##VIDEO ID:x1iQ9hgSvDo## [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] if we could start getting seated and get started here this evening without my gles welcome to the 2024 2025 uh budget hearing first public hearing it's September 11th 20124 if yall would take a moment please silence all of your cell phones any other electron devices that you may have we also have speaker forms in the lobby for anybody that desires to speak on the budget this evening please fill one of those out bring them up to the front table here Tim if you don't mind raising your hand so everybody can see bring it up here drop it off at this table we'll make sure that uh we get you in a lineup to be able to speak uh to the board tonight let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance commissioner lockart would you mind leading us I'd be honored please join me in the pledge I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you commissioner lockart the purpose of tonight's hearing is to present the attenda of M rates and budget for fiscal year 2425 and to allow for public comment before we begin the public should should be reminded that board of County Commissioners does not have control over the tax levies or budgets of the School Board Water Management District property appraiser tax collector or any of the Seven Cities in seminol County questions regarding these assessed property evaluation should be addressed to our property appraiser Mr David Johnson sitting right here thank you for being here tonight sir or those entities that you are questioning any of their millage rates and so forth in those Seven Cities or other entities with that said we will turn it over to the county manager thank you Mr chairman and Commissioners and everyone in the audience uh tonight we are here for the first of two public hearings for the FY 2425 budget that is required by Florida statute the purpose of the meeting is to present to the public the tenative budget for All funds for the proposed millit rates for the countywide district the fire mstu the roads mstu as well as the roll back rates by the state's definition the roll back millage rate is the rate when applied to next year's tax base excluding the new construction that will generate the same Revenue as was raised in the previous year this public hearing was advertised through the notice of proposed property taxes that was mailed out to each the property owner in August the millage rates and budgets considered for the tentative adoption tonight were the end result of a two-day work session with the board of County Commissioners held in June of this year as well as all of the work that we did prior to this the last six months the budget is balanced and each commissioner has received the detailed statement of the necessary adjustments which is included in this document just would like to make a few comments on the budget that you that's being presented to you tonight the proposed tenative countywide budget is balanced for all funds with no increase to any of your property tax millage rates I as the county manager set a 3% cap on the base budget increases and we achieved that this budget is f funded an additional of 10 and a half full-time positions including two new general fund positions requested at the June work sessions one was a staff assistant for the judicial office and a position in our parks department to help support our Museum we also added a real estate office that added three positions the County's water sewer and solid waste entprise funds are fiscally sound with allocations for the necessary capital and operating expens ures this budget also provides additional Investments for the Deferred maintenance of our facilities equipment and infrastructure specifically focused on our roof and HVAC Replacements it also includes improvements to our Park facilities I would like to publicly commend the senior staff for their cooperation throughout our budget process that has resulted in this tentative budget being presented tonight I also want to applaud All County staff for the willingness to the for their assistance to search for efficiencies expand their work effort and to offer their total support as we make adjustments to the way we provide services in the future to our residents at this time I'd like to turn it over to our management and budget director Mr Tim JX to discuss the FY 2425 millage rate and budget and then after he's completed chairman if we then we can open up for public comment of course Mr Jack please thank you Darren I'm Timothy JX with the Office of Management and budget tonight in accordance with Florida Statutes and truth and millage requirements we are here to present the 2024 2025 budget which was developed based on the millage rates shown here the First Column shows the current FY 24 millage rates uh that were adopted as part of the fy2 24 budget the second column shows the roll back rate which would generate the same property tax at the Lum Revenue as the current year excluding new construction the third column shows the roll back excuse me the third column shows the fy2 tentative millage rates which are the same as the current rates and the final column shows the percentage of the tentative rate over the roll back rate these rates are all the same as those approved by the board in July of July 23rd of this year and are the same as those emailed to the citizens in their notice of