development for staff any questions on the uh fiscal year budgets commissioner commissioner campy would like to ask you a question you fund this through money raised revenues so land rent uh leases um the Customs and Border Protection facility and and things like that yes sir so in a 8.14% increase you're absorbing within your own yes commissioner on-site budget yes commissioner thank you very much I'll move tenative approval second all right we have a motion byak commissioner heatherington seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed thank you commissioner motion carries unanimously good job thanks sir [Applause] fing ready yeah I'm ready good morning my name is Jeff Dy I'm the uh director of the building department we're here today to present our budget the budget represents an 8.23% increase it's really broken down to three areas one is the salary increases from the prior Year from the collective bargaining agreement which is about 455,000 second is increase of Fleet uh earlier the sheriff talked about vehicles our standard pickup truck has gone from a budget of 27,000 to the current cost of 42,000 so it's been over 50% we have to acknowledge that another issue is trying to get the trucks we most recently receiv received one ordered long time time ago the replacement was pushing 150,000 miles so we do have a challenge actually receiving them and finally um the building department is not funded by any taxpayer money it's 100% fee in addition to that the building department pays for overhead support of budget and legal and it and that and our contribution of overhead indirect is increased 115,000 one from 600 to 721 which goes back to support us be glad to answer any questions if you look in individually uh sheets within there we have reallocated some as we've had retirements and just and and put it together uh we've been working with budget uh hand inand on that which would be an old term but since Stephanie's so young we more finger to finger with the keyboard so thank you for your help Stephanie you're welcome Mr Smith Jeff thanks very much um just curious the regional planning Council um Friday we had our budget discussions and I thought this was an interesting hard to imagine number but it was a real number and and I know what our number is here from Martin County but the region from Palm Beach County St Lucy Martin and Indian River 2023 of this time last year was 1.6% in growth and so we were by far we in Indian River County were the smallest growth number in in in that allocation of of the budget so what are you seeing trend-wise for permits how are what are you seeing now currently I'm sorry and the the Bieber money the Bieber number for 2024 will be out next month but um and I'm not expecting it to be dramatically different but I was just curious as part of our community outreach which we do for our uh rating for how well the uh building department functions and helps with our homeowners insurance we put out a newsletter actually we have just put one out and it had statistics for the first six months of this fiscal year residential wise single family homes down 3% multi family homes are down 21% and miscellaneous permits like changeing hot water heater fence are down about 3% however the actual values are up over 10 uh $105 million so that's probably a combination of the cost of construction going up and potentially larger units so overall it's about the same Pace a little bit less 21% sounds like a lot but we're only talking 93 versus uh 120 so there's not big numbers from that perspective very different on the res oh excuse me on the commercial side our permits are down 90% we had uh uh only 38 the first know new buildings but they're so varied because a building could be a 3,000 4,000 5,000 little one for an accountant or doctor and it's comparing it to the South Florida Gateway that had a 600 some thousand square foot building so Apples to Apples number of permits in this appropriate probably square footage is more uh the other ones the trade permits are up 177% and others 31 but others are just small things we can't do however the values of res of commercial are down about $19 million so even though the permits are up which clearly says we don't typically get those large South Florida buildings we uh South Florida Gateway buildings we get smaller ones so um overall the revenue excuse me the value of the construction's up but the number of permits on the residential side is down probably overall somewhere around 6 7% thank you just curious and that that information went out in the our newsletter that went out last week right thank you sir commissioner campy Mr Dy you have to hire and uh re retain excuse me very specific technical employees it's not someone that just can pop in and out the type of work reviewing plans and even code enforcement which is when they were here for code enforcement U appreciation week I said it's one of the more and I didn't mean it as a joke I meant that seriously it's one of the more difficult jobs to do because you know code enforcement when people show up uh when code enforcement shows up at people's houses it can be a very dangerous situation and that's not a joke um how has it been retaining your employees and filling positions that you need to fill the only turnover we have had on the noncode enforcement has been retirement we've had two people retire in 30 plus years service which is uh amazing on the code enforcement we've actually had two turn over in the last month so that is uh is as you mentioned not a glamorous job and it's it's tough to maintain people it is it is challenging on the building side we've leaned heavy and heavier each each year on technology a couple things we're doing is investing in the ability or inspectors don't come into the office but once a week they get their stuff electronically everything's real time uh we're investing in some new technology too uh a calendar system you can go online and schedule an appointment 24 hours a day someone will call you back try to find out what your need is we'll make an appointment that we will call you at 210 on Tuesday not Tuesday but we will tell you exactly when we calling you uh with some training and some use of it we've been able to get staff to elicit the information out of the individual and we typically cancel about 30 of those appointments because we're able to answer the question for them prior to the actual meeting uh or the phone call and it has freed up our plan reviewers uh typically our plan review were mandated to 30 Days by the state statute we're were at about 25 to 26 days we're now down to 10 to 12 so we're using technology every way we can uh to do that and to make uh uh best use of the skilled limited skilled uh that we have uh limited skilled Personnel numbers are hard to get the skill is there the numbers of people are not so when we see soft grade upgrades that's what you're talking about yes we are uh Believe It or Not AEL has been around about seven years which is a century in technology we're upgrading that also we are not currently in a state that we can use electronic checks and uh we're upgrading to do that and to transfer credit card fees where the um I guess lead agency to have user pay the credit card fee as opposed to to spread it out among everyone but we're giving the people the option to use electronic check so they don't have to pay it you may have seen restaurants start charging credit card fees and it's gone from covering the fee to actually a profit Center I was at the unnamed restaurant the other day and they want to charge 4% so now they're they're doing that so we are trying to watch uh all our money and uh with this upgrading technology we'll be able to save a couple hundred thousand if it works well roll it out to the rest of the county and uh we're moving our current historic data which is I understand around four terabytes from RS to the cloud uh with the cellos so it'll decrease the maintenance burden on it so we're looking at all those types of things thank you commissioner Smith Jee I would say this much and I'll say this about all of our departments um you know the sheriff's presentation and what the sheriff does is super important for our County um getting someone their permit out as quickly as possible so that they can do what they need to do is equally as important in many ways to everybody um and you guys are doing a great job I it is it is a tough job to manage all of the expectations of our community relative to a permit and and I know that personally sometimes um but you and your staff do an amazing job and and it should not go by the wayside that I think your involvement and and your knowledge and your your ability to manage the department has really been fantastic and I really appreciate it thank you very much it's the staff that's there that uh does a great job and as we mentioned earlier we're 100% % fee funded so we have to look at it as a business these are our customers and other than maybe your phone bill or paying for an airline ticket it's one of the few things you pay for your service 100% of advance of us delivering it so we have to be aware of that that we have to get the best service because we're competing not against St Lucy county or city of Stewart we're competing against private providers so we have to provide the best service and and that's the way we go in every day can you get us a copy um of the newsletter if you didn't send it to us sure we'll send it out it's an e e newsletter so uh you should get it in your email okay fantastic thank you and with that move ten of approval okay we have a motion by commissioner Smith second by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you very much thank you Mission MST so the next slide is just the capital Improvement plan we had already discussed this at length back on May 14th um this is just a a little visual reminder that we um added the St Lucy Inlet reinstating $500,000 into this Capital Improvement plan but other than that it's just maintaining status quo within our Capital Improvement plan that was easy yes move tenative approval of the capital Improvement 2025 tenative budget second motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously now we'll do commission oh I'm sorry I I just wanted to bring up uh this is just a quick piece of information and that thought this would be an appropriate time and it kind of goes to the sheriff and I think uh um Jeff Dory mentioned the same things as basically continue to do things so um projects and goals and objectives happen in the background and don't become a crisis and one of those areas is your Inlet management plan and and our contractor the core just started dredging uh yesterday um and they were able to accomplish that too also in the background we have some excellent Consultants one of the um species recently listed species was Queen conch um um uh uh the our project was scheduled before that listing we did a survey they found a few of them consult with national marine fisheries and Fish and Wildlife and reputation of our consultants and stuff we were a able to relocate them and and get the project back and running and I just wanted to illustrate it's just one of those examples of a project that had been in crisis decades before seemingly happens without people knowing the amount of effort going into it and I just wanted to thank our Coastal staff and core and everybody working to get that project uh uh underway because it was uh it was touch and go there for a little bit but we had I think the reputation of our consultant Cheryl Miller going out there who's done to beach monitoring for decades as well did an excellent job of um of of working with the environmental agencies to get it done so thank you commissioner Smith you know you mentioned the queen conch I I I used to go long time ago out to The Sandbar and I don't ever remember up until about 15 years ago there were being Queen conch out there and then one day they just appeared and there were like thousands of them and it was fantastic