Board of County Commissioners

Good morning Welcome. Uh, public service reminder, please remember to silence all of your cell phones and electronic devices, please. Today is MAY 21, 2025. We are your Sarasota Board of County commissioners. We are meeting at 1660 Ringling Boulevard on the 3rd floor in the think tank room. Um, this is, uh, continue, this is our budget workshop. We have all 5 of our county commissioners present with us here this morning. And if you can please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And Thank you. Uh, moving on to agenda item number one, which is open to the public. Um, this time is reserved for persons desiring to comment on items not scheduled for a public hearing. Persons wishing to speak at open to the public shall complete a request to speak card. Including the number of the agenda item, or if not an agenda item, the topic to be addressed. Comments on Sch scheduled agenda items will be heard first, followed by up to 5 speakers related to topics, not on the advertised agenda. Any remaining speaker cards will be held for the final open to the public session at the end of the meeting. And this morning I have one speaker card, uh, Natalie Gutwein. Good morning, ma am, and you will have 3 minutes. Please. Good morning. I am Natalie Gutwein, team lead and spokesperson for the Siesta Key Beautification Alliance. I want to start by saying thank you to each of you for the time and effort. You ve already put in for the consideration of our proposal. For coming out to Siesta Key and see for yourself the true condition of our island. It really does speak for itself. I m a resident of Siesta Key, a realtor on Siesta Key. I write an article for the newspaper. I have a podcast that is just about Siesta Key, but most importantly, I raised my 114 year old son on Siesta Key. Last year alone, we were hit. By 3 hurricanes, a tropical storm and a no name storm that did damage to our island. Hurricane Helene covered our entire island in saltwater, which we all know is one of the most corrosive materials on the planet. And 2 weeks later, we ve received a direct hit from Hurricane Milton with the line of the storm going directly over my house. We are your barrier island and we take the hits. We are also, we are also the crown jewel of Sarasota County, and tourism development tax alone, we consistently bring in over 1/3 of the tourist development tax, yet we actually receive $0 back to us. Every year we welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors to our island. It s a constant strain on our resources, our streets, our sidewalks, our homes, our businesses, yet there have been no significant capital improvements to Siesta Key and over 18 years. We were named by TripAdvisor as the number one beach in the United States, #4 in the world and most recently Conde Nast named us as among the top 50 beaches in the world and was the only beach in the United States to get that designation. However, if we don t see a significant and quick reinvestment in our island, those tourist development taxes are going to start to dwindle. Room rates will go down and the millions of dollars that we provide for the rest of Sarasota County will start to decline. Conversely, an investment in our island will raise room rates and tourism, thus raising our contribution to the county. We believe that the roi on your investment in Siesta Key will be exponential. The siesta Key Beautification Alliance is comprised of residents, business owners, merchants, the Siesta Key Association and the Siesta Key chamber. We have all come together to work with the county commissioners and staff to restore, refresh, revitalize and rebrand Siesta Key. We have secured $30,000 in private funding and hired an engineering firm to provide the county with a professional proposal for the work that is needed. We are here today to ask you, the Board of County commissioners to include at least $30 million in initial seed money in the 2026 budget for the Siesta Key Beautification project and to instruct staff to work with the siesta Key Beautification Alliance to carry out the project. Thank you again for your time. Thank you, ma am. I have no further speaker cards, so we will move on to agenda item 2, which is under our discussion section. We re gonna begin with 2a, our county administrator Jonathan Lewis will get us started. Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Um, we ve got a lot of material, uh, for the board today. We have two guests for the board as well, um. Um, so we ll get right through the opening, of course, for us on staff and for the board, uh, you know how many meetings you have on items that touch or refer to the budget. It s a year-round process, but the part of this process is step by state law, uh, as required by what s called truth and millage in terms of setting the property tax rate every year, as well as uh the variety of assessments uh that go out to your special uh independent districts. Again, it s year-round. Press for me, it starts with your board retreat as you start to focus on your priorities for the year, uh, from a policy agenda perspective, and the, the action items that the department directors bringing forth to you at that time. So, uh, if it s ok, chair, I d like to ask DR. Sean Snaith with the University of Central Florida and the director of the Institute of Economic Forecasting, uh, to get started on his presentation. Great, thank you. Good morning, Doctor Snaith. Welcome. Good morning. I ve been in this, uh, forecasting racket for about 25 years and um stereo. Oh, I m sorry. Uh, and, and there have been several instances where, you know, the, the job of uh trying to predict the future is, uh, It s significantly more difficult, uh, and it started back with the dotcom era, you know, that this is, this is a period where Anything related to the internet was somehow viewed as, you know, a sure fire, you know, moneymaker and, and there was, you know, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars being thrown by venture capital firms that At any idea related to this, and I, I, you know, can remember. You know, there was a startup that was trying to develop hardware that would enable people to smell things over the internet. And uh I think we can all be thankful that went nowhere, but uh just kind of the uh. Time period in the mindset. It was really difficult to, to make predictions and forecasts and particularly, uh, you know, When that bubble finally burst, uh, so that was tough, but uh 2008, 2009, probably was the most difficult. Um, the, the housing bubble and the associated financial crisis, uh, policies were being implemented that, you know, historically had never been done with the Federal Reserve, um, cutting interest rates to zero, embarking on quantitative easing, um, massive spending bills being passed. So that was, uh, that was a challenge. Um, then came covid-19. Um, the I like to say self-inflicted. Recession, um. And, and, and the policies that were associated with that had never been seen before shutting down schools, closing so-called non-essential businesses, uh, the Fed again went back to its, you know, zero interest and, and, and quantitative easing policy and the federal government started to expand. Uh, and hasn t stopped, uh, spending, and uh I would say today is probably #4 on that list to this, this, uh, 2025 thus far in terms of, you know, I, I make a forecast by the time I think it s, it s ready, uh, something happens