Rollcall

Commissioner District 1 Katie Delaney , Commissioner District 2

Tom Goodson, Commissioner District 3 Kim Adkinson,

Commissioner District 4 Rob Feltner, and Commissioner District 5

Thad Altman

Present:

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Commissioner Thad Altman, District 5

Commissioner Adkinson led the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance.

COUNTY DEPARTMENT PRESENTATIONS

Chairman Feltner stated he had a request that the workshop be a four hour meeting; he

believes that is reasonable; and asked for the pleasure of the Board.

Commissioner Delaney replied with a motion.

Chairman Feltner stated he does not think the Board needs to vote, it just needs to agree that it

is going to be a time certain for 5:00 p.m., which means realistically it will probably have

another budget workshop.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated before they get into the budget presentations, he knows

it is a significant concern to everyone on the Board what is happening with the Rockledge

Hospital situation; and he has asked the Chief to speak and give an update in terms of what

some of the efforts are that are being worked on to try to help address the situation as it moves

forward.

Patrick Voltaire, Fire Chief, stated as everyone knows it is no secret Orlando Health Rockledge

came to them and said that they would be closing the hospital down; since then there have

been several meetings during the week with hospital leadership and local partners working on a

plan forward to support the community; starting this week they have partnered with Coastal

Ambulance Service in Brevard County to start working on the Basic Life Support (BLS), those

low acuity calls like toothaches, rashes, and someone having trouble sleeping; those calls

would get transferred down to Coastal Ambulance Service; in 96 hours of service so far this

week they have done six transports which might not seem like a lot but that is in a system that

is still fully functional with all hospitals in place, with the trial happening in Merritt Island; so an

area that does not have a significant call volume in Cocoa and Rockledge area, but every one

of those calls that are transitioned down, there is a five team medical direction staff, so the

doctor is called every time to consult on that and ensure that that is the right decision for the

patient; once that transitions, they will be on 24-hour shifts instead of the 12-hour shifts they

are on now; so next week those two ambulances in Merritt Island will then go to four; the third

week of the trial, it will transition to Cocoa and Rockledge; and the fifth ambulance will be in the

Port St. John/Canaveral Groves area, it will be a system status which means it will go wherever

it is needed, like filling in gaps even if that is north County or south County, it is not bound to

one area for the coverage. He added that the men and women in Merritt Island are excited to

have Coastal Ambulance Service as part of their fire response family; even though system

status is what Coastal Ambulance Service does they have invited them into the fire house to

enjoy some meals and just get out of their rigs; and so it has already worked out to be a great

partnership between Brevard County Fire Rescue (BCFR) and Coastal Ambulance Service to

serve the community and respond to the things that are happening with Orlando Health.

C.1. Planning and Development

Billy Prasad, Planning and Development Interim Director, stated Planning and Development (P

and D) is a large department with services provided, everything from zoning, code

enforcement, subdivision planning, building code and collection of impact fees; there are 2,500

code enforcement and contractor licensing cases annually, 3,900 development records that

includes site plan subdivisions; they process about 100 building permits every single day;

53,000 payment transactions annually; 1,200 to 1,300 County licensed contractors; and

conduct about 216 building inspections every single day. He stated Planning and Development

has about 77 employees, a few lean six sigma initiatives, and seven projects have been

completed with two being active; Emergency Support Functions (ESF5) is a communications

function where they assist teams at the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during and after

an event in organizing information for later distribution; the bulk of the employees do damage

assessment, so after a storm, as soon as it is safe, they have teams of employees go out to

canvas areas whether it is Countywide or specific areas depending on what the situation

requires, and document damages through images and texts which allows the EOC to ensure

the residents have access to the assistance and funding they deserve; and due to the large

amount of breadth and functions of the department, this allows the employees to create

synergies that increase their level of service at no additional cost; and for example, there may

be a code enforcement case that involves zoning and because code enforcement and zoning

are under one roof those two teams work together to find a resolution to that problem for the

residents and get voluntary compliance. He mentioned five other County department fees are

collected through P and D that includes Public Works, Natural Resources, Utilities, Solid Waste

and Fire Rescue. He stated for the 2025 budget about $80 million of the $108 million of the P

and D budget are impact fees, that is primarily a pass through, that is not money that P and D

is using itself that is passing it on, either through other County agencies or outside agencies

such as the School Board or the various cities; if the $80 million is taken out, what is left is

about $28 million and that is split up between the functions that P and D actually spends on day

to day operations like Building Code, Code Enforcement, Planning and Zoning, Licensing,

Regulation, and Enforcement; and the budget overview takes out impact fees and balance

forward for the reasons he just mentioned so the revenue is about $10.6 million in Fiscal Year

2024 versus expenses of $9.5 million. He stated the first program he will focus on is impact

fees trends; impact fee assessments dropped from 2023 to Fiscal Year 2024 from 5,400 to

about 4,300 but that is after a three-year consistent increase meanwhile, the total impact fees

collected remained flat; a lot is dependent on value and type of project, not just raw numbers

and applications; that it is pretty consistent over time; and when getting into individual funds

that is when one sees variability. He mentioned impact fee revenue restrictions, the County

must specifically earmark funds collected under the impact fees for use in acquiring,

constructing, or improving capital facilities to benefit new users; unincorporated versus

incorporated, including education, more impact fees were collected in incorporated areas $25

million versus $13 million and removing education that number flips; correctional impact fees

have maintained consistent over the last five years; educational impact fees north and south

cannot be intermixed, so what is collected in the north must stay in the north fund, what is

collected in the south must stay in the south fund; the south fund stays consistently much

lower; in 2024, it was about $5.7 million, whereas, in the north at $17 million; and transportation

impact fees, again separate funds cannot be intermixed, so the spike in 2023 in South

Mainland it might have made sense that Central Mainland went down but they cannot be flipped

to make up for the difference, it has to stay where it is collected. He continued by saying

EMS/Fire impact fees were combined onto one slide just to give an idea of overall collections;

fire is pretty consistent, although, there was a drop between 2023 and 2024, meanwhile, the

Viera Station 48 expense is money that is going out the door essentially that P and D are

obligated, based on the agreement with Viera that built the fire station, money collected in that

specific area goes back to Viera, so that was $206,000 in 2024; residential projects in

unincorporated Brevard County, the rates in light green on the slide he is showing are actual

rates for single-family detached homes; the brownish orange box on the slide is the smaller one

or two-story multifamily, the blue box is the three or more stories and then in the yellow is the

mobile home and RV rental; and commercial impact fees are based on different factors

depending on square footage, etc., and there were 23 commercial business impact fee

assessments in 2024 for a total of about $3 million. He stated that impact fee was last raised in

2001 on January 28th; the Board had directed staff to draft a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a

consultant to perform an impact fee study on the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and fire,

then in February the Board gave an option to broaden that, the RFP was advertised on March

14th and proposals are due April 8th; the procedure for impact fees, there has been an update

on the extraordinary route because there are two primary routes to increase the impact fees,

the normal which is 25 percent or less has to be done in two, then between 25 and 50 percent

is done in four increments, and then for an extraordinary increase that allows it to go over 50

percent, or if the extraordinary shows it down to one year, but the key is there is a bill filed in

the legislature which better defines extraordinary need in a much more narrow way than has

been used in the past, so if that winds up getting to the Governor’s desk and he signs it, that

will limit the Board’s options if it were to go down that route to begin with; but even if it did, it

would have to expressly demonstrate an extraordinary need, have two public workshops, and

an approval by a two-thirds vote. He talked about the Florida Building Code department, the

Statewide Uniform Building Code is mandated by Florida law and administered by the Florida

Building Commission; it is based on the International Building Codes with Florida specific

issues; all municipalities and counties must follow the Florida building code which establishes

minimum construction standards; Building Code trends, the raw numbers do not necessarily

translate to revenue in the development world, the permit-issued number has gone down quite

a bit since 2019 when it was at $26,394 and now it is down to $23,429 but because the job

values have gone up, the revenue in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 actually increased, despite the

lower amount of raw permits because the permit job value drives the revenue, they get in just

as much as the raw number of permits issued; major construction permit trends, are kind of

new builds, new homes, new businesses, this gives an idea from P and D perspective and

gives the Board an idea of what development is like and the development trends overall in

unincorporated Brevard County; it remained pretty consistent between 2023 and 2024 from

1,100 to 1,000; the average job value went up significantly on the commercial side in 2024,

which is more than likely due to one project that is skewing it, specifically the Merritt Island

Health First Hospital; and the average construction fees did not increase in revenue because

the statutory mandated reduction in permit fees for specific projects. He mentioned building

code revenue restrictions are extremely restricted under Florida Statute, it can only be used for

carrying out the County’s responsibilities and enforcing the Florida Building Code; fees

generally may not exceed actual cost; aside from direct enforcement activities, and that is

paying the employees that are actually doing the inspection and doing the plan reviews; funds

can be used for the construction of Building Code enforcement activities or upgrade

technology, hardware, software systems to enhance service delivery; and that technology

language was added in 2024 and became very important. He went on to say building permitting

review agencies, which are the agencies that are reviewing building permits, the top three

which are building, land development, and zoning are housed in P and D, other agencies

touching various permits are Fire Rescue, Natural Resources, Public Works, Utilities and their

impact fees; and these agencies look for structural issues, foundation issues, mechanical

issues, life safety issues, accessibility, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance

issues, and the most recent version of the Florida Building Code updated a few things having to

do with energy efficiency, whether that is lighting and things with heating, ventilation, and air

conditioning (HVAC). He commented about the statutory mandate and how the Florida Statute

553.791 mandates a 25 percent reduction for inspection and/or a 25 percent reduction in

review fees when using private providers; the red line on the slide shows 1,600 permits where

private providers have been utilized for one or the other, that included the hospital, so again, it

is one of those things where the number of raw permits that are being used may not be as

important as the job value associated with those permits from a revenue standpoint; the

inspection trend side, for County inspectors there were 47,024 versus 8,000 in contracted

inspectors, they are required to have contracted inspectors which they use as a backup for

staffing issues; and they try to keep that number as low as possible because it is significantly

more expensive to use that versus County inspectors. He mentioned that there is an issue in

the Building Code area with a combination of an aging workforce and troubles in recruitment,

which will be a huge focus in the coming year; it is an immediate need to keep that number

down and hopefully get that purple line on the slide back down; another key focus is leveraging

technology, the State has continually and openly demanded more out of the permitting process

while shortening statutorily mandated time frames; the State has suggested dealing with that by

expanding staff, but in this environment he does not believe that is the best approach, rather

becoming more efficient would be his preference; in 2009 and 2024 there was a 90 percent

increase in efficiency regarding records that P and D process through Accela, it is just an easy

way to pull data to get a measure metric of their efficiency and they have gone up by 90

percent on that metric; virtual inspections allow them to improve efficiency which actually

results in superior inspections in most cases, for example, the inspectors do not get on roofs to

inspect roofs, so with virtual inspections there are contractors that can and do that for them,

sending them high quality, high resolution images to look at; they can also ask for more images

when there is a need for them; the utilization of that has gone up significantly since 2021, an

increase of 235 percent, similar to that on the permit side for the applications submitted online;

that is not just something P and D prefers for efficiency, they have done a number of projects,

polls, outreach and that is what customers want, they want to be able to just do their business

online; and between 2020 and 2024 it went up to 91 percent for applications submitted online.

