Board of County Commissioners on 2023-07-17 9:00 AM - FY23/24 Budget Workshop

welcome to our JULY 17th 2023 Border County Commissioners Budget Workshop meeting. It s actually a Monday if you re following along at home We re going to review our budget. We have our constitutional here too. Share their information as well. And, then we ll go through department by department. I would like to call the meeting to order and we would begin with an invocation by Pastor Aaron my hand from the higher purpose Pentecostal Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. And if you would all please rise. Good. Morning, Pastor Thank you very much for this opportunity to come and offer this invocation. It s always a privilege to be with you. And and, uh, this is such an important time for us to come together. You are in the people business as I am, and sometimes it doesn t feel like that dealing with budgets and numbers and all that, but at the end of the day we re in the people business and that can sometimes be frustrating. And not always a thankful job or a job that you get offered praise for I recall when I was a little younger, I was a youth pastor and young now, but I was younger, even still, and I was a youth pastor at a church. I found myself being very frustrated over just dealing with some of the young people and some of the others. Just discouraged and I did something that I don t always suggest you do doesn t always work, but I did what I call the blind finger test. That s where you just desperately need encouragement. So. You just grabbed the Bible. Close your eyes swing it open and slam your finger down. And I did that this one day just desperately needing encouragement. I closed, my eyes swung the Scriptures open slammed my finger down and my finger landed on first Corinthians 15 58 where it says to always abound in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And if I can just offer a quick encouragement to you and the others who are here in this great work for this wonderful county to always abound in this work and know your labor is not in vain and that you are doing great work, and I think you and the people do Thank you so in my prayer, I m going to pray a blessing over the work. That we re doing in this meeting today and your continued work after this meeting if we could bow our heads, Lord, we thank you Jesus for this opportunity to come together for our county for people. We pray that you would bless this meeting. Let there be peace. Let there be Joy Lord, we pray that you would bless every bit of work. Everything that must be discussed, including the budgetary processes and and the other speakers who will be here today We play your blessing over this meeting and their continued work and I ask that you encourage them today to know that we thank them and that you are with them in Jesus name. I pray Amen. Thank you very much. I pledge allegiance to the flag, United States Which. It stands one nation under And justice for all. Thank you pastor very much. Just as a informational. This is our budget workshop meeting. It is the purpose of this workshop is to establish our tentative millage. The tentative military will be set. Hopefully, at the end of the day or the end of this meeting. Unless, for whatever reason. The meeting continues until tomorrow. And with that I will turn it over to our county administrator, MR. Don Donaldson. Good Morning commissioners. We will only to start off by giving you a brief presentation on how the budget was put together some pertinent facts and our community related to revenues and expenses. Concluding that I ll have a few additional remarks, and then we ll go right into the review of the budget items, so we ll start with MISS Jennifer Manning and I ll join her. Good morning, commissioner, says Jennifer Manan, baby director. Yeah. The presentation will include an overview of the major revenues, attended the budget revenues and expenditures the basis for the budget development. The tax analysis as well as the impact from based on JULY 1 valuation. The 24 budget development summary and prior your impacts and the basis for recommendation. We have three sets of major revenues and the first one to talk about is a local revenues. Those revenues include Advil or, um, back fees. Building permit fears ambulance fees. Develop movie If, you review fees and so forth the adult or, Um, um Revenues are budgeted at 95%, based on state statutes. And generally, we collect anywhere from 85 to 90% between NOVEMBER and DECEMBER, so the lion s share is collected before, um, JANUARY, FEBRUARY. At this point we have collected all our Advil or, um, taxes and we re about 101%. Oops. Sorry. Our impact fees are collected at building permit issuance, and that s based on changes made a couple of years ago. We do not budget those impact fees until we have collected it, so we re very conservative with our budget and you know when you look back in 2005 we were collecting over $15 million and, um, we re currently in 2022. We collected 5.4 million Our bill and permit fees are pretty much in line with what our projections are. It s only 2% above the ambulance fees are definitely trending or outpacing are expected amount, and that s due to increased call loads as well as enhanced collection changes. The tourism taxes. It s doing phenomenally, but I mean it s an increase due to high demand and higher anticipated average daily rate. As far as development review fees, and it s trending higher and you know we re conservative with that as well, but we are getting a lot more applications for development review. Franchise fees are are high, and that s based on increasing the rate the and the electric cars. Splashes in line expected budget, but we are Expecting it to exceed. By the end of the year. Interest rate is definitely outpatient, Um what we projected and that s based on the investment opportunities and the changes in the market. And like last year the last couple of years we ve been in investing in about less than a percent for this year. We re at 4%. And of course it s It also contingent on how many how much funds we have available. And then I m going to move on to the have these slides that I that s just in the presentation for informational purposes. And those are just the major revenues. The next revenues. Unless did you want to look at all the slides or you just later on? No, okay. Alright. So the next set of revenues, the state revenues and there was a projected by the state. Some of the revenues are two months behind, For example. The have sent sales tax and fuel taxes. There are two months behind and communication taxes one month behind We are you know we have been seeing that the communications tax has been it s just slightly hired in projection. Revenue sharing is definitely much higher than we have projected. And. We are very conservative. With, the revenue sharing and half cent sales tax because of past experiences. And. The same thing would have since sales tax that the field taxes we are, you know, seeing a steady decline. Have those fuel taxes and mainly due to electric cars, and this has resulted in gradually shifting some of our revenues to the road msc to you that are related to road msu because we don t have unaltered native revenue source at this time. And. These are also slides that represent a communications tax revenue. Sharon, you can see our collections over the years. House in sales tax and you can see it all outpatient. What were