and it s uh it s in the trash can. And so This forecast I m gonna present to you today, probably should be in the trash can. I had to send it in a couple of weeks ago and uh I would change it significantly if uh if I were able to, but I ll try to point out what s trash and what s not or what s the. Most spoiled, but Um You know, presidential elections over the past 4 or 5 cycles, the, the year of the election has been accompanied with um Heightened uncertainty that has led to behavior in terms of businesses to kind of pull back on investment spending. Uh, you know, presidential election. It s a a fork in the road of sorts, and um, you know, depending on the outcome. You know which road we re going to go down as an economy, they re going to be sets of policies associated with each of the outcomes and those policies MAY in fact impact. Investment decision of candidate a wins, we probably go forward with this project if the candidate b does, then this project might not make sense. Um, but typically after the election, that uncertainty starts to fade away, because now we know the path that we re going on. Uh, this election, I think, is, is an exception to that rule. Uh, I would say the uncertainty is kind of peaked. Uh, or continue to increase, uh, post uh post election outcome. Uh, and so that s made it kind of difficult, um, as far as making Forecast for me, and this quote from Yogi Berra kind of has been echoing through my head. Uh, over the past several months and um Many people know who Yogi Bear is, but he was a catcher for the New York Yankees and he was, uh, noted for his unintentional Verbal gaffes that, uh, some of which have been just so absorbed into the lexicon that you don t even know it has anything to do with Yogi Berra. So, uh, it ain t over till it s over. Uh, that, that s a yogiism. Uh, but one of the things he, he said was it s tough to make predictions, especially about the future and uh he s right. It s, it really easy to make predictions about the past, it turns out, but, uh, uh, it s tough to make them about the future and it s even tougher in an environment where, you know, there s so much change afoot, uh, and it s not clear, uh where we re gonna be. Uh, he also said, uh, Yoi. If you come to a fork in the road, take it. Um So the election is over, uh, you know, it, it, it, uh, I, I was concerned prior to that that this might be, you know, a, a another. Hanging Chad type situation that would go to the courts and the outcome wouldn t be known for several months, but, uh, we knew pretty quickly, so that was good. But then, uh, you know, we have uh the 2nd Trump administration version 2.0. Uh, and it s been kind of a furious, chaotic, uh, few months thus far in Washington dc and uh we ve had tariffs and Trade wars and, and Doge. Oh my. Um. And trying to figure all this out and where it s going, I think is challenging for all of us, um, but Uh, I do want to talk a little bit about, uh, and this is more related to Doge, uh, the, the national debt and uh Probably shared this with the commission in the past, uh, but it remains, uh, remains relevant and so, you know, it s a little bit so boxy, it s a little bit nerdy, so I have a bookend these remarks. By drawing uh from two of my favorite American writers, um, Jay-z. And Ernest Hemingway. And so Jay-z, what would he have to say about our national debt? Well, I think you d say we got 36.8 trillion problems. And now Fitch is one. And so is Standard and Poor s, and so is Moody. All three bond rating agencies have downgraded. Uh, us government debt. Um, and in 2023, Fitch had sighted, uh, the reason for this downgrade, uh, was basically that the budget process is broken, uh, in Washington dc. I mean, there was a time, I, I, I maybe it was just a fever dream. I don t know. I can recall the house coming up with the budget, Senate coming up with the budget, then getting together, debating priorities, well, if we spend this much on this, re gonna have to cut these programs and there was some back and forth. The executive branch, uh, weighed in on this process as well. And uh that hasn t happened in a very long time, uh, that, that process has kind of fallen apart and then covid-19. It just eliminated any remnants of it, and so we ve been, you know, governing or managing our nation s finance by continuing resolutions. Uh, you know, these things are massive pieces of legislation, they re passed out. I, I don t know who s writing them. Uh, because they re handed out to, to uh the elected officials who have to vote on him a day or two ahead of time, of course, you can t read it. There s no debate. Uh, and the result has been a steady stream of 1.5 to $2 trillion dollar deficits. Um, and, you know, that has led us to this point, uh, where the debt is at a very high level relative to the size of our economy, 123% is uh the debt to gdp ratio, and so this is a metric that s relevant when you re talking about, you know, sovereign borrowers, uh, and it s analogous to a debt to income ratio for an individual borrower or, or for business, uh, looking to, to uh get uh credit or to get financing. Um And this is not a list of uh very well run governments. Uh, these are the top uh top. Highest gdp debt to gdp ratios in the world, uh, and we re on this list. Um, prior to the past couple of decades, um, the highest debt to gdp ratio we had in the United States was 107%. That was coming out of World War ii. When the war ended, that debt to gdp ratio fell very dramatically and very quickly. We re not fighting a world war, uh, and this debt to gdp ratio just continues to rise. And, you know, we saw most recently in 2010 when Greece had its own debt crisis, um, the consequences are very severe, uh, their economy was crippled by interest rates soared, they had to cut, uh, their Social Security recipients or pensioners, uh, they, they cut their pensions by 50%. Um, so it s very painful and of course, Greece is a small country, and there were ripples within Europe, but you know, something crisis like that happens in the United States. You know, we re talking about global, uh, consequences. And so, uh, it s a little bit concerning to me, um. Now, is something going to be done about it is the next question. And we ve kicked this can down, uh, down the road for decades, because there, there s been no suffering, there s been no pain, uh, that s, that has resulted uh because of this behavior. So, nobody wants to talk about entitlements, no, but, you know, the things that have to happen to fix. Uh, this problem, uh, but I, I think it s gonna be forced, uh, in, in into the dialogue by virtue of this, this fact here that the interest payments on this debt are now over $1 trillion a year. That s just a big. Uh, and projections are, by the end of the year, it could rise as high as 1.4 trillion. So right off the top of federal government budget revenue 1.4 trillion goes to Uh To the, the interest on the debt. Then we ve got Social Security and Medicare. That money has to go. So what s happening is the Discretionary piece of, of the federal budget is being squeezed. By these things and, and, and the, uh, the national debt and the debt burden of it, uh, which means there s gonna be less money for those programs and and to fund things like transportation projects, uh, you know, that state and local governments depend on partnerships with the federal government to do. Um. And so, you know, we see this Doge, uh. I don t know what it is, but uh Elon Musk and a group