proposed property taxes by the property appraiser I will now read these rates into the record the general countywide millage of 4.87 51 Mills is 6.9% above the roll back rate of 5.64 mil the fire rescue mstu millage of 2.76 49 Ms is 7.18% above the roll back rate of 7.57 excuse me 2.57 96 Ms the unincorporated mstu millage of 01107 Ms is 7.06% above the roll back rate of 01034 Ms and the tentative aggregate millage rate for all BCC tax ing districts is 6.88 03 Ms which is 6.48% over the current aggregate roll back rate of 64616 Ms that concludes my presentation thank you Mr J any questions from the board seeing none Mr chairman just one statement if I may commissioner and just want to iterate on what our County manager said wanted thank staff as well as the board a lot of hard work has gone into this and also the citizens uh before the next budget hearing if I can get our future Year's uh Revenue projections I know there may be some caveats on it about what the assumptions are but I would like to see that before the next uh before the final budget hearing that's it anyone else seeing none we will go to public comma can you call names of those in the public are here to speak please we don't have any for this subject at the moment no public comments for the millage okay then we will close the public input put on the millage and go to board action Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion to adopt the FY 20242 tenative millage rate as presented here tonight second motion second all those in favor I oppose like sign seeing none carries unanimous we'll now move on to the budget presentation the total tentative countywide budget is 1 b95 mil 97,7 N9 balanced with revenues and expenditures this includes $ 43.4 million of first public hearing adjustments detailed on page 15 of your document adjustments include an additional $28 million in new Grant agreements $15 million in interfund transfers between County subf funds and a $11,000 reduction to the supervisor of elections transfer this chart shows the total countywide expenditure budget by Service Area Public Safety physical environment and transport ation make up 74% of the total countywide expenditure budget Public Safety includes our fire department and Sheriff's offices physical environment is water utility and solid was Services Transportation includes road construction drainage and traffic engineering and general government includes facilities maintenance planning and our self-insurance activities not included in the tentative budget presented today is a an additional request from our Sheriff of $4 million to increase their certified transfer to be used to align Deputy pay with emerging compensation Trends in the area the request is for the board to consider the adjustment and staff would then include it in our final budget presented at the second public hearing this adjustment would bring general fund reserves from 56.5 million to 52.5 million which is approximately two months of revenues and within gfoa recommended best practices that concludes my presentation thank you Mr Jackson any questions from the board commissioner lockart um I understand the county manager's suggestion is to pull that um additional money from reserves if the intention is to be used for salaries that's of course a recurring cost and typically we don't take onetime Revenue reserves to pay for a recurring cost so how are are we planning to fund that in in upcoming years because it's obviously compounding and it's and great question and yeah absolutely um since this will be a reoccurring cost and actually I had conversations with the sheriff not too uh long couple weeks ago as well and we we're going to be meeting again because of the issue that they're having with Deputy pays um similar to what we've did with fire as well but what I recommended to the chairman yes yesterday is that I would like to start the budget work sessions earlier this year maybe the first maybe in January uh to kick that off talk about our Pro fiveyear projections not only to deal with this reoccurring cost but as you know the board has some priorities too that we are challenged with and so I would like to start that earlier this year and have the board discuss and bring up a couple options listen to your options and how we're going to fund that in the future okay all right thank you any other inquiries seeing none we'll go to public participation chairman we have three speakers John nutton first Alisa Macintosh second and John horbass third okay if you all would make your way down we'll try to get you all through here as quick as we possibly can if you would step up to the podium up here sir I'm sorry and uh give us your name and address for the record sure uh uh Mr Z my name is John Newton KN nut and that's all right uh I'll give you my uh business address of 91 SL way Sanford Florida yes please thank you sir uh I'm here today uh concerning our budget requests in particular our requests for $976,000 maintenance utilities and securities of facilities for the trial courts public defender offices State Attorney's offices and offices of the clerks performing Court related functions the fora Constitution spells out clearly that it's the County's responsibility to fund the costs of sieges in each County kerk's operation of this critical sieges system came to light when Co struck in March of 2020 without the judicial viewer and the judicial