projected amounts are And the gas tax. It s steadily just goes up. You know it s either going down or going up slightly, so we know where it s not a sustainable revenue source. For the future. The next set of revenues, and these are the final set up major revenues and I will be presenting as a water and so we re utilities as well. The garbage assessment and the golf course. So the water and sewer charges, and that s based mainly on having new customers added to the the the the system and the garbage collection has assessments that was also budgeted at 95%. And as as new customers to the base. Selfish since you can see it is outpacing the projected amount. I just want to make to mention that those revenues are just based on course revenue. It s not any club or anything like that. And. These are the slides that represent those revenues. Now we re going to go into the developed budget development. You know why are we here? You know the Florida statutes require us to be here. You know the county administrator has the powers and duties to prepare and submit a budget to the county commissioners in consideration for the adoption of the operating budget, Capital Budget and Capital program. And the f. I 24 tentative budget was submitted to the board as a working document so we can change it at any time during this workshop or public hearing. And changes will be made throughout throughout today or if we go into the 18th, we will change its on The total revenues and expenditures. Total. Revenues for the tentative budget is $643 million, and that represents Advil or in For General fund as well as their misuse local sales tax. It has assessments. Franchise fees a large amount for miscellaneous revenues, which includes water and sewer and ambulance fees and so forth, and then you have revenue. Sharon The total expenditures is also 643 million. And, um That represents 19% for personal services. They had 28% for operating expenditures. The Capital budget has 11% death Services only 3%, the constitute officers and 19%. Transfers and reserves at 20%. So. The budget development includes the tentative c, I p that was approved in APRIL and just to let you know that the the numbers are based on JULY 1 evaluation. We went that increased 12 over a little bit over 12% and the total Advil Orum for General fund as well as msu s equated to about $31 million. These are the taxable values for the various taxing authorities. And as I mentioned, Um they they The county Wide and m s u s, um, want slightly over 12% and when we look at the districts they went from Milan Point District one limb 0.6 12.2 for district 2 13.7 for district 3 10.9 for District four and 11.82 for district. Five. Okay. So the budget development. Of course I mentioned in JULY 1 values was based. It was based on JULY 1 values and funding accounts to Schimmel officers. The departments maintain the same level of levels as fy 23, with the exception of the cost of doing business, such as the contracted services as well as you know, electricity and and any other board directed increases. We also look at the full time equivalent positions and just to know that if those positions are requested because of increased workloads as well as enhancements, and there are some fees that are covering most of those positions. And then, of course, the capital project. So. The. Total ad form impact for the tentative budget is $43.9 million. The Principal center increases allocated amongst the Countywide, which is 70% of that amount, and then the fire and and the other road. M s u s r 22%. Itemized Advil or, um, impact. Come come coming up will be the capital improvement plan. The constitutional offices, requests the b 0 cc. Um, requests as well as the boc c department, and I just wanted to note that for the bill c c departments we did not use any of the increased values for fy from the From. The JULY 1 valuation and and the reason for that is we had fees at increased some fees for services. As well as recurring debt service from paying off debt obligations, so we paid off the debt and then we had to reoccurring finds that helped to absorb some of those Increases. The capital Improvement practice capital projects presented to the board in APRIL was roughly $12.9 million after looking at one time expenses we were able to reduce it by 1 million, roughly $1.1 million, and that s because we re looking at for revenues, for example, like the Advil on revenues we collected more than anticipated. So. We could use those funds for one time expenses. So that brought the that revised the capital projects. $11.9 million. The constitutional officers, which includes your judicial, the sheriff requested $16.4 million supervisor of Elections $379,000, and that s mainly due to being an election year next year. And. Those usually go back down the Polynesian. The tax collector was 305,000, the clerk of the court 290,000 property appraiser 153,000 inmate care contract $1.6 million. We had to have a new contract written the mental health court, which was requested On presentation in JULY in I think was MAY as well as prior to that 450,000 and then the 9 11 is $419,000. So. The. Total requests for constitutional his $20 million And. I just wanted to note also that the increase in the value for for f for the Countywide is $22 million. So on the board side. We had technology requests, which was $2.1 million, and then we have the Sierra obligations, which is 1.9 million. The property insurance. This is just a portion of the property insurance that could not be absorbed by the other revenue sources. 765,000 the frs impact, which is unfunded liability with 725, just for Countywide. And, so the total Countywide request For board is $5.5 million. Has. The total impact overall between the county and the judicial and constitutional is $25.5 million. We were able to reduce the impact of technology requests and I just wanted to know that the technology requests is a mandate from legislation that changed last year and we have to have those technology. Um Software. Commissioner Heatherington on that technology did did they give us a timeline? That is that does it have to be completed by 2024 by JANUARY of 2024? Yes, So. It was mandated by the state and it had to be completed by 2024 1 to be completed in a year because it started since last year, so they They said. By JANUARY 2024. Yes, So we were able to reduce again using the one time revenue is that we know we have by 945 $5000, and we produce a technology portion of it. So, the revised amount of between the capital for this is 24.5 million. And. This is just a visual of what the pie looks like. Everybody included for requests for the impact to the county Wide fund. And as you can see, the lion s share is that sheriff as well as the hip. The. Other requests are pretty small, you know, but you know, with exception, of course, Inmate medical and then you know The property insurance and c r a Okay? Impacts to the the Advil and impacts of fire parks, some or the inroads. Equates to $7.6 million of which we have contract obligation for prior rescue and ft impact. 