of uh computer nerds swooped into Washington and they ve Revealed some of the uh largesse that s going on there and uh the money that s being spent on, you know, things that nobody seems to be tracking and, you know, the one thing that I can t get out of my head is that they, they revealed that the Treasury had made, and I can t remember the time frame, but the us Treasury had made $4.7 trillion worth of payments with no in What those payments were for. I mean, you know, you go into your place of business or your place of work and, and, uh, you know, you can t account for $400. What happens? Well, nothing good. I can tell you that. 4.7 trillion, so it shocking. Um, and, and so this is all out there now, but, uh, you know, is it gonna matter? I think that remains yet to be seen, but, uh, it s a problem in the making, uh, can I tell you that the, the, the crisis is, is imminent. No, I, I, I can t tell you that, um, but this is not a sustainable path. That we re on right now and then to to partially wrap this up, uh, and the sun also rises, Bill Gorton and Mike Campbell were having this conversation in a bar, uh, Mike had gone through bankruptcy. It was revealed earlier in the novel and so Bill was talking about it, he said, how did you go bankrupt and Mike said, well, two ways. Gradually, then suddenly, um, and, and, and that s, you know, continues to, to, you know, In my mind, you know, this is what happens. We don t get a 10 or 20 year warning from the global financial community saying, hey, You better change your evil ways, because this is gonna happen, you know, in 2045. Um, so, This, this Doge thing, um, it s chaotic, um. You know, a lot of pushback legally and politically, um. I don t know if it s gonna work, uh, the, the, these are my most recent projections for, for the federal budget deficit. It s a surplus, but the numbers are negative. Um, so I grew up in Pennsylvania, but when it comes to, you know, the gov the federal government change its ways, I feel like I m from Missouri because, uh, you know, you got to show me uh before I m gonna buy, uh, you know, buy that uh bill of goods. And so, you know, according to some measures here, Doge has has has saved uh or cut. $420 billion. In Spanic. I don t know if that s true. I mean, I can t verify it. Um, but the budget deficit right now is currently at 2 trillion. So, ok, we went from 2 trillion to $1.6 trillion deficit. To me, that s, you know, I mean, that s a start, but that s not a solution. And really, What happens when this doge, this temporary pseudo department goes away. Um My feeling is without Lasting, I mean, without congressional participation legislation, uh, that any meaning meaningful fiscal reform that Doge MAY have initiated is is useless. And I m not sure that that s gonna happen. I mean, they re talking now. What is it? The big beautiful bill, uh, you know, that s gonna add $10 trillion in debt, so it s like nobody takes it. Seriously, um, but The, the impact of the uh of this debt and, and the interest on that data are going to continue to uh make Budgeting and and budget decisions, uh, and increasing challenge. Uh, so those in the debt, and then we ve got the tariffs and trade and, you know, this is a very tedious uh couple of slides. I m not gonna spend too much time on it, um, but, you know, it is a sort of dominating uh the landscape right now, and, and generally speaking, uh, tariffs can be levied for for a number of reasons. Um, one is to try to protect a domestic business from foreign competition. Um, and, and you do that. By putting a tariff on the goods that this domestic industry is producing that come from other countries. That raises the price and gives a competitive advantage to uh to your domestic industry. And so, in international trade, they, they talk about this, the, the infant industry. Tariff like the uh it s a new industry they re trying to get, you trying to get up and running in your country for whatever reason, and you got to protect the infant. You know, till it grows up from these, you know, these bad competitors in the rest of the world. Well Problem is the, the infants never really grow up, they just move into the basement. Uh, and then, you know, still require these, these terrorists for protections. Um, they can be a response to, uh, foreign government subsidizing their domestic industries in ways that lower their cost of production, and so you hear, uh, stories or or accusations, um, of, of countries dumping a product, uh, on another country, meaning, you know, selling it for significantly below with the market prices. In an effort to, you know, take market share and maybe drive the domestic industries, uh, out of business. And so, uh, the government can levy tariffs to counter uh the behavior of other governments. Um. National security. I think this I think we ll continue to hear more about this in, in, in the years going forward. I think covid-19 revealed this Achilles heel, if you will, and in globalization, and that is this over dependency on certain countries for You know, specific types of, of, uh, goods or services, and, uh, you know, the thing that stood out to me. It was during the whole covid-19 thing, China was threatening to, um, you know, cut, cut off or reduce shipments of pharmaceuticals. From China to the us and, and so that, you know, that, that kind of scary. So, um, and then computer chips and steel. There s a lot of things that could fall under this rubric, but Um They re also used to raise revenue for the government. Um, and so, you know, when the PRESIDENT Said he was going to form the external. Revenue service as opposed to the internal revenue Service, that was kind of a nod to that. Um, You know, the countries that do this typically don t have a means by which to collect. Income taxes. They don t have an irs. They don t have, uh, the, the whole process in place. And so, They get revenue where they can actually collect it, which is at the ports in the airports, and so as stuff comes into a country, you know, tariffs are slapped on it and they re paid right there on the spot or the or the products don t get in. Uh, so you see that it s in less developed countries, um. Brazil relies heavily on. Uh, tariffs, uh. Countries in the Middle East, uh, do the same, uh, I don t think we re gonna eliminate the internal revenue Service because of the so-called external revenue Service. I don t think that s a real justification or reason behind this. Sounds good. It s a good sound bite, but I, I don t think it s reality. But the bottom uh bullet point here is really what I think all this is about. And that is securing concessions in other areas. These tariffs are being used as a step. To get Changes to, uh, the rules of trade between the us and its trading partners. And, uh, you know, The most obvious example of this was the 4.5 hours that the, uh, country of Colombia had a 25% tariff levied on them, um, because they were refusing to take deported their citizens who have been deported from the us back uh in the Colombians after 4.5 hours while the PRESIDENT Of Colombia sent his own plane to pick them up and then the tariffs went away. So this was never about trade in this instance. But Um Your tariffs are one form of a barrier to trade. There s lots of other ways that countries can make it more difficult for other countries to do business in their economy. Uh, and, and these so-called non-tariff barriers to trade. I think this is what this is about, to try to lower