and it's good to know that they're still there and still doing their thing so it's great news back to you it's me again um the next slide is going to be our um commission District mstu um I had had Communications with each of the Commissioners prior to either maintain their millage rate or maintain their dollar amount and these millage rates reflect those um preferences and if this is what you would like to go with I I would take a motion and incorporate that that with our um set tentative millage rates commissioner Smith um not seeing or hearing from anybody else pending that um I would move approval of the commission mstu 2025 tend of budget second that okay we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner Hetherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Miss corz thank you for the picture say what district welcome what district that's in good morning Mr chair commissioner Susan cor's office of Community Development um as you can see we did have a positive change 9.77% uh that is due to increased health insurance cost F FRS and salaries uh which are all conditions that we really don't have a lot of control over our regular operating budget has remained uh the same other than that change um as far as fy2 goes um the office of Community Development as you all know oversees the CRA Martin County art and public places and historic preservation programs um the SI for example continues to redevelop public spaces streetscapes infrastructure all over the community and thanks to the support and perseverance of this Commission in fy2 we're going to see um El Camino taking shape which will be very exciting in Golden Gate and as well as some other large Redevelopment projects in new Monro orio and hob sound art and public places is going to be adding some sculpt sculptural book benches to the library in hob sound as well as a mural specifically for commissioner Jenkins and um it's going to be a surprise it's G to be a surprise um in in Port Salo we're going to be adding a mosaic relief as well as some new wayfinding signage and uh looking at a new temporary exhibit for the Gazebo and downtown Stewart so that should be exciting we planned in FY 24 to upgrade our community iations um and that was between all three CRA Ai and HPB and we did start the development of that in 2024 um and for fiscal year 2025 we will start implementation of that we've actually already started that in uh several ways all three of our websites have undergone facelift so hopefully you'll get to take a look at that sometime soon um our current planned and completed capital projects all of our new programs and initiatives and events um are all going to be represented through a sustained Communications package if you will um and that's going to roll out digitally and and in print as well um we are going to be implementing our three touch strategy for all 62 of our public meetings and that's so that we can strengthen our Communications with all of our volunteer boards and committees and our public Outreach to the community so we are excited about fiscal year 2025 and I'm happy to answer any questions commissioner Smith uh it's just a general comment it's really not the time necessarily to go into a long conversation about it but I assume you all received uh correspondence from n Kiplinger on the settlement architect issue um going on and I think that there is a crossover between that conversation and uh the CRA program and so at sometime in the future um I'd like to have an agenda item that would discuss the settlement architect concept uh and how it would apply to our CRA but also apply to a new field that's it and other than that move tenative approval of the FY 2025 Community Development Department sentive budget I'm I'm going to go with uh commissioner Smith um motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously you thank you County attorney good morning members of the board Sarah Woods County attorney I'm happy to show you that we have an 88.5% decrease we are a small But Mighty uh office of which I'm extremely proud we currently we have five attorneys and One support Personnel so those of you who are familiar with the office in the past we are significantly reduced but I do not believe that that decreases the quality of our legal representation it's always been my goal to provide you the highest quality legal service much like any private Law Firm so um Mo our our decreases due to salary and uh positions not our operating expenses have remained flat I'm happy to answer any questions thank you commissioner Smith um quit pushing the button I'm sorry said quit pushing the button because I keep having to turn it off well that way though you go ahead no I I just I I agree with um Miss Woods we we are very fortunate to have the two individuals sitting over um to my right to everybody in the audience's left um we have we have we are very fortunate I think to have the leadership that we have both in our legal department and in our administration department so with that um I would have move tentative approval for the county attorney's 2025 tentative budget second we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor all um motion carries unanimously fire rescue Chief good morning morning for the record uh my name is Chad chanie fire chief Martin County Fire Rescue and to my right is the infamous Matt Rush fire rescue administrator who just came back from vacation and he is well well refreshed so I'd like to talk about um our our budget for FY tenative budget for fy2 um first I want to start with our fy2 24 adopted budget which was 58 m883 345 and our FY 25 tenative budget is 66 mil 350,677 so let's break that down first I want to talk about some of the budget considerations our increased electrical costs have gone up 31% this past year our increased Water and Sewer cost 56% and then we have our increased uh just our contract for services Tre maintenance Alarm Monitoring AC contract all those types of services has also substantially gone up over this past year but let me talk about the Lion Share of the 12.68% that is the contract that we negotiated with the firefighters Union and I want to break that down a little bit when we were in negotiations we had two major problems in fire rescue we had a recruitment issue and we had a retention of experienced employees and in there it caused us to do a deep dive in negotiations of why those issues were like that when we talk about a classification of the firefighter paramedic what I want you all to understand is that is the most well sought out position in anywhere in the nation that is a utility player for any organization so when you find somebody that's experienced Martin County was turned into a prime picking ground for experienced employees and that's a huge cost that we can't afford so as we Deep dive into that contract and we were looking for the glaring issues what we found was the compensation side of our firefighters here and departments south of us and it was such a discrepancy in compensation that we had to address it so in this contract what we did is we close the distance on those salaries we do not pay what they pay down south it's not the intent it's not what we're looking to do however we have got to be competitive in the marketplace so after we created some upward mobility in addition to that in the contract so a new employee can come here and then they can forecast themselves for the next 30 Years to be a Martin County fire rescue employee those made the difference so we ratified that contract you approved that contract I'm here to tell you today we no longer have a recruitment issue we have quality people coming now to work at Martin County fire rescue that are able to meet the standard that we provide to the community and our retention issue we do not have that mass Exodus anymore this is something that is truly manageable today so I want to switch gears a little bit I want to talk about overtime last year last year our overtime we were trending roughly $3 million in overtime why well the reason was the increase of the demand from the community on the 911 system to maintain the level of service that we have today that we pride ourselves in I had to put more trucks on the road to meet that demand the problem is I didn't have the Personnel to do it so we had to staff them 100% with overtime problem was overtime was at an unsustainable rate and the wear and tear on the labor force was also unsustainable so we came before the board we made a request for 20 additional full-time employees we on board those employees we train them they got them out in the street they're in the operation and as of today we are trending now in overtime savings alone roughly $2 million that's your return on investment with some of the decisions we made along the way but in closing what I want to kind of cap off with is our operating budget our operating budget has essentially stayed flat we've only gone up 6% and what that has demonstrated with our organization is the fiscal responsibility of the tax dollars that we are responsible for so with that I just wanted to cover the FY 24 the issues that we had along the way and what brought us into the fy2 five tentative adopt a budget so with that I'll be more than happy to take any questions commissioner campy thank you Chief when you say wear and tear on your personnel can you explain what that actually means some folks might not know what that means well we were at the point where we were running so much overtime that we had to what we what we call is mandate overtime the workforce was tired of working we work standard 24hour shifts when you take overtime that 24hours turns into 48 Hours on the job away from your family working non-stop on these trucks cuz they are turning nonstop if I cannot fill that seat when an employee goes home from their normal shift I cannot shut that truck down so essentially what I'm telling someone at that station is you can't go home you have to work the employees were no longer accepting voluntary over time and we were mandating on a regular basis forcing them to stay at work for 48 hours so beyond the concept of paying people what the market rate or our version of the market rate will be wouldn't you say that that's another reason that beyond the paycheck someone that's I I you know you work 24 hours in your mind you're expecting to like okay I'm going to go home I got something to do and then all of a sudden Administration says yeah sorry you're going to work another 24 hours that can't be good for morale so you had to knock that down um in Western Palm City Stuart West and Cobblestone you your team recently your department recently combed a a brush fire out there can you explain a little bit about how a and obviously you can't prepare for whatever any day could potentially bring you but those bigger issues I know that I have spoken to Residents that lived out there said you guys have done a remarkable job can you share with folks that might not be familiar with what that was like it's recent uh what level of Manpower equipment how long were you out there that's an that's an overtime punch right it's an overtime punch but really just think about the operation itself it it was a urban Wildland interface where you had a brush fire that was near residential homes that is something where when you get on scene you have to make some quick decisive decisions and if you're wrong you are losing structures and the potential of losing lives that's where we talk about experience and it it's unfortunate I can't take a day one firefighter throw him on the street have minimum training put them on a truck and expect them to make decisions like that it's just not going to happen you're going to have negative outcomes that's where you have our experienced officers on scene they understand about the evacuation they understand the wind direction they understand what additional resources to call they understand how to operate with forestry they understand how to operate with law enforcement they know how to develop a