4.4 we have the frs unfunded mandate impact of $2 million And the fire portion of the c r a. Is $403,000 the cost of doing business, fuel and equipment, and this is only under the hemispheres side increased by 182,000. And this is not fire. This is for road and stormwater the There is an urban tree canopy audit that is $80,000. As well as street lights and other maintenance that increase to $236,000 more in and landscaping is 272,000 requests. And that s probably represents what those requests look like. Okay? And, Speaking of the efforts impact in this that they went up for the regular rate is 14% and then for special risk, which is very significant 70 some 17%. And 3% for elected officials 9% for senior management and 14% for drop. And overall and I m not talking, Just fire Rescuing Counting white msg you the impact was roughly over $3 million for frs unfunded mandate. That went from your dear. Their tentative budget reserves were required by our fiscal policy to have 10% reserves and we currently have that reserve in place for the General fund, and there s also reserved that is required for building utilities and solid ways of up to one year and that is also met. This is the General fund. This is all the reserves that is in the total budget. And. You can see the General fund has 22.6 million overall and all the other respected funds have their reserves. So. We have our salary reserves. We have Contingency for certain funds and future capital and so forth. Okay? Yes, Thank you. Okay. So in summary we proposed budget includes funding his constitutional officers. Capital improvement plan that was tentatively approved investing in our employees and we look at our contracted obligations. And various, um Evaluations and then the funding of the property insurance. The c, r, a f r s unfunded mandate. And prior board directions. So, for example, the Met, But mental Health court was like cardboard direction and maintain the level of service for various departments. And with that I will entertain any questions. And. I know Mr Donaldson would like to speak. Thank you questions for Ms Manning on the presentation thus far. None at this time, Mr Donaldson. Thank you commissioners as MISS Manning presented when you look at the the total budget and including the, um few reductions in Advil or, um, requirement that MISS Manning pointed out in the sip and the technology program Um, it would require a millage increase of 4.582%. Um And so should the board want to lower that military rate Keep in mind? Our budget is largely driven by, um, staffing needs and just simply inflation to insurance and all the other things put together. Um, that staff has prepared to assist either during or at the end on how we might achieve that. My recommendation is that that in the General fund is the primary category of which you would find reductions and mostly in the capital, where we added new new funds in our capital program. Um, I think it s an also into ports remote and repeat that the county departments That are relying upon general fund, uh, did not require any increase in millage to support their budgets. And. There s two reasons for this and MISS Manning pointed out as well as that the the staff and with your approval to paying off of debt with some of our increased revenues last year through fund balance. And some of those other fees that that the department s did have some increases but did not rely on any growth in our tax base to pay for them. Um uh, In addition, our Parks Department, which has had some enterprise like projects going on, have kind of hit their stride and and and has generated enough revenue where they didn t need even $1 of new reoccurring revenue to, um to to fund their operations. So. That s I think those are significant. Items to point out. Um but also I think it s important. Note that your your department s Arlene and I think your libraries are good example of of where they are in the in terms of as you know, we re all competing for staff or staff positions. Um, while he and even when we re fully staffed, we re still lean organization. And I think, um Gents Alice s comments the other day that they have you know some of their libraries if they have more than two people out, they have a contingency they MAY have to close the library. So we re I think we lean and mean in that respect. I think the budget presented to you is one that is, um is is the cost of providing those services. Um And. So that again where I point to the fact that um or capital budget is principally where I would look to to any reductions if we were going to look at that, Um and And with that, um It will Take any questions or go into our presentations? Questions for Mr Donaldson. Mr Donaldson. Before, we begin. I was, um I did not ask if there was any public comment prior to the beginning of your both of your presentations. So at this time I would take if anyone is here from the public that would like to address us before we begin this process. None. Yes. We re going to start with the constitutional is correct, Mr Donaldson. Okay? And I just wanted to point out. I have spoken to all the constitutional officers would accept you speak up a little bit Sorry. With the exception of the sheriff, the other constitutional officers. I told them that we did not need a formal presentation. Because of their their impact. It was not significant understood to make sure that everybody knew that would afford any of them the opportunity to come forward if they were any information is good opportunity, even if it s not necessarily budget request related. But if they had something that they d like to share would be a great opportunity to do that. Before we begin, Commissioner Smith Mr Chair. Don just a I guess a quick starting point where we are so If we were to have a 4% plus or minus increase in our Advil or and what would that require from the board and in terms of voting? It would require unanimous vote just I knew that I just wanted to kind of set the stage for that conversation. Um, because when you said that we MAY have to work on reductions one way or the other, I think just as long as everybody understands that Whether we can get there or we can t get there. Determines how today will shape up Is that fair? Yes, Thank you. Okay before we begin. Let s also entertain a motion to adopt the budget as Excuse me, that would be easy, right? Just do it. Motion to adopt. Did you say a post? Well, at least we cut right to the chase motion. The budget passes. Let me. Guess, uh, removable. That s what I like. Thank you. Thank you We have a motion by Commissioner Smith two weeks approved the agenda. Secondary Commissioner Heatherington all those in favor. All those opposed We re off to a good start. That was unanimous decision. We re setting the pace for the whole entire day. Commissioner, Do. You have any comments you d like to make Nope. Dan. You already made your comments Fantastic. We will begin with our sheriff. She s not on my list. The sheriff and his financial team is here. Sheriff has always It s an honor to have you here. You re very safe, very probably the safest room in the county today. Um, welcome. Thank you? Thank you very much CHAIRMAN, Campy Vice CHAIRMAN Jenkins Commissioner Heard, Commissioner Heatherington and Commissioner Smith administrator. Donaldson are good Sarah Woods and So are Budget lady has walked off. So. Thank you. Thank you to her, too? I was thinking of the pastors opening remarks. About, opening the Bible and Finding a scripture. I ve tried that once or twice and always opens to Leviticus if you want to try to find inspiration, Leviticus, please tell me how you did it. But I believe that we could find inspiration anywhere, but that s that s been my my experience with that. Also. I m here today with our staff have already introduced Kevin young blood or chief financial