Brevard County Board of County Commissioners

• Item b.

  Tourism Development

  approved - Peter Cranis, Tourism Development Director, stated that he is going to spend a little time looking at Tourist Development Tax (TDT) collections as well as activities that impact that, starting with a historic slide going back to 2010 to see TDT collections have fluctuated between $8 and $10 million until about 2014 and 2015 when they really went on a fast upward trajectory; in 2019 hit a previous high of $16 million and then it dips in 2020, that was the impact of COVID and they lost about $3 million in TDT; they calculate that, that represents about $250 million in lost visitor spending that year, a lot of the industry as well as jobs were impacted tremendously by that year; last year they had a very interesting year a bit of a roller coaster and he will show on the next slide what happened; they landed $16.9 million; $900,000 ahead of the previous high only two years earlier and it was a pretty incredible turnaround; and he is going talk a little about what led to that. He went on to say in Fiscal Year 2021 it was really a tale of two years from October of 2020 to February of 2021, they were down about 28 percent and that matched the previous year pretty well, as far as being down about that much; but starting in March of 2021 all the way through September, they had an incredible growth of revenues over 90 percent so 92 percent revenue increase and a lot of the factors that led to that are thought a heavy desire for people to have outdoor experiences, return to traveling a lot of people had not taken trips the prior year, they ran a significant marketing campaign last year, and they believe from all the tracking numbers that had an incredible impact. He added they also had another factor and they are continuing to see this 16 percent increase in hotel inventory so as more inventory is added that certainly adds to the base of TDT, and they will see that continuing probably for another couple of years actually; for this Fiscal Year Year 2021-2022 they budgeted $15 million, certainly they are not sure at the time when they are doing the budgeting where they would potentially land but they do think there is a good likelihood that they will not only exceed the budget but exceed the prior $16.9 million actual; they think they are on track to do that; the only concern right now that they are tracking is with all the new other states and other destinations that are opening up, are they going have as strong as summer as they had last summer; and he does not know if it will be quite at the 2022 level and that is the only cautionary right now. He stated the next chart is interesting because it breaks down how TDT gets allocated and he is looking forward to the potential for a $17 million budget in 2022-2023, they can see how all the five pennies breakdown; the first section is the first two pennies and it is about $3.4 million per penny, $6.8 million per penny for the first two pennies, advertising represents 25 percent of that which is $1.7 million, beach improvement is 30 percent that gets about $2 million, capital facilities just under $2.4 million, and then cultural and each penny from there can be seen; the third cent includes additional beach revenues, the zoo gets a percentage, tourist information center gets a percentage, the fourth penny pulls some money from there to cover needs for the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) contract that is a contracted amount that they have to keep in reserve, and then the rest goes to marketing; and the fifth cent is 100 percent to marketing, they can see how they break out if they end with a $17 million budget there. He added looking forward for future projections, he mentioned 16 percent growth of having nearly another 1800, hotel rooms projected through 2023 that is another 16 to 17 percent growth on top of the base, that would bring them over to 12,350 hotel rooms; and additionally, there is about 3,900 vacation rentals that they track and that has grown, that used to be about 25 percent of the total TDT collections, now it is representing close to a third of collection, and that is an area that has grown significantly as well and they can see that in consumer travel patterns. He explained some of the other areas that he thinks will contribute significantly to the growth is Port Canaveral which is the second largest cruise port in the United States by the end of this year they are expecting a home port 13 ships, there is a couple more ships coming in and that will generate in excess of $2 million passengers every year; the airport has done a nice job of bringing in some outside operators United Kingdom Tour Operator (TUI) they own airlines, cruise lines, and resorts all over the world, they are bringing in direct service from the UK about 150,000 passengers this year but he expects the seven year contract to significantly grow; Allegiant Air is one of the new domestic carriers they just added three new markets and they have been talking with them about potentially adding more to that; he thinks the future is bright, but if there is a pullback in the economy they will be impacted just like every other destination; and but he believes they are well positioned as a destination to weather any storm.

  • Brevard County Board of County Commissioners — Minutes
• Item c.