He explained things that Building Code revenue can be used on is to upgrade technology and

software systems to enhance service delivery, and because of the Board approval last year P

and D is doing just that where the Board approved Solid Waste to use $5.3 million in building

funds for an upgrade in Accela, which is very much needed to provide not only efficiency, but to

provide public service; one of the biggest complaints P and D gets is about their Bass portal,

which is a public portal for the public for records and a variety of other reasons, it is old and

clunky, and this will allow them to go to the newest version called Bass 2.0 that allows them to

do OpenCounter; it is a decision based software where somebody could go online and get an

idea of what they can and cannot do with their property and once they decide what they want to

do with their property, say if they want to build a pool, the program will walk them through start

to finish whether they can do it, how to do it, provide the permitting process, provide the

information that is needed from start to finish; and the backbone, the Accela system, is going to

transition to a cloud-based model, which allows for quarterly updates, so like most new

software, it is not like buying one version anymore it is constantly going to update to the latest

version, which allows for reduced maintenance costs because P and D is not housing all the

servers. He noted what P and D is most excited about internally is applying Accela best

practices, it is designed to allow them to see where things are stalling out and things of that

nature, so it would really be helpful from an efficiency standpoint; the Geographic Information

System (GIS) integration, those are the maps that both the public and P and D use; and that

allows them to increase the information they are providing through that.

Chairman Feltner asked about the GIS and whether the County one interacts with the Property

Appraiser’s.

Mr. Prasad replied the two GIS systems themselves do not interact but they use each other’s

data to build their GIS, P and D collects data from the Property Appraiser that they integrate to

their GIS system and he believes the same goes for the Property Appraiser.

Chairman Feltner asked if the Property Appraiser’s pictometry helps P and D also.

Mr. Prasad replied, yes.

Chairman Feltner asked if he had access to that, like a license type situation.

Tad Calkins, Interim County Manager, responded yes sir, there is a weekly exchange of data

back and forth between the County and the Property Appraiser for new addresses and parcels,

so the databases are pretty up to date.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the lines would get a little bit clearer on parcels on the new

program.

Mr. Prasad replied it might but he cannot say for sure; the issues with those lines, he also sees

them on the Property Appraiser’s, so he is not sure where that issue lies that is causing it; he

understands what she is talking about, it tends to be just slightly off; and he noted he would

have to dig into the source of the issue to see if that would addressed through this or not.

Chairman Feltner stated when he worked in the Property Appraisers Office more than 10 years

ago, that was the constant talk of the Map Department, as there are about 300,000 parcels in

Brevard County, it is a pretty big task.

Mr. Prasad stated he has gone through some of the big programs in his department, now he

will start to go a little quicker; they are certainly not less important for a budgetary standpoint to

have a less impact on the planning, zoning, and land development that includes comprehensive

planning, zoning, subdivision, and site plans; some planning and zoning trends show the site

plan subdivision zoning applications between 2020 and 2024 have gone up significantly; fees

and charges for services, however, remain pretty flat; and once again it is not so much the

numbers it is the type. He mentioned meeting with each of the Commissioner’s to talk about the

Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) that was transmitted in November of 2024; they

received a response January 21, 2025, that was an effort just to get to that point; the Brevard

Barrier Island Area Protection Act, which created one of five areas of critical state concern in

the State, the first in many years that was created in the State; Florida Commerce is continuing

to conduct an audit style review of their Comprehensive Plan and Land Disposal Restrictions

(LDR) as they relate to the South Beaches area; they have transmitted their amendments to

the Comprehensive Plan to try and be consistent with that, in November, by continuing to

develop that based on the State’s commerce which will be coming to the Board in the coming

months; and major 2025 zoning projects, again dealing with the area of critical state concern,

Comprehensive Plan aspect is just the first step, then they will be delving into the Code which

is actually, in some ways, an even more significant effort amending the County ordinances to

be consistent with the area of critical state concern, and of course the adoption of EAR. He

mentioned 25 percent of the Board’s agenda business is initiated by P and D with zoning as a

focus; staff deals with contractor and code compliance on a daily basis, so he just wants to

highlight the sea turtle protection which they will be ramping up consistent with the area of

critical state concern legislation; they prioritize short-term rentals based on Board direction and,

of course, they are focused on life safety issues like unsafe buildings; Code Enforcement

trends is interesting because the relationship between the cases and revenue are not really

what someone would expect; there is not a direct correlation; it is especially seen when it is

expanded out over a number of years; the revenue on the Code Enforcement side is

associated with the housing market; most Code Enforcement cases in their system are not

actually associated with a single cent in revenue; and that is because they have a voluntary

compliance rate of over 90 percent of cases complying prior to hearing which means they are

not collecting any revenue from that. He stated the revenue is derived from those cases that sit

for a very long period of time collecting daily fines, liens are attached to the property so

eventually when the property is sold, those liens are paid when the sale happens, so when

property is tending to change hands more often, that is when the revenue increases; the outlier

payments, every once in a while, this happened in 2024, somebody will sell a property that

happens to have a very large lien on it over $100,000 which of course causes the revenue to

spike a little bit; the licensing, regulation, and enforcement fund, P and D registers two types of

licenses, there is the County contractors which P and D creates their license, those people for a

variety of reasons have chosen to be licensed in and through Brevard County, P and D does

their exam approvals, certifications, license issuance and renewal processes; then there are

the State certified contractors, those are the people that are already licensed to contract

through the State, so P and D looks to register them in their system, and check their insurance

and certificates; licensing renewals, although, they have remained stable over the past few

years, they trended downward initially due to deregulation initiated by the State, so effectively,

P and D does not regulate anything differently than the State does under State law; anybody

who is licensed in the County could theoretically be licensed through the State to do the same

permitting work; and nevertheless, there is a good reason to continue to be licensed through

Brevard County, and frankly, it is customer service where they will walk people through their

issues with their license and things like that, so at least 1,366 have chosen to continue to be

licensed through the County, the revenue initially dropped off from that but has remained stable

since then. He reiterated the trends of increasing State mandates on their activities, meaning

more is expected in less time throughout the development process; he highlighted a couple of

bills that became law in the last legislative session; the bills could impact local governments to

the extent that they may have to hire more employees to meet the prescribed time frames, and

that is just two of them; there has actually been a trend over a period of years and based on the

bills that he has seen filed this year, he does not believe there is any sign of letup, so that

makes it all the more important to carry on the efficiency initiatives that Tad Calkins, Interim

County Manager, started; they must do more with the available resources that they have; and P

and D fully intends to confront that challenge and succeed.

Commissioner Delaney stated that she has talked in depth with Mr. Prasad about the Bass

system and she appreciates that that is getting updated and that the step-by-step process for

the customers online will just be customizable to what their needs are.

C.2. Merritt Island Redevelopment Agency

Larry Lallo, MIRA Executive Director, stated he is pleased to present the work of MIRA, the

challenges, successes and budget. He mentioned one thing that has come up a lot lately at the

Federal level and locally is the aspect of Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and

accountability; Community Redevelopment Agency’s (CRA) are under a number of

accountability standards created by the State; agency oversight is delegated by the Board of

County Commissioners as the Board of Governance of MIRA, it delegates the operational

activity and budget authority on the approved budget to a seven member board of advisors;

MIRA is managed by 2.75 Brevard County staff; as Executive Director he reports directly to the

Assistant County Manager and County Manager who develop his budget along with the Budget

Department; the Advisory Board is accountable to the governing Board; the agency must follow

two Statutes, Chapter 163, Part III in the Florida Code, MIRA is a CRA but it is also a

Dependent District to the County, which is under the Code, Chapter 189 as a Special

Dependent District; the standards MIRA has to follow include submitting an annual report to the

Commissioners, which is due March 31, as well as all CRAs in the County; the Statute that was

added in 2020 requires that each CRA prepare an independent audit which will be included in

the annual report; and then they are required by State Statute to post that information on their

website. He stated that anytime it comes to building or finance, MIRA, like all County

departments, have to go through the County Finance Department, which he believes makes

them highly accountable in terms of their finances; all CRAs are required to follow the

procurement policies of their governing boards, so in his case they follow County procurement

policies; one unique thing for CRAs to be mindful of is when a CRA is created they have to

have a community redevelopment plan; CRAs are limited to their expenditures that are qualified

under the statute, and the projects and programs have to be in that redevelopment plan, that is

what they have to go back to when they do a check, is it in the plan, at least in a program or

project level and of course in the CIP; a couple things about MIRA, each CRA is very unique

because each community is unique; and in MIRA’s case it is a crossroads to Port Canaveral,

the second largest commercial passenger port in the world, the Atlantic beaches, and the

Kennedy Space Center, those are key areas in the County in terms of tourism, traffic volume,

and economic activity. He mentioned that one thing about MIRA, which is kind of something

people do not think about too much, is MIRA covers less than 10 percent of Merritt Island

property that goes into the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) portion of the TIF fund, 90 percent or

more of the CRA properties that are in their targeted area are not residential properties, all

residential properties are not part of the TIF, basically, they focus on the corridors and the

barge canal, Courtenay Parkway, State Road 520 and State Road 528; the average year built

for commercial structures in the redevelopment area is 1978, which presents a lot of

redevelopment challenges; another thing to note is that being mostly redeveloped in 1978, he

believes the storm water regulation came in around that time, which means that sets them in

place for having a lot of property in the redevelopment area that was originally built without any

stormwater regulation; one of the challenges that Merritt Island faces is when it was created it

went from 3,000 population in 1960 to 30,000 in 1970, that is a 900 percent increase due to the

space race and a lot people running to Merritt Island to be close to where they work; and it was

a largely unregulated environment, septic tanks, small lot sizes, all types of things that occurred

including the digging and creating waterfront property with all the canals. He stated MIRA’s

mission focus is alleviating blight, fostering beautification, and improving public infrastructure;

86 percent of MIRA’s major expenditures is public infrastructure, MIRA focuses on modal

networks and mobility to help the Space Coast area transit system and bus shelters; MIRA

works closely with redevelopment activity from the commercial sector, and the State Statute

requires that MIRA work with the private sector; and MIRA does not have a lot of incentives to

offer unlike a lot of other CRAs so they try to leverage solid good quality redevelopment activity

through the use of infrastructure improvements and beautification. He went on to say MIRA’s

total operating revenues, $1.5 million is generated through capturing two millages that are in

the County, the General Fund millage and the Fire Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU);

another thing about CRAs is that about 80 percent of the millages are spread Countywide, the

base is not frozen on those millages; the operating budget is $916,000, capital outlay this year

is very large because of the amphitheater project that is under contract, grants and aid is a

combination of mostly environmental Brownfield projects and former façade grants that were

paid out, and compensation and benefits is $285,000; MIRA tried to create a basic TIF model

because understanding tax and government financing especially for the lay person is a little

difficult; so when MIRA was created in 1988, after the Space industry started to fall down,

buildings were starting to age, the County Commissioners at the time approved the creation of

MIRA, primarily focusing on the commercial core, which is the existing tax base and any

increase in taxes, only on those two millages, is what goes into what is called a trust fund; and

MIRA is limited to what goes into the trust fund unless they are going out after grants. He

continues by saying increment revenue from 2002 to 2024, the graph on the slide in many ways

might represent the County during that period; in 2008 MIRA’s increment revenues peaked

meaning the property values peaked; 2020/2021 MIRA collaborated with Public Works in the

rebuilding of the Sea Ray Drive Bridge, they took a 20 percent reduction from MIRA’s TIF

income to support the construction of the Sea Ray Drive Bridge; which at that time was going to

be about $5.5 million; the bridge has substantially increased in cost since then; and it is nearing

completion. He noted one thing he wanted to emphasize, on an annual recurring basis, for

every million dollars of increased taxable value from redevelopment project in the

redevelopment area approximately $2,594 goes into the MIRA redevelopment trust fund, and

$9,272 would go to all the other Brevard County Ad Valorem Taxing Districts; this is some of

the grants MIRA has received in recent years, they try to leverage the MIRA revenue stream

with other grant funds, St. John’s, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP),

Tourism Development Council (TDC), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)

Brownfield program, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), private donations, and MIRA

has also helped leverage other grants like for the acquisition of Griffith Landing, MIRA

contributed $400,000 to leverage a $2 million grant from the Florida Forever Grant program;

this year $8.2 million amphitheater project is currently under construction to be completed in