unified command get all of the important people to talk in one area to make a collective decision and make immediate action that's the difference it makes with people that are experienced that are able to do something like that but essentially that's what had taken place out there on that day and that's why we had no loss of structures yeah and I appreciate that I can just imagine when either the sheriff or or you your department if you have a day that doesn't go to that the outcry rightfully so from our residents that would say what happened had you lost structures there so I appreciate that very much and that's why with what Miss merley had said about her dollar example there when 61% 64% of our budget is is the sheriff's office in fire rescue and Emergency Management that's it's there's no opportunity for failure because it's either loss of life or loss of people's property so I appreciate it thanks commissioner Smith Chad as always thank you um I think something else that bears maybe a little bit of conversation is the call load and how much that has increased um I think last time you we had that conversation with the U maybe Sno was Sno the highest call load that's correct solerno from we used the stretch going back to 2009 um that's when we first applied for a state for grant to get an additional ad to the workforce and we've gone up well over 100% in just that area of Martin County back in 2009 Port serno was one of the busiest in the county but the interesting part is in the nation it was ranked in in the top 20 of how busy that area was so that gives you a little bit of perspective of 2009 versus where we sit today but it is still the busiest Zone and I don't know if you know the the number off your head top of your head but what what is the call load for a station like that they're running roughly top of my head I'm gonna I'm gonna look back at David David you got a number for me because I'm clipping about 4,500 I think a year we were looking at all three combin it was over 5,000 okay over 5,000 in just that area alone and and I think to Ed's point and and to your point relative to having to staff up and having to be able to have enough capacity to be able to not go into mandatory overtime and not to get your staff to the stress level that they already operate under regular circumstances it goes to that call load um and and when you did the safer Grant you know presentation I those numbers are amazing what you all do pull off uh and for that again as with the sheriff's department uh what you your department all do Matt welcome back um uh is nothing short of amazing with what we do give you um and you know this is one of those things where residents unless they go maybe through cares and they get to see really the inner workings of all the things that you all do behind the scenes just like the sheriff's department so much of what happens residents will never have the faintest idea of what it takes to make all these things happen whether it's a fire out and Cobblestone and and all what you just went through in a very quick 30 second coordinated effort that has to happen and everything has to happen perfectly it does uh and we really appreciate it and and you guys do a fantastic job and really really really great stuff thank you to accept second hey we have a motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner Smith all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously if I just may say one more thing because the sheriff is departing is his last last year here we have been working you know it's about inside baseball with the sheriff's department and with fire rescue we are a public safety chain two links we both have to be in the same page and in the same strength I'm telling you now public safety people I know they don't realize until they use us it is one of the best agencies right here in Martin County and I don't think people recognize it our law enforcement they're topnotch our fire rescue people they are topnotch and Public Safety collectively you come to Martin County you were well taken care of and I just wish the public could have a better understanding of that but that comes from the heart I've lived here for over 30 years now and I've raised my children here and we're safe to be here but Chad the opposite of that honestly is if you weren't doing it if we didn't have that coordinated effort people would be off off the chart over it and and you know so it's it's the frustrating part because all that does happen behind the scenes that nobody really ever sees or Ever Knows they they never will but there is a high level of expectation that it has to happen and you guys pull it off all the time it's great thank you for your time thank you thank you sir um and with that it is a public comment that's for um parks and br oh we're going to take our 10:30 um close caping break for um 10 or 12 minutes we'll see you back I thought that was for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you're on okay uh welcome back to our 2025 um budget Workshop um and now we will do General Services good morning Sean Donahue General Services director uh our budget is uh proposing a 6.28% increase to a total of 11,722 552 um we tried L crazy to to make adjustments internal to our Budget moving funds around to take care of small problems but the bigger problems are hitting us pretty hard uh electric went up as the chief said earlier uh all utilities went up um we have uh cost increases pretty much across the board Landscaping as we just rebid last year uh we we went with the lowest bid by $150,000 unfortunately uh the landscape cost went up about $116,000 across the board uh custodial went up about 15,000 property leases uh another thing out of our control went up about 54,000 uh we did we are anticipating taking on three new projects uh opening three new projects this coming year that'll generate about another $150,000 worth of expenses to to take on those projects that's the K9 facility the boot camp gym and the Marine op Center uh so those will all come on pretty soon uh utility costs like I said went up paper and cleaning supplies uh we're anticipating cost increases uh just based on use based on tracking our our usage so that went up about $43,000 so with all that all of our all that's out of our control uh what we have done uh and this is just a bump to the Department we processed about 10,500 work orders to date this year uh comparatively about 7,500 last year so the use the the the requests that were were um satisfying for the for the for the um county has been huge and and that's all that's all dedicated to that's all on Terry William and his crew behind me as well as Chris mechanic uh you know processing all the work orders we we double process them because we do the rfs's and work orders at the same time so that's basically 25 or $21,000 work orders or 21,000 work orders a year could you pause for a minute cuz commissioner Smith's having AIT go ahead doesn't get it um but you know why that is right why your work orders have gone up because you're good at what you do thank you if you weren't good at it people wouldn't call you we're trying to keep the level of service High uh understand that's been our goal a compliment commissioner herd would like to yeah Mr donu is our Landscaping contractor in compliance with their contract never it's we we bismal we have started a new process of of checking on them uh you know more than we have in the past and we've done a marginal job but uh we're really striving this year to to do the checklist after they complete so we can hold them to task hold them to contract uh um we're instigating a couple new techniques of how to keep track of them it it's it's been it's been tough yeah I agree I agree do we I'm going to I know the answer to this but I'm just going to um say it because I helped put the program together um a lot of municipalities counties um require their landscape contractors to be fngla certified that's Florida National Florida nurser grer Association certification um it is required by dot throughout the state um and being in the landscape business I can tell you um of the challenges and I'm sure the challenges of our contractors which are trying to hire even adequate uh labor right now uh and Equipment costs and availability and everything that we've heard from every Department um goes all the way down into the into the private sector also so but I I don't I just put a plugin for the um the certification program it does elevate um potentially the contractor into a little bit more of a professional um then um anyway I'll leave it at that thank you you also accepted the lowest bidder so it's not necessarily that's that's but if they were certified at least you would have some they would have charged you more yeah anyway but how long is that contract 3 years with with two one-year options commissioner Smith tenative approval of the general Services 2025 tenative budget second motion by commissioner Smith second and by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously growth management all right Mr Schilling good morning Commissioners Paul Schilling growth management director I'm pleased to be here this morning presenting the FY 25 tenative budget uh you'll notice and the focus of this year and we'll continue our efforts we've launched the uh evaluation and appraisal report so our efforts are focused on getting that mission accomplished we've scheduled uh a variety of the chapters upcoming in fact we had a item on the 18th of the local planning agency and from this point further uh up until October 22nd we will uh that's our our Focus will be those uh complaint amendments to be in compliance with State Statute so just the focus of the budget there's a 12% increase here the majority of that's due to salary increases and being competitive in Recruitment and Retention in the market we've had vacancies over the past we're trying to maintain our level of service and trying to go out into the uh market and that presents problems with retention and recruitment um so we're as uh Mr doy said we have a very technical staff which I'm pleased to represent here today and ongoing we struggle at times to fill those positions they are very very difficult to fill such as a senior planner or a zoning compliance technician those are positions which involve frequent wi interaction with not only the public Consultants owners as well as uh other departments in this in the county um so it takes a certain individual to achieve uh success in that position and maintain our level of service and um so that's that's that's the been the focus of that as well as uh training and so forth we put many many hours into bringing someone into the department and actually training them on our 90 different zoning districts our six CRA for form based codes our Newfield is Newfield development a form based code we have many many applications and we are the spear or point of the spear rather with respect to All Things development so um we also achieve several thousand customer inquiries from everything that you can think of so uh I would just appreciate your Indulgence today thank you commissioner Smith I would also suggest that it takes a special person to be able to have their back to the audience when they make presentations to us yes because you can't see the Expressions on people's faces um you guys do a great job Paul thank you and and I and I can't but also add that um your leadership uh with the Department as well has been uh fantastic and we all appreciate that thank you um I don't know if you heard earlier the conversation but hopefully um you can get together with Susan and staff and we'll have a conversation and agenda item about a settlement architect at some point yes sir um with that I would move growth Management's 2025 tenative budget approval commissioner herd yeah I'm sure that recruitment is difficult um how many vacancies do you have currently currently two a senior planner within the comprehensive planning Division and a zoning senior zoning compliance