officer, My chief Deputy, John Bolton sick and our staff are here to help me answer questions. If there are any I was thinking is like, come up here. I have some constitutional responsibilities of which the primary one in my opinion is conserving the piece. Obviously. But not far behind is I m obligated by statute to present a budget by a certain time And. So as I stand before you this morning. I m keenly aware that our request is large. I am there s no way to obfuscate that to soften it. It is exactly what I just said. It s a big increase. We are an expensive industry. I think I ve said that before. We started the budget process months ago. Every every single entity in the sheriff s office submits budget request. So we have what I consider, uh zero base budget of legitimate one. We don t carry over from one year to the other. We Sit down entity by entity, So. I mean sergeant supervising a squad. To, the lieutenant supervising the platoon to the captain supervising a division and so on. Uh, that s our strategy. We sit down. And their grassroots level at the base of the sheriff s office. We go about identifying these and then that s our format, So. Then. We ll start off with on unshaved on budget. Kevin, Do you remember what the first number that rolled in was 102.3 million first, the Big one before we started bearing down. I think almost 100 and 18 million almost 118 million. Uh, request dogs was a request that each one of those entities felt was important. So Our our process of getting to where we are now was provable aureus. It was thought out, and we asked the question over and over again with the generally asked this question. Do. We have to have this. Or. Is it just nice to have And that s a difficult one in law enforcement because even nice to have can make the job. We can make us more effective and we will down. So. What would that cabin How much do we will down over 16 Million, so 16 million came off of all of those requests, And so you re were left this morning with what I m going to present to you. This should be a pretty quick presentation. You all have had the budget. I ve talked to some of, you know, as a matter of fact, I talked to all of you prior to going into the budget. Uh, our county administrators been extremely helpful. Don. Thank you so much for your guidance. We ve listened to you. We ve moved Just recently You came back and said, Look, could you help us here and we we looked at what we thought was our minimum and and then took three quarters of main off of that. By deferring some of our hires a lot of what you ll see today. In the increases I ll be able to explain on sliding just a minute. I d like to start off with a video that we we made for, Uh, Recruiting purposes, but I think I think what I wanted you to see was How complex law enforcement is in the modern era. And what goes into what we do? It s impossible for me to adequately convey you all the nuances of what goes on this in the morning report. We had double double overdose during the night. One of them was a fatality. One of them expired morning after morning. We have an unbelievable level of unlicensed drivers in this county. So from overdoses to unlicensed, uh, drivers to one of our deputies female deputy the other night. Stop someone who was leaving the scene of having opened fire on a house in Palm Beach County and by GOD s Grace was able to get through that making arrest. But in any given second during our 24 hours that we protect this community. Thanks can go terribly bad. So. That s the thought behind what Kevin s about to start for us. And. This will be short. 911. You need police, fire or medical More concerted need it like, okay? My husband just shocked. Big point. I believe he killed them. Necessarily see if we can ascertain where the suspect went. Which direction I m looking for him now. Ma am, Tell me second going on right now. Okay? He stopped breathing right now. Months old baby, It s it s all real. This isn t my tv. This is real. I William Snyder share from Martin County. We re on my Oh is one team one fight. The fight is here and the team is waiting for you. Thank you, Kevin. This is if you have any applications with you. They re all motivated. A couple of us to sign up. Take old people. They. Let me work there, So this is our budget Commissioner. I think the slide is up now? Real fast. You. See it I log enforcement. Which is The bulk of what we do. That s all of our road patrol and everything you saw. Some of this representation of what we do in that presentation. 68 million plus Corrections. The Martin County corrections facility is at 25 million. Judicial just keeping the courthouse safe. The judges safe is for 4.5 million School Resource Officer program and I Don t. It s almost 1.8. Not to not to format but I really would love to have a in depth discussion with the board talking about that talking about Our share your share at the Avalon share of that. And Bush. I do think we could do better as far as getting to school. To help more that 1.8. Ah, is offset some that the money for the srs is already up that they pay. This is ours on top of the schools. But the percentage of what we pay overall percentages at 50 50 between the county and the school district, Kevin we pay about 36%, and they pay. The School district pays 3 million compared to our one point. Okay. And. What about crossing guards? That is full board 100% percent. Um, I don t want to get off track, but I really do think we could talk about that. Who really should pay for school crossing guards and how much more of the budget should the school board take? I. Get that it all comes from the same taxpayer base. But for accounting purposes. It seems to me that the buckets should represent the user and Not. None of the numbers here represent the administration that goes into pudding. Those school resource deputies out there. I have 31 personnel in school, and that s all along force Mint that doesn t touch the administration that trains them that keeps the cars. It s just doesn t So we were talking about that and we can talk about it now if you want, but anyway and then I will control is a half a million. There s the total budget, So. We. Look at that number. I look at that number, and I really You know? I know what it means. I saw the slide. I saw percentage It out there the public season. We See it. You. See it. You have to raise the taxes. We have to use the tax base to funded You know, I said before I was in appropriated once I know what it feels like. I think you have a very difficult job because the question will recur over and over. You ll say to yourself on every single one of the people that come up here, The. Recurring question will be Is what you bring to the table. Worth the cost. That s the question. And Let me try to just barely answer that with the next quick presentation afterwards, I ll be winding down. Shit. I am always careful not to be dramatic for dramatic sake. I get that That s a dramatic piece of film. But. I m trying to answer the question, which is so difficult for all of us. What are we worth? I? Guess that depends on who you ask. What. Are we worth if you ask that man Who is, uh, has breath away from death as a matter of fact, the depth that The polyester shirts were starting to melt on those deputies a lot hotter there than it would you know here? But the cost of getting that boat in the water. The cost of helicopters that can go out. It s expensive, but when we re trying to answer the