paperless workflow criminal justice would have failed in this County the clerk is requesting funding for continued operation and maintenance of this sieges system so that Public Safety can be ensured this County's OB the County's obligation to fund sieges was recently confirmed by the second district court of appeal in the Pasco County case involving clerk Sal Alvarez SS in that case the Pasco County uh BCC took the position that they were not required to fund sieges but they did so anyways with putting on the record that they believe they did did not have to do so the Pasco County Clerk sued and the second DCA held that the BCC in Pasco County was indeed required to fund sies cost in the county specifying that the counties have funding obligations pertaining to sieges systems which continue even after replacement of existing Systems and Technology in closing the clerk's request for $976,000 Article 5 sieges funding is vital and necessary to our ability to continue to ensure Public Safety under the Constitution and re in recent case law BCC is required to fund such systems and we would request that the BCC fund our ask this year thank you Mr Newton um or I've got some questions along those lines and I'm perhaps some of my fellow Commissioners may as well um specifically identify in detail what Public Safety is going to be jeopardized if this is not funded okay so the SI systems in our County assist judges uh with the paperless workflow that they have where they can enter orders where they can receive uh Communications um as well as our case mainten systems so uh when people are arrested uh everything is processed through our computers um and we are a necessary backbone and we work in partnership with the state attorney's office as well as well as the sheriff to ensure that criminal cases are processed efficiently and correctly through our County okay and that's currently being done yes sir okay and tell us about your trust funds how much money remain in these trust funds I believe approximately $5 million okay and when do you intend to spend that money down it's the the trust funds have been allocated towards future uh towards upgrades of our case maintenance systems in the future so the monies have been allocated I can't give an exact date of when they'll be spent down um okay so your $2 fund fee yes sir is supposed to fund the CES system is it not it it can supp it's an easy answer it's a simple yes or no no okay so you're saying it does not no okay and why does it not because it's the County's responsibility to fund sieges okay if we could go to the county attorney real quick if you would speak to that Madam attorney the $4 service charge collected by the clerk is divided amongst three parties the county gets $2 of that which is required to be spent on sieges it's my understanding that has been allocated towards sies and the statute provides that as long as the county maintains this responsibility to pay for these technology related costs it's not required to allocate any additional funds beyond the $2 share that it receives from those service charges thank you so with that explanation am I to assume that what you're actually saying is the $2 fee is not capable of paying for what you all desire to do yes sir okay and let's talk about this $182 that that we gave you all last year for special projects2 182,000 182,000 yeah um you asked us for additional money last year we gave you $182,000 for special projects only to learn during this budget session that that $182 in fact had not been spent for the special projects instead were spent on operations as well as personnel so I ask you in your office as the auditor general for this County who audits your office when it comes to those kinds of funding I'd have to defer to I think it's I think the answer is these five members here okay so to be clear it's somewhat disingenuous to be asking for these funds when we're already funding it number one and number two when we've already had the discussion that were happy and willing to fund these projects but that said when we did fund the project the money was not spent as indicated instead it was diverted somewhere else my position is we're happy to fund whatever projects that the county may need and our partners need as long as there is a viable and direct Nexus of a business argument of the benefit of that and I know we've talked in the budget hearings about you all building your own software versus off-the-shelf software and quite frankly in this commissioner's opinion we don't have to fund first class tickets we have an obligation to fund a passengers ticket and if if that does not suit the need of the clerk and the Judiciary as far as the functions of the sheriff and everyone else then I would expect them to come in and tell us hey this is a problem so I I I'm sorry you're in this position but the reality is that's the lens I'm viewing this from so any other comments from the commission commissioner lockart I'll just say I think you summed it up beautifully thank you thank you and commissioner her I would simply add that I don't think there was anything any new revelation based on what we talked about tonight either it was this was all discussed and rehashed in the budget sessions and and so there's nothing new that happened here for those of you that are here that weren't in the budget sessions was all discussed the funding is available through the trust