reviewer and how are applications to fill those positions I'm sorry how are the applications to fill those positions they have been unsuccessful thus far so we've had to read vertise them thanks you're welcome okay we have a I move approval do you move make motion second U may I just one more thing we are going to be presenting an update to the board on August 6 which we will looking forward to with respect to current volumes of applications or current efforts and so forth and so on good okay we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by Comm commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you and and um on behalf my team my wonderful team thank you thank you it s Claire first time hi good morning good morning so here we go my first six weeks in the position and I'm here asking for something from all of you there you go um glad you [Laughter] accepted there's a reason for that so to begin with um I actually have two of our managers with me that are part of um some of the requests that we have uh Fielding any questions I might not be the expert in that you have for us so we have the tenative budget with an increase of 2 39% um with that we are asking for a new vehicle in cyber security position um do you have questions ahead of me sharing anything about this role or why I'm asking for it um I can share with your vehicle for example we have three desktop staff members and those staff members share the workload of over 75 plus buildings where technology are that we support um they also handle the desktop replacement program so as we have over, 1500 desktops and I might be lower than where we actually are um plus iPads we actually have to configure them and then go in the vehicles and and go to the site to replace them they have one vehicle now and when they're on that at that site whether it's a call to deliver Hardware that comes here or go there they get called for an emergency and with the amount of Technology we have it is frequent two to three tickets a day they might have to leave that site so when they do that everybody goes so that person can't stay come back because you they don't always know what they're going to go and encounter when they go to the sites and they get a call Priority call when some I mean you may have experienced it yourself when your computer or your um technology is not working that's what that staff does they are deployed in the field you see them more than anyone else in it probably um so we're asking for the vehicle to help um be more efficient with the request and um we normally have three staff and that's been hard to fill and we are back down to two as of last week with a staff member leaving so um again we're we're in a some sense doing more with less meaning um staff are going out into the field with separate vehicles and getting more done versus planning their days and possibly not being able to be in more place than once at a time as you know our County buildings are are all over the place technology is everywhere in every business um we also do if on the weekend they we provide support too if there's connectivity issues and there's times when they have to get deployed um so that's with the vehicle do you have any questions about the vehicle request okay um okay so onward with the cyber security request for a new position um I have to say with my new position in the past 6 weeks plus when I was in the acting role I was alarmed to learn how much work the staff are doing out of their field of expertise um many of them are jumping in from um these two managers behind me their staff are doing exactly what Heather and um Tim La last a couple weeks ago now shared about Staffing they're getting it burned out they're working sometimes on weekends whenever we get alerts we have great tools we had an assessment done we have great tools and thank you so much for allowing us to invest in those tools for cyber security for alerts for logs what we're missing is the people to watch those logs all day to follow up on the alerts to work with other staff to be able to go and defend and stop and prevent and that's what the goal is we need eyes on this information we need somebody that's going to coordinate the efforts of other staff so everybody has focused attention when there is an alert when there is something that requires us to basically investigate further um just in the past 9 months there have been three incidents that luckily I haven't had to bring to your attention or we've been able I've actually brought to George and we've gotten permission to do things um you may recall when you all had to change your password and it was sudden at the end of the day um for Citrix login and that was because of a what they call vulnerability um a threat actor um that we did identify and have to resolve and there's been some other ones that are technical in nature so I won't go into those but um we've been very lucky and that's pretty much the trend um we were at a conference last week called Florida fista um it's full of government Information Technology departments um cios everybody there agrees they've been lucky and those that were not lucky became lucky after because then there was the investment in the cyber security due to the cost of having to recover and the downtime now although we don't have we're not able to say we're saving lives um with focused attention is not a a solve everything just as adding more police officers with crime isn't to solve everything but it is it does allow us to maybe get ahead and prevent and not have to respond and recover um which is extremely costly in so many areas because the services that everybody in this County government provides are not able to be you know you you you heard it this morning everybody's more technology it's in the hands of everyone okay I'm gonna stop rambling so commissioner herd yeah I I after listening to the sheriff this morning talk about when he took office 12 years ago the uh Department that he inherited was Antiquated and needed an awful lot of investment I suspect that Miss Sinclair is inheriting a department that's underfunded um our technology needs have improve have have increased so much over The Last 5 Years and I think that we're going to be facing an an an enormous uh investment so I'm happy to to to uh approve uh an additional uh person um in the vehicle and a vehicle you know whatever you need I think that we're going to to uh have to be very quick as you say you don't want to react you don't want to recover you you want to uh prevent is exactly right I I happened to be traveling on Friday and it was miserable just miserable because of a software update that sent the globe into a tizzy and it it took me 22 hours to get here from St Louis and I consider myself very lucky because there's still people trying to get here from St Louis um so I flew in from La it took 25 hours to get home wide awake for the 25 because it's not like you're sleeping somewh and in LAX it was cash only in the terminal oh so so much for giving up cash so we need to make whatever whatever investment is necessary in it we need to make sure that we do it making a motion I was in hopes sound and it took me 10 minutes to get home it wasn't to we earlier no rental cars in Atlanta no hotels and I've just heard Delta is still cancelling flights today yeah my daughter got stuck I wasn't feeling bad cuz she was on lovely vacation somewhere Mr Smith I I I think you touched on it but I and I think everybody just touched on it in their own way but at the end of the day none of our systems function without you I it just every aspect of what this County does from fire rescue to the Sheriff's Department to legal to growth management every single aspect of everything we do in here functions as a result of the IT department that's been built over the last 25 years 30 years um and the idea of the challenges that you have coming at you 24 hours a day is enormous and so whatever it takes to keep Martin County safe and operating I think this board will support it and you're doing a great job thank you thank you we have a motion by commissioner herd seconded by commissioner campy all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you petmart was down too Library terrible yeah while I was super delayed a friend said yeah well Starbucks I couldn't get my coffee I'm like not the same thing not the same good morning Commissioners Jen Salis Library director um for our fy2 tenative budget we are asking for 3.48% increase to maintain current level of service I did include a picture on my slide uh this was a recent story time at the Blake Library where 155 young children and their parents attend um our typical story times in previous years have averaged around 30 to 40 children and their parents so this is our new level of service and while I'm thrilled that people are using the library it has been a struggle on our current level of Staffing but looking forward to FY 25 um we are going to be supporting the Centennial Celebration with our Martin digital history project to date we have digitized over 5,000 photographs and other documents which are now all publicly accessible and it was a huge collaboration with our nonprofits in the historical industry um we are going to continue creating services for our neurod Divergent population that's part of our longrange services plan and we are also going to be exploring artificial intelligence um different potential uses we did do a soft launch on our libraries portion of the County website uh for an AI chatbot so if you go on to any of the library Pages you'll see in the bottom right hand corner a little bubble pops up that says chat with us um this is um kind of a pilot project to see if it could be expanded out to other County departments um in a way to use technology to help answer the easier questions and then have our staff be able to work on the more um intricate um programs and services happy to answer any questions you might have commission herd yes Miss Solace is this reading program is this the new normal is 150 kids instead of 30 yes we um at the Robert morgade Library we're about 80 to 90 participants out well you know CH literacy is is extremely important do you need to add new programs um we need more Staffing to be able to add more programs because we're at capacity right now okay thanks move tentative Library 2025 tentative budget second motion by commissioner um Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I motion carries shenan animous thank you thanks Parks and Recreation n Department maybe good choice of a picture yeah good morning um Kevin abat Parks and Recreation director um our budget is mainly comprised of increases in Revenue um uh few month ago we did add the budget for the um hitting bays and restaurant to the to the golf course and the hitting Bays which are doing quite well uh today financially I mean collectively together those two facilities are up uh net revenue at $728,000 I thought it would slide down but they're doing quite well so mainly actually all of our amenities are doing quite well but um the revenue the increases in expenditures and revenues are show uh the majority of the uh increases in our our cost um and in revenue and also we have some revenues that are um some expenditures that are increasing like fpnl repairs and maintenance similar to every Department that you've heard so um generally speaking the things are going very well for the Department um it's our budget is I would call it a flat budget but it's not exactly flat but in terms of our service levels they are the same and um things are going quite well so if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them I think you you have a public on Parks don't you yeah does anybody have any questions I will on that's one okay we do have a um public um speaker um Sharon mcginness thank you for taking the time to take my comments my comments are specifically geared towards the fact that we are running you know private Enterprises at our Beach and our golf course now the golf course itself I think