question is, is it worth it? I think that really depends on who you ask if you have that border? Yes. If, you ask the business owner whose business is flourishing because people come in and say, I feel so safe in this county. I think he or she would answer Yes. If, You. Ask, the mother whose anxiously waiting every day to make sure their child s gets off the bus safely and was safe all day. I think she would answer the question. Yes. I think the person trapped in an overturned vehicle. We ve had one since I met you last upside down in the water about to die. Our guys went in our guys and gals, alligator infested water. Broke glass. Pull them out. I have more videos showed than than any of you would have time to. Uh, watch. But the answer from those people is yes. The question for you is well, how do we fund it? And? So I prayerfully. Consider I prayerfully, Consider what I did here? I m not just saying that. And. I perfectly. Consider your difficulties dealing with this kind of appropriation. And. I think with that I would be pleased just in the presentation. And answer any questions? I might be able to Thank you very much sheriff Questions for our sheriff. Commissioner heard. Thanks sheriff as always, a terrific presentation. And. You know that I esteem you and that I respect you and value you and your department and you do a fantastic job. You know I have absolutely no reservations about saying that that I think that you re the best sheriff in in Florida. Um But I do have to fund an entire budget. And every department is Critical. Every department is necessary. Um, so so social services, roads, stormwater. All. These depart Fire rescue. All. These departments are absolutely essential services that we provide, So. We need to be able to Make them sustainable. We need to make sure that when the bottom drops out That. We re going to be able to continue to provide those Well rounded. Services, and we ve we ve We been on an inflationary, um, direction for the last several years, values are skyrocketing. Um, it looks like there s no end in sight. But there is there always is. There s always a crash and I don t know what s going to precipitated when it s going to happen, But I know that it s going to happen and we have to be situated at that time to be able to continue to operate and to provide all those services. And the 18% contract increases just or not sustainable. I wrestle with this. It s it s I look, I look at our storm Water department and if there s a Hurricane, Katrina or an Andrew or a Dorian or Ian headed your way You hope and pray that your storm water department is the best in the world. And I know that they are They re getting 3% raises. There are some of the hardest working people and the lowest paid people in the county. So inflation hits that department harder than it does anybody else. And yet when those hurricanes are barreling towards landfall here, I know that they re going to respond and they re going to be the best stormwater department in the world. So I m I m not going to be supporting your budget. It s no reflection on you or the service that you provide. We just need to tighten our belts a little or a lot. I know you would be an honorable and good, uh, commissioner and fiscal conservative. I completely respect your position. Thank you. Sheriff Let me chime in. I don t disagree with what I heard from my colleague. However. There is heavy lifting that needs to be done. I think when you made your presentation that you looked at your original budget with all of the wants and needs And, he said. Here it is and then we all know who you are. We know your team. You start shaving it back and shaving it back. My Personal philosophy and I have never run into residents that have disagreed with me that they feel First dollar that they spend in their taxes is for public safety. I know that it s expensive. I know that the contracts, the numbers are high. And if you know, just like everyone else when you first hear those Employment contract. Negotiation salary numbers. They re very surprising until We have the advantage of hearing how the process breaks down, whether it s you and we re going to hear from fire Rescue and our other employees, of course. But. Public safety is what the residents expect of us first and foremost, all of the other departments. The departments that commissioner heard mentioned absolutely important, We ll be hearing from them and seeing them face to face later today. But the public demands And and appropriately so Safety. And when those hurricanes come, the people that are out patrolling the streets in catastrophe is your team and via rescue. So? Yes, I am an employee at a regular job. I am a hired Employee for a boss. And there are different. Positions and levels within that company. Some make more than I. Do. Some make less. We all fall into the category. That doesn t mean that my my work my worth to my boss or any of our employees to us or your employees to you. They understand that where they are just that s how it works. So, yes, I thought that the budget requests were high. But when I sat down and reviewed them had an opportunity to speak to you. I had an opportunity to see your teamwork. I m okay with those numbers, because I think the public wants it and expects it, I. Think if if we didn t do it that way, if you were not staffed properly if you were not trained properly, if you were not equipped properly. And. Something. Terrible happened immediately. Everyone would look to you and say why. Why? Didn t you have that? How, Could you not be prepared, and at that point like you showed in that video Which I thought was about the sailboat. At. Least. At first I couldn t tell what was happening there. And you know, you got two of your personnel trying to lift with look like a pretty heavy person up through whatever that s called on the top of a boat straight up with their own strength. So. Now if there was only one person there of your personnel, that person dies. And then so then we say, Well, you know we the budget fell in line, and it was appropriate. We we were lean and mean. And. What is the response. Maybe this like you said, you re always careful not to look like doom and gloom. I still remember the video. You showed us a couple of meetings ago at the jail. And. I had the opportunity of being at the jail. I think it s important that our public understands that once whatever the department doesn t excellent job, it s somehow looks easy. And. It doesn t require the personnel effort training equipment that s necessary. So. I will be supporting your budget as the largest piece of the budget and there are certain things that we will be able to maneuver around this week. Excuse me today and and in the in the months before we finalize the budget completely Will make hard decisions. Hmm. But. Some of those decisions do not require life and death decisions to be made. And so You know, I I trust you and value you personally and professionally enough to know that you and your team brought forward the budget that you think is completely appropriate. And. I won t second guess your professional opinion. Commissioner Heatherington Um, I would echo some of those sentiments. Um Because. I think you posed a good question? What is it worth the cost? Because any resident that I ever talked to public safety is something that they re not willing to negotiate or have a lower level of service. Now the budget increases is a lot and Your pieces a lot, but