  Human Resources

  approved - Mr. Visco, Human Resources Director, stated he wants to give an organizational overview of some of the key areas in the Human Resource world and give situational awareness on some of the key components that they are having to deal with these days; he is going to start by giving a little bit of history with the group health plan and end with some discussion about the trend where he thinks group health is going to be going over the next couple of years; then he will move into the personal management area and talk about vacancies, overtime, and the compensation issue; and lastly, he will wrap-up with a conversation about recruiting and retention efforts with some of the things that are trying to do to address the issues that they are going to be brought up this afternoon. He stated he will start with group health and show a little bit of history of the employer premiums over the last several years even with the two percent increase in employer premium they took this year 2022 they are still 6.5 percent below the premiums that they were generating in 2017; if they look back one more year to 2016 they are 10 percent below where they were at height in 2016; the numbers for right now is $918 per employee, per month and generating about $11,000 per employee per year an employer premium, it is a fair amount of money and what that is fairly consistent funding levels over the last several years and they are in $50 million range for premiums there are fluctuations based upon rebates and recoveries, some of this changes in time when they are pharmacy rebates that accounts for some of the change. He mentioned looking at the premium line very consistently, because looking at that while the premiums have been consistent, expenses have not, the trend at the bottom of the page show where they have moved from generating positive revenue to starting to run losses over the last two years; they just ended the Fiscal Year 2021 with a $4.2 million expenses over revenue deficit; they are seeing a trend on this chart of blue bars line is representing membership, there is a slight decrease in the membership; the red bar line is a reflection of the expenses medical and pharmacy; the green represents the premium; he pointed out the obvious gap between revenue and expenses that is fairly obvious but the startling component of this is the dramatic move in the red claims line in the latter half of last year and to date that is a significant bump in expense, and that has significantly driven the trends; right now trends is running at about eight percent a year, significantly higher if looking at the last couple of months. He stated he is not entirely sure what they are looking at here, that it could be the result of delayed care, the care that is being put off during the pandemic, it could be COVID related bounce, the expenses they are seeing in COVID is more than likely a combination of the two of those that are driving the numbers for the last 12 months; in looking at dollars in regards to a calendar year or in the plan year basis they can see the revenue, there is some minor fluctuation in the revenue as he explained earlier that is a result of some of the recoveries; the component that he wants to focus on is making projections for the current year 2022 based on a couple of factors. by projecting a 4.5 percent increase in revenue in the fourth quarter of this year October, November, and December if they get a premium increase equal to that they will realize those dollars in the latter part of this year; for the claim side they are using a six percent trend and that is a fairly conservative estimate; right now Pricewaterhouse, national firm is projecting 6.5 percent, and like he said earlier they are running about eight percent right now depending on how claims play out positively or negatively the projections can change dramatically but based on a six percent trend they are looking at almost a $10 million expense over revenue deficit by the end of this year. He added the good news is they are still financially solvent, they have a lot reserve, they are able to absorb that, and try to use some of that; reserve the philosophy has been to use that reserve to offset some of the increase, sort of dampen the blow so they did not have to come forward; and ask for a huge rate increases they will continue to erode reserve on a gradual basis and hopefully it will stem that trend with modest premium increases as they move forward that is the plan; he hopes that they can maintain that as they move forward into the next couple of years; but he wished he could project that further out than that but given the volatility and claim is very difficult to get beyond a year or two with those numbers. Mr. Abbate commented going back two slides, in terms of things that have happened from 2017 and what is seen, especially when looking at the expense numbers is what has happened over time, and the medical trend has been rather good when they were spending close to $40 million in Fiscal Year 2017-2018 and it is 43.5, in 2021 that is really a modest trend over that period of time; during that same period of time the administrative costs, because of efforts that have happened went down significantly and they can see that there by almost 50 percent; the pharmacy costs which has been happening to other employers as well went up very significantly higher on a percentage basis and that is something that Mr. Visco talked about; while they got rebates that offsets a little bit of it but the overall expenses were significantly higher; it is an area they have to pay particular attention to because of where they were over a number of years when they go back to what Mr. Visco was talking about in terms of the analysis that is done by paid claims and where they were for the last few years and the reserve balance; they needed $14 million they have this past year $33 million, and that has given the flexibility not to do what would otherwise be a much greater increases, but that cannot last indefinitely and that is really why they have to go at the least the 4.5 percent. He advised they will wait to see what the Board has to say in terms of needing more time to do more than that; they will not need it for next year, but laying the ground work for how much of a loss they are going to take the following year and eventually if they have to make up $12 or $14 million in a year, that is not going to be possible to do; one of the things they will have to do is look at the plan design and other alternatives, as shown earlier very steady from an employer and employee perspective; they were able to do that for a variety of reasons and one of them was also the shift because of things they did differently that the Board did, as it relates to retirees and the burdens that they carry in terms of fully insured programs that are available, in a nutshell that is really where they are where they are with the health plan now. Commissioner Lober stated he is concerned in terms of the ending reserve balance that they have had over the recent past; he appreciates the thought that they can use a portion of that to dampen the increases that they have to pass along, but his concern is that is not sustainable indefinitely; it is hard to analogize Solid Waste, Fire Rescue, and Utilities to this, but in some ways he does not want to perpetuate a trend that is going to saddle folks that come after them to have to do something even less popular, disruptive, and hurtful because they did not do the right thing on the front end; he does not know as what degree to be mindful of that going into this coming year; he thinks there needs to be some plan moving forward and he would be receptive to that so, that they do not drive that into zero; and the other thing that goes unsaid, at least as far as this particular slide is concerned is the value of $23 million or $37 million, any of those numbers as they move down the line keeps getting eroded by inflation and costs going up; $23 million in 2011 is not $23 million in 2022, and it will not be $23 million in 2033; it is a concern; and he thinks they should have some sort of plan moving forward whatever staff has as far as thoughts on that whether it is appropriate for today or down the road he would very interested in them. Mr. Visco stated he agrees with Commissioner Lober; he added as Mr. Abbate has illustrated, they know that this is not sustainable and there is a definite need to generate additional revenue to offset that trend; they can hope that the medical trend turns, but they know the dynamics in the marketplace right now; and they talked about pharmacy for example biosimilar medications, specialty medications, and genetically engineered medications that is only going to continue and continue to drive the costs, and make up a more significant portion of their spend year after year. Mr. Abbate stated for purposes of the workshop is really what is critical for staff, is to understand where the Board wants them to be going because like the one thing that he mentioned earlier is they are going to be talking about projections of what they think the potential revenue increases are and what they are anticipating the growth of what the expenses are going to be and when he gives those numbers to the Board at the end of the day, they are going to be trying to do what they have done in the past several years which is no tax increase that is statutorily defined as a tax increase unless the Board tells them otherwise; they are going to give the numbers today to tell the Board exactly where they anticipate things would be if they address the things that staff think, and Board agrees if it does are the most important things to fund and hearing