should maintain on the county but in relation to the conversation we just have with information technology we understand that point of sales is a large part of Information Technology and a large strain on our it Department to maintain those things and the turnover within the service industry the restaurant supplies obviously hiring and firing and getting people on board I really think that the parks recreation should not be running restaurants they should turn that over to the private sector if someone gets hurt in one of those restaurants an employee the liability that comes to Martin County is something I don't think we can absorb and I also think that we do not need to spend millions of dollars to create a better wedding venue I don't know how many people come to Martin County to get married but you can see by our demographics we're mostly people who are already retired or some families and I just don't see that's a waste of our money but the amount of uh strains is put on our public departments with it and personnel and food service we we are not restaurant people and we don't need to be running restaurants and so I would hope that you guys would take that into consideration and turn it over to the private sector thank you thank [Applause] you and with that commissioner Smith um Kevin you want to explain a little bit about how we run our restaurants oh absolutely um well I think it'd be appropriate I have a a little onepage presentation I could just show you how well we're doing um relative to Don if you could pull it up just our assets and just kind of um more of a of of how we're doing you can see here um relative to the cafes so we we have two Beachside cafes and as of today or or we around the numbers this morning uh those cafes are performing quite well they're at $379,000 in net revenue we opened up the Seaside Cafe a few years ago it was run by the private sector previous to that and facility was um it was run into the ground similar to the Jensen Beach facility which we're doing some planning now so since we've took over the cafe and re reimagined it that Cafe is now approaching as of today $1.4 million in net revenue and that's all in expenses all of our point to sale systems and software are all part of that puzzle they're all expensed out so there are no tax dollars at all in any of these facilities any subsidies being taken so because we are focused and on the overall mission having of profitability and trying to run run like a business so relative to the cafes and it's actually every uh facility that you see on there our model is that if we can eliminate subsidies and over time which what we're doing um be able to build up a reserve fund these are um allocations that are set aside for repair and maintenance we believe the sustainability of all these assets unlike how they were historically including the campground including the golf course and the cafes or will have a night a great funding source for the future and our focus is that we build up these funds over time not burden the taxpayer repair and maintenance goes back into it and and the way that trending now you know we're trending now at 1.5 million in net revenue I don't think it's going to slide too much we're going to see an increase that in many many years from now and when the hard times hit you know if we build these models we are 49% of our total budget of that 19 million 49% of our of our budget is revenue the rest of the country with the similar size County they're at 22% so we're trying to cover all these expenses every one of them every single position that we have is funded through all these different sources so we're funding the procurement side and the the management side so that we are ultimately very very successful it take many many years to get the model right and the economy is scale amongst all of these business operations that you see um are part of that the way we're able to keep them looking good all the time we have one person who's Works 40 hours a week he's outsourced and contracted and um that person for example pressure washes the facil these facilities every single day um of all these facilities there are only a handful of full-time County employees every single position is outsourced so when you look at this model here you I could argue with anyone say we are we are really privatized but what we're really focused on is keeping our eyes on the overall look and feel the customer service and the finances of these facilities and how we spend money and Stephanie knows me for 14 years here as a director I'm very stingy when it comes to spending and my team is very frugal when it comes to spending I get in trouble a lot for asking questions about how we could save money and buy things certain ways and so we so we're very we're very um smart about how we do things so I think to kind of you know the operations of for example like the water park is midseason is the most complicated facility that we operate it is the most complicated because of the intensity of 130 lifeguard or lifeguards and staff and complex filtration systems and you know we've we've hosted state championship swimming and Diving for for for over 10 years I mean for uh 10 years and that's generated you know over 20 million to the economy with all these swim meets and we use this great model that where the water park pays for these great recreational swimmers so these all they all some have uh difficulties in operations some do some don't but in terms of its Administration and operations um we do a really nice job and I think that's kind of to our credit why we are accredited amongst uh all parks divisions in the country and there's over 13,000 publicly funded agencies and less than 1% are accredited and we do cuz I I'll be in Parks 40 years this August and I've never seen such a vibrant Department how well how well we run based on what we have I mean our cost per acre and what we spend money on is about 4,500 an acre the rest of the country is spend almost 8,000 an acre median median level just to just to operate their Parks but we're doing more with less and and this is a great efficiency and so these facilities cafes beaches water parks gol these are what people want and they're recreating they're having and they're having a great time and you know we got great reviews and um I'm I'm really really proud of what we've accomplished and all the things that we've done um and bring to this community I keep going you done Mr Donson I guess I'm I I was just going to reiterate when uh Kevin spoke about the employees in our contract it is a public private partnership and that and we work with a entity that um contracts with all the employees that they they cover the workers compensation for them um along with some other benefits insurance and other things that offer to them most of them are part-time workers or hourly rate workers and so um our staff aren't burdened with the of the recruiting and and all of that for them so it is really contract we we specialize in the management of the oversight of the operation and the planning and uh the private sector um employment agency provides us with the staff and deals with them if we if they're not performing um and we uh and and just like so that so it's really a hybrid I wouldn't say that you know we're we're not we're not these aren't all County run facilities they're County managed and operated with a private sector employees commissioner Smith so I'll elaborate a little bit about our beach facilities um over the last 30 years um long long time ago when I used to work at the Elliott um the contract that we had out there that ran the old Cafe was horrible um nobody went out there and ate lunch nobody enjoyed it um we used to have a contract long long time ago with our beach chair concession where they were really running a drug business out of the beach chair um concession and I don't know how many beach chairs they actually rented out but they ran a lot of drugs out of it um our family goes out almost every weekend uh we were out there this past weekend we rented um some beach chairs and some of the clam shells there's a young gentleman out there could not be nicer more professional working his tail off in the heat um a perfect gentleman um and treats everybody that way our staff out there whether they contract or whether there are staff they are great and at the end of the day it's a safe clean experience and good food that people enjoy and there are all sorts of Stuart Jensen Beach Palm City people that come and enjoy those facilities that never ever came to the beach before and never came out to enjoy them and I would argue on this issue at all costs that these are our public park facilities and our public has an expectation that they should be clean they should be safe run well and that the the product that they are enjoying is as good as it can be and I think that's what we give them and by by virtue of how many people go to Stuart Beach and how many people go to Jensen Beach and use those facilities um and the and the revenue side of this thing absolutely verifies how successful it's been um and it's not costing our taxpayers anything to do it I I I you know Kevin you have built a great model uh the campground is remarkable what what has transpired thus far out there all of what we went through for years with the golf course and and and its ups and downs and what you've been able to achieve out there and and produce out there is is fantastic and so like our other departments um I am incredibly proud of our parks department and and what you deliver to our our community and our public um it's really a great thing and it's and if if anybody were to have gone back 30 years ago and seen what was going on sometimes at our public beaches versus what is today uh it's night and day in terms of what we deliver in service so thank you very much okay with that move approval second we have a motion by commissioner herd second by commissioner Smith all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously Hey Hey Kevin can you wait one minute Kevin can I bring up pendarvis Cove now or do you want to do that like at the end of the day I mean now the parks is sitting here do it now well now that you started you might as well keep going so um I don't know if you all got communicated to but I've got I've had a a handful of communications from some residents over the last um couple weeks about pendarvis Cove and the somewhat out of control nature of The non- Mooring field that is going on over there uh and also what's going on in the Upland and you I was talking to Don this morning about it um I I guess I didn't know this that the Water Management District owns it and we lease it from them or we have an agreement with them to manage correct that I I I at some point again in the future it would be good to have a conversation I think as to what should happen with pendarvis Park and pendarvis Cove and a moing field and and whatever else is happening over there and Ed I don't mean to be jumping in in your District but um I just thought it was an opportunity I would throw it out there sure so we can I I um let's talk to the we'll talk to the district about and and uh uh and we can schedule an update for you all and a and we can talk about possible um future actions commissioner campy I'm that's all due respect to my colleagues first I'm hearing obviously we don't speak to each other we're not allowed about things we could potentially vote on I've been working with a couple of uh very concerned Martin County residents on um I've guess cats out of the a cat is interesting cats out of the bag for a dog park um some folks had brought me over there to take a look at pendarvis Park as a potential dog park it's something that I think the county is lacking and Palm City residents have wanted for a long time we've had a couple of um St parts and stops Mr abat and I worked on it in 2011 so 13 years ago and um you know to have the space that could be appropriate for a dog park that wouldn't adversely affect surrounding neighbors