November, $4.7 million came from MIRA, $2.5 million came from the TDC, and $1 million came

from the Florida Department of Commerce; the other project which is pending final engineering

and going out to bid is a quarter infrastructure project with a total potential cost of at least $4

million of which MIRA will be contributing $2 million; Veteran’s Memorial Park, another project

which is the Medal of Honor Tribute area and is awaiting matching funds; at Griffis Landing,

which is one of Florida’s last forever working waterfronts, MIRA is looking at leveraging

$300,000 with an $890,000 grant from the Florida Department of Commerce; and right now

there is a building over there that was flattened known as Miss Apples, in the last hurricane. He

added that is property owned by Brevard County under management by Natural Resources and

is considered vital property by the MIRA Board. He mentioned the small semblance of projects

that MIRA has involved themselves in is largely infrastructure projects; the corridor looks good

and making it attractive is considered by the MIRA board to be an economic incentive, not a

direct grant, but remember it is infrastructure and beautification to incentivize investment

dollars; some of MIRA’s challenges and redevelopment trends on Merritt Island, consist of

blighted conditions on Courtenay Parkway and State Route 520, redevelopment of key sites

with national tenants, MIRA has a lot of national tenant interest from redevelopers, which is a

good sign from a market point of view; increased traffic volumes on State Route 520 and

Courtenay Parkway, most of these MIRA is going to do an origination and destination survey to

find out where that traffic is originating from and going to because the retail industry is pretty

much going downhill, for every one percent of online sales they lose 10,000 stores in the United

States, so the mall parking lot is usually vacant for those 4,000 parking spaces; there has not

been a major multifamily development on Merritt Island for the most part other than River

Fly-In, for over 20 years, so the traffic being a concern, but he cannot say that it is caused by

overdevelopment; redevelopment is good because they are taking land that has already been

developed, surface water is already going off in the wrong direction impacting the lagoon,

redeveloping can alleviate some of those considerations; Merritt Island right now is in a very

threshold moment, and the blight that is there has been aging since some of those buildings

are approaching 60 years old, and that is ascellerating at the same time because of its market

position on the way to the beaches, the traffic volume of SR 520 and SR 528 in Courtenay, they

are seeing accelerated interest in redevelopment; and that is actually a good thing when

considering where MIRA has been. He commented one of the worst cases of blight is an

abandoned multifamily development on Courtenay Parkway; it was abandoned during the Great

Recession, and MIRA is hoping to work with a redevelopment entity to redevelop this; it was

under contract at one time but the contract fell through because the redevelopment they

discovered with doing their due diligence they would have to tear the buildings down; it has

been almost 20 years, they are full of graffiti, kids walking through them and the infrastructure

is not suitable for redevelopment; and with Code changes, the base flood level, even the

retention pond would have to be raised which is one of the challenges MIRA faces with

redevelopment, a classic case of a dramatic redevelopment that occurred on Merritt Island

what most Islanders know as Tingley Marina and RV Park and has been sitting in pretty bad

shape since 1978; and working with some good developers MIRA created a project that about

$376,000 in annual revenue stream goes to the County and MIRA would receive about 20

percent of that, the other $300,000 goes to all the County taxing districts. He mentioned these

are some projects and programs; this is a major infrastructure project designed for three

purposes, to create a beautiful park to attract other redevelopment in the mall area, the prime

purpose and a big deal for Natural Resources and MIRA, the storm water lakes were created to

handle the 165 acres of runoff in the mall area so what this will do is stimulate redevelopment

when that starts occurring, and it is starting to occur, and thirdly, it provided the veterans a

place to call home; right now there are about 78,000 veterans in the County; the final vision and

it is a collaboration with MIRA who put in the money for the acquisition of the project, it was a

defaulted Pulte Home project, condominium project; MIRA bought it for about $2.2 million with

the permission of the County and they worked with Public Works, the Brevard Veteran’s

Council, and Natural Resources to bring that project about; soon they will get some numbers

on how many people go to this park; and MIRA also put in the improvements around the lakes.

He mentioned he has been doing economic development a very long time and he never

thought he would see a park be a stimulus for economic development but that is what is

happening; adjacent to the stormwater lake, there was a site plan approved for $120 million

redevelopment with 300 luxury apartments; MIRA asked the developer why they wanted to be

there, it is the park, the mall, and in the proximity to the hospital; he shows the overview of the

project; and he noted they are trying to have tours of the construction on a regular basis. He

stated the Cone Road septic sewer project is another major infrastructure project, a $3.6 million

collaboration, again, with Natural Resources and Public Works; he was told the ditch that was

there, cars often went down inside of there, cars would get stuck; they did sidewalks, fences,

they took off 80 properties from septic and brought them into the sanitary system; and MIRA

acquired the grants so that all those commercial property owners did not have to pay to do that.

He commented this is redevelopment in action; one of MIRA’s challenges was that all the

automobile dealerships were following a national trend to go to the interstates; they have a

brownfield program and worked with the redevelopers, Matthew Development, and what is

going up there now is a brand new Chipotle, a pretty high quality L car wash, same model that

is in Viera, a Wawa, Christian Brothers Automotive that has completed 170 automobile

franchises in the southeast, and not one of them has gone out of business, so they chose this

site and will be under construction soon, and a Chinese restaurant is on its way; Health First

Hospital is a 15-acre site, it was all pretty much impermeable, a former Kmart, this $410 million

hospital being adjacent to the mall is going to leverage a lot of other redevelopment activity

whether it is offices, residential or commercial; MIRA is trying to provide some concepts to

redevelopers, later in the afternoon they have a community workshop where the public will be

invited; and they hope to have a large gathering of people coming to gather input on potential

concepts. He stated MIRA plans on updating their redevelopment plan; it sunsets in 2034 in the

current plan; he does not believe they will need to ask for an extension, MIRA just wants to

utilize the current revenue stream to do some of their larger projects; there is going to be

infrastructure projects and other types of projects needed to leverage the mall into a good solid

redevelopment; one question he gets often is what are they going to do with the mall, and the

first thing he has to say is, MIRA does not own the mall; they have to respect private property

rights, but on the positive side, after about five years, from his experience in MIRA, the mall is

being very cooperative now and trying to get as much information from MIRA as they can;

MIRA tries to connect them; with redevelopers and potential mall purchases; MIRA shares

concepts with them and they do share the potential for incentives, subject to the Board of

County Commissioners.

Chairman Feltner mentioned indoor Pickle Ball courts.

Mr. Lallo replied MIRA did fund a market study for the State Route 520 corridor and some of

the recommendations are, obviously retail would be very difficult given today’s retail trends, so

mixed use development seems to be very attractive, especially with the park to the south and

the first one coming in this year under construction; they are seeing a lot of mixed use

development with retail, so they are thinking about $300 million to do the whole thing and that

would bring in a little over $2.5 million in taxes to the County per year; and right now, the taxes

collected on the mall are about $296,000 a year, valuation is $20 million.

Commissioner Delaney asked how come MIRA gets Fire MSTU money.

Mr. Lallo responded, back when MIRA was created, he would have to check on the Code but

when CRAs are created they capture certain millages, fire was one and the other was a

General Fund Millage; and in terms of the Code, he can get back to her on that and tell her how

the Code is structured to allow that.

Commissioner Delaney mentioned that one of her biggest concerns about the mall

redevelopment is the evacuation times, that is something that needs to be talked about and find

a plan for people because she does not want people stuck on bridges when a huge storm is

coming.

Mr. Lallo responded that should be part of the planning process, he is not sure if there is a

Code for evacuation times, but he will look into that.

Commissioner Goodson asked if someone was stuck on a bridge would that not be a State

issue rather than a County issue.

John Scott, Emergency Management Director, stated there are studies that do that, the

Regional Planning Council heads that one for them; as far as Commissioner Goodson’s direct

question, that would be a County issue, but they take a lot of steps to make sure that does not

happen; they have a whole backwards planning process, and they make sure everything is

done well before they get themselves in that dangerous point at all.

Commissioner Goodson replied that was not the question, the question was if Mr. Scott does

everything possible and somebody does not leave, they get hooked on that bridge being a

two-lane bridge, is that a State issue not having four lanes to get them out.

Mr. Scott responded he is not sure, but that it is probably a joint issue.

Commissioner Goodson asked so the County would have to fund half the bridge to put four

lanes in.

Mr. Scott replied that they are not responsible for the infrastructure to…

Commissioner Goodson stated correct.

Mr. Scott stated the actual response and movement is where the County would come in.

Commissioner Goodson replied correct, and he agrees with everything Mr. Scott said, but the

funding of building a bigger bridge is State or Federal.

Commissioner Delaney stated her point was moreso that the County would have to look into

making sure that it is planning properly in the development and not overdoing that.

Mr. Scott replied that is something his staffs spend a lot of time looking at year-round, both with

the Planning Council on the numbers with the State of Florida with their partners at Department

of Transportation (DOT) and make sure that they are actually implementing those, they have

good timing and data from the weather services, from the hurricane center, they use something

where they use a light phased evacuation so they are always adding cushion and doing as

much as they can to know, and there is the behavioral aspect as to know how people will

respond, so when they do issue evacuation orders and what kind of response they are doing,

they are spending a lot of time, energy, and effort making sure they get it as right as possible.

Commissioner Goodson asked Mr. Scott if he could get the Board numbers that he says people

react to evacuation notices from the Barrier Islands.

Mr. Scott replied yes, in general, the larger the storm the more people will be seen evacuating,

for big storms they allow a minimum of 24 hours to get people clear, so categories three, four

and five they are using those kinds of things.

Commissioner Goodson stated that is not the question, can Mr. Scott tell them the numbers of

people that evacuate from the…

Mr. Scott responded oh, the population.

Commissioner Goodson replied yes.

Mr. Scott expressed his apologies, he misunderstood and thought he was talking about clear

times.

Commissioner Goodson stated Mr. Scott has done all this planning he must have numbers on

how many are listening.

Mr. Scott stated that listening is a little harder because that is a behavioral piece, there are

about 250,000 people on the Barrier Islands, 275,000 give or take; when talking about a

category storm that is going to be of such that they would actually evacuate people from the

Barrier Islands, that is the number they use as the planning number that 250,000-275,000; and

how many people actually listen, they call that their response rate, and that is around 50 to 60

percent.

Commissioner Delaney asked what is the time right now for evacuations for Merritt Island.

Mr. Scott replied it is hard to just give a Merritt Island timeframe he would have to go back…

Commissioner Delaney responded what about Barrier Islands.

Mr. Scott stated it is about 19 hours, worst case.

Commissioner Delaney asked if 2,000 apartments were added, does that do anything to the

numbers.

Mr. Scott stated he would have to run the numbers because it is not just that that would

increase it, does it increase it an hour or three hours he does not believe so, but he wants to

look at the numbers because it is very much tied to roadway network; when talking about

evacuations they use the phased concept, almost like a funnel where they are just dumping a

bunch of people in all at once, they are going to get stuck; but if they gradually move them

through, more people will get through in a more efficient manner.

Commissioner Altman stated vertical evacuation is the wave of the future where things are

being built to category five storm, some of the new facilities might help reduce the evacuation

time because it gives options.

Mr. Lallo stated the hospital is being built to a category four standard which is one reason they

are building on Merritt Island, they want to be open and independent for at least a week,

including all utility systems, without having to evacuate patients.

Tad Calkins, Assistant County Manager, stated through the development review process, they

get traffic information, traffic studies, and traffic statements from developers that are all

evaluated for the impacts on the roadways and roadway network.

*The Board recessed at 2:08 p.m. and reconvened at 2:16 p.m.