some of those barriers that us producers face uh with some of our trading partners. Uh, the impact, well, you know, I think it will have somewhat of a a downward impact on, on uh growth. Uh, globally, um, But the, the three countries most impacted here, uh, are likely to be impacted or China, Mexico and Canada. Uh, they are, you know, Very dependent on selling their products in the United States. Uh, China in particular, and uh they don t have much. Bargaining leverage, right? I mean, it s, it s not a poker game, you know, where you can bluff your way through these negotiations because we know your hand. We know exactly what cards you re holding. We know how much you sell here, we know what percentage of your gdp that represents, you can t bluff me that you ve got a,, a, a straight flush when you, you re holding a pair of deuces because I could see. Um, so I think ultimately, this will be resolved. I think China is the most difficult because of the uh additional political layers, uh, with the, you know, communist-run government and can t look weak. Maybe some underling, you know, seizes on that opportunity. So I think s why you re seeing more at least verbal pushback, but the economics of it, uh, are such that, uh, you know, I think these agreements will, will Um, happen, um, and, and once they do, Um Then Things just move on. You know, there s a lot of talk, a lot of consternation. It seems that Trump has resumed his previous relationship with the media, you know, they, they, they really like each other, it seems. And, um, you know, so a lot of. Kind of scary stories and inflation and recession, you know, you you re hearing a lot of that over the past uh couple of months, and, uh, you know, I would say that s not likely to be the case. Um, I think businesses were already looking at their supply chains because of covid-19 and I think it makes sense, you know, to reexamine that, to diversify and, uh, for, for a variety of reasons. Um, and, you know, once the new rules are in place. Then the players will. Play the game under those new rules, and we ll move on from there. Consumers will have to decide, are they going to continue to buy a product whose price MAY have gone up because of tariffs. Uh, businesses will have to decide how much of the tariff, if any, can we pass along to consumers. Uh, and it s never 100%. The tariff isn t levied at the like a a sales taxes, you know, you don t see your grocery store receipt at the bottom. Mexican avocados plus tariff. I mean, that s just not the way it works, so. Um You know, once we know the rules of the game. I think that uh. We ll just begin to play under those new rules and, and we ll move on from there. Uh, the, the problem right now or for the past couple of months, is we don t know the rules. Yeah, and that s why the stock market has been connections and and all that. What do you do? You know, if I know the rules, I could formulate a strategy, but if I don t know the rules, so the sooner that this process plays itself out, the better it will be for the economy, and I think you ll see the economy, uh, respond in a favorable way, um, to, uh, to those tariffs, but, you know, tariffs don t cause inflation. You know, there s there s been this, uh. Confusion intentional or otherwise. Well, these tariffs are gonna, you know, lead to higher inflation. No, the only inflation is caused by the growth rate of the money supply. Nothing else, uh, tariffs could cause a one-time increase. In prices uh of the goods who are subjected to tariffs. That not inflation. That s a change in the level, and then we move on from there. Uh, so it s it I think it s being made more scary than it actually is. And part of this, I think the Fed, Is uh You know, feeding into this, and, and I ll tell you why in just a second. So this, uh, you MAY remember this, this image or this um. Event uh when George w. Bush was PRESIDENT. He, he landed a, a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier, right? Right I d like to do that. I never will. Um, but it was the sort of uh tout that the, you know, Saddam Hussein was captured and I don t know if you ve been executed by that or whatever, but, you know, the, the war was over in Iraq and so the banner unfurled from the control tower. Mission accomplished. Well, it turns out it wasn t really accomplished. It was a little bit of a premature celebration because we had to send I think another 20,000 soldiers and, you know, a month or two later, and I feel the Fed did the same thing in SEPTEMBER when they cut interest rates. Uh, you know, that was a signal that, you know. We beat inflation. But you did. And so we caught in SEPTEMBER and 2 more times before the year was out, uh, for a full percentage point and well, Inflation s still not. At the 2% level. So they were making policies if the mission was accomplished, um, and, and, and it s not been. Now they re sort of using the tariffs, I think as a scapegoat for them not making additional cuts. When the reality is they they painted themselves into a corner, quite frankly, by, by cutting prematurely and so, um. I wouldn t be surprised if the Fed makes no additional cuts to interest rates this year, despite whatever browbeating, uh, PRESIDENT Trump is trying to give them. So naturally, you know, we, we re, we re not forecasting a recession. We, we haven t been at all. I know some of the big banks were some are, are, are reversing course on that. But I do think we ll see a slowing. In, in economic roles for a variety of reasons, um, you know, partly the consumer is, you know. Been through the, the ringer the past several years with high inflation that uh was, was faster than paychecks were growing and Running up credit card debt, and, and so I think consumers are pulling back somewhat, uh, not recession type, um, but enough to see growth decelerate a bit. But the labor market remains strong. And I think that s the real cornerstone here of, of, you know, preventing recessions. People still have paychecks. And while we think the unemployment rate will drift higher, you know, if you re talking 4.7%, historically, that s a very low unemployment rate, um, you know, I mean, job growth is slowing. But when you re at basically full employment, you know, companies aren t out there hiring 800,000 new workers a month. Uh, so, so, you know, slow down, but, but no recession at this point, um. Again a week from now I might change my tune uh let let s, you know, see what comes out of this, uh, uh, chaotic process that s unfolding in, in, in Washington dc, uh, and go from there. Prices, I think, will continue to drift lower, um, you know, we ve been on this very Gradual, uh, you know, flight path to, to the 2% target level and, and, you know, set up the feds uh sort of uh. Tied its own hands here and there s not much they can do to get there quickly, and I think they re just gonna ride this out and point the finger at the, the, the administration if uh things don t go the way uh that they hope they do. Um, moving here down to Florida, uh, housing market again, you know, what we re seeing here, um. You know, sales of sort of leveled out here, uh, the 12 month moving average of of the monthly data from the Florida realtors is uh in red. Um, monthly data is there in blue. You see the surge in activity, uh, during the covid uh period, uh, has, has uh has calmed down, um, prices are leveling out. At this point, um, Could they go down? Certainly, you know, the, the myth that that real estate prices only go up was, was shattered in 2008, 2009, um, and so, you know, it, it depends fundamentally on supply and demand. I mean, that s what determines prices in the market, um, so right now, The, the situation is, is Getting close to balanced and, and, uh, in the housing market in Florida. So, uh, if you look here, this is MARCH, uh, data, the inventory. Is measured in months of supply is now at 5. 