funds that are held the systems aren't going to shut down over the next year if we don't do this it's simply a we haven't come to a meeting of the minds in terms of how we create a sustainable systematic way to continue those systems with in-house programmers and we continue to need to have that discussion we do appreciate you being here tonight thank you commissioner so just if I can confirm that our 97611 has been removed from the budget yes thank you absolutely we we sincerely appreciate you being here and I my expectation so that the public understands this our sheriff and Judiciary are very involved in public safety make no mistake if our Sheriff felt there was a public safety issue or a judici felt there was a public safety issue I assure you my phone and everyone on this di phone would be blowing up that's not happening um so with that said we sincerely appreciate you being here on behalf of the uh the comproller and the clerk of the courts and uh hopefully we continue down the road of doing the best for the citizens of this County thank thank you very much appreciate your time thank you thank you all Miss Co next please Alicia McIntosh Miss Macintosh welcome good evening good evening um I have a question name and address for the record please good Lord adjust that any way you'd like it's Alyssa macking toosh I live at 864 banana Lake Road that's the fruit um so before I ask my question I have uh I'd like to preface with a couple of comments and the first is to say that I am not unsophisticated enough to think that what I say tonight is going to make any difference at all um secondly I did not make it to the meeting last night because I was in budget session with the organization for which I work because it is budget season so I was unable to go and make my say what I wanted to say there but I get one tax bill I don't get a bill for school and a bill I get one tax bill so and I want to say before I ask my question I believe in paying taxes I think it's important to support schools I don't have kids I the fire department does a wonderful job the police department does a wonderful job you guys do but and there's always a but I want to know why it's okay for a year-over-year increase to be at minimum 24% and at maximum 31% because I write a budget for myself every year house insurance let's not talk about that craziness um house taxes I did not budget 31% increase that's nuts if I wrote that in the budget for the healthcare organization I work for I probably well I probably wouldn't have a job so help me out here I mean I I'm happy to pay taxes and I will obviously pay this bill and and hope that it does what it's supposed to do but this feels like bad planning to me so to answer your question there is a statutory cap it's not 31% it's based on property values our property appraiser is here he could he most elegantly could explain that if you well my my market value went up by 21% on paper I can tell you that is not accurate at all but I get one bill I'm sure I can't be the only Homer I know I'm not I've talked to my neighbors who look at this and go 30% that's crazy can someone help her because right Mr could you come up our property appraiser can I'm assuming there's probably multiple taxing Authorities on that bill there are multiple P so this is probably a better offline conversation to be quite Frank with you I suspect you have a specific situation uh because I don't or if you're a new homeowner I don't if I'm not a new homeowner I've lived there for 24 years again let us have an offline conversation about what's happening with your property values because this board unfortunately cannot do anything to affect what's going on with you but we have staff here we will go by outside and have this conversation okay okay and David reminder also about the reminder also about the value adjustment we're pretty sure he's going to cover all that all of this I I truly do I get one bill we understand that right one bill we I pay it at one time so all these different things that are on there all add up to that understood and and ma'am please understand we only control the county side we don't control the school School Board we don't control the Water Management District exactly what we stated early on but our our fine property appraise will be happy to explain I hear you and and from the point of view of the average homeowner on the street and I can tell you I'm not a special case everybody on the streets experien the same thing including including all of us sitting here including all of you sitting there well then in that case let's try and do something different so people can plan for that sure I'm going to retire Next Year yay 235 days okay ma'am we're going to wrap you up but I will assure you that that we are doing plenty to assure that we are cutting pennies to the Bone at this County Commissioner lockart yeah I I do think it would be important to have um once Mr Johnson has an opportunity to to speak with this resident um to have an explanation public explained of what the situation was because we all got this got our tax bill that's relevant to our personal situation and and um my taxes did not go up 30% so I want to make sure that I understand what's going on and I don't want anyone else in the community to have the impression that taxes have gone up 30% so right we need we need to have um a follow up on it sure absolutely we could we could