C.3. Solid Waste Management

Tom Mulligan, Solid Waste Management Director, stated his department’s mission statement is

to protect the public health and the environment; they are the final resting place for everything

that nobody wants anymore; Brevard County is the only County in the State of Florida that has

a Solid Waste Disposal Act with the Florida legislature; in 1967 that granted the Board of

County Commissioners the power to establish a solid waste collection and disposal system; it

requires all entities in the County to use that system also prohibiting disposal of waste that is

generated from outside the County, which keeps capacity in the landfills for the taxpaying

residents of Brevard; it also granted the Board authority to issue bonds to finance the system;

and it granted the Board the right to create exclusive franchises to help operate the system. He

stated there are five solid waste facilities; Central Disposal Facility which is a class one landfill,

the only one in Brevard County; the two transfer stations, Sarno and Titusville take waste from

the north or the south portion of the County, consolidate it, and get it to the Central Disposal

Facility; Sarno Road Class III Landfill is for the waste that is generated in the south part of the

County; US 192 site has started construction after 33 years; and the Mockingbird Way

Mulching Facility is also under construction, replacing the Titusville Transfer Station and

expanding the pad there. He stated the green north service area on the slide he is showing

everything collected there goes to either the Mockingbird Way Mulching Facility or the Titusville

Transfer Station; the red central area, everything collected there goes straight to the Central

Disposal Facility; in the south yellow service area, everything now goes to the Sarno Transfer

Station or the Class III Landfill; and eventually it will go the US 192 site to replace the Sarno

Road Class III Landfill. He stated talking about the programs and services, it is split up into

two different things, one is collection and recycling which Solid Waste Management does not

have much to do with because it is contracted out, so the curbside collection is done by the

contractors, Solid Waste Management monitors and administers the contract; on the disposal

side is where more of the County employees are involved with the operation of the transfer

stations, the landfill, household hazardous waste, waste, tires, metal, white goods, and

vegetative waste; and they also do recycling education, which is where their administrative and

finance are, also in engineering, permitting, and environmental compliance, so that is where the

County employees are, they all work on the disposal side. He stated that the budget itself,

which is an estimated Fiscal Year 25-26 budget, solid waste collection is through the collection

assessments, everything below that on the slide is funded by solid waste disposal

assessments; there is $25.8 million for collections, $30.6 million for operation of the actual

facilities, $55 million for capital improvement projects which is expansion of the system to keep

capacity for the residents, equipment replacement is about $8 million, transfers and debt

services are about $10 million, and then restricted reserves which is used only for closure of

landfills, that is $37 million; and it looks like a lot of money but they have to have that much

money in case the County walked away from doing solid waste, the State wants them to have

enough money that they could close the landfills without spending any additional money. He

stated there are 165 positions right now, he says positions because they do not have 165

employees, there are some vacancies in both the professional side because the solid waste

industry is kind of a niche industry and it gets hard to find civil engineers that want to be in that

kind of industry, the boots on the ground; during Marc Bernath, Public Works Director, previous

presentation he talked about the people that are out there all day in all kinds of weather and

they are making the same money that someone could make at McDonald’s; Solid Waste has

that same issue for the boots on the ground people, but they are also standing in people’s

rotting garbage and getting christened by seagulls, and so they do have some recruiting and

retainage issues; and they try training for people to move up, but that becomes a double edge

sword because as soon as someone moves up they have a slot that needs to be filled again.

He mentioned collection/recycling consists of all residential properties receiving collection

services in unincorporated Brevard County but it also regulates the rates charges charged for

collection service at commercial properties, which is paid for by the non-ad valorem Solid

Waste collection assessment that only goes out to residential properties, commercial properties

have to contract with the franchise collector themselves; County employees are not paid out of

that fund, it is strictly to pay for Waste Management’s contract that started on October 1, 2020,

and it runs through September 30, 2027, meaning that under the current term of the

Commission, the Board is going to be negotiating and executing the new contract, which needs

to be in place by October 1, 2026, so that if Waste Management does not win the new contract,

whoever does will have a year to get the infrastructure in place so they can service the County

on day one; there was a 39 percent increase in rates once the new contract started with a three

percent cap every year for increases and rates; and there is a small reserve fund for disaster

debris collection that he will talk about later. He went on to say a majority of the revenues for

collections is basically from the residential collection assessments, that is the money that is

being paid to Waste Management to collect people’s yard waste, recycling and garbage; there

is a little bit of a balance forward that Solid Waste has each year but majority of it goes straight

from Solid Waste collection assessment straight into paying Waste Management to do the

collection; the expenditures is 93 percent of the budget; there are some transfers to other

departments like the Property Appraiser and the Tax Collector, those are the people that are

tracking all the new properties, the sizes of the properties, the Tax Collector is putting the bills

out and collecting the revenue; the Operating Reserve which is about $1.5 million and is used

for disaster debris collection; hurricane Nicole was $2 million to recover, Milton was $3.6

million, and Irma was not even a direct hit to Brevard County and it was about $11 million to

collect; and Solid Waste has to put that money up front to have the contractors out collecting

and then they hope that they can get 85 to 100 percent of that back from Federal Emergency

Management Association (FEMA) within two to four years. He stated that disposal is

Countywide; a solid waste disposal assessment goes on every tax bill for residential and

commercial in Brevard County because the Solid Waste Disposal Act requires that every entity

in the County use the system, even if someone is living in a municipality, they may not be

paying a collection assessment but they are paying for a disposal assessment to use the

landfills; that is where the funds come from to pay the employees, the Solid Waste operations,

capital equipment replacement and the funds for the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) which

is to expand and make sure they have the capacity for the system; the budget for revenues is

$141.5 million, about 34 percent of that is actually the revenue not just the disposal

assessments, it is also from interest; the majority is balance forward; note that impact fees

make up a small piece of that pie; and Solid Waste impact fees can only be used for expansion

of the system, right now, it is being used as part of the debt service for the current 2023 series

bonds that is used to fund the system. He explained 22 percent of expenditures is what it costs

to run Solid Waste facilities and pay the employees; the debt service, that is taking into account

a series 2025 bond; the capital outlay includes both the CIP’s to expand the system and also

includes equipment replacements; the restricted reserves or escrow is the $34 million; and

again, transfers to other departments includes the Tax Collector, the Property Appraiser, the

Clerk of the Courts as well as Code Enforcement because they are going to be enforcing the

Ordinance 94 which has to do with litter and whether or not they have been putting garbage out

correctly. He commented he wants to talk about the prioritized projects; the US 192 Solid

Waste Facility is currently under construction, it is in phase one which is basically the

earthwork, the stormwater, wetlands, roads, and underground utilities; the construction and

oversight is about $33.4 million which has been funded with the series 2023 bond and the

remainder needs to be funded with the series 2025 bond; phase two which will have the actual

infrastructure, the scale house, the Class III landfill, leech collection and storage and all the

overhead utilities; construction and oversight right now is estimated to about $45.8 million and

Solid Waste anticipates that to be funded with a series 2027 and a 2029 bond; the Titusville

Transfer Station is under construction; construction and oversight is about $21.5 million which

is being funded with the series 2023 bond, anticipating the remainder of the contract to be

funded with the series 2025 bond; the current transfer station is 48 years old and was built in

1976, it uses obsolete technology, relies on compaction of the garbage into the back of these

steel trailers which uses a lot of weight for the steel and a hydraulic ram that pushes the

garbage back out of the trailer; the new design for the transfer station will be more like the

Sarno Transfer Station with open top aluminum trailers which will leave more weight for the

waste tonnage, be more efficient, have less trips, less fuel, less tires, and less wear and tear on

the machines themselves; because it is so old, it is constantly needing to be repaired, there are

no parts for a lot of that, so a lot of the mechanical things have to be created to rebuild it; one

other thing because it is going to be built on the Mockingbird Way, right now there is no scale

house, no flow control so commercial establishments cannot use Mockingbird Way or the

Titusville Transfer Station because they do not have the scales so measuring how much people

are dumping and charging it to their accounts is impossible to do, this will accommodate it with

a manned scale house so commercial operations will no longer have to drive down to Cocoa, it

is also going to expand the pad so there will be more space for vegetative waste; it will make it

into a much more efficient facility and last north Brevard for many decades; and the third major

project that is a critical need is the Central Disposal Facility (CDF) South Landfill, Cell-3 already

has a permit to construct cells three through five, the construction oversight is estimated to be

about $45 million and it is anticipated to be funded by the series 2025 and 2027 bond. He

repeated that the CDF is the only Class I landfill in Brevard County, so having that capacity, the

additional capacity is very important; cells one and two reach capacity in mid to late 2028, in

addition to that, the Sarno Road Class III landfill is reaching capacity, once that ends receiving

waste, that is going to increase the amount of waste going into the CDF by 20 percent; and

right now cell three is designed, it is a 53-acre cell, it is anticipated to take the County into at

least 2037 or 2038 before cells four or five need to be done. He mentioned he was talking to

one of the heads of permitting and compliance for the Department of Environmental Protection

about other counties and she was talking about the fact that other counties are running up to

the same problem where they are behind the eight ball, they do not have the space, they are

running out of capacity, and they are looking for other ways to do things because there is no

space or funds because it gets more expensive by the year to build these things; another thing

that is critical is the expansion of the gas collection system, every Class I landfill needs an

active gas collection system to collect the landfill gas; the good part about this is that this

project is funded by the closure escrow, the restricted reserves, also in the last Landfill Gas

Purchase Contract that was done in 2023 with Brevard Energy, there was a stipulation in there

that as it expands they will contribute 50 percent to each project up to a cap of $5 million which

takes a little bit of the burden financially off of the County as well, since they are benefiting from

the collection of this gas; the final closure of the Sarno Road landfill as he stated is reaching

capacity and may last toward the end of the year, estimated at about $21 million and that is

going to be fully funded by the escrow, which is the same thing with the CDF slurry wall that is

almost at capacity; he thinks they have about 65,000 cubic yards of capacity left and that is for

emergencies, if there are issues in the south landfill, transfer trailers can be taken up to the

slurry wall; and when the final closure on that happens it will be funded at $21 million, from the

engineers estimate, fully funded by the escrow. He stated that the expenditures report that is

being done, it is the third party report that is necessary for the public bonding, the Fiscal Year

(FY) 2023 bond was $53.9 million but about $20.2 million ended up paying for a commercial

paper loan that was needed while cell two was being built; and with the cost and payout a 2025,

2027, and 2029 bond is going to be necessary to fund this. He stated this is the disposal unit

billing history, the tops rows on the slide are what the actual billing unit history, including in FY

2023 when the Board actually approved the incremental increases to start keeping up with

inflation; on the bottom of the slide is what the disposal assessments would have been had

they kept up with inflation; one thing to note is that for 30 years from FY 1992 through FY 2022,

the disposal assessments themselves decreased by 6.6 percent and over that same 30 year

period, the consumer price index for garbage and trash increased by 110 percent. He stated he

is grateful to the Board for allowing them to raise them incrementally as to not put a heavy

burden on the public right away; another thing to note is that even on the bottom two rows on

the far right of the slide, right now, even if there were an increase those disposal assessments

to those numbers, $198.49 for residential and $560.56 per commercial billing unit, borrowing

money would still have to happen for major projects; even raising it that much would not pay

cash out-of-pocket; another thing, how they got there and do not have a robust capital reserve

fund, this is over the same 30-year period where a lot of money was spent on projects; one

thing to note is that historically when the US 192 property was purchased, the original idea was

that they were going to build a Class I and a Class III landfill there and they were going to shut

down CDF, Sarno and everything and everything was going to be centralized on this one

facility, of course, opposition and the legal challenges led them to the point where it was

delayed continuously; money had to be spent to make sure Sarno Road landfill and the Central