5 months and that s the the chief economist at the Florida uh Association of Realtors, uh, calls that a balanced market where buyers and sellers are, you know, kind of. Neither has the upper hand. Um, and so prices here year over year you see down a little bit, um, sales down a little bit, uh, as well, um. Time to sell a little bit, but still, you know, this is not unusual. This is, this is more of a normal, uh, housing market certainly than what we, we saw in the post-covid years. Uh, housing here in the Sarasota Metro, uh, prices down a little bit year over year, but again, median prices, you know, still significantly higher than what we see statewide sales up. Uh, inventory is above that 5.5% or 5.5 months, uh, balance market, so a little, little, uh, tilted here towards buyers. Uh, at this point, not tremendously, but uh this is for single family existing. Housing, uh, the condo market is uh. A little bit rough. Uh, both in terms of transactions year over year and, and what s happened to median prices, um, and also inventories that that s at 9 months, so that s pretty high. Um, you, you probably have better information just being here from professionals in the area, uh, you know, as to what the cause is, I suspect the uh the Fruitvale uh river that was flowing. Uh, not too long ago, MAY have had some impact on this market for people that uh were having their first go around, uh, with a hurricane or, or, you know, saw that uh. Saw that process unfold. So, um, a Little bit shocking, but I, I, I m not sure if this is just a transitory, um, you know, set of data because of of those events that unfolded. Um, again, surge we saw in housing post-covid is not, not the same thing we experienced in 2004 to 2006 because Credit market conditions are, are vastly different between the 2004 to 2006 housing bubble, and what we experienced in um and uh. 2001, 2023 run up at home prices and so this index, I d like to show it s um. It s uh Basically, gauge is the availability or the, the ease or difficulty with which you could get a mortgage in this country. And so, um, it s base period is MARCH of 2012, so that value gets assigned to an index of 100, uh, and you could see that, um, up until about 20, you know, the end of 2019, basically before covid hit, um, the, the index was around 185. So it was 85% easier to get a mortgage than it was back in 2012. That makes sense. 2012, pretty close to the end of the financial crisis, um. And The Dodd-Frank bill was just being implemented, so there was a lot of, you know, reasons for, for, uh mortgage lenders to be stingy. But notice what happens as we go into the covid period, this index starts to fall pretty significantly. And so that means it s getting more and more difficult to get a mortgage. Um, and we re at about 100 today uh on that index. So basically, uh, this has not been an easy market to get a mortgage, you know, compared to, you know, 2004, 2006. When you know, anyone and everyone was able to get a mortgage, uh, and that did not end well. So very different financial conditions and so I don t see the same. You know, bad news for first-time home buyers. I don t see a big drop in, in housing prices, you know, the the 50% haircut that we saw in 08 and 09. And this is just a historical view. You can see the index is almost 900 in 2006. So it was 9 times easier to get a mortgage than it is today. Basically, you know, just had to be alive, I think, uh. And able to, you know, draw an x on the contract. Um, Florida, you know, I think s in good, good shape, um, you know, I think if there s a slowing economy nationally or or a national recession, I think we re in a better position to handle it than we were in 2020. We took it extra hard because of what happened to tourism. Uh, with covid-19 and then of course, 2008, 2009, the housing market hit the state, you know, pretty, um. Uh, pretty hard, uh, and it took us quite a few years to really get out of that recession, I would argue it was 2012 before Florida came out of that recession, uh, that nationally ended in JUNE of 2009. Um, but I do see a slowing of growth. Uh, I, I think the unemployment rate is still incredibly low, though it will drift upward. I mean, you know, sub 4% is, is, is a strong labor market. There just no, you know, there s no, no, no two ways about it. Now hiring will slow. But again, you know, we re pretty much at or beyond, uh, full employment here in the state. So I, you know, I feel confident, um, especially once we get past, you know, this, uh, level of insanity in in dc I guess there s a certain level of sanity in Tallahassee too, uh, but anyway, I don t know what the heck s going on there, but, um, and we ll we ll see what happens. Hopefully they don t. We re in good shape. I just don t screw it up, you know, that s all I could say. Um. Florida s unemployment rate, I think we ll continue to track below the national, uh, Florida will continue to outgrow the national economy, um, you know, I think this is uh something we can expect to continue. Population growth, uh, has been and, and will continue to be, uh, an important contributor to, to the growth of the state, um, you know, it was ramped up during covid-19, a little bit turbocharged, uh, now we re kind of back to the trends, which still are strong, um, and, and, uh, you know, When you have more people in the state, you have more economic activity. It s not, you know, really a. Uh, rocket science. And so looking at uh. Uh, average growth by sector through 2028. Uh, health services continues to perform, you know, that sector grew even throughout the the Great Recession. Um, more people, particularly the, you know, those of us that, you know, skew a little older, uh, you know, I, I. Like I said, my, I realized I was not young when uh I went to having one doctor for my entire body. To a doctor for like each part. Um, and so, you know, we need all those parts doctors and, uh, you know, the hospitals are being built and you know, these these various uh. Uh, hospital, the mafia families in different parts of the state or, you know, trying to wage war. Um, so it s a solid source of growth, leisure and hospitality, uh, I think. You know, Set another record last year for visitation. I had a heck of a time getting a room, uh, last night, uh, here in Sarasota, if that means anything locally. So, um, again, I, I, I think we re, we looking at a pretty good situation, um, here in the Sarasota, uh, metro area, you know, I think growth continues, um, you know, you, the drivers are there, uh, again, the labor market and uh incredibly strong, uh, and I think the challenges are. Basically managing that growth. Um, you know, and it s not, that doesn t, you know, as I said, I d rather have growing pains. And the pains of stagnation. Um, you know, and, and you know, affordable housing and transportation networks, all those things are intertwined, but, you know, those are the kind of things that, you know, become a challenge when you have a region that s growing, uh, the way Sarasota is and has been. Um Job growth by sector again, construction, hospitality, uh, you