that had amenities that would not have to be purchased uh or constructed someone brought me there to take a look at pendarvis Park and it actually would be an excellent location for a dog Park there's a public private partnership involved there's a group of people called barking for a park that have been having fundraisers and golf tournaments and raising money for years uh and have accumulated a decent sum of money they've also been able to network with uh contractors and suppliers for the necessary um equipment and materials to build a dog park that would have nearly a zero deficit to taxpayers to to build it donation of turf donation of fencing donation of the equipment and the you know the exercise and the Recreational Equipment yes commissioner Smith's correct uh we've been in a long-term lease with the south Florida Water Management District for that property it used to be a very long-term lease and then it had ex was set to expire several years ago and I think Jeff Dy was in real property at the time and we were he saved us from having the south Florida Water Management District take the property back but we went to basically if correct me if I'm wrong Mr Bat an annual lease a oneyear lease at a time I I don't recall the term something similar to that if I if I remember correctly um we did have some of our staff uh engage the south Florida Water Management just in a preliminary conversation on what did they think about a dog park there now if you've been there there are plenty of people that are walking their dogs and because it's a quiet little Park in in Palm City that is not nearly utilized to the level that it could be I guess some people are utilizing it outside of the scope of what we would want them to out in the water I'm speaking specifically on land apparently though they're sharing it yeah well and that being said part of the reason that that situation is able to take place is that it was a underutilized and under um visited site had it been more active had it been more engaged where people are coming and going kind of Nefarious and you know uh illegal or whatever the type of activities that are taking place there would be a lot harder to accomplish if it was an active highly uh utilized location so South Florida Water Management District was concerned that since they were operating on an annual lease basis they didn't want to get involved necessarily with a park a dog park being friends with Drew Bartlett having known him in his previous positions I had an opportunity to speak to him sort of very briefly about the concept of it and he was not opposed it would require additional conversation so I didn't know that there were other outside conversations happening so that is what has been my focus with a group of residents to utilize a perfect in in my opinion and and others a perfect location that would require very little Community or or not Community uh taxpayer uh expense to create a not like a a bandaged solution to hey we need a dog park an excellent solution to we need a dog park um and now that we've had the conversation I normally would have brought it forward with a more formalized Vision we would have met we would have met but that being said I want to make sure that that is absolutely in the foreground maybe it can be a hybrid of some other issues that have to take place there the concept and for people that have the ability to drive through there you pull into this winding entrance way it's tucked in the back obviously on the river and then there's a very well-maintained restroom facility it looks almost brand new it's either new or it's highly maintained we just remodeled it beautiful and then it goes around in a big long kind of parking like a parking driving loop with all parking around it I'm speaking of the center of the parking Loop of the drive Loop is large enough to literally be a very effective dog park and so there you go surprise sounds like an agenda item to me but that's all I was going to say I I that's all I was asking for is that we get an agenda item and that I I I don't think anything of what you said Is In conflict of the other issue at all no I don't know what your issue is no that the the moing field or the lack of is out of control from what I'm being told and what they're transferring up to the Upland is out of control okay and so the question is can we do something about it and didn't really understand the relationship of the Water Management District and so maybe we can bring back have an agenda item Parks was here and done thank you okay okay thank you goodbye did we did we vote on that we already did it we did on the parks yeah that was like a half hour ago come on okay Public Works Mr Gordon good morning Jim Gordon Public Works director um for our fiscal year 25 budget we have a increase of 4.14% um some key considerations are we've merged two of our programs two of our very very high performing programs which was the ecosystems restoration program and the coastal um program and the reason we put those two together is because we have um very skilled scientists and water quality professionals and a lot of the problems that they face in their programs for example Coral um a lot of those problems are water quality based so we thought by combining those two groups together we'd have that skill set to better tackle a lot of the challenges that we that we face um we also are doing some reorganization internally on our administra administrative side and just moving some of our admins underneath the administration division to better serve the public and to increase customer service um and then the last thing is we have some minor adjustments for increased maintenance so as we have new sites that are added an example is the Rio bios Swale project that we teamed up with the office of Community Development on um as we add those sites we have to then pay a contractor to to maintain them so uh so you'll see those increases in the in the budget as well the last increas is um significant increase is for our Engineering Services uh we have brought on a third-party reviewer for times when we have a lot of uh applications to review um it it really helped us catch up we had over a six-month backlog and I'm happy to say you know eight nine months later we are now caught up and and having that resource we don't need the extra bodies inhouse but we can use that resource instead of up Staffing we'll just bring them in catch back up and then move forward so those are the big increases that that you'd see and with that um do you have any questions richer Smith uh no questions just a standard comment Jim you you and your department do an amazing job whenever we call and ask it gets done and it's almost always seamless and again the public generally speaking doesn't know because they shouldn't have to know but things get done and they get maintained and you you all do a markable job so with that I would move tentative approval of the Public Works 2025 and I would Echo those and maybe it's because what you do is similar to what I've done my whole career um but um you do an you and your staff do an amazing job and um and the public recognizes it because I hear it all the time um for the projects that you and I or or George or somebody does uh the interaction of your staff and the professionalism um I get quite a bit of accolades for that so with that we have motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously technology investment plan I don't know why that wasn't back when we had you here before but here we are okay well the first one was practice oh okay well she's no longer new now she's already done oh yeah yeah experienced budget okay yes um hello again and um we're we're presenting our budget plan for the next year with an increase of 8.63% um with that our budget considerations include establishing a long-term replacement program to plan for the existing County technology infrastructure Investments um some of those include investing in cyber security systems and then it includes the contractual changes due to technology purchases throughout the county with um you know keep business going and the M maintenance renewals that do increase from year to year um do you have questions ahead of this I can tell you we have nine programs um you know there's many within here some of them are for cyber security um monitoring and management of our radio system which is critical for the sheriff office fire rescue steart fire and um police um alerting improving alerting systems data backup and then um multiple programs for replacement planning wherever we see systems that are going to be need to be replaced we're establishing smaller amounts of money for these programs so that we don't have to come and ask you for a huge sum of money to replace it this does includes like the UPS um that we you just funded that was a large amount of money and so um the team has developed a replacement program so we're planning ahead for the time when we will replace some of these systems as long as we know that questions sure Cy I think your strategy is the appropriate one even from our perspective it's much easier for us to approve small increases over the course of a period of Time Versus you um thinking you're doing your department and us and the taxpayers a favor by not asking for these numbers and then eventually one day have to come in and ask for a number that's astronomical I'm sure budgeting and management like it that way better in terms of cyber security um obviously I wasn't here last week did we have any adverse effect from that no luckily we did not um and the team here inform me because they're over that um there is a cyber grant program that we have applied for but those that applied for it last year um Steve had just informed me we may have been with crowd strike if we applied and got that Grant it's a very well-known um it's a it's a very good company um these things we we do upgrades all the time with our systems um this just of course is a huge Global impact so we're very lucky um again real the real time example or lesson would be um either fail saves or redundancy that's what we kept hearing we do because it wasn't just an airline industry there were governments it was Global there were governments but uh I read that the hospitals in Boston had to cancel all sorts of not just selective surgeries but I was listening on the radio yesterday that uh systems in place to give imagine you just had a baby and it had to have a medicine on a special treatment the system was down so now they're going old school for nurses deciding how they give medicine or anybody that was on life support monitoring had to then be physically monitored by a person MH because the system was down so and then that that's part one which is much more sort of current the other issue that I'm finding even at my regular uh job is getting emails fishing emails that look so legitimate and I'll give you an example I have um Global Entry it's a customs you know Immigration and Customs card that you can get and mine it's 5 years and mine said it was getting ready to expire so click on this link now I'm very careful to not click on links I clicked on the link because I was getting ready to expire so how would I know click on it it looked perfect it had my name it had my actual Global Entry number on there and it said you know $149 for the next five years I enter in my credit card information I it says you know here's your cell phone number I said accurate it sent me a text message with the numbers that you get for that second level of security I typed it in and then my it said payment denied so I switched cards and put another one in thinking how could it be payment denied so I put the debit card in and it came back payment denied thankfully my bank and and my credit card caught that but look I'm pretty Savvy and I hear from you what does the regular person do to potentially stop that so then I call and then I call Wells Fargo and they said please give us your thing and the last four of your Social and then it