what it has to say if they have to make alternative changes to how they are going to fund services, programs, or dedicate whatever resources are available they are going to have to figure that out between now and when they submit the budget based on the input given today; and that maybe one of the considerations they will hear today which is dampen what is going to happen most likely in group health insurance moving forward and they will make the appropriate adjustments. Commissioner Smith stated that was his thought when talking about what they are anticipating this year, he would think it would be prudent for them as a Board to encourage staff to decrease the losses in the first year, as opposed to trying to hold the cost in the interest of the employees, and they can either rob Peter this year or they can rob him next year; if they do a little bit this year then next year they do not have to do as much; and of course next year they will have a better picture of where they are going to be going forward; and that would be his suggestion to moderate that upwards. Mr. Visco understands; he stated that is staff’s thought as well; and moderate with increases over a period of time and using the buffer that the reserve affords them to allow that to happen as opposed to what Mr. Abbate was mentioning is they had to make up a 20 to 30 percent deficit at one time, that is way too big of an ask on both the employer of the employee side. Commissioner Smith remarked he agrees. Commissioner Pritchett suggested as she knows they are still settling in from the after COVID effects which she is guessing they had less expenses as far as surgical procedures, the medications that had to be given out to probably more people and she would like to see how this settles later but, a thought might be working on increasing employee salaries instead of doing that maybe start covering this and keeping this reserve at a good spot because this is a non-taxable benefit. Mr. Visco replied to Commissioner Pritchett that there has always been a trade-off there between the they put on the benefit side versus the they put on the salary side. Commissioner Pritchett thinks that would be a good solution, to cover more of this because then they will have more disposable income, and that might be something as they move forward; she would be open to that thought but they already come up with these ideas anyways. She mentioned remembering when she first got on and Mr. Abbate was giving this presentation, he said they have a lot in reserves, but they are going to have to end up using them later; she is not shocked with this number; and she thanked staff for all it does because she knows they are really on top of it. Chair Zonka stated that as part of their job and part of Mr.Visco’s job is to make sure that the employees are aware, it is one thing to put out a spreadsheet or look at total cost of employer costs for benefits, but maybe explanation, this is what the plan is costing the County and they are providing as the employer of what the employee cost is; it is very black and white, two numbers, and they understand that there is cost; it is not the County saying they cover more than they do; it is the County saying this is their total contribution because of the value of a paycheck she thinks that would help people understand; and she thinks people are really surprised because a lot of people do not know what the cost is per employee for health coverage. Commissioner Lober stated something to be mindful of potentially is folks that go into the government line of work as opposed to private industry, knowing that the average salaries are somewhat lower, but understanding that there is a benefit associated with that as well in the form of in this case subsidized health insurance; over and above what is already been said by the other Commissioners, he believes apples to apples if he were working any of a variety of different jobs here, from his perspective he would rather have the health insurance be easier to afford even if that means he had a lower salary as a result. Mr. Visco understands; he stated that is great feedback; he discussed personal management and he reminded staff of the makeup of the workforce; they are just under 2,400 employees at the moment, over 600 is what they consider the blue-collar workforce, another 560 in the Fire Rescue, and the remaining 1,200 employees make up the balance of the workforce; what is being seen inside that workforce is vacancies; it is interesting when they looked at establishing an average monthly vacancy count and they seen significant consistency from 2019 and 2020; but then the movement was seen and it was very significant in the latter part of 2020 and throughout 2021. He mentioned the current average is 348.8 vacancies per month through 2021, it is very significant; they can see where they blew up the trend just a little bit for 2021, the increase in the latter half of the year is a very disturbing trend; to put some perspective on this historically, and they have data going back 15 to 20 years, historically the County’s vacancy trend has been running at around 10 percent; they are running a little bit above trend and the impact is significant in several departments and they wanted to focus on those departments that are seeing the most significant vacancies, the number can be seen on the board with Public Works leading the pack at the moment with almost 22 percent vacancy rate; and they have a nice cluster in the 17 to 18 percent range with Transit Services, Parks and Recreation Planning and Development, Utility Services, and Solid Waste comes in at 15.6 percent, after that then Housing and Human Services, and the good news is the bottom of the page with Fire Rescue coming in at about 8.3 percent which is a significant turnaround from where they have been in the last couple of years. Mr. Abbate pointed out this impacts a variety of different areas that they are going to be talking about; he wants the Board to be very clear on one point, which is if they looked over historically what happened over time, there was vacancies that occurred where departments tried to keep positions open because they had to, because the lack of funding; none of this is because of lack of funding or not available resources; but it is inability to fill the positions with qualified people, which is a different reasons and is more disturbing because they cannot provide the service, and it is taxing the other employees who are here because they cannot fill the vacancies. He mentioned it is for a lot of different reasons than when they had that 10 percent in the past; was it really 10 percent or were some departments trying to save some money in the personnel side to use for other things that they had to do where they did not have the resources, where resources were somewhat more limited; and here it is because there is actually the departments in a lot of areas, some of the ones seen here are struggling to fill what are otherwise fairly critical positions, and the Board is going to hear more about that as they move along, Chair Zonkaif they thought about doing a career or job fair. Mr. Visco replied several; and he stated he will get into that in a few minutes. Mr. Abbate stated there are slides on that because it is an important aspect. Chair Zonka state she would be happy to push it on her social media as well. Mr. Abbate stated absolutely and they have several slides on that. Commissioner Lober asked Mr. Visco with respect to these vacancies whether it is across the board in particular departments or are they tending to see that they are spread fairly evenly throughout the Districts across the 72 - plus miles, or are there clusters whether in Merritt Island or Mims or having more issues in particular areas. Mr. Visco answered that he honestly has not done that deep of a dive to break it down geographically but his gut tells him they are across the board. John Denninghoff, Assistant County Manager, stated how it works in Utility Services it is across the board, there is fluctuations of course but it is pretty much across the board; with Solid Waste those are very centralized, it does not really apply there; but it is definitely just all over the place. Mr.Abbate added not only geographically but also interestingly across the organization from blue collar right through professional positions; it is cutting across and not only in one area geographically or type of position, and they see that when they are going out to stores; he mentioned he went the other day and saw how many restaurants are closed because they do not have the staffing for it, so it is cutting across a variety of sectors; but it is hitting them across a variety within all skilled craft positions, professional engineers, and administrative support which they have seen it in a variety of different areas. Commissioner Smith concurred that with his contacts in the community of business that it is across the board, he does not care if it is waitresses, cooks, engineers, construction supervisors and construction workers; it is like they are not out there; he does not understand it; but he went through the same thing he thinks it was back in 2008/2009 when people could not find employees and he does not know what the solution, is they are just not out there. Mr. Abbate stated that he does not want to steal the thunder, but staff spent a lot of time on this presentation and there is several slides coming up that Mr. Visco will address all the issues just talked about in the last three to five minutes. Commissioner Pritchett stated not that they have read ahead and know that stuff but she thinks of an interesting phrase that was pegged out there that 2021 was the great