know, the. The top of this list, uh, not very high growth rates, but you saw with the unemployment rates are here. It s uh uh it s a, it s a solid. Solid labor market uh in Sarasota. So I think in general, you know, despite the kind of chaos in Washington and in the predictions of catastrophic outcomes, um, you know, I, I, I think we d get through this period of uncertainty and, you know, come out the other side and get back to the business of, of, uh. Business. Personal and, and, uh. Uh, firms. And I will stop and take questions or. He escorted out of the building, whatever. Any, any of those outcomes are possible. Well, thank you, doctor. As always, it s nice to see you. We appreciate your time every year coming down here and uh I ll go ahead and open the uh the floor to colleagues here on my right. Any questions for Doctor Snake? Uh, looking to my left, seeing none. I, I just No, you lost your chance. I m kidding. Go ahead, commissioner. Uh, it s always great to have you, doctor. Um. You said the beginning, you d probably throw this away. What you did, I didn t really see you say anything that you now wish you had. Put forth differently. Are you, is there anything all of it, ok, thank you. So this was meaningless, the whole, yeah, yeah, it s, I mean, uh, there sort of an existential crisis right now, quite frankly, um. Well, the thing is, I Yeah Yeah. Um I don t know what the the rules of the game are, yeah, um, and so that s why I don t have confidence in, in, in the specific numbers. Now, I mean, All my forecasts are wrong. I mean, I, I m, I m self-aware, you know, all models are wrong. Whatever you re using those models to predict, they re wrong. Some, some models are useful. Um, you know, so that s, you know, My feeling that, you know, This dire outcome that many were talking about the past couple of months is, is not the outcome we re going to see, um, what trajectory we are on. I don t, I don t even what s in the big beautiful bill? I mean, I, I, I know it s big. I m, I m sure of that. It s a beautiful, I don t know. I mean, that s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, uh, when did the trade negotiations and. And, and what does that mean? Um, you know, how much? Reshoring of manufacturing is actually going to happen. I don t know. Um, and my concern really, and this is broader, is that we re governing by continuing resolution and executive orders. And that means when the next person gets in the office, they can just say, ok, all these executive orders no longer hold. Here s my executive orders. Well, how do you plan, uh, you know, as a local government. How do you plan as a business when you can have that kind of sweeping change from, you know, one administration to the next. So, I m, I m waiting for a little more information. Uh, I, I, I, I don t think it s going to be the dire outcome, but, uh, I, I will tweak it as I have been as, as the new, as the new data comes out and more importantly is we understand more of what policies. Being handed down from Washington dc and maybe here in Florida as well. I mean, I don t, you know, we. There s Dodge fever, right? I mean, it s, you know, uh. Music in the in the cafes at night and revolution in the air, um, you know, uh, Dos going crazy and Washington dc now we re doing Doge down here and uh we re talking about eliminating property taxes and oh hey, we re gonna cut sales taxes and, you know, I don t know where the money s coming from, um, so yeah, it s wrong and uh I think policy uncertainty is what is making uh, you know. Predicting the future even more difficult. I was glad to hear you had a problem getting a room. Because that s a good sign, right? And I, I, I think so. I mean, I was shocked at how difficult it was Regis didn t have a room open for you? Well, you know, uh, I m a professor, yeah, I m not, uh, not a trial lawyer or a politician. I don t, you know, I don t have that kind of money, we have a bedroom. And it ll be very reasonable. So if you can t get a room next time, you give me a call to, to put you up, but, you know, I ve always looked at this as though there s the rest of the country and then there s Florida. And you know, it seems to me, I mean, art, you know, think about construction, tourism, right? I mean, we ve got, that s who we are. And here we are, you know, off season already and we re still seeing, I mean, I had traffic all the way up and all kinds of things going on, a lot of economic activity everywhere. I mean, would you agree with that? I mean, uh, our, our biggest concern here is making sure that You know, the tourists still come. And you know, the construction industry stays healthy and strong. I mean, given all this uncertainty and all that, is it still, I mean, are we still? Ok with that. I mean, are people gonna continue to. You know, take their vacations and come to Florida and you know, regardless of all the Yeah, I think so, um, you know, we ve seen in a couple of instances, you know, sort of attempts to boycott Florida for vacation or for business, they always tend to. Fail miserably, um, you know, our friends in Canada, some are not too happy, uh, with what s been going on in Washington dc, uh, talked there about not visiting Florida, uh, as well, um. I, I would say probably it s an exchange rate issue if there s an impact on visitation from Canada than it is a political protest, um. Yeah, it s awful cold, awful cold up there and uh. You know, The allure of this climate, I think is something that s hard to Protests for long. Well, on the exchange rate, you know, international travels. Very favorable right now, right, because of the exchange rate, so maybe we have to focus there. Well, we, we still have a way to recover from covid-19, um, you know, that international visitation, um, you know, statewide really has not gotten back to those pre. Covid levels, um, but yeah, again. The trade brouhaha and and and trade wars, whatever you want to call it, once that gets settled, then, you know. The us and the rest of the world can. Start playing the game again. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Knight. No, you, you hit it on that poke the chair about, didn t hear much about Florida, but I think Florida is probably kind of hard right now if we re going to be impacted we we continue to move forward with our budget process and our impact will probably come out of Tallahassee if we have an impact at all. You, are you sensing anything following it this year or next year will be the bigger or just too hard to sell or how do you bring the tea leaves? Let s put it that way of Tallahassee, I don t know what these people are doing. I mean, it s confusing. It s just like. That s like a, you know, family feud, I right, I mean I from what I understand, one party sort of runs the show, but now, you know, it s like these weddings I went to as a kid, you know, Uncle Ish is punching the Wally and uh the cops are coming again, you know, i mean, it s uh. Uh, so yeah, I mean that stuff. What s being discussed could have a significant impact, right? What you do to what we all do. I mean, I don t know what s actually gonna happen. Um, coming out of Tallahassee, but you know, that, that um is not insignificant and right now, you know, probably. I don t want to say it s a bigger threat than what s happening in Washington dc, but it, it s more of a threat than than is normally the case. And, and I would say, you know, the other, well, especially with You know, the, the