the overall budget itself. It s a lot to go and face the average resident. And, say a 4.5% increase on the top of what they probably had a 50 to 100% increase in homeowners insurance and and some of these others, so it there s we have work to do, But. Public safety is something that our residents have said that they re not willing to negotiate a level of service and I know we ve talked Yeah. You did a very compelling presentation. A month or two ago on mental health. It s some of this particular budget. Addressing some of those issues. I know we talked about the jail pod, which is a long term endeavor. But. Is there a mechanism that we can help you to start saving for a long term because we know that s not going to be a, um, a year, you know, one year hit and it s going to be significant and expensive, and we d like to see if we can address that over time, so we don t have a big shock. But yeah, there s a exactly for that question. Commissioner. I think there s a couple of questions in there we have a. I think this might answer part of it. We have formed a study Group of staff study, including multiple personnel representatives from the carry. Staff and we are diligently working towards coming up with a comprehensive proposal of what this will cost. I ve also reached out to our legislative team, which isn too hard for me, but I have talked to a lobbyist. I m trying to get The train on the track to move towards being able to have a coherent presentation for mental health. Winning into jail. Maybe the second part of your question is is we try to turn down this? Uh, the Or reduce the impact of Mental illness and narcotics use in this county and I say in both because they re conflated. You can t pull one off without the other people are self medicating. Every almost every dollar in that every dollar in that budget is affected by the crisis in our communities today, unlike a hurricane commissioner, which we see coming kind of think through, that s really an operational challenge. My challenge is that we have a systemic problem with the culture in America today not to go off the rails, but it s so impacts the Children The suicide rate. The breaking up of the family challenges in our school system that the Depression that people have today that manifest itself and drug abuse, drug overdoses, alcoholism if I didn t have alcohol and drugs in this county, I could cut that budget way that I could cut it less than half That s the driving force. So what you re seeing here today. And so that s what we deal with and and we are consciously trying to turn that down. We re doing more and more with Marchment acts more and more with Baker acts trying to get people into a, uh Plan that we don t have to have constant repeat calls. I hope that answers your question. One more thing. Thank you for that, Um, we talked about the s r. O s and the school crossing and I know some of that s mandated, um particularly Sorrow s r o s in schools and some of its paid. Um Have. We had that conversation. Do we need to have that conversation and joint meeting on how this is funded. Maybe. My colleagues have had it before. My time here, but, um, it seems to me a real conversation. I get it that the average taxpayer that pays their taxes at the end of the year. It s still coming out of the same pot. But just as far as equity. I think it s a conversation that should be had Well, I m. I m I m wide open to any form form you would like I have we are talking about it and I m kind of over a barrel because I have a contract with them, and so in between the contract and then we have to jointly agree. Here and have to go to school board to buy in at the end of the day, no matter what I have to be in there, it s a state law. We are still recovering from that state law. As far as manpower we lost 30 something well, Some of those were yesterday s, but we had However many a lot of positions that were added to our budget because of the the Stoneman Douglas a murder. What is the term of that contract. When does that get renegotiated believe we have two years left. We re in the middle of two option years. So we do have a believe until JUNE of 2025. So. Then the conversation has to happen in between. Now and now for the two years from now. Well, I think that d be a good That would be a good, um, conversation to have at our joint meeting. My colleagues agree that we can put it on the agenda. We agree Anything else? Commissioner had Hetherington anything else. Commissioner Smith Thank you, sheriff. Thank you, As always. Um I think my comments are more about the mechanics of all this and how all this works and the reason why I asked on about what would be required to get to our budget as presented having a supermajority is that that really not super, a Unanimous majority. And. That s something I think that the Legislature is going to have to grapple with and change. Um, you and I have talked before and and The the the idea or the thought of There s x amount of new revenue in the county. And if we are to use that new revenue, how does it get divided and how should it be appropriately? Divided up amongst the constitutional, the county and roads and so on. And. What s unfair. I think to you to us. Is that it s all tied into a vote that requires five of us to do something if we reach a threshold and go above that threshold. And a majority, at least from what I m hearing from. The Commission is that a majority of us believe that what you are asking for is Somebody not say reasonable but it is reasonable in terms of what your job is and what you are required to do. And sometimes not even required to do but have to do because it was the circumstances and that s what presents itself that Doc Video. I m not so sure that s in someone s job description. But. That s what happens when you are on the scene, and you have to do what you have to do. But at the end of the day the Legislature has tied our hands in such a way that the mechanics of this get very difficult. What I. What I would much rather have in front of us is that if we are roughly 50 50 of the Advil arm, your 50% were 50%. I would imagine that that portion of the vote you could get a 50 vote from the county commission. The 6 million above. That 50 50 allocation of roughly if those were what the numbers were. That s where it gets difficult because that would require a tax increase. And. The Legislature should give us the ability not to have to go to a super majority of the sheriff asks of us to go above that. Number Because he or she believes that that s the right number to operate their department. I just think that puts us in a really difficult position because any one of us could argue, as commissioner heard did. Storm water to those who need it, and when things go wrong Is really important. One fails. But so is the guy on the dock, who is I don t even know if he s hoping that somebody responds to that kind of an issue, but whatever is going through someone s head process at that moment time someone has to be there. Whether it s fire rescue or you guys, someone will show up, hopefully. And and make that happen. So I just think the fundamentals of how we get to that number for you. Because For us to to achieve that number for you. There s got to be reduction somewhere else in our budget to make that happen. And that s the rub. I mean that I mean? You know, the elephant in the room? Is that rub? And it shouldn t be a rub. It shouldn t be a rubber at all if our sheriff comes forward