says and your PIN so I'm thinking how deep into the rabbit hole am I going now maybe this is part of the fake so I refuse to do it and then I get a guy on the phone he's like no no I'm really from Wells Fargo I said yeah but how do I know you're really from Wells Fargo so what are we doing on our side to you have thousands of employees 1100 everyone can access the system now they were coming and none of it happened I had to cancel all my cards and start over but that's not that big of a deal but for us if someone gets into our system and cripples even just the county or takes us what is it hostage or they hijack the system didn't city of Stewart several years ago get hijacked and they had to pay I don't know if they ended up paying I'm not sure what the final outcome was but what are we doing for that um well I can tell you what we we are doing and it comes down to education um do have a fishing campaign it's going to be running quarterly we just completed one so you all were part of that um with that said we try to stay under the threshold of 5% when our when staff don't pass um which it's like you said it's getting they're getting better and better um then they take another course and another course and then we have um a staff member that will meet with them and kind of go over to help them it's constant education is the only solution we know for that and we ask staff to always if they have anything question to forward to the help desk um which I think everyone's familiar with and and please let us know so that we can be sure it's safe um we do have of course in within our organization we have technology which is included in the replacement program also planning to kind of it's It's called proof point but it it actually is our defense for those links so it's it's blocking constantly it's stopping it's putting things so that we can check our staff can look into things and protect you um but it's through education is the best best thing that we can offer and it's ongoing we also have um the new employees take and annually we take we all are it's one of the tests that we take one of our annual smile program test that's a little more intense this year may I make a request maybe for Mr Donald that that training if it's more generalized training is that something that could be a link on the homage that we can offer to our residents to run through that same training I know they're not going to get certified or get any kind of you know um I'd have to look into it right now it's a license oh okay so that would well something because I don't know if if it's just a set of parents or some individual that lives in our community that doesn't have the ability to do that maybe that's an an opportunity and a service that the county can offer residents and there's a possibility I'm not maybe through the library even the library they offer so many great programs I know my mom attends right but I'm just saying if it was a website based because some people don't go to the library or whatever if we could have that as a thing now I would tell you I get the training and I get the diligence and the being careful but then if any business is trying to conduct legitimate business via the Internet which is basically how everyone's doing it now there was no way I could have been more diligent because it was something that was genuinely something that I would be using so short of not sending anything in never responding to an actual email and letting everything you know going back to writing checks and mailing them I don't know how we're going to do it yes so I'm obviously happy giving you your increase for cyber security and fishing m Don sounds like a motion yeah no I was just going to say that there's a couple of really important things that Eric and her team are working on and and one of them has to do with our um fixed asset replacement farbs we talked about it that um we've had some major you know projects in the past we had the battery backup system and uh and that was uh actually the IT staff did a really great job of pulling that one off um Brian Mass if you remember godd us help just get a grant for it um they were all chewing on on their fingernails thinking that are we going to get this in time before it collapses so anyway they pulled it off and that was just an example the staff are continuing to look at at that so you may see in the next couple years us trying to get our fixed asset replacement program for all of the really technical Hardware which also links to cyber security that you have to have Modern Hardware and systems to be able to compat the modern thing so those are some of the things going on in the background along with their uh consultant that are helping in examine and what we're doing and by the way they're there we have a great team um they too like uh parks and others rely on a lot of Consultants as part of their team makeup um uh because as you know getting really smart staff that we have um the you know uh replacing them is difficult so we have a we have a great team and but part of that team in success is also having a good consultant team behind them and they and they do great job so thanks Erica and thank for all your your efforts second motion yet motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner herd all in favor I all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thanks sir utilities she has she has one three agenda items slated you back for something else this is [Applause] it where is Mr hamerson so Sam is not uh feeling well so we figure then why and in bringing someone who is uh um uh you not doing well uh that we have our Micah here and uh Team uh are going to present the budget good morning mic gorowitz utilities Financial Manager I have with me Britney Basset utilities treatment administrator and Britney's one of our rising stars in the uh so you'll get a chance to to see one of our our utilities your name out loud just use your first name yes utilities and solid waste tenative budget will be increasing by 6% from $ 61.5 million to 65.3 million the change in the budget is aligned with inflationary pressures on our prices of chemicals operating supplies as well as contractual Services we are not asking for any new positions Solid Waste increased due to garbage collection and Disposal rates tonnages and growth um for departmental goals we have we are uh planning to complete the design and permitting of tropical Farms Water Treatment Plant expansion as well as continue seeking grants for our septic to sewer conversion program if you have any questions I will be able to answer the financial questions and Britney operational any questions for staff you did an excellent job she didn't know she was doing this [Laughter] today on a Monday can we um Harold can I ask a question please oh can you without giving us your last name can you come up just for a sec I'm just curious why's well when John calls you Rising Star so how H how are we doing on our conversion of septic toour where do you know where we are relative to the 10,000 tanks that we hope to get rid of um as far as the 10,000 tanks that we hope to get rid of I do not have the knowledge of that right now um but I would be happy to answer your question no if you did that was great I just want to know what progress we're making and we're about a third I think I think we've gotten about three you know of the system about 3,000 um are 3500 somewhere in that range that we've had uh yeah that's it thank you welcome by the way just to that point um because srf uh loans are getting harder and harder so if there's anything this spard needs to do to help us be more competitive then whether it be letters or enacting engaging our lobbyists because we would still like to be at the top of that U receivership of those srf loans yes and so mic of course is the expert on I'm working with srf as well but in fact uh one of the conversations with uh the village Mr Christa was explaining that their difficulty in getting srf loans is also one of their concerns but um so yes uh to your point we had a conversation with our lobbyist just recently uh and plan to uh engage Tallahasse to see what it is we can do both from uh the agency side and then working with our local delegation to ensure that um um that there's sufficient funds for srf loans I think this last year the the the state appropriated about I think 280 million more for srf loans but if you figure the typical loan is on that order of 10 to 15 million you can see that around the state they're only giving out you know tens and you know maybe 30 loans a year and that may not be enough if you've got you know Dade County alone decided they just announced they had over 30,000 tanks along you know the the Estuary and things that they need to clean up so I think I think this is one of those areas that um um a longer term strategy from the state and our plan B in the event that srf is not our loan um uh is not a Reliable Loan Source for us to keep up with our our goal we may have to we're going to need to look at a plan B so that's a one of those future issues that's uh commissioner Heather very important on seeing how getting our fair share is a part of that and uh We've started engaging our lobes I think to add on to that Don and I've had this conversation for years um and at some point I think we need to have a conversation about are we are we doing enough with our lobby program and are we could we be more aggressive with that could we be doing more to be more effective and I'll leave it at that for now but I I my sense is my sense is that there is more that we could be doing um that might put us in a better position or or or just expand the capacity of what we're doing so anyway I'll leave it at that but maybe we can have that conversation sometime soon too that I will make a motion for staff's attend of approval okay we have a motion by commissioner heatherington seconded by commissioner Smith all in favor I all opposed um our next item is non-departmental $226 million um budget item that's not going to happen in the next s minutes so I think that would be okay may maybe it will no I there was an item uh within Public Works that we did not uh um specifically address um and that was under the no we did receive a letter from um the uh Community transportation coordinator our senior uh for uh Senior Resource Association operates Martin Community Coach uh for the transportation disadvantaged and they had requested a $340,000 um uh in increase in the County's contribution to cover the lack of the match the board had discussed this in a previous meeting um it's not included in the budget it was not included in your tentative budget for for um you do not have to take action at it right now but before the end of this um um uh meeting uh uh it's just you can either take no action and leave it as is or include it thank you they're here so can we do it so that they can go back to in River County if that's really shut my light off I think we should hear from uh I agree with commissioner Smith the the representatives that handle that program for us are here the folks that might not have heard their presentation a couple of weeks ago this is separate from the Marty bus system that people see and have differences I would request that they come forward and give us a brief recap of the situation that we're in and what the our Martin County residents this is their their only opportunity for Transportation uh to uh potentially life saving treatments that they receive and without this service they won't get it we were very fortunate and we'll hear from our friends in a moment we were very fortunate in the last couple of years to get some large grants that won't be here anymore so imagine telling someone yes you could use the system in the past but next year you can't anymore and but their their ailments and their illnesses weren't magically cured so the need is still there but the opportunity for a ride is gone welcome thank you thank you I'm Karen deagle I'm the um CEO of Senior Resource Association and we