Insurance rates, stuff like that, this is an ongoing problem. I mean, you know, of course, the best thing would be another 10 or 20 years where there s no impact, that, that would be wonderful, but, uh, we re still seeing those premiums go up, that s affecting affordability and so you re seeing some of that kind of maybe getting undone, and I, I, I still don t quite. Figure out what s what s the the what the family feud s all about, but i m not, I don t have my finger on the pulse of politics, that s for sure. Yeah. So we move forward and Yeah, carry on, carry on. But I, you know, I mean, I can t believe we re gonna do something so egregious in Tallahassee as to, you know, is to kill the golden goose here. I mean, I would hope not, but. Good. Uh, Doctor Snead, if I could, I just had a couple of comments, maybe a quick question, and you had a slide up on gdp. Um, and government spending last year, I think the number was about 40% of our national gdp. I think I just looked up, it s about 36.2. Can you help me understand how that that government spending kind of interacts with, um, you know, the health of our economy. That s, that s a pretty large percentage of gdp when you look at the numbers. So, Maybe you could help me understand that a little better. Are there metrics? Are there models that exist to say we should be at a certain percentage overall nationally, I mean. Uh, you know, there, there s not, um. There s not a, a ratio or a percentage, you know, that is kind of the uh. The golden. Triangle the golden ratio where, you know, debt to gdp gets to 10%. Crisis happens. It, it, it varies. Uh, how big should the government be? Um, well, that s a debate, uh, you know, uh. I wouldn t want the government responsible for 90% of gdp because that s, you know, that s a failed economy, uh, when that happens. So, you know, if you re talking 36, 40%, um, that s a sizable chunk, but you know, that s, that s defense, that s, you know. Is that including entitlements, you know, so there s a lot of pieces there, um, that go into that government spending. So, you know, is it important? Well, of course, I mean, when, you know, Social Security, Medicare, those, those are important programs, uh, you know, our national defense important. The concern is, um. You know, that, that rising debt level. And, and the treasury Secretary made some comments. He s not wrong. But what matters kind of over the long run in terms of sustainability of debt is, is your economy growing faster than the debt. So you got debt over gdp. If gdp is growing faster than the numerator, then that fraction gets smaller over time. I m not convinced that that s case or that will be the case, you know, given the pace with which that debt s growing. So, um, the interest on it is, is a, is a is a pressure point that s gonna, you know, Start hurting more and, and, you know, we can t ignore it. Yeah, I, that was my second point was, uh, I think you said it was a trillion go to 1.4, so that s what, about 40% increase on that just this calendar year through DECEMBER, uh, that some pretty meaningful increases there, I think, by anybody s uh imagination. So that s a very hard conversation to have, uh, somewhat, um, nebulous at the moment because to your points earlier, we seem to have some um uncertainty at the federal level and certainly at our state level, um, which affects us here at a local level. And um I know that probably as we go through our budget and when Rob comes up to give us uh the best and latest and greatest of what s up there, you know, we re, we re gonna be tasked with making some very difficult decisions and trying to plan proactively for the future. Um, but it s certainly nice to have somebody, uh, such as yourself with your caliber expertise, uh, and willing to admit that the, the future is really, it s not certain. We don t know what s coming up and we re gonna have to be fluid and pivot, um, and then the last thing I have for you, which was meaningful was that tariffs don t cause inflation. Um, that, that s something I learned today, you know, we, we get a lot of that out in the universe. There s a lot of noise out there that, that seems to be, um, just, just thrown out there for that purpose, but, uh, as, as a professional in the industry, uh, I m gonna take that and commit that to memory, sir. So thank you kindly for that tidbit of information. Um, I don t see any further comments from this board for you, Doctor Sneath. I appreciate your time this morning, safe travels, and um. We ll see you again next year, I hope, thank you. Very good. Be well. Ok, moving on to to see please will be Rob Lewis. So we re gonna go from economic forecasting to Tallahassee and and federal forecasting, I guess this, this is gonna be interesting, so everybody buckle up. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN and commissioners for the record, Rob Lewis, director of governmental relations. It seems like we ve been talking about the legislative session for a long time, and that s because we have. Uh, this session started, uh, several months ago. Uh, we have been successful in securing appropriations within either the House or the Senate. There s a couple of instances where one instance where the numbers are matching. Um, and there s been a number of fiscal impact legislation, and that s my focus today for the board that we were concerned about during the legislative session, most of which did not pass, but some of which is still alive in his in his part of the budget negotiations that are going on. Um, I will tell you that. Um The current extension that both chambers have agreed to ends on JUNE 6th. So it would require both the House and the Senate to pass another. Concurrent resolution to extend to beyond JUNE 6th. The House has done that. The Senate has not. Uh, I communicated with 3 of our 4 legislative staffs uh before I came into this meeting today, uh, none of them have been given travel instructions or schedule instructions for next week. There s the legislature and the leadership will get past this holiday weekend and uh start working in earnest. We MAY see some meetings next week, we MAY not. Um I m hearing anecdotally there s a little bit a little bit of movement a little bit on little bit a couple of silos, what they refer to as budget silos, education, transportation, and so on. But, uh, really you re, you re seeing the same things in the press, uh, accounts that I m seeing and picking up on. Um, this will feel like a very long session. House Select Committee on Property Tax, of which our own representative Nick serves on, uh, we ll meet throughout the summer and is charged with bringing back to the speaker, uh, a set of recommendations in early fall. The interim committee meetings for the 26th legislative session will begin in SEPTEMBER. Um, We met MR. Patello and I and uh Karen Fritangelo met with Representative Nix a couple of weeks ago just to go at a high level over what property taxes look like in Sihe County and what they re used for to help inform him on his work on that select committee during the course of the summer. And so I feel like we are communicated very well the delegation. Moreover, I feel like we re communicated very well with one member of our delegation that s sitting on that select committee. But excerpt from that program, just to give you an update on the municipal bond market, operating positions. So I ll spend hopefully no more than, you know, 5 to 10 minutes walking through these slides