Disposal Facility would last while trying to figure out the new direction; another thing that is

important to look at is at the bottom of the slide in 2022 is when they ran out of capital reserves,

which is when they had to get a paper currency loan of $20 million; $16 million of that went to

fund the remainder of the construction of cell two; another thing that actually is important is

between 2016, the construction of cell one, and 2022, the construction of cell two, they are

identical, same design, same construction, so in 2016 it cost $21.12 million to build and in 2022

it went up to $32 million; and so over that six-year period they had a 53 percent increase in

construction costs. He continued by saying with the trend data, the black line on the slide is the

tonnage that goes into the Central Disposal Facility; the lower red line is the tonnage that goes

in annually to the Sarno Road Class III landfill; in 2017, there was an increase that is going to

be correlated to both economic conditions and development in Brevard County; there was a

giant increase in the amount of waste that is coming into CDF; another thing to keep in mind,

with the red line on the slide, is that as soon as the Sarno Road landfill runs out of capacity that

red line then becomes part of the black line which is the 20 percent increase in waste that is

coming into that facility; next trend is the landfill compactor cost which is one of the most

important pieces of equipment; it is spreading out and compacting that waste to a uniform

density, it is saving air space making things as efficient as possible; and 2015 to 2019 can be

ignored because the alternating years do not represent the same piece of equipment, they

represent manufacturers of equipment that were being bought on alternating years. He went on

to say it is after 2016 when one of those manufacturers went out of business, and 2016

through 2024 is the same make and model of compactor; over the eight-year period the cost of

the compactor has basically doubled which is representative of every piece of major equipment,

heavy equipment, excavators, bulldozers, front end loaders, everything has gone up in that

same manner; and what used to be eight years ago in annual equipment replacement fund of

$3 to $4 million is now $6 to $8 million per year for them to replace the same amount of

equipment. He mentioned what the Board has done in the past to help with the rising costs of

equipment and operation, Solid Waste was authorized for a public hearing to consider the

assessment increases and the engineering study to finance the five year CIP; there was a

public hearing in 2022 where the Board approved incremental increases and now every year it

is tied to the CIP for garbage and trash, so each year they calculate that in March and put that

into their budget; December 2022, that is when the Board authorized a commercial paper loan

of $20 million which was to finance the ongoing capital improvement projects which was

completing the construction of cell two, putting in a gas system in cell one of the south landfill

that was required by regulation, and then the remainder of that was used for design for cells

three, four, five and also some US 192 design; then in August that is when the Board approved

them to sell $53.8 million in bonds and that is what started paying for right now the beginning of

the construction of US 192 and also the construction of the Titusville Transfer Station; and

most recently in November, the Board authorized a revised engineering study which is what

they are doing right now and the numbers that he used for the CIP expenditure schedule in the

previous slides. He stated in the last slide are items for future Board consideration, collection

and recycling is running out September 30, 2027, they are wanting to have a contract in place

by October 1, 2026, that Request for Proposal (RFP) is anticipated to be advertised, he is

going to have that circulated so the Board and County management can look at it; he will get

that out and everyone can start putting the final touches on it, that is not just the RFP but the

contract itself so all the issues can be looked at from the past and figure out a way to address

them in the future; while doing that everyone might want to consider the increases in Solid

Waste collection assessments like from the current contract there was an immediate 39

percent increase in costs; he showed how much Solid Waste usually has in reserves when a

natural disaster happens and what money is available to pay for contractors; the Board might

want to take into consideration having a reserve fund for natural disasters because in the past

with hurricane Irma they had the money that was in Solid Waste collection fund, but they had to

borrow $10 million out of the Solid Waste Disposal fund; and Solid Waste no longer has $10

million in the fund to borrow anymore so all the projects are being funded through bonding at

this point. He noted the actual CIP financing, according to the latest iteration of the engineering

report, what they are looking at the Board considering is a $32.8 million bond in this fiscal year,

then the $31 million bond in 2027 and a $43.2 million bond in 2029; he added an asterisk on

the slide because it is all subject to changes in construction costs, updates on the cash flow

and analysis; and he would be happy to answer any questions to the best of his ability.

Commissioner Goodson asked if there has been any consideration given to privatizing the

dump.

Mr. Mulligan responded in the past the consideration has been given but he has not heard

anyone actually expressing that interest.

Commissioner Goodson asked Mr. Mulligan to name a County in the State of Florida that has

privatized their dump.

Mr. Mulligan replied he does not know of one that has privatized, he does know ones that

started with a private landfill, like Okeechobee, and there are private landfills around the State,

the nearest Class I is the JED landfill in Osceola County, but he is not aware of a County that

started with…

Commissioner Goodson stated it might not have started but had a County dump, then

privatized it.

Mr. Mulligan responded no he is not aware of that.

Commissioner Goodson asked if he could research Duvall County and get back to him.

Mr. Mulligan replied yes he will do that.

Commissioner Goodson asked why would someone not want to privatize other than

management, what would be the reason not to privatize.

Mr. Mulligan responded one reason not to privatize for them is the rates, the disposal

assessment rates, the gate charges, they are not going to be controlled by the Board of County

Commissioners; the JED landfill is a private landfill, and they will set their rates with whatever

they feel like setting them at the time; so if Solid Waste did that it would be putting a profit

percentage in play, so there would not only be just enough money to serve the public and

expand the system, somewhere along the line because it is a capitalist operation, that the

capitalism kicks in and someone wants to make a profit off of this; and people would pay more

than they normally would.

Commissioner Goodson stated Mr. Mulligan recently changed the pricing or the venue on how

landscapers dump or private people dump and that was a problem for his office because

everybody was up in arms. He asked if that had cleared up any.

Mr. Mulligan replied that it has been a lot quieter, he believes that people have gotten used to

the fact that the disposal assessment does not cover an unlimited amount of waste coming

from a residential property.

Commissioner Goodson stated that when he goes, he carries a birth certificate, marriage

license, a tax bill, and two driver’s license.

Chairman Feltner stated they had discussed at one time about an e-pass for the people that go

through there a lot to try to speed them up.

Mr. Mulligan responded they were bringing that back up because of the fact that one thing

about providing identification and proof of origin it puts a slightly longer amount of time that

someone would spend at a scale house, so seeing which people they could pair up with the

Wizard, which is lane two where they can just type in a code, it weighs them and then they

already have their tear weight in the database; Solid Waste and Waste Management use it;

and they are starting to look at what other operations they can make available so that it takes

them out of the line that has to go through the scale house.

Commissioner Adkinson asked about staffing issues and what is the percentage of open

positions for Solid Waste.

Mr. Mulligan replied it is not as high as other departments, they have been doing very well and

he thinks it is because of their dedication to the training programs that they have, when they

have their job fairs they highlight that people can come in with almost no skills, no training and

at the lowest level and they can be trained to be a heavy operator one, train them on more

equipment to be a heavy equipment operator two, operator three, become a lead so that these

people can see that there is a path forward and it is not just a dead end job that there is only

one position available to them which has helped them a lot; but it is also a position that does

end up with a revolving door sometimes with their own issues of people who do a no-show, no

call for interviews, work two days and decide that standing outside is not for them.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated the Commissioners will hear from Human Resources

when they do their presentation for every department that has new employee orientation

program.

Commissioner Delaney…stated people have been affected by the transition and she gets that it

is needed but what it has resulted in is a lot of dumping, so that combined with charging for

commercial dumping at the landfills is causing a lot of dumping in District 1; it is actually

causing people to call into her office because people are digging holes on their property and

allowing these businesses come to their property and dump on their properties which is causing

a real problem; and she does not know if they could talk about any kind of resolution to that or

any kind of ideas because yes, the County is gaining more revenue, but it is causing another

problem.

Mr. Mulligan responded he understands, but it is tough because when they do the numbers,

because of the disposal assessments basically being stagnant for 30 years, it is really tough

and it immediately puts a burden on the citizens if they go ahead and say okay they are going

to triple these so they can make up for the rising costs, if they did that they might be able to go

back and say yes now people can dump for free but when they do the numbers itself there is

no way right now a $69 residential disposal assessment is going to be able to pay for tons of

vegetation as well as what is picked up by the collector as well as if they happen to decide to

do their entire house, raise the house, and they dispose of the entire home; and $69 a year

does not pay for the amount of money it cost Solid Waste to process the vegetation, to run the

equipment, to pay the employees, to dispose of it, and to make sure that they are doing all of

that in compliance with the State and Federal regulations.

Commissioner Delaney stated her last block of questions is regarding the Waste Management

Contract; one of the major complaints that she has gotten in her district is yard waste especially

with the elderly, when they have to wait so long for yard waste to get picked up, it blows all over

the street; oversized items being left out for so long causes more issues; she has been working

really hard to get the word out that people have to call Waste Management; also the garbage

coming out of the tops of the garbage trucks especially on the State Road 524 to Adamson,

that area is really bad; and she has talked to Waste Management about it and she hopes that

they can negotiate with them.

Mr. Mulligan replied that is why he wants to get the RFP out so that the Board can look at it,

plus the draft contract so that way everyone can agree on what new provisions should be

added in there. He mentioned that the last meeting he had, because he meets monthly with

Waste Management, they go over their performance and liquidated damages, they were

mentioning about at least with vegetation waste going away from calling in for a clam truck and

starting clam truck routes, because it is not just the north area, there is south A1A, Tropical

Trail, all areas end up having large amounts of vegetation debris in large piles that people fail

to call in or they do call in and then there is one person who gets their pile picked up and then

the other 10 are left behind because they did not call in, so they are working on things like that,

and that might actually be able to happen, even before the contract expires.

Commissioner Delaney stated that one of the things that she has been having her staff do is

every time her office gets an email or phone call about the trash not getting picked up, she has

been having them document it and not only that but they have been sending it to Solid Waste

and Waste Management, that way there is documentation.

Mr. Mulligan stated that he could provide her with as much information as she needs as to how

many contacts came to Solid Waste, how many contacts came to Waste Management, and

how many of those were legitimate complaints that resulted in liquidated damages against the

contract; any information she would like to see on that, he has been tracking it at least since

they have started the reimbursement program; but he knows they go a little farther back than

that.

Mr. Abbate asked if that report was done on a monthly basis.

Mr. Mulligan replied yes.

Mr. Abbate stated it is consistent with what the Board set up, which was once a complaint is

outside the contract period there is a liquidated damage that the member of the public can

receive and so the County has that going back for over two years.

Mr. Mulligan stated he believes it was August of 2021.

Mr. Abbate stated they have all that information up to the current…

Mr. Mulligan stated so what that does is the residents that call them, part of the liquidated

damages that the County takes off of the invoice that they are paying to Waste Management,

that will go back to the residents depending on whether they use the phone or they did it over

the internet, until such a time they have given them a 100 percent refund on their collection

assessment; no one has ever gotten a 100 percent refund on their collection assessment;

individually it does sometimes look bad but on the overall it actually is not as bad as it was

during COVID, that was the worst period of time because there were no drivers, no workers,

and a lot of people when they got sick had to be out for two weeks, so there is a whole

workforce that is ill and no one can collect the waste; but the County did what it could for the

residents.

Chairman Feltner stated he likes the amnesty days or periods when people can drop off a tire

and some of those other things, he thinks that helps, there should be couch amnesty in Brevard

County.

Mr. Mulligan responded that kudos goes to Joseph Faella, Mosquito Control Director, for that

one, Solid Waste just helped.

Chairman Feltner mentioned about the large items being picked up, over the years, a grill or

something he was throwing out, he put it on Craigslist, free scrap metal and capitalism is

amazing because someone will show up in two hours and pick up the items and clean it up or

take it to Trademark, so there are other ways to get rid of things.