year of the resignation; and she thanked staff for finding competitive ways to create and to be competitive for the workforce because it is definitely a lot of work right now to get people back to work. Mr.Visco stated they wanted to touch on one of the more significant impacts of these vacancies, it is the impact on overtime; they looked back over the last five years and it is interesting the departments that they singled out here with the exception of Mosquito Control, every one of these departments showed as the leaders on the vacancy report, and there is a correlation there; they can see the dollars there have been averaging $9.5 million a year in overtime; and as a result they can see where the breakdowns are and who the big players are, these are significant dollars that if not spent in overtime could be better used elsewhere, and it is a question for them to answer. He continued with the conversation about compensation and he wanted to remind them of all the conversations they had last year on minimum wage compliance and giving some updated information from where they were a year ago; they have a year in under the new statutory requirements for minimum wage and they have given four options to consider as they go forward; if all they do is meet the statutory requirements for minimum wage and nothing else, the investment is very minimal in the in the nears years, but looking towards getting point of full compliance in Fiscal Year 2026/2027 they will need to have invested another $2.1 million just to meet statutory minimums and in doing so if that is all they accomplish they will have significant wage compression and maybe even some wage inversion as those minimum wage jobs overtake some of the other positions in the organization, so to combat that staff will give three other options. He went on to say if they met the minimum wage requirements and proceeded with a two percent Cost - of - Living Adjustment (COLA) for example, they would need just over $2 million next year and over $11.5 million to get to full compliance if they maintain that approach; that does a lot to meeting compression but they are still going to have some significant compression in the later years a few will have to address; to avoid compression entirely they will give everybody the new minimum wage and a dollar an hour to every other employee, that was one of the options he thinks the Board had asked to see the last time they had this conversation; and they can see the investment that needs to be made to accomplish that. He explained they came up with a final option to say what if they just did the greater of a dollar an hour or three percent to employees, that would clearly take care of any compression issues get them to meet all statutory requirements, but the investment is extremely significant. Mr. Abbate pointed out a couple of things; first, this does not include Fire Rescue because they are under a contract so they have already received what they had going, it is not for the 2,400 employees, it is minus those 500 it is for 1,900; this does not address the charter officers and this is not just the General Fund cost, employees, and this is for those 1900 employees of what would happen; as they develop the budget and do other things, but they had to give some kind of benchmark to the Board to give them an idea and he will tell them that option number four is where they are trying to go, because it is important for a variety of areas and things when they have across the board problems of getting to that three percent; they can see the difference, between a dollar an hour and three percent, there is very little difference, but he can the Board tell the Board filling positions at the professional engineering, the Director Level and Assistant Director Senior which they are going to hear a lot about succession planning today, finding people for positions, and the salary scales; they cannot go out in the market they are really struggling to find people who are willing to come within the organization; not doing as much as they can do and that is where they have to balance what they do on the benefit side with the compensation side, because if they do not have them here, they will not come with the compensation keeping them with the benefits, and they cannot get there; and they have to balance it in a way so they are going to be listening very intently to what they have to tell them as they go through those numbers. Commissioner Smith stated that he does not disagree and obviously they have to be competitive in the marketplace with what they are paying; he does not think there is an easy answer; and he is not sure that they could not put a bigger number on this and still solve the lack of employee. Mr. Abbate agreed; he stated Commissioner Smith is absolutely right because he is not so sure that salary in itself would solve the issue, wherever they go with the salaries, because it is not necessarily that; they dealt with that with Waste Management when they were dealing with issues with drivers and what they were willing to pay, etcetera, which is way above where they could ever be with comparable positions of that nature; and they still struggled for a significant period of time. Commissioner Pritchett stated she thinks to help them make this decision, they are going to need that four-year trajectory because every year for the next four years this has got to bump up; the minimum is going to hit $15 soon; and her question would be if they keep doing three percent with the dollar, she needs to know in another four or five years it is even affordable. Mr. Abbate informed the Board it is the second number on each one. Mr. Visco indicated it is roughly $4.5 million a year and that will call out to that. Commissioner Pritchett stated then her other questions will make her sound smarter; she asked if they were going to be able to sustain this because with this, she knows they have to do the Florida Retirement System (FRS) matches and all the other things, but just moving forward into the years she asked Mr. Abbate if he thinks in the budget they are going to be able to make this sustainable, she stated she knows there is a service organization and people are number one of importance; and she asked what is the amount of increases they have been able to give employees since they got on. Mr. Abbate stated that is in a future slide and they have that for Commissioner Pritchett. Mr. Visco continued to say with regards to compensation and how that affects the retention efforts, as a reminder a couple years ago they engaged in an Evergreen Salary Study where they targeted key positions in an effort to become more competitive in specific areas and job descriptions; there was also some fallout from that, they dealt with compression that came as a result of the Evergreen Study, there has been some movement there; in addition, they have done a number of reclassifications and they have been pushing the notion of career ladder development so they can afford some vertical movement for folks in lieu of waiting for vacancies to get promotions; he is going to discuss career ladders in a minute, but to show them how they have been unable to keep up with inflation just looking at it they are looking at a 12-year history of COLA it is worth pointing out Fiscal Year 2011/2012 with the negative numbers there; and they actually gave a 2.5 percent COLA in Fiscal Year 2011/2012, but that was the same year FRS took three percent from employees. He went on to say the net result of that was a loss of one-half percent to actual paychecks over the 12 years; they can see the numbers there at the bottom of the page, they are looking at a cumulative 22.86 percent CPI against the 17.3 percent COLA; if they look back another two years because they went without COLA’s for quite some time; and if they look back to Fiscal Year 2008/2009 to date the deficit is even more significant and they are looking at almost a 29.5 percent CPI against that 17.3 percent COLA, roughly a 12.6 percent deficit and they have not been able to keep up. Mr. Abbate stated the Board remember what happened during 2008, that is why they did not go back that far with the economy tanking and everybody was struggling they had to have furloughs and did a lot of things to try to keep things going; on the benefit side they have tried to leave things and not increase the cost during these years for employees; the Board had been very sensitive to that, when they were looking at what happened and what is happening with health insurance as benefit; the Board outside of the three percent which the State put on in FRS in Fiscal Year 2011/2012, they have not increase anything for employees in terms of the premiums they pay for themselves or their families; they have tried to maintain that as best they can, they did have some adjustments to the health insurance program, but in terms of the premium increases they tried to leave it flat, especially as they went through this period; and they can see the Board has done a lot, in terms of the COLA and they really have not kept up with it in the 12 year for the reasons that Mr. Visco has spoken about. Commissioner Pritchett asked if they only gave the COLA amounts; she stated she thought they did a little bit better than that last year; and she ask if these amounts are what they actually gave as Commission. Mr. Visco replied yes; and he advised they worked very hard to be sensitive to the fact that they did not want premiums to erode the little bit of COLA they were able to give. Mr. Abbate mentioned that employees did get last year the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) funding for certain things but those were one-time dollars, so they did not included that.