bring that back at the next hearing our home system well we could even have it maybe before we wrap up tonight yeah m co another Speaker John Horvath Mr Horvath yes Mr chair welcome back for your is it the 18th or 19th year no a little more than that is it well it's good to see you sir good to be seen at my age John Horvat 2004 Bradford Drive winart Florida I was listening to him say you have a billion dollar budget I was coming to these budget hearings when they were $250 million budget so as you can see how it's gone up by the way I was born and raised here folks uh let's talk about I was glad to hear Darren say that you're going to do a lot of Maintenance and up upscales for Parks and Recreation I understand the parks are much busier since Co and they I don't know when some of them have been upgraded so you know they get a lot of wear and tear and I need know you need to maintain your water and sewer I'm on a county system that the county bought in 75 and you know 50-year-old system it's like me we got a lot of aches and pains and lift stations that need to be fixed and I was here for a hearing that uh couple months ago the lift station the main one going in needed to be completely redone which I agree with CU you just can't keep throwing Parts on something and make it work it'll be more efficient with the newer one also I saw in the budget that you're planning a medical examiners office is that correct Mr chairman we we are contemplating that's still in the in the planning stages there's a lot of moving Parts there I understand that I think this County with a half nearly half a million population we should be able to have our own medical examiner I know it's a bad time for people when they have to go I don't know who's doing it for you now Lake County of Valia to to do it but to have somebody drive all the way up there to identify a body or whatever it's very difficult I've lost two wives so I've been little twice so I've been through a lot stuff but I think the county needs to look at that to serve the taxpayers cuz you got a half a million to to serve also they need to always I always said to maintain the infrastructure here and I'm glad to hear that and of course the fire department is one of my my big big favorites cuz I was a fireman back back in the day and uh remember what it was like then and today what we have and all the good equipment we have and first alarm response so the county works together with the other cities and I'm glad to see that cuz I know there's some areas as you all aware of they they fight all the time and uh you know my tax dollar needs to be stretched out just like everybody else's so uh I watch your budgets and uh it's always been tight and sometimes too tight but you can't be too tight and don't be afraid if you got money in the budget to go ahead and either fix the fix the water and sewer system or if you need to build a fire station get it going because if you you're not serving the people if that's needed in an area where it's there's a station Gap so uh that's what I'm looking at so thank you Mr chairman thank you John for being here tonight thank you very kindly miss coun any additional speakers no sir okay we do commissioner we do have a written comment uh if you would read their name and read the uh substance did you want me to read through the comment uh tell you what just if you'll just pass it read it and just pass it to the clerk and we'll pass it through the the written comment is from Kathy Moore of Longwood Florida okay she is writing in um relation to the county Street lighting msbu and solid waste msbu funds I think we have all our offices have all probably seen these email chains I have reviewed them all so I don't need it past my all the way down here unless something's changed what if it's something nothing new I just checked it on my phone I will mention that the tentative budget presented includes $175,000 cash carry forward in the streetlight msbu fund and $2.5 million cash carry forward in the solid waste msbu fund um we believe that the FY 25 budget uh is are stable for both of those funds okay the general concerns are about the level of the assessments to ensure that they can cover the expenditures correct well the cost of utilities I'm not surprised uh they've gone through the roof and a lot of these are street light generated uh costs um any additional public input Miss Co no sir seeing none we'll close public comment and go to board Mr chairman thank you very much Tim does the 1.09 five include the $4 million of requested new dollars today I couldn't hear you down here commissioner Constantine I'm sorry I said does the one point 095 1 billion 95 million include the $4 million additional that we've talked about that you talked about earlier no it does not that would be added as a second public hearing adjustment for consideration at the second public hearing right so we're not going to add it tonight okay only um so I'm going to make a motion to adopt the 2425 tenative budget is adjusted of 1.09 5.09 7.79 nine second motion second any discussion seeing none all those in favor I oppos like sign carries unanimous all right the next date for our second public hearing will be to adopt the county Mig and budget will be scheduled for Tuesday September 24th 2024 at 5:30 here in the BCC Chambers the meeting is hereby adjourned thank you all very much for attending [Music] for [Music] I [Music]