and says or our supervisor election comes forward and says, I need x. I m like Ed. You re the sheriff. She s the supervised election. I m not going to stand in the way of saying You don t know what you re talking about. And. Why are you asking for that? It s much more for the maybe the mechanics. Of how we re able to vote and give you what you re asking for. So we will figure it out. I m supportive of your budget, as always. But I think all of us. It s incumbent upon us to get with the Legislature and come up with a better solution relative to a sheriff s budget, which is a lion share. The Advil or, um, section of the county s budget. I just I think you have to separate out that Piece of it. The other constitutional Zay, I think are perfectly reasonable and in line and those are dollars we can absorb Generally speaking How. We get to your number. And. How do we give you what you require to operate accounting like we have? There s a whole another story, but It takes the Legislature to fix that. Thank you, Commissioner. I mean kind, of course. Is that reasonable does that sound Oh, yeah, I think this whole Yeah The whole funding is is a challenge for you all and that s particularly Challenging. I understand the spirit of that law because I think I think raising taxes is a big deal. And as a as a Let s go conservative. I really? I really do come up here not with hat and ham, but with my hat off, knowing that this is a big deal. This is not a small deal, but I guess the different sheriff for me. 67 sheriffs in the state. That all have the same responsibility and probably operate differently but have the same responsibility. It would seem to me that the Legislature should understand that and understand that That requirement to operate the state. Gives us the kind of state we have without it. You don t get to do all the other things that state gets to enjoy. And and and I Fiscally conservative or not, Republican Legislature controlled or not, and governor s House. I. Just think there has to be for that a different way of getting To the request of what our sheriff wants. Because of how you even presented your budget in the first place. I m not coming here asking for something That is that is over the top crazy because that would have been the $118 million. Ask him. Thank you, MR. Chair Thank you, Commissioner Heatherington. But If when the sheriff is concluded, I thought Commissioner Smith. You pose the question at the beginning of the meeting to Mr Donaldson about the mechanics, but It was kind of a big broad question. So for the people that are listening, Maybe, you could just briefly. Do. An overview of what the Legislature is requiring and how that breakdown happens and what s required of this voting. Yes when once the sheriff is done, yes, Mr Donaldson? Yeah. So we don t Any further. That was it. No. Sheriff. I think what it s also it s also important to for our citizens to remembers your duly elected. The people have decided that they want you to be our sheriff. Repeatedly. And so as far as I m concerned, we re here as the financial mechanism to figure out with our staff. How to pay what you are looking for. But if people have an issue with the way you are managing I always say that the days of the wild West sheriff Is really over. You are the ceo of a law enforcement organization. That that is technology and mental health and, you know, logistics and from the water to the literally land, air and sea. If. The people don t like the budget that you have presented or the way you and your team are doing the job. They have a mechanism to to tell you they disagreed with you. So. From my perspective us approving a budget that you came forward with with professionals. It s our responsibility, at least in my opinion to figure out how to get you the money that you need. Commissioner Jenkins. I appreciate Everything that you do, and I agree with all four of the statements that my Fellow compadres up here have stated especially that we have the best sheriff in the state. Country. Um, I get to look at it a little bit different. Perspective and appreciate the position you re in. Owning being a business owner for 40 years. Um, I agree with commissioner heard statement that this is not sustainable. It s not sustainable for small business, a family owned business with 125 employees. You know with employee retention. The cost of insurance. We re in the same boat it in a much smaller scale. And I appreciate what You have to do To make your operation work. Um and I will always support you. No matter what and you are the professional and I know what? You re bringing us. You have done in my heart. I know you have done whatever you can do to make those numbers work as best you can. But Something worldwide. From Government to the smallest business has got to change because nothing sustainable in this right now and especially, I Just wrote a very large check for our Insurance is for our business, which was Knee buckling. And I don t know. How anybody is going to sustain themselves here if unless something dramatically changes, So I appreciate the position you are I support You 100%. Thank you, Commissioner. I could just share this thought in response to what you said. The dilemma that we face unlike any other business, Unlike really even even the storm people is my recruitment and retention is the very essence of what I do as it is with your business. But. I was I would Imagine that if you re We paying your people significantly less than in John Smith s landscaping down the block, or I can t remember all your industries, but whatever they are You would go out of business and and I didn t bring this up, but it s It s really a segue into part of the dilemma around it. We we are the border County with Palm Beach, which is the highest paid sheriff s office in the state. And people will drive from Port St Lucie where they want to work. Through my county into bondage to work. This increases already hit the grapevine, and should you approve it? We are already we, actually, for the first time, I think the history of the world Got a request into uh, hr from a Palm Beach County deputy. It was so much rather live here. He just couldn t afford to taste the Bangkok So. Should. You find this budget We will be on a fantastic trajectory to continue the recruitment winnowing down that we do. You can t hardly get hired here. It s amazing anybody gets do we have Literally when people come here and get rejected, they can go to another department and get hired almost without any further work, and we ve already rejected them. That s why you see the kind of work you see. That s why you see the efforts that the men and women of the sheriff s office expense so that s the that s the condom. First commissioner is that we re not competing. With, um Indian River carry, which is substantially listing us. We re competing with Palm Beach County. I know you hate that that that grates on me to have to say it. Circumstance want to work here go to Palm Beach County. It s not that easy. They won t start here. I can get the people to come in here. We re not losing them. The Palm Beach. They re just not coming here, and that s part of the driver is our over time. We can t. We ve had trouble getting our positions filled. This will fix that and I we will have a much more robust force. If if you all prove that I appreciate that every time you say something brings up a comment how important the job is. You know when you reject a potential