  • Brevard County Board of County Commissioners — Minutes
• Item e.

  Environmentally Endangered Lands Program (EEL)

  approved - Mike Knight, Environmentally Endangered Lands Program Manager, stated his presentation should be fairly short first, he is going to touch on referendum history, program, structure, general facility and land inventory that they currently have, land management activities, program expenses, revenue history expenses, and options for the future; he explained there have been two referendums, the first one in 1990, and the second one was in 2004; the first referendum sunsetted in 2011 at the end of that 20-year cycle; bonding for the referendums respectively was $55 million and $60 million and not all of that was bonded, as they can see on the slide about $45.6 million was bonded of the $55 million and $45 million, was bonded of the $60 million milliage rates were a little different from the two referendums; and the first one was a quarter million, the second one was .2085, and the yellow highlighted areas were intended to highlight the basic language within each of the two ballot languages, which are presented here focusing on acquiring, maintaining the land, and making improvements as necessary. He discussed the programs that are essentially structured into four components they have the management of the lands, environmental education, passive recreation, and land acquisition; the inventory of land, as far as the lands that they are responsible for managing is 19,000 acres that represent about 29 different Sanctuary sites around the County; about 12,000 acres of that are owned by the State of Florida because they were within the Florida Forever project boundaries; about 600 acres are in County ownership, about 1,600 acres are in both County and State ownership, but they are the result of private development develop mitigation projects for offsetting impacts and development projects; some of that was also U.S. Air Force for scrub habitat impacts on the U.S. Air Force Station; and about 340 acres were under Florida Communities Trust Grant which represents Thousand Islands Primarily. He continued to say from public use and facility resources they have three Environmental Education Centers that is the Enchanted Forest in Titusville, Sams House in Merritt Island, and Barrier Island Center in South Melbourne Beach; visitation in 2019 was about 71,000, and in 2020 was about 53,000 that largely had to do with COVID impacts because, centers were closed for some period of time; they also have the EEL Administration Office in Melbourne; they have a maintenance and caretaker house at Maritime Hammock; they have a small Field Station at Hog Point Cove where they have an agreement with Florida Institute of Technology on research primarily out of that site with about 75 miles of terrestrial trails meaning just trails that are on the ground rather than in the water; they have done some camera data analysis on trails and they believe conservatively that there is 150,000 visitors just on the trails by themselves excluding the education centers annually; and about six and one-half miles of paddling trails just primarily Pine Island Conservation Area Thousand Island, and he thinks Crane Creek. He added Land Management primary efforts are fire they have about 158 fire management units and those units are burned on rotation usually anywhere from a three to 10-year cycle; they have about 102 miles of fire line maintenance and those are maintained two to three times a year with a disc harrow tractor, just to keep the lines in a dirt state so fire does not cross them; they have a variety of restoration, and whether it is scrub restoration or hydrologic restoration which usually is ditch restoration where they can do so without causing issues for other people; and they have 75 miles of trails, 49 miles of maintenance roads that they to maintain, 61 miles of fence line, 33 trailheads, and they are also dealing with a lot of exotic species. He stated looking at the expenses this is a quick look at the actual expenses, for 2021 Fiscal Year, and is broken down by administration, education and trails and mitigation/acquisition; they really are not doing any acquisition the only cost here had to do with the Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND) exchange that they did and general land management; there is within that 29 staff overall, 22 are full-time, seven are part-time, 18 of those are field staff, and the rest will be education and administration; and the debt expense for 2021 was the a little over $3 million. He talked about millage history, the 1990 rate compared to the 2004 rate and what the current rate is now, and a graphical look at how that overall millage has fluctuated over the years; he went over a couple graphs that show a comparison between debt and operations revenue and debt operations expenses, the most significant thing is the sharp spike on the bottom graph represents the development of two education centers back at that time that was the Barrier Island Center and the Sams House Education Center, which he believes contributed to that spike; the EEL Referendum is cycling around here in 2024, ending in its second 20-year cycle; options that are available for the Board to consider could be putting a new referendum on the ballot that could take two forms, it could be just a referendum that deals with the maintenance of the lands, and then there could be a scenario where they have additional land acquisition associated with that as well; it could be funded under Parks and Recreation in theory, under its budget, or it could also be funded with additional General Fund which judging by the other presentations would be challenging; and not exploring further options is certainly an option as well. Mr. Abbate stated the reason they brought this forward to the Board is because it ends in 2024; staff would like some planning so it has some opportunity if it was going to go through a referendum and there was some kind of millage for either maintenance or preservation which they just continue doing what they are doing then to do it constantly over time with the millage staying in place year after year they have to do it this year in 2022, because if they do it in 2024 which is when the next general election would be they are going to lose a year; if the Board has no interest in doing referendum then does it want staff to continue maintaining it, they have to figure out where is that going to come and they have to build a budget, that deals with the fact, that Parks and Recreation is going to have to fund it, or when they balance everything else that they were talking about like the General Fund and whatever those additional dollars are, he asked if a portion of that is going to have to come out of the General Fund which then changes the equation for what they would do in all those other areas where there is compensation, employed benefits, and the officers may need, or any other program services that the Board thinks are critical that they want them to be moving on; he advised if none of those three options are there then basically they would be looking to shut down the program and not exploring future funding would mean there is no resources for continuing everything that Mr. Knight was talking about earlier in the slides; and that is why they gave the slide so the Board could see what they are doing, what they are maintaining, and what they are trying to preserve. Commissioner Lober stated as it is written either for the 1990 or the 2004 tax, he does not support either of them; he is not saying he would love anything but he will tell what really is a non-starter for him, as far as the language in those; first, as far as acquiring new land, he does not think his constituents by and large want them spending money doing that; as they have seen cost go up he does not think that is something else that they want to absorb so, if there were something, again, he is not sure if he would support it or not, but he will not support anything that involves acquisition of additional land; if there is something for him to even consider supporting, it would have to be maintenance only; other than that, he thinks given the issues that they have in the recent past with one of the municipal partners over the last several meetings when they have had the Malabar Scrub issue; he thinks they need to have some better wording if they put this back on the ballot; for instance, when they are talking about