and welcome any questions you all might have. Um, first of all, I won t spend a lot of time on the market, Doctor Snai talked about all the things that are impacting the market. So this is just a brief snapshot of what we call the b val aaa geo yield curve, and that s the index we use when pricing any type of tax exempt municipal bonds. So you can see, most importantly, one year ago with the yellow dotted line, we still had somewhat of an inverted yield curve, which is really kind of flattened out and become more naturally shaped over the last year. So short-term rates have come down. Pretty significantly given that the Federal Reserve has cut rates 3 times, but long-term rates have stayed within a pretty tight bandwidth, despite what s been a lot of volatility within sort of weeks and months. So, um, and, and, and same thing for the us Treasury curve here, uh, long-term rates, the 30-year treasury really hasn t moved much over the last year, but a short term kind of, you know, one month treasuries have come down a lot. So we went from again uh an inverted yield curve. A year ago to what s almost a very flat yield curve today from really 0 to 30 years. Um This graphic just gives you a little bit of history of those two curves, the, the, the tax exempt curve and the Treasury curve and where they are today versus where they have been historically over the last 10 years. So the sort of brownish bars or the highest and lowest those curves have been over the last 10 years. So you can see with the dark blue, we re, we re near, you know, 10-year highs in terms of both, you know, tax exempt rates and taxable treasury rates. Having said that, The last 10 years have been historically low in terms of interest rates. So while we are near the highs, you ll see on some subsequent slides that the county s been actually able to borrow at some fairly attractive rates, uh, even given their, uh, you know, kind of historically high rates over the last 10 years. Um, and the last slide on the market here, this is just sort of informational. These are credit spreads. So when we price your bonds, you know, you all are a aaa, aa plus type credit depending on what, uh, what credit security we re using. So you have a much tighter credit spread in terms of basis points that you would price over the index and obviously as you go from being aaa to aa to single a, the spread that you would price and the interest rate that you would get as much higher. What is of interesting note on this graph is you ll see in sort of the APRIL time frame of 2025 credit spreads really jumped. That was Liberation Day or whatever we want to call it. I call it the week from hell, honestly. Um, that was when essentially the market shut down for a week. Prices were not getting done unless you were forced into the market. So if you were forced in the market, like you had to put bond that was due or you had to do a financing that week. Investors saw blood in the water. They were naming their price, so credit spreads gapped out very significantly and I ve really come back down since then. Not, not quite to where they were historically, but still have come down significantly since that point in time. So that s just kind of a brief snapshot of the muni bond market. The rest of this is really going to focus on the county s debt portfolio and credit rating. So, uh, this table here shows an overview of the county s outstanding debt broken down by lean, and you can see here the county has a variety of different security structures from general obligation bonds, uh, many sources of revenue that are contained within the general fund and then really to enterprise funds that borrowed debt being the solid waste system. In the utility system, which really make up about 50% of the county s overall debt portfolio. So you re really about 50% enterprise fund and 50% kind of general capital projects, 2 of those being the geo bonds and the infrastructure sales tax bonds that have been approved by the voters, uh, to do certain capital projects. I ll also point out here and we ll talk about ratings in a little more detail later. You all have very strong credit ratings and continue to have strong credit ratings. You re aaa go rating is the highest possible rating out there. It s rated higher than the federal government. We just got the federal government downgraded by Moody s, I think last Friday to aa1 s&p at double uh downgraded them to aa plus several years ago. So you all are in the upper echelon or as high as it gets in terms of credit ratings. And you can see all of the security sources that secure that are all rated the aa and high aa category. So very strong credit rating, which is a testament to what you all do and your staff and the good work that s done on your debt portfolio. Uh, same thing here. I won t spend time. It s just um pie chart shows the breakdown again, about 50% of the debt is enterprise fund debt. Uh, so the next several slides give you an overview of issuances that were done this, uh, our last calendar year in 2024. And I do want to make note that, uh, you all have a very collaborative working staff that works on these financings, including your staff and county administration. We work closely with the clerk s office. We work closely with the accounting attorney s office and everybody works together to bring these financings together and help maintain the credit ratings. That you all have. So last year in 2024, we actually closed 5 different financings, uh, 3 of which were capital improvement revenue bonds that s secured by your local government half cent sales tax, uh, one was secured by tourist development taxes, and we did a solid waste revenue bond, uh, most importantly, I think you can see here in the true interest calls column, despite what I mentioned before, being being it near historic high rates over the last 10 years, you all were able to lock in quite attractive true interest cost ranging from a low of what looks like 3.1% on the solid waste bonds, which had a 15 year maturity up to about 3.81% on your 2024c capital improvement bonds. So, in this table, we highlight what finance, what projects were financed with these, as well as some of the key statistics, but again, despite market conditions, we ve been able to lock in fairly attractive interest rates for capital projects. Uh, moving forward into 2025, we actually continue to, uh, you know, issue some bonds to fund projects. The county has recently priced to financings, uh, the 2025a capital improvement revenue bonds, uh, for your county support services facility, uh, rates have ticked up a little, 4.19% interest rate on that financing. And we also did an infrastructure sales tax with the voted sales tax for about 3. 3.77% true interest costs. So again, rates are a little bit higher, but if you look back over what s a longer period of time, say 30 or 40 years. These are still fairly attractive rates that are being locked in. I ll mention the other financing we re preparing for this year is a very large financing for the, uh, utility system for the Venice Gardens alternative water treatment plant, uh, that will probably come before you for consideration at a commission meeting, I think in the next couple of months. Uh, just a couple of other things, you ll recall the county took. Great advantage of the wifia program in 2021 and locked in a 1.84% interest rate on a 35 year utility financing that was a little over $100 million. Uh, this past year, you actually started d