C.4. Utility Services

Edward Fontanin, Utility Services Director, stated he is going to give the Board a brief overview

of Utility Services, what it does, and then he will dive into the weeds on funding projects and all

of that good stuff; with regard to the utilities, there are six service areas and none of the service

areas are connected; from the operational side there is the North Service Area that is referred

to as Merritt Island, Port St. John, and North Brevard; the North Service Area is where Utility

Services does water and wastewater in Mims, and wastewater in Port St. John and Sykes

Creek, along with reuse in the limited areas of Merritt Island and Port St. John; the Central

Service Area is known as the area of Viera, Suntree, and Town of Palm Shores where Utility

Services does sewer and reclaim water; the Utility Services does not do the water, Cocoa

provides the water for this service area; Utility Services does have a 12 million gallons per day

water plant, which is its largest; the South Service Area is referred to as beaches; and the

wastewater system on the beaches is everything from Pineda Causeway south and it does

water and sewer in Barefoot Bay and water in San Sebastian. He stated in terms of the assets

to get an overview of what the six service areas are that he was referencing, if miles are added

up in terms of reclaim, gravity, water, and force main it is about 1,100 miles; if he or she were

to Google a map, he thinks it would take that person to Rhode Island or Connecticut; there are

321 lift stations under his jurisdiction; there are other lift stations that are private, but the 321, if

he checked today it would probably be even a bigger number on the rate of growth within the

service area; time flies, but the creation of Brevard County Utilities, he believes was in 1965,

and a lot of that started with the incorporation of the South Brevard Area; when considering the

age of the assets they are going back to the late to mid-1960’s, but they also took over assets

that are going into the early 1950’s; and that kind of gives the Board an idea of the zero to 70

range of what staff is working with. He explained how they take care of all of these assets, how

they stay on top of it, and how they provide reliability is the heavy assessment program in a

variety of all their assets; over the last five years staff has done gravity sewer assessments of

530 miles; there is a technology called the Smart Ball, where staff basically shoves almost like

a bocce ball in a force main with a cushion and it gives detection readings of leaks and gas

pockets; staff could do that on the large mains, it is more cumbersome, but they are still

committed; seven miles has been done and all of the lift stations were assessed; eight of the

nine treatment plants air relief valves, which are the component to the functionality of force

main lines; one must remember, in Florida, it relies on force main over gravity because they

could only go so deep with the pipes; air release valves is really the opportunity for the gases in

a force main to burp itself of its gases, so it gives more capacity; and annually staff checks

them all. He stated over 11,000 manholes had been assessed and all of the valves, whether it

is on a water main, a reclaim, or a force main; there is about 3,500 and all of those are

assessed every year to make sure of their functionality; those that do not end up programmed

in operations and maintenance projects to get them on a schedule; and within a year or two of

getting those back to functional. He stated a utility is really an Enterprise Fund and it does not

get any ad valorem revenue; and the revenue for Utility Services derives from all of the rates

and fees that are within the rate Resolution, as approved by the Board. He stated this slide is

an overview of 2024 and it shows the revenue as the permits, fees and special assessments

revenue as the bulk of it; charges for services revenue gives an overview of how Utility

Services is receiving its money in and how it spends money; and debt service expenditure will

be discussed upon later in his presentation, because when getting into the larger projects Utility

Services does not generate enough money to pay-as-it-goes once getting into $30 to $50, $80

million, and not having the generation of revenues within a year, in order to pay for those

projects so then it relies on debt service. He stated if going back to the slide about the South

Service Area, within the nook of the utility system is Barefoot Bay; the reason he is pointing that

out is because the Barefoot Bay is a Dependent District and falls under the jurisdiction

operationally, of Utility Services; administratively, the Board of County Commissioners is the

Governing Board of the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District; there is no intermediate board

other than the Board; but because it is a Dependent District, it is not eligible to the fees and

revenue received from outside of the other service areas. He added Barefoot Bay has its own

accounting system and that is why it is shown separately; the next slide shown gives the Board

an indication of the expenditures; and these are smaller numbers to be seen, if the Board is

familiar with the geography of the Barefoot Bay area, and it is not a large area.

Chairman Feltner inquired if Micco is serviced by that same area.

Mr. Fontanin responded yes; and he stated on the east side, until it turns into the Palm Bay.

He went on to say this is a snapshot of the balance forward and this is the money that they

have to rollover from year to year; to give the Board a little idea of what it is seeing on the slide

is the $54 million; when the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money was coming in, Utility

Services received $60 to $65 million; if the Board is familiar, there was a Federal requirement in

order to get those projects encumbered by December of last year which included engineering

and everything in order to get those out to bid; and in order not to lose that opportunity of free

money, that is outside of what the rates have generated, it was put as a precedence. He

added Utility Services also received from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection

(FDEP) grants, which is always hit or miss because every year, whether it be two or three times

a year there will be website portals for application; he has put in for a lot of projects and

sometime a lot is given, sometimes none is given, and sometime a just few are given; in the

onset of this Utility Services was quite successful in 2022-2023 with that; and a precedence

was set to make sure a draw was being shown on that money from Tallahassee to not give

them an opportunity to take that away. He stated when talking about utilities for all of Florida

the phrase ‘thou should’ is heard a lot; with utilities being water and wastewater, everything

done is governed by FDEP or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and when they

turned that into a law it is ‘have to’; some of the major laws started kicking in, in 2020-2021

when the inkling started to be seen, and it has grown ever since; and currently, whenever he

sees a House Bill in Tallahassee of what they are proposing, and not done yet, on how to

improve the infrastructure, especially on the wastewater side when dealing with nutrients and

nutrient reduction. He provided a brief overview of the laws, the first one is Federal through the

EPA and is about the Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) reduction that is when getting

into the surficial wells, recording the assessment of the wells, and assuring that they are not

tripping the four parts per trillion for PFAS; if they are, then that is a project and the Board will

hear from him about what is being done in South and North Brevard at the water plant; zero

discharge by 2032, is basically what the State of Florida said, regardless of what the

explanation is for having a discharge, whether the power went out, a truck backed into it, or a

hurricane, if there is any discharge into a protected body of water a consent order would

obviously be received; and that is where it escalates come 2032. He continued to say the other

component of that is when getting into deep injection wells and those are the primary way of

how Utility Services deals with treated wastewater; it is a well 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the ground

for the discharge; every five years the FDEP requires a sophisticated test that takes about five

days, but for five days the well typically has to be shut down; typically, the FDEP allows for shut

down, puts a clause in the permit saying only for that period of time could it be discharged into

an open body of water, for the benefit of the test; and come 2032, those come out, therefore,

meaning every facility having a single well would now require a second well due to this law. He

stated nutrient reduction in Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) is now a big-drive with what

is going on in Florida…

Frank Abbate, County Manager, interrupted by saying tell them what the cost of one of those

wells is.

Mr. Fontanin indicated he would get to that. He added he has been doing this for 30 years; he

has been active in Florida for 20 years; if the Board asked him what the cost of a well was eight

years ago, rule of thumb was $6 to $8 million; today, with engineering, it literally is getting into

$25 million, and plus; it is only going to go up because of the law mentioned and the deadline

of 2032; if one could envision, every utility across Florida has to do this, not Brevard County; he

will say three, but there is only one good one that does this; and they are at the ability, because

if an opportunity is wanted to make money, go into deep injection wells because those do not

have price competition, but it has to get done. He mentioned knowing that Melbourne just went

through this and it went out to bid, and it was up significantly from what they had anticipated.

He stated Florida Statute, Chapter 403, Section 086, is where the Board will hear him talk more

about Advanced Water Treatment (AWT), and is the requirement of treatment that FDEP now

expects from treatment plants that are in BMAP areas; as Utility Services deals with the

treatment plants, which there are several and he will go into that, and whenever AWT is heard

it is the requirement FDEP has specified; and there is Florida Administrative Code (FAC), in

addition to Federal law and State law, there is FAC, and there are clauses in there that are

justification where Utility Services has to provide uninterrupted wastewater which falls into the

zero discharge. He stated to give the Board a glimmer of what the major projects are and this

is only part of them listed; this is the effort of what the Utility Services Department is doing; on

septic-to-sewer there are 17 projects being managed and the bulk of those projects are on

Merritt Island and there are some in the beaches, south of Eau Gallie has a few; in terms of

quantity and cost of what is being managed, it kind of gives the Board a perspective; combine

that with the initiatives that are going on in South Brevard with a new Water and Wastewater

Treatment (WWT) plant, it is driven because of the PFAS rule being tripped and the

requirement is now going to Reverse Osmosis (RO) and the WWT, plant being in a BMAP, has

to be AWT; the Mims Water Treatment Plant expansion has the same story about the PFAS

and wells tripping the four parts per trillion; the technology to remove PFAS is RO; and the

component when doing RO is the only means of disposal because there is a brine that is

generated from the salt water, is a deep injection well, so not just one is built, due to the zero

discharge it has to have a redundancy, one is getting tested, while the other one is online; and

that gives the Board an idea of where the $107 and $150 million are coming from. He went on

to say in South Beaches AWT for $50 million is in Melbourne Beach; South Patrick force main

improvement is $38 million, but Utility Services was fortunate to get an FDEP grant of $14

million that would help to offset that cost; and he does not mean to bore the Board with going

through this, but what is listed is just a portion of the projects underway of what Utility Services

staff is currently managing. He stated there is also project initiatives for Port St. John and the

reason is, it is not in a BMAP yet, but it is going to be; that is the oldest plant, it is almost at

capacity, it is not AWT, and if it were in the BMAP it would definitely fail the BMAP nutrient

requirement; in addition, what Florida is doing with these BMAPs in some of the rulings in the

BMAP plans in central and west Florida, they are creating laws, and those laws are saying now

that there is a BMAP, any new development cannot have septic systems; any existing old

septic’s cannot get a renewal for the septic; and it puts onus on the utilities, not only about the

growth and being able to accommodate it, but to the existing customer, or a constituent, who

has a longtime septic tank that needs replacement would not be able to because of that law.

He mentioned talking about Sykes Creek/Space Florida in December or January, but he is still

waiting on what is going on with Space Florida tying in, that is going to continue; and Utility

Services is currently in the negotiating phase with the engineer on the phase two study,

specifically associated with this effort. He stated for Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) going

through 2034, some of the numbers might slide because of Utility Services execution of the

projects; currently, over a ten-year span Utility Services is looking at close to $700 million; as

this due diligence keeps coming in, that the State requires and still being done, he is

anticipating that number to grow; obviously, the cost of inflation and any delays cannot be a

cause for increase; earlier he talked about being an Enterprise Fund with user fees and the

good news is, that over the last four to five years the Utility Services Department, with the

cooperation of the County Manager’s Office, had looked at these and tried to get a plan in

place to kind of get the rates current; the rates were stuck or not reflective; and the slide shown

gives the Board a current snapshot of what was approved in 2022, giving an implementation of

what it is, and emphasized not stopping after a four-year jump and to try to keep the cost index

current so they do not come to the Board 10 to 15 years from now, and ask for 20 percent to

kind of keep it up to speed. He talked about Barefoot Bay being a smaller area, but its rates

are higher, that is because it is a Dependent District and not able to capture, or be a part of the

Countywide financial model of Utility Services to do projects; and those rates are raised

significantly more. He stated the next slide gives the Board an overview of the revenue versus

the expenditure; in the first glance, it looks like Utility Services is doing well, but when looking at

the subsequent years 2027, 2028, and 2029 that is where Utility Services is starting to pursue

debt service to get bonds to do these major projects he spoke about earlier; the hatched area

right now is a range of what is being anticipated for that debt service payment; and he will talk

about how to get there. He stated one of the other changes is the updated Consumer Price

Index (CPI); historically, the Utility Services Department was using the General CPI; if going

into the CPI, it actually has a long menu of different CPIs; there is one specific to CPI Sewer

and Water Maintenance that is more appropriate for the Utility Services Department; and

through Board approval, a change had been made. He stated project funding developer fees

was another one; that was looked at for what fees were being charged to the developers for the

services Utility Services provides; it was not a lot, that was noticed in October of 2024, and

sought Board approval to get it up to standard of what the rest of the departments in the