the goals of it, depending on whether they are using the 1990 or the 2004 language as the basis, when they are talking about acquiring, protecting, and maintaining; obviously, they get rid of acquiring, so it would be protecting and maintaining EEL; when it goes on it and says and making improvements is appropriate for passive recreation and so forth, he thinks before the word making, and after the word and, throw a comma in there or throw in the terms and when not in conflict with these goals, and then throw in passive recreation because he does not think that folks in his district, with all due respect to everyone wants to subsidize passive reaction in each district, and the constituents do not want to subsidize passive recreation in his district but in EEL, if some species that happen to be in another district or someone else district they may be okay with that; and he would look at whatever is brought back but those are few things that he really feels strongly about. Commissioner Smith stated that he has seen people who are very adamant in their support of purchasing and protecting these EEL; he would be in favor of the language if it included purchasing more lands; he thinks that it is really up to the people and that is why they put it on the ballot, let the people decide; they can each have an idea of what they think their people will support, but until they get in the voting booth they really do not know; and given that they have passed with 60 to 70 percent approval in the past, he thinks it is a little presumptuous to assume anything at this point that people would not be supportive, but it all depends on the wording and how it is put on the ballot. Commissioner Lober stated he does not know that there is ever an opportunity to give them necessarily a choice among two options, where one involves acquisition and the other does not; he was not in Brevard in 1990 he was in Seminole County at the time; he does not think they were given a choice between just protecting and maintaining because there was nothing required to protect and maintain at that point; but at this point, since they have it, he has no problem looking to see what their preference is, but again, anecdotally, he has seen what he has seen. Commissioner Pritchett stated she would in favor of trying to get the funds to keep it maintained, they have a lot of acreage right now; her concern is watching this over the years the incredible cost it takes to maintain these lands once they get them and it is on Board, so even if they did not put it back on the ballot, now they have to come up with General Fund funds to try to support the properties; she would have to have someone come up and show a real need of an endangered property right now, with something specific for her to want to pick up more property at this point, just because of the expense they are seeing right now, and especially with the property they are having to fix with the Scrub Jays; it is a good thought and feeling, but when she looks at the numbers of how many acreages they already owned, she thinks it is kind of substantial; but if somebody came up with something and said they have something, she would really have to be sold on specific place right now to try to get them more inventory that they have to maintain. Chair Zonka stated she thinks she has been very vocal on the acquisition and the maintenance being the priority; however, her concern is and maybe the compromise with where Commissioner Lober and Commissioner Smith are sitting, and assuming is that the maintenance is being kept up and then they can acquire, if it is feasible that those costs will not exceed that or make it, or not make them be able to maintain what they have; she does not know how to put that in legalese because people do overwhelmingly support the EELS program, they support what they are doing, and whether they are passive recreation fan or a Scrub Jay fan it does not matter; she thinks that it is up to people and they will have the opportunity to vote on it, but she thinks there could be some language assuming they can find a way to balance the budget before being able to do the maintenance before acquiring; additional property, which she would be okay with; she would hate to close that door only because they may have an opportunity to acquire some land at a very good rate or to even accept donated land; that is concerning to her; but she believes they definitely needs to put it back on the ballot and she is all for that, because she believes that people feel very strongly about it. Commissioner Smith stated the key is in the wording to cover the cost; maintenance is extremely important because he remembers back in 1990, it did not provide for him maintenance, and they were trying to take the maintenance out of the cost of the purchasing; and he thinks the wording has to include maintenance. Chair Zonka mentioned the Malabar Scrub Jay issue has been sort of unique; they have not run into a problem like this before; she reminded the Board that their argument may be passive recreation and they are not denying anybody passive recreation, they just want a certain type of passive recreation; hopefully, they can come up with a solution and maybe moving the trail works; but she thinks that will open up another can of worms just speaking on that item for people that do not want that trail moved. She reiterated as long as they are not denying that passive recreation then they do not have to worry about that in her opinion, it is always going to be up to the EELs Committee, and it will always be up to the Board; that is sort of where the buck stops; she would definitely want to make sure that it is up to the Board, as far as direction goes; she has always said she wants maintenance, she wants to be able to maintain what they have so they can protect that land, and protect the species that are designed with some of those protected lands; and she definitely wants it back on the ballot. She explained that she does have public comment cards, but it is about what has been previously discussed; they are not permitted speak in front of other Items because they have other departments to go through; and they will have to wait until public comment. Mr. Abbate stated there is going to be a variety of things that the Board is going to want to consider depending on what the language is and whether or not it is just a millage and it is not related to debt, and it is going to impact whether or not it is going to fall under the charter cap and whether that millage is going to be impacted overall; there is going to things that they are going to want to consider because if it is millage for maintenance, it is going to impact other millages, because it is going to be part of the overall cap of where they could be unless they wanted to show it as a tax increase, which the Board has historically told them to present a budget that does not do that; they have the critical need issue out there and other things, so it is just a factor that all comes into play because if it is not debt related to a bond and they cannot bond out maintenance; and they are not bonding out for maintenance; he is not trying to make it more complicated, but this is not just easy and let them just do it that way. Commissioner Pritchett stated that she likes Chair Zonka’s suggestion; there may be a way of phrasing it, that if they put it on the ballot the primary purpose of this is first to take care of maintenance; and then however, they want to word it about what other properties they do acquire, and what the criteria on that as well would be good. Commissioner Lober stated he will look at whatever staff brings back. Jill Hayes, Budget Office Director, clarified by saying for the operating and maintenance that would be part of the aggregate millage rate, so that would impact whether or not they would advertise a tax increase; however, if the existing operating EELs millage rate sunsets that will go away from the aggregate, so it would kind of offset that; but in terms of the charter cap, the voter approved referendums and millages are not subject to the charter cap but, again it does impact the aggregate rate. Mr. Abbate stated what she is really saying is if they want to do it and do it in a substitute kind of way where it is not going to hurt other areas then it really needs to go on the ballot in 2022 when they still have it, for when that 2024 that conversion occurs.

  • Brevard County Board of County Commissioners — Minutes
• Item g.