applicant For a multitude of reasons. I m sure when you were saying that it makes me think of one, especially in your world, one wrong higher. Creates a situation on the street that leads to some of the last couple of years. Incidents the rioting and the and the social and civil unrest. One wrong higher. Most of what we hear that happens in the United States and thankfully, not here. Was based on a single person s decision. Whether they? You know they were the wrong person or they were a person that was in the wrong set of circumstances not trained properly. What. Would that cost be that s worse than a hurricane. That s worse than anything you know that could potentially happen one catastrophic. Bad decision could lead to a complete And turning us our community inside out so good for you. We could talk the rest of the day about the ups and downs. MR. Donaldson. What are you looking for from us Just to accept this? We voting as we go here. Um, we would in this particular case. Yes, we d like you to approve the sheriff s budget. Um and then at the end once they re all accumulated, will it can revisit again where we are with the overall budget, And if there s any adjustments need to be, we could do that at the end, but at this point in time, very well be appreciate if he knew leaving here today that his budget has been approved. Okay? Thank you, Commissioner Smith. MR. I ll move tentative approval Sheriff s request. Second Thank you? We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for a tentative approval of the sheriff s budget, seconded by Commissioner Heatherington. All those in favor. Aye. All. Those opposed. The motion carries 4 to 1 with commissioner heard dissenting. Thank you, sir? CHAIRMAN. Thank you So much for your coming with you. GOD bless you. Thank you for what you re doing, and I live here. Humbled by your support, and I appreciate your kind words. All of you have been extremely kind. I. Last comment is the sheriff s throughout the state fight with the county commissioners on daily basis. I know some sheriffs that s so hater County Administrator. I don t know how they don t come to blows. We have always been a piece. However, this works out. You re all my friends. I believe in you and trust you and thank you so much for what you do. One more thing, Sheriff congratulations upon the naming of the of the place of Hope facility. It sounds like it s going to be a wonderful facility. Yes, I plan to spend good time They re trying to Minister. Thank you. Thanks for you, sir. Okay. Thank you very much. We ll Take a moment. Let s man, We ll do a couple others. Thank you to your team. Think he s going to do it. You want to do? It s up to you if you wanted to. Do, you want to wait and do it now or what? Before the rest of the constitutional Okay, I m just saying Well. I just don t know if they re gonna say anything, so let s just give them the opportunity. Um, clerk of the circuit Court and Controller, MISS Carol and Tim and his here. We. Appreciate you being here? Anything to add or you just you re comfortable with that hazardous. Thank you. Commissioner Smith It s Your move Tentative approval of the clerks request. Thank you We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to, um approved tentatively approved the clerk of the Circuit Court and Controllers budget as presented seconded by Commissioner Heatherington. All those in favor. Aye. All. Those opposed the motion carries unanimously. Property appraiser. MISS Jenny Fields Jenny fields Anything to add? She s here. Commissioner Smith CHAIRMAN Move tentative approval of the property appraisers approved our request. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to approved tentatively approved the Property appraisers Budget seconded by Commissioner Jenkins All those in favor I. Motion carries unanimously Supervisor of election MISS Vickie Davis. She is here. Commissioner Smith Mr I would move tenor of approval of the supervisor of elections request. Hmm. I have to go to the tape on that one and see Mr photo finish. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to prove to tentatively approved the supervisor of elections. Budget seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor, Aye. The motion carries unanimously. The. Next is state, judicial and state agencies. Anyone here from the state, judicial and state agencies. Saying none seeing No. One budget fails. Commissioner Smith Moved 10 of approval. Thank you? We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for attending that approval of the state, judicial and state agencies budget. Seconded by Commissioner Heatherington. All those in favor? Aye. All. Those opposed That motion carries unanimously. Our final One is the tax collector. MISS. Ruth Petro Chefs Key Okay? Um Mr Smith. Mr chair moved tentative approval of the tax collectors question. Thank you we have a motion by Commissioner. Smith to move approval of the tax collectors budget seconded by Commissioner Heatherington. All those in favor. All. Those opposed That motion carries unanimously. Donaldson. Why. Don t we hear sort of the inner workings in the mechanicals of how this budget How. The process is going to work what needs to happen and then what we ll do is we ll take our 10 30 closed. Captioning break, um and then start up with the rest of the budget process after that. Mr Donaldson. Welcome back. Thank you. Not that you weren t here but welcome back to the hot seat. So. Um, I just currently question regarding regarding how it s determined, um, the votes for various funds, and I thought that I would just first put up on the dock cam really quickly that, um, you will be voting on the General fund, which includes all of these items than your have a separate vote for the fire as mess to you a separate rope for the parks and MISS To you. Storm water roads is a single vote as their combined together and then each of the individual Districts Commission district bonds are also a separate vote. Now. I don t have the aisle, inspiring videos that fire rescue or the sheriff has. But. This is your administration s attempt at shock and awe, which is to scare you with what looks like a tax form, right? Um and and that s essentially the type of this is what we have to fill out for each one of those forms to determine how you re voting gets involved, and it has Essentially. The formula isn t straightforward as we ultimately what I m telling you, I don t expect you to read what s on here, but but I think what s important to note is that The state Legislature. I think it was in 2011 or 12. Somewhere in there made the changes to to to, uh, as a mandate to determine when when a local community could vote for tax increase, and it s largely based upon Um, how much you spent last year. What your military. Did you do a millage reduction or increase of the previous year? What inflation is currently happened What the rollback grade is and what kind of growth you had, and I think it s very important in Martin County and understand that one of the things that makes it challenging for us is, um The sheriff mentioned Palm Beach County is a as a competitor and I would say Our two Greatest competitors are not just Palm Beach County but also the city of Port St Lucie in terms of how it affects our areas, So we ve seen certainly some growth in our tax base, but it s largely due to values and not due to actual construction. So one of the things that Legislature will reward use if you have growth b