County are using; and a greater increase in revenue is being anticipated from that. He stated

in addition to the services of water and wastewater, Brevard County has the only publicly

operated Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) septage facility and that is becoming an interesting

story across Florida, because as growth is occurring in the County and regionally, more

restaurants are coming in as the people are coming in, which is a generator of FOG, homes

that are being built that are not on sewer but are on septage, and when those are pumped out it

has to go somewhere; it used to be that if there is no capacity by FDEP, the hauler would seek

permission to go to another county like Osceola or Orange, in order to do that; the issue is all

of these counties are experiencing so much growth, that are now starting to restrict

out-of-county transport because they are saving that capacity for its constituents within its

county; and Utility Services is currently looking for alternatives. He stated the rates were

established in Resolution No. 2022-08, but they were not updated because staff knew it was

going to do something bigger and better; right now, there is a capacity issue, and staff is

currently looking at that to come to a long-term solution; the benefit of it is the FOG septage

has its own separate rates; the question is, are the ratepayers paying for this; and the answer

is, if the rates are established at the appropriate level, based on the infrastructure, the answer

should be no. He stated there are connection fees and he heard a question of what is the

difference between an impact fee and a connection fee, because sometimes they are the

same, but they are not; a connection fee is similar to an impact fee, it only could be used on the

expansion of capacity, and what that means is if a person is building a wastewater plant and it

is at one million gallons but he or she wants it to go to two million gallons, the one million gallon

replacement is a replacement of the existing and to go from one to two is an expansion, and

that is where connection fees come in; even when doing a pipe replacement, if going from a 12

inch to a 20 inch, the replacement cost of the 12 inch is not through connection fees, but from

12 inches to 20 inches could be used on the connection fees; and it is important, because if

Utility Services’ money is spent correctly and it maximizes its application of connection fees on

projects, it takes less of a burden on the user rates that are being generated. He continued to

say connection fees are a one-time charge for connecting to the water and wastewater system;

this is basically, making sure that new users who are placing a burden on the system are

paying his or her fair share to gain a portion of the system’s capacity; the connection fees help

with growth which is needed; the funds collected go towards water, sewer, and facilities; the

benefit of it and what he was tying it into, is what differentiates, and under the impact fee laws

there are parameters on the frequency of the percentage that could be applied in an impact

fee; but under Subsection 12 of that, it literally says it does not apply to water and wastewater

connection fees; and it gives Utility Services some latitude on how to implement that. He stated

that the current rates staff has done research and it found that this goes back to 1993, and

there has not been an index; when considering what that means, he took the graph that the

Budget Office had that ended at 2013, he expanded the Construction Cost Index back to 1993,

and if taking the accumulation of that it is an increase of 167 percent from 1993 to present, to

put that into perspective; in doing that, there currently is a connection fee study underway; and

he is optimistic to get it to the Board for consideration for adjustments to those fees. He

explained why a connection fee study is underway is because the costs are going up for a

multitude of reasons; Florida is popular with a lot of people and he is talking about the fair

share; if the connection fee is not set, anything needing to subsidize will subsequently come

from the user rates; it is trying to be done with a fair approach and wanting new connections to

pay the fee of the current moment; it gives Utility Services less burden on the user rates; and

puts Utility Services in a position for long-term planning for not getting into situations of nearing

capacity, to be ahead of the curve, and being given the ability to make those decisions. He

provided a brief overview of the Utility Services Department, in terms of the quantity of projects;

the current design projects in the workload is 25 and 17 for Save Our Indian River Lagoon

(SOIRL), and that is in addition to the 25; there is 20 studies and evaluations currently being

done, and from that he is referring to as a report or a study; eight projects that are near to, or

are out to bid for construction; and there are currently 20 projects for construction. He stated

he talked about connection fees, user fee rates, FOG, and septage fees; he is proud of the

success the Utility Services Department has had in seeking alternative sources; six FDEP

grants were received since 2022 and totaling $33 million; when ARPA came around, staff had

submitted 25 projects totaling $67 million; and recently, regarding the Space Florida initiative

with Department of Defense receiving $750,000. He added how is this paid for is, by having

bonds; Utility Services does have bonds and it has a County bond that was issued in 2014, in

order to do some repairs and some funding of the South Central Wastewater Plant; in 2029,

Barefoot Bay would be debt free, and it goes back to the acquisition of Barefoot Bay in 2002;

he showed an overview of what Utility Services’ total debt service is as of today; and what is

being shown is actual and does not include what is projected as future debt service, but he is

anticipating this number in order to do funding of debt service being realistically within $10, $12,

and possibly even more million per year, in order to do what Utility Services has to do. He

mentioned currently there is the WWT connection fee study and he will be bringing that to the

Board for its consideration, for making those adjustments; he will be talking about the

investment of a new FOG facility and what would be the adoption of new rates, in order to

make it without utilizing user rates; and in order to do the CIPs, would be the adoption of bonds

that Utility Services is going to need, in order to do that.

Commissioner Delaney asked about when the Board would see the results of that study.

Mr. Fontanin replied which one; and he stated he has 20 of them.

Commissioner Delaney responded the connection fee study.

Mr. Fontanin responded he is currently working with the rate consultant and he would like to

say before June, but it most likely will be right after the June break.

*The Board recessed at 3:34 p.m. and reconvened at 3:42 p.m.

C.5. Human Resources

Melissa Powers, Human Resources Director, stated today she is going to go through a quick

introduction of what Human Resources does, provide details on the group health plan, the

property casualty program, talent recruitment and retention, and technology and updates. She

stated what is done in Human Resources is there are primarily six areas that serve all different

functions, by all working together; there is personnel services, support services, benefits group,

risk management group, organizational/employee development manager, career development

program, and employee relations; Human Resources is primarily funded through internal

funding sources and the slide shown gives a breakdown of those funding sources; and it can

be seen that almost all of Human Resources funding comes from internal funding mechanisms,

primarily for the benefits, which is the group health program, the risk property casualty

program, and some General Fund as well. She stated she is going to provide a quick overview

of the personnel services and support services sections before getting into more detail on the

other areas; personnel services handles working with the departments to create job

requisitions, the advertising for jobs, the hiring process, the onboarding process; and it

manages the new employee organization program, employment compensation evaluations for

the departments and try to maintain internal equity within the organization, work with payroll

and County Finance to make sure that payroll and employment compensation is working

hand-in-hand, and managing SAP in the Human Resources modules, with a lot of reporting

through that. She stated over the past year they combined the finance group and the records

group within the department to create support services; on the finance side, it manages the

group health plan, as well as department operational budget; and on the records side, it helps

manage personnel files, background check processes, system updates for employees, Family

and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requests, and Public Records Requests (PRRs). She stated

the benefits team supports employees through his or her entire life cycle at the County from

onboarding to retirement, including benefit election for core benefits which are group health,

dental, vision, short-term and long-term disability insurance, and life insurance; this is done not

only at the onboarding process once hired, but also annually through the open enrollment

process that is typically done in the fall; the benefits team helps employees adjust his or her

benefits after qualifying life events, such as marriages, divorces, child birth, help employees

navigate through the deferred compensation program, employee assistance program, and

various other voluntary insurance projects; the team supports the in-house wellness team and

supports the robust wellness program, by running two health fairs each year; and as employees

get ready for retirement, the team assists employees with his or her Florida Retirement System

(FRS) benefits, deferred compensation, and retirement health coverage. She provided an

update on the County’s group health program; she stated the group health plan is a fully

self-insured program, which covers all of the medical and pharmacy claims, meaning that the

County and the participating entities fund the program through the revenues collected, and

pays for administrative fees, claims, and stop-loss coverage to protect the County from large

medical claims over $1 million; the group health plan covers more than just the Board’s

employees; the charter offices and other various County agencies participate in the program;

while the number fluctuate with new hires and separations; and the screen shows how many

lives the Plan currently covers, approximately a little over 4,000 employees, about 3,300

dependents, and for a total of about 7,500 lives. She stated the group health plan is primarily

funded through employer contributions from the various departments and agencies; the rate

applies to all full-time employees; since the program began, the County built up some

significant reserves in the fund, but because of this the County reduced the contribution rate in

2017 and then kept it flat for several years; however, as reserves have declined, the employer

contributions began increasing again in 2022; on the slide shown Fiscal Years 2023, 2024, and

2025 contribution rates increased by eight percent; for Fiscal Year 2026 a six percent increase

will be proposed to that rate; and she reminded the Board to keep in mind that this is the

employer contribution rate for what departments and agencies are paying into the fund, it is not

what the employee is paying, and it is not being contemplated to increase employee

contributions this year. She stated this slide provides a five-year look at the actual revenue and

expenses that came into the group health plan; it shows expenses have exceeded the revenue

each year since 2020; the increases in employer contribution rates and some plan design

changes over the past couple of years have helped reduce the losses, but as shown the

revenue is not keeping up with the expenses of the plan; shown on the last line is the required

reserves and as a self-insured program, the County is required to report the financial status of

the plan to the State annually; and through a calculation based on the incurred claim cost, the

State provides an amount the County is required to keep, then the County adds the Incurred

But Not Reported (IBNR) to that for the required reserves, and generally as claim costs

increase that reserve amount is going to increase as well. She stated this graph shows that

relationship between the balance forward and the required reserves; it is important because it is

showing that those lines are starting to get closer and closer together; she needs to make sure

the County is keeping on top of this and is trying to increase the revenues, and reduce

expenses as best as possible to avoid these lines from intersecting because the County does

not want to fall below the threshold reserve requirement; the next graph shows the claim trends

that were incurred through December of 2024 and were paid through February of 2025; the red

line shows the combination of medical and pharmacy expenses combined; the green line

shows that the revenue generated into the plan currently showing about 4.5 percent claim

trend; in 2024, there is a period of time that the lines got pretty close together, which was a

good thing; but in the last quarter of 2024, in early 2025 a lot of high-cost claims came in that

has bumped up that trend. She mentioned last year when going through the budget

development process, she focused on two main things when it came to continuing the group

health program, and those are sustainability and simplification; with regards to sustainability,

she wants to make sure the group health plan is financially sustainable moving forward; to do

that, she is looking at how to increase revenue into the program and to reduce costs; for

revenue, she had already mentioned looking at the six percent increase in the employer

premiums being proposed for this year’s budget; various other plan design changes have been

implemented over the past couple of years; and she is seeing some benefit to the overall

program from those changes, but there still is work to do. She added for 2024, the plan spent

approximately .92¢ of every $1 of revenue coming in; the industry standard is about 85 percent

and the Medicare program was about 88 percent, with the County being a little bit ahead of

those trends and it being efficient with the dollars that are going into the program; the next

significant change being looked at is the pharmacy program, by trying to figure out how to

better or improve it and to make it more cost-effective for the plan and the employees; the

Employee Benefits Advisory Committee (EBAC) met on Monday and it had a good discussion

about all of this; it does want to go out for Request for Proposals (RFP) on pharmacy and

medical, as well as doing a pharmacy audit; a pharmacy audit was done for 2023 and it showed

Cigna was doing what it was supposed to; there was a little bit of difference where Cigna ended

up paying the County back about $130,000; it is always good for transparency purposes to

keep on top of that and to make sure it is fulfilling its obligations under the contract; the EBAC

recommended doing that pharmacy audit in 2024 and that is going to be done; and looking at

those plan design changes going out to RFP for pharmacy and the medical plan to be

implemented for January 1, 2027. She stated about simplification, staff is always looking for

ways to keep the health plan sustainable, but also find ways to keep it or simplifying it for the

employees; the prior Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) program was sunsetted and

launched a new program called the Wellness Wallet which seems to be going well this year;

staff is continuing to focus on strong communication and education to give the employees

information needed to ensure he or she understand what his or her benefits are, and how to

navigate through the care system with the health plan; a new benefits enrollment system will be

rolled out this year for open enrollment in the fall; the system is expected to be more user

friendly than the current system; staff is excited about that; the County is currently in the kickoff

stage of working through the planning with the new vendor; there has been a positive shift in

the group health plan; but the County still needs to work on increasing revenue and reducing

costs in the upcoming year. She advised the focus in 2026, is to be looking at how to

restructure the pharmacy program and going out to RFP for that and medical, to see what can

be found to develop a good win-win for the plan and the employees.