  Tax Abatement Program

  approved - Kathy Wall, Assistant County Manager, talked about the economic Tax Abatement Program that will expire November 2024; this program comes back every ten years and is approved by the voters; the abatement program has been in existence for close to 30 years, it started in 1994; this program has assisted both large and small businesses, new businesses coming into the County, as well as expansion of existing businesses within the community; based on the 2020 annual reports for the businesses, that have been granted for abatements for, and these businesses were abated $1.2 million in 2020; however, they actually paid $6.3 million in taxes because the abatement is based on what they add to the property role once approved for the abatement plan; also in the 2020 annual reports they created 6,200 jobs with an average wage of $85,559; and that will have to be approved by the voters in 2024 if they decide to put that back on the ballot. Commissioner Smith stated he is in favor. Chair Zonka stated that was overwhelmingly supported. Commissioner Lober stated as with anything, he thinks the specific language used is going to be important on that so the sooner they get it the better. Chair Zonka asked Commissioner Pritchett if she supports it. Commissioner Pritchett replied yes. Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated he wanted to close very quickly on anticipated General Fund impacts; staff spoke to the Sheriff’s Office, they have come in and tried to be a great partner with them over the last several years, and asked them what they thought was going to happen this year; he was reminded that some of the increases that they thought were important in the past that they have foregone and waited so the Board could do certain things like in the area of Fire Rescue, like it did last year with the assessment; and he thinks specific words were used last year to make sure the Board understands that by doing that they are digging a hole, in terms of capital needs that they had and they did indicate that they have transferred a lot of their capital needs utilizing what was previously General Fund dollars, and that is how they have been trying to balance their budget in the last few years, by using dollars that were originally from the Coronavirus Aid Relief Economic Security Act (CARES) dollars that were Public Safety dollars that they had and the Board gave them a certain allocation; they have been using that to fund some of the capital needs but that is creating a bigger hole not for this year maybe not even for the next year; but it is going to be there in the future. He added other things that they indicated that are significant for them are contract negotiations, they are struggling like they talked about very generally in their own Human Resources presentation with competing with surrounding departments, and filling holes; they are looking at significant increases during the ongoing contract negotiations that they have right now with the deputies, especially where Palm Bay and Titusville having higher starting salaries than the Sheriff has for his deputies; the Sheriff said that is an issue that he feels he needs to be able to address; they talked about what is the General Fund impact on that; and the Sheriff said if the Board goes to the maximum on the three percent that can do in the General Fund, he would need about $4.4 million, and they looked at putting that together with the General Fund impact of what he would need. He went on to say that would have included going at three percent on health insurance, which they told the Board four and one-half percent; after today’s discussion they are going to look at whether it is higher, there is a corresponding increase for the Sheriff for every percent and one-half it is about $300,000, and he will be looking for the General Fund contribution of that; that is something they will have to look at and they wanted to give the Board what the General Fund impact compared to the numbers they showed the Board, compared to the numbers shown of doing certain salary increases; and staff has provided that for the Board a three percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) would have been $1.74 million, $1 an hour across the board is significantly higher at $2.7 million, and if they did one percent for every one or three percent whichever is higher is incrementally only $100,000 more the General Fund impact because most people at $1 an hour is more than three percent for most people, because most of the wages are at that lower level and that is where the majority of the employees are; a four and one-half percent increase on the General Fund side for Board employees would be $643,000; that is the General Fund impact, obviously Enterprise Funds and other budgets are going to have other contributions; and here he wanted to give the Board an idea of what the General Fund impact against the revenues told could generate. He asked the Board to remember what he said about Ad Valorem, if they went to the full three percent Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase would give them $5 million; on the conservative approach to new construction would be $2.7 million, that gives them $7.7 million; if looked at with what the Sheriff had indicated that he is going to need; and one thing the Sheriff also said was that if they did this on the General Fund, the Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MTSU) he would live within the three percent and they would not be looking for a critical need there. He went on to say that other charter officers, assuming that the Board is going to want to do that, he is just using the three percent number as a factor that would be $920,000 would be the General Fund impact on that; for COLA if the Board was going to try to build the budget, the General Fund impact of that while it was $5.1 million would be about $2.7 million because it does not include Fire Rescue and includes everything else; with the health insurance premiums, as he indicated four one-half percent; they need $8.7 million they are anticipating $7.7 million, and they are going to have to figure it out; staff does believe these are conservative numbers and there are other aspects to it, new construction might come in better they do not know; but looking at everything they are talking about today in terms of shifting EELs program in the future, what it is going to involve they just want to give the Board some kind of feel for where things are going, and he thinks it has given staff a lot to think about and realize. He concluded by saying that is what they are looking at as they are moving forward in light of what the Board has said; and staff is available to answer any questions it may have. Chair Zonka stated she is going to do public comments now because Vince Lamb has been standing there for a while.

  • Brevard County Board of County Commissioners — Minutes
• Item III.