are the CTC for uh Martin County providing the PA Transit service and this pass year the funding that we had been receiving it was called an Innovative service development Grant if you recall um we applied for it and um uh we had actually run out our four years we did um apply for a new Innovative service development Grant and we did not get the full funding like we had other years um we only received um 3 what was it 370,000 370,000 out of the 750 that we had originally so there was significant um decrease and um with that in mind we would like to be able to bring that back up to whole um we're providing about 28,000 trips a year and so with that type of decrease there would be a number of individuals that probably would um only get either uh only get maybe one two trips um a month um we'd have to make decisions it would be up to the local Coordinating Board who gives us Direction but they would have to uh guide us as to who we which trips we would eliminate um and so we're asking for that additional um 30 um 40,000 I believe it is to be able to bring it up to whole Mr and uh I just want to point out that um uh the county did increase our budget a few years ago to provide the 166,000 that's still there that um uh so it is an increase in service that we've had um prior to this service being in there however obviously with the lack of the grant the the two uh um the the last year service would be reduced um to uh accommodate the change in the budget I I think in the future when we get grants like this um um we need to plan for the eventuality of them not being received and um uh and uh and and budget ahead of time to know if we're going to continue the service but um if I might interrupt so anyway thank you um the last few years we've really we've really put a push I think you all know that we've really put a push on the transportation and the need that's in in and I think that's where the um not the issue but the the outcome um we we've proven Martin County needs Transportation these individuals um are are in need of being able to have um getting out um eliminate I eliminate isolation um you know get their groceries just the essential the essential services that they need that anybody needs any of us need and if you were not able to um walk out your door in the morning and go to your garage or your driveway and get in your car and be able to you know come to work or if you were found yourself sick one day and needed to go to the drugstore or the pharmacy to pick up some medication because you've got a horrific cold and you know so these These funds that we're asking for are really needed for for your residents commissioner Smith so Karen I think when we talked about this when I think was was that the no that's where we were last time I think it was it was here at the commission meeting we were giving a report um if we figure out a way to fund this this year what happens next year you know so the nice part about what we did is this Innovative service development grant that we asked for again we do have four years so we got back into the into the process this year at a lower level we can go back again for three more years and I'm hopeful that we'll get a higher amount the next few years so we're back in it again for four years because I think what Don is saying is right we need to figure out okay now that we're successful or you're successful um how do we end up dealing with this as we move forward in the future because if if everything goes better we'll be doing more rides and so how do we fund that and what is available to us through federal funds or through Mo funds or whatever whatever resource we can get so um do you have any recommendations on where we would fund this from the only source is general fund adval is where it comes from that's what you're currently paying for the 166 so it would be a direct increase to your um general fund or if we took it out of Reserve which would come out of general fund right for one time yes yes I I'm just yes I don't know that I want to tack this into the budget per se um and that's why I'm saying if we do it one time what does that do for us moving into the future and how do we do that commissioner Cy can you when you said about uh getting out of the house and things like that how many rides even with the last Year's funding this is not like a limousine service for folks how many actual rides and when you say a trip leaving the house to go somewhere is a trip going from that place back home is a second trip how many opportunities to people with the existing funding how many do they get in a month with the existing funding where we're at now they're it is unlimited for them so they're and depends on the person so we're not having to we're not having to limit the ridership um whereas if we were if we didn't get the funding we would then have to say okay everyone that is that needs dialysis can because of course we do medical first so the dialysis they could each go there three times a week but then that would limit I think it's two round trip um for the eight with the 880 people that we have currently and we're always adding of course if we limited it would be probably two round trips per month for everyone else that's not dialysis so you're seeing you have 880 Martin County residents using your services to go to dialysis no go ahead hi I'm Chris Stevenson I'm the director of transportation we currently have 880 unduplicated clients using Martin Community Coach um so that's right for everything that's the that's the they have to go through an eligibility process it's Martin County's most vulnerable residents we add about 55 people a month to that um because of people applying to to use the service of that number we uh have about 400 that we trip to dialysis um and so what we're saying is in the event we don't get uh the the funding then we are going to have to get direction from the local Coordinating Board about how do we determine how we limit this could we we we did some preliminary uh looking at and we said okay we can still take those 400 people to dialysis three times a week everyone else would be limited to two trips a month so they'd have to decide okay am I going to go to the grocery store you know the first and third week of the month then then that really limits their Mobility as well as the fact that the 400 that are going to dialysis that's all they right they can't they can't take trips to the grocery store correct yes sir so for 880 people what was the number 348,000 340 340 my recommendation would be and when you mentioned this last time and Don said we would have to mention it today um I think we could get creative on our side and not necessarily take it from reserves or add it to the number that makes our ultimate bottom line goal let's find 340,000 somewhere else in our budget and swap it you give me a list of five or six things I'll tell you we could all do it you know we can stop something else that doesn't put our residents at that level I'd rather hold off on a project or scale something back then just add it on to the top that would be my goal I'll help you find it I'm not saying do it magically I'll help we'll help 340 is a very reasonable number I would trade 340 from something else to put it there and I appreciate you coming all the way down to share that with us my position is obviously this is a need but to accept a grant and not have a means of sustaining that once that Grant ends I got a problem with two is our last conversation we had at least 30 minutes of trying to think outside the box with microt Transportation which I haven't heard at all um this is just nothing aggravates and has nothing to do with you a Martin County citizen more than watching these damn Marty buses running around with nobody in them this is is different I I realize that but it's still Marty that whole conversation of of working on Marty to be more efficient with micro it we've been talking about that a long time and we've gotten nowhere so I just but I don't want to punish this service for that I'm ready to have that conversation but this service also no this service we had a very long conversation of how this service could be much more efficient that it cost $40 some dollars a ride if I remember correctly or whatever it was and you could do it for you know so anyway I but here's the difference we're not going to belabor it but here's the difference so people before they go to lunch understand some of these folks are oxygen wheelchairs handicapped you can't call an Uber and they're going to show up in a sedan and you're in a in a wheelchair this is very technical drivers that take these people that are now just coming off of dialysis or chemo it requires a trained driver to understand who your passenger is you can't call an Uber for this kind of stuff the Marty buses I completely get that is definitely a conversation that can switch over that's just a regular person looking for transportation this is most likely medically necessary I asked for the percentage of ambul ambulatory ambulatory ambulatory patients versus and you said you were going to have that number for me yes so we um we sent that to Mr Gordon um so our we do about 60% of our trips are ambulatory and 40% have some type of Mobility Aid like a wheelchair or a scooter but the ambulatory people that includes people like in Walkers who who can't take very large steps and so most of our vendors are in small low floor vans so that they don't have to take very large steps to get into the van uh because they have not 100% so anyway commissioner heatherington I I agree I think we're this is the demand is going to increase in the next couple years because as the economy gets tough on individuals and those that are Income um restricted and retired and on Social Security First things they start to do is give up their vehicles and the price of insurance is increasing but I I think just throwing things at it each year is probably not solving the the problem we have other agencies I think in Martin County too that are trying to work together so I think if we could do something whether it be a workshop or to look at the issue holistically and see what other agencies are providing what you're providing and how do we address some of the needs of our resident in a more long-term sustainable way I I just fear that slapping this in this year is not going to um have the desired impact we want in the future and C certainly it's a need but I think we have to think harder at how we're going to solve the problem in the future rather than just try to put a bandid on it this year agree commissioner her yeah well first of all I don't want to take any funding out of reserves um but also I think that we need to at least partially fund this and if it has to come out of General revenues so so be it I'm not I'm not uh convinced that we need to provide $340,000 but we need to provide a substantial amount so that these people do have transportation so and I think that that uh sure we need to look longterm we need to provide as permanent solution you know in years you know two through four of the grant but right now we have a problem that needs to be solved today and if we if we add another $250,000 to the budget we still have a a millage reduction correct correct is that a motion it's still to find it somewhere else so we kept the millage reduction is minor i' not like to shave it off and just take it from somewhere else somewhere else is where $670 million budget I could find you 340 we'll find it I will how about at lunch I'll look I'll get back to you okay you want to postpone those still after lunch well they can go we've gotten the point they live far away wait if we need to I think we'll we'll figure it out one way or the other I think you've made your point so we'll take it from here let's put a pin in it and we'll take this up when we uh come back from lunch when are we coming back from lunch 130 back from lunch at uh 1:30 is that okay that's beautiful okay thank you for your consideration very much appreciate turn for now