  PUBLIC COMMENTS

  approved - Mr. Lamb stated he could not figure out what the public comment arrangement was under this workshop, but he should have assumed the budget workshop would allow for public comments; he will be very brief and what is going on here is the Board requested a poll to be conducted by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) regarding answering questions like Commissioner Lober’s comment about whether the public wants additional conservation land and is willing to deal with the cost or not; they are all set to go with this, but about a month ago the TNC came to him and asked him what he wanted to use as the draft ballot language, because as part of this poll they are going to use the ballot language and say would he or she vote for this; his thought is he wants to be as close to the 2004 as they can because that passed and it withstood the scrutiny at that point in time; and he requested some help in terms of trying to figure out what exactly the millage cap number needs to be for this. He continued to say he had a meeting set up by the courtesy of Commissioner Smith on this, but he broke his hip and messed things up; TNC wants to kickoff this poll in the next week or so, so that it would be ready in May and then in June or July the Commission would vote on whether or not to let the voters decide to put this on the November ballot; as far as all of this is concerned, he wanted to point out to the Board that all the voters are doing with this is basically enabling the Board to do their job, hopefully with a little direction of letting them know that the public wants the Conservation Land Program, and certainly wants the conservation lands managed; everything the program does comes to the Board for a vote; to buy a single piece of land goes through a very detailed procedure of appraisals and everything, it comes to the Commission, and if they are buying it for less than the State assessed value it takes three votes, if it is anything more than that it takes a super-majority, if there is a decision that the voters want to vote to have a conservation land purchase edition in there; he personally thinks that more conservation land would probably help with focusing on protecting the Indian River Lagoon, and what more can they do that would protect the Indian River Lagoon; and there are some things that can be done, but as far as that is concerned the Board gets to decide on individual properties and gets to decide on control with the specifics of issuing the bonds, it gets to decide how big of a bond issue, what are the terms that are available from the bond market, how they do that, and that is all controlled by the County Commission after the vote occurred. He pointed out to do this successfully, there are well recognized dedicated private citizens, and they have a group of Keith Winsten, Jim Swann, and Laurilee Thompson. Sandra Sullivan stated she has a couple of points to make while she was listening to the presentation, she had her husband look up what they pay on their property in South Florida for garbage, it is $25.48 for garbage, $3.51 for recycling, and a total of $28.99 for Solid Waste fee; by comparison it is $57.60 here, considerably more expensive here already, and they are talking about another increase; they had 39 percent last year with a three percent per year; she looked up the CPI average over the last 10 years and even with the jump this year it would be 1.884, and they are throwing around a three percent number a lot; she also talked about the garbage facility because she attended more than three years’ worth of County Commissioner meetings, more than any other topic this has been discussed the most; she thinks it is reasonable to consider the alternative and put it on the table of the dollars for Florida recyclers which per the May 18 meeting, that would extend the Sarno facility by 19 years and with the increases in what they are talking about down on US 192 looks like it would be a whole lot more cost effective as an alternative; she believes that the number they threw out which was a number in the ballpark of $10 million which basically they are told to sharpen a pencil at the time, but she does not know what happened there on May 13 that meeting said that they were going to run out of Sarno space during the summer, she was looking all summer for the budget to come up looking at it, and US 192 is not on it; but it was approved to build in the May meeting and then the meeting on October 26, they were looking at hiring, they approved three trucks and transferring garbage, and it just raises the question why after three years they have left this to the last minute and now they are going to put it on the taxpayers. She strongly advised the Board to look at impact fees; in 2016 there was an impact fee study that the Commission rejected after a moratorium between 2009 and 2016, which is a loss of approximately $53 million; impact fees have not been updated in 15 years or more; a lot of the costs that they are talking about have to do with growth and the developers that are developing should be paying a fair share of that, and not putting the burden on the taxpayers who are not getting a three percent increase in their wages every year; and they have across the Board three percent increase on this and three percent increase on that, she understands they need to keep up with CPI, but the CPI is 1.884. Bo Platt stated he is there representing two groups the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition and the Conradina Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society; the members love Brevard for a lot of things, but mostly for the its natural features, the beaches, the beauty of the natural areas, the abundance of wildlife, and so much more; as it has been previously stated at the center of our natural beauty and he thinks Brevard trademark is the Indian River Lagoon, it bisects the County and while only about half of the Lagoon’s length is in Brevard, and 70 percent of the water is here; Brevard residents acknowledge their love of the Lagoon six years ago when they voted overwhelmingly to pass a sales tax devoted to the Lagoon improvements; now they have a chance to reinforce the previous actions by extending funding for the Environmentally Endangered Lands and preservation and conservation of lands serves several purposes, it provides habitat for native plants and animals, provides areas for enjoying the natural beauty, provides passive recreation, bird watching, hiking, biking, kayaking, horseback riding, and more; it also serves integral function of the Lagoon Environmentally Endangered Lands also serves an integral function related to the Lagoon, the natural areas mitigated stormwater impacts; and these lands provide for natural filtration or rainfall so that the water is naturally cleaned and filtered before making its way to the Lagoon. He added the natural shorelines promote Lagoon health; 70 years ago when he arrived here this was taken for granted; Brevard’s population was a little over 20,000 and natural areas were abundant with very little well it was developed now, 70 years later there is over 600,000 that is a 3,000 percent population increase; he asked where else has that happened; he continued to say it is conditioning to grow and they are not going to slow down; they have the opportunity now to continue the maintenance of the natural areas, as well as to purchase more; and he knows the land is expensive nobody will argue that. He went on to say that he will remind the Board of a quote from over 100 years ago by Will Rogers, “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff”, nowhere is that more true than here; they should continue the actions of the past in promoting the natural beauty of Brevard for generations to come; and his groups and members support continuing funding of the EELs program both maintenance and acquisition, and they ask that the Board allow Brevard’s voters to make the decision. Craig Wallace stated he is also representing the Brevard Indian Lagoon Coalition and he mainly wanted to talk about the Environmentally Endangered Lands; he is from South Florida and has lived there most of his life, he moved here because of the Lagoon and the natural beauty of the land areas around here; and he thinks if they have talked to most of the residents, they would find the same reaction. He advised he is really pleading with the Board because he feels like trying to hold off on purchasing land is going to burn them in the future, because there is no more land that they can create here in Brevard County; as they develop more, they have to offset that somehow, they have to let the water percolate through and get into the aquifer and clean water into the Lagoon; the only place to really do that is with undeveloped lands; they have not quite figured out a way to both develop land and preserve the water quality; he is pleading with the Board to try to keep as much funding as possible; he understands that the budget is limited; but whatever they can reserve for purchasing additional lands, he thinks is ultimate and critical going forward, even if they cannot do it today it should be kept on the ballot so people can have a say. Chair Zonka thanked staff for another amazing presentation, she cannot believe that John Denninghoff, Assistant County Manager, has not spoken this entire meeting, she asked if he would like to talk about roads; and she explained the reason why she asked that is because they usually need his expertise and they need him to talk. Mr. Denninghoff answered no. Chair Zonka stated she was speaking at an Eastern Florida State Colege class and she mentioned knowing this is not going to get them excited; it was a younger crowd with some middle aged like herself there; she talked about having a lot of roads done and the class just looked at her with a blank stare; and she was actually impressed by the gentleman who invited her there and the interest the class had about the County’s budget and the process, and it was actually a really good experience.

  • Brevard County Board of County Commissioners — Minutes

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