Commissioner Adkinson inquired if she heard Ms. Powers say the employer contribution for

2026 would be about six percent.

Ms. Powers responded that is what she is planning to budget around.

Commissioner Adkinson mentioned that is a little bit lower than it has been the last couple of

years.

Ms. Powers replied correct.

Commissioner Adkinson asked if the employee is going to be paying the same or less.

Ms. Powers responded there is not going to be any change for employee contributions, only the

employer for the departments or the agencies of what is paid into the program on a per

employee per month basis, is what is going to increase, and not employees.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, explained that is because there has been significant changes

in co-pays and other things that employees had been paying; and staff is trying to minimize

additional increases beyond that because there were additional program changes last year that

fell on the employees and the dependents that were covered.

Ms. Powers pointed out the focus is really trying to find cost savings, as opposed to cost

shifting, and not wanting to help the program too much by shifting too much onto the

employees.

Chairman Feltner inquired what the employee contribution is right now.

Ms. Powers responded for the employee only, he or she is paying $37.80 a month; and if it is

family, he or she is a range from $193 to $415, depending on the plan chosen.

Chairman Feltner asked if family is two people.

Ms. Powers replied no; and she stated family could be any number of people, both spouse and

children.

Chairman Feltner stated greater than one is family.

Ms. Powers advised there is a rate for employee plus spouse, a rate for employee and just a

child, and family that would be spouse and child, and whatever number of children there is.

Commissioner Delaney inquired what is being done for those lines not colliding for the fund

balance versus required reserves.

Ms. Powers responded doing things like implementing several design changes over the past

couple of years and by working with the co-pays and deductibles; sunsetting the old HRA, that

definitely was a cost-savings for the County, because those credits were rolling over and

creating a significant liability for the program but still accessible through 2027; the new program

is a use it or lose it, for those credits per year and not continuously increasing; and always

trying to find cost-savings.

Commissioner Delaney stated those are the two big things.

Ms. Powers stated she is shifting to the property and casualty program for Risk Management;

the Risk Management team works on identifying, assessing, and finding ways to control risk for

the County; that is done through a combination of things with risk acceptance, avoidance,

mitigation, and transfer; there is participation in the Preferred Governmental Insurance Trust

(PGIT) and the Board approved the County joining PGIT in 2003; as part of PGIT, the County

shares risk with a pool of similarly situated governmental entities; and the County utilizes

Third-Party Administrator (TPA), to administer claims for the County, and by providing claim

administration, damage and liability assessments, and claim resolution services. She added it

is similar to the group health plan, the risk program, and the property casualty program relies

upon revenues coming in and spending it on the expenses of the program, that includes not

only insurance premiums but also claim costs are probably the most significant portion on the

expense side; and the County does self-insure for quite a bit and it carries some excess

coverage in some areas, after working with the brokers for where that is needed. She stated

the next slide illustrates the insurance program, with the health program covering more than

just the Board of County Commissioners departments; the constitutional officers also

participate in the program and the only exception is the Brevard County Sheriff Office (BCSO)

does not participate in the general liability, auto liability programs; and that is because it is more

cost-effective for BCSO to do that through the Sheriff’s trust, but workers compensation and

property are participated in. She stated this slide provides an overview of the revenue and

expenses for the property and casualty program for Fiscal Year 2024; the total revenue into the

program was a little over $13 million; the claim cost was $8,761,802; the premium expense was

$6,293,657; other expenses were a little under $2 million; it shows it was a rough year for the

program and it had a deficit at the end of the year of about $3.7 million; the current risk fund

balance moving forward into Fiscal Year 2025 was $6.2 million; and in order to generate some

revenue to continue working on catching up to expenses, she is proposing some rate increases

for workers compensation, property, auto, and general liability which are the rates that goes out

to the departments, and the agencies that participate. She added workers compensation is

based on position codes and salary; property is obviously based on the property assigned to a

department; and auto and general liability as well. She went on to say with the assistance of

the brokers, the County continuously looks on how best to protect the County; for some areas

excess insurance coverage is purchased; this slide shows each line of insurance that the

County purchases and the premium cost for the current Fiscal Year; the brokers advised to

expect increases in the non-property lines between eight and 15 percent, with an average of

about 12.3 percent, and assuming there is no change in sovereign immunity which she will

speak about on the next slide; for property, it is obvious of the large premium, but the County is

required to carry it, in order to be eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

reimbursement; for property, the broker advised to expect a flat rate, however, the total insured

value has increased; and it is expected there would be a premium increase for that. She

advised she would have the property renewal on the Agenda at the end of April or the first

meeting in May; and the property coverage carries from June 1 to May 30, whereas, all the

others are on the Fiscal Year of October 1 to September 30. She mentioned the rates the

County is expecting, assuming there is no change in sovereign immunity, staff is carefully

watching House Bill 301, there is Senate Bill 1570, but the House Bill seems to be the one that

is making traction through the committees; the Bill was submitted and currently exists as of this

morning; it is in the House Judiciary Committee; it is proposing an increase in sovereign

immunity from $200,000 per claim, $300,000 per incident if there is multiple claimants;

increasing that to $1 million to $3 million, which is substantially a huge increase and a little

scary; there are some additional changes about shortening the statute of limitations, shortening

the notice period, and the ability to settle claims above the insurance limit, that would have

some positive effects certainly of the statute of limitations; but if the sovereign immunity level

goes up that much, it would be pretty significant for the County.

Mr. Abbate advised he is going to jump in to help Ms. Powers conclude quickly. He stated what

the Board needs to know is, health insurance is healthy, but it has to go to the six percent; the

property and casualty line, the Board should be concerned about; $3.7 million is a bad number;

there is only $6 million left, that $6 million that is there has to pay all of the claims for the life of

those claims, and that tells the Board that the County needs a significant increase when looking

at those numbers for what the premiums are going to be; unfortunately, it puts extra pressure

on budget development because all agencies are going to have to pay property, liability, and

workers compensation; and the reason for the Sheriff being with the County is because it is the

cheapest, and the most expensive is the Sheriff because high-risk groups have more claims.

He went on to say while keeping health insurance at six percent, the rest are going to be nine

to 12 percent, and it should probably be higher but staff is trying to figure out where it could not

lose more ground; he asked the Board to jump to the next area, because he thinks it is

self-explanatory for Human Resources, but he wants to mention slides 28 and 29; the number

of new hires this year is 362, rehires is 34, and separations is 403 which tells a little bit of

ground is being lost in 2024; the numbers he thinks the Board would be interested in and

seeing, is all the department areas that had over 100 Primary Care Networks on page 29, and

the Board heard from several of these departments already; Planning and Development has

almost a 24 percent vacancy rate, Parks and Recreation is at 17 percent, Fire Rescue is at 17

percent and has a lot because even at 17 percent it has 600 employees, and when multiplying

that out that number could be seen; it could be seen that all of the big departments, historically

eight to 10 percent, maybe 11 percent is usually, historically for the last 25 to 30 years is where

the vacancy rate has been; it is higher and this is not unique to Brevard County; but is a very

significant challenge, because if it is a service like Utilities Services or Solid Waste where they

need to have the people there. He continued to say if there are too many vacancies or one

does not have a road crew out doing what it needs to do in Public Works, it is overtime; from

Fire Rescue, the Board heard that repeatedly; it is a significant issue across the organization;

there are a variety of initiatives ongoing for recruitment and hiring; Public Works and Fire

Rescue have their own recruitment staff now, because they have to do something to do

outreach beyond what they had been doing; those initiative are ongoing, as well as the

developed people from within the organization, or given opportunities that the Board heard from

Tom Mulligan, Solid Waste Management Director; those are all explained, but quite honestly, to

put it simply, at the rate going with budget hearings, he will be long retired, and the Board

would still be having budget hearings which is not going to work for the Board; he needs to

regroup with staff to kind of condense things; he is trying to do that here for Human Resources;

he thinks it is all there for the Board and he wants to get through more of the presentation, but

if it is good with setting up an additional workshop, staff would try to get everybody else to give

the Board information which would help it to give direction to staff at the end of the next

workshop; and staff will try to get everybody else done in that kind of time frame. He stated he

thinks those are the essential points; and he does not mean to cut Ms. Powers’ off.

Chairman Feltner stated he thought at the end of today maybe the Board would pick a date and

maybe have a group discussion, because he thinks there is going to have to be another

workshop just like this; and maybe squeeze in a couple of the smaller departments.

Mr. Abbate advised staff would try to get everybody in at the next workshop, as best as staff

can just to provide the Board with the essential information needed. He stated if the Board is

good, they would move on to Public Safety, and staff is going to make it very short.

C.6. Public Safety Office / Emergency Management

Matthew Wallace, Public Safety Office Director, stated the slide shows the Public Safety Group

with an overview of what it is; it truly is an honor to lead the 800-plus men and women of the

Group; he considers them as some of Brevard County’s greatest heroes; they run to fires, they

go to work when a hurricane is coming in which is not natural, they show up on the scene of a

fatality, and they are the first ones that do investigative work and usually contact the family to

let them know that something bad has happened to his or her family; the crossing guards are

the ones who jump out in the middle of a street and all they have is a plastic sign to try to get

the traffic to stop; if that is not hero capabilities and characteristics, then he is not really sure

what is; even though he is the direct supervisor of Fire Chief, Pat Voltaire, and the Emergency

Management Director, John Scott, he is also duel-hatted as the Director of Record for the

Public Safety Offices, consisting of the Medical Examiner’s Office, Community Corrections, and

School Crossing Guards; and each one of those is led by a program manager and those three

individuals are some of Brevard County’s most fantastic folks, they are absolutely awesome.

He stated the Mission of the ‘little three’ is what staff calls them, the Medical Examiner is to

determine the cause and manner of death when a fatality happens; they coordinate with

families to ensure there is dignified transfer of the body; they work with law enforcement and

the judicial operations, if those cases so deemed that staff is going to have to go to court; for

Community Corrections, those folks work in the jails in some of Brevard County’s toughest

populations; they are there to do post, post-trial, and pretrial supervision; they are there for the

probate folks and for the folks who are released pre-trial, and they also facilitate the Public

Safety Coordinating Council (PSCC) which brings together laws enforcement, judicial, and the

support services across the community to support those populations that are Sheriff Ivey’s

clients; and the School Crossing Guards are self-explanatory, they cross all of Brevard

County’s unincorporated children who cross in unincorporated areas at the designated

locations throughout the County. He added that with everything in Public Safety, it is under

some intense regulatory guidance; Florida Statutes govern the Medical Examiner’s Office,

establishes medical districts, and provides a list of cases that must have autopsies; Community

Corrections is guided that counties must have a PSCC and provide supervision to those

pre-trial and post-trial clients to ensure they are properly accounted for; and School Crossing

Guards directs local communities that have those School Crossing Guard programs; and there

is strict guidance from the Florida Department of Transportation for training and making sure

that all of the crossings are done in a completely safe manner. He stated staffing in the public

safety offices in the ‘little three’ if fully staffed and has about 99 folks; there is a lot of emphasis

in recruiting for crossing guards; it is a senior population, they come and go a lot, there is a lot

of emphasis into making sure they are onboarding School Crossing Guards; and right now,

they are pretty healthy across-the-County. He stated the Public Safety Office budget is

primarily General Fund funded for an overwhelming majority of $4.7 million total and $4.6

million of it being from the General Fund; the Medical Examiner’s budget is $3.4 million total

and $3.3 million of it being from the General Fund; when looking at expenses, an overwhelming

majority is compensation and benefits, people, lab services and operating expenses,

toxicology, and pathology services on a case that may need doing; the operating services is

usually the transportation of the bodies to and from the Medical Examiner’s Office; the

Community Corrections budget is just a little over $500,000 and a majority of it being from the

General Fund transfer; for expenses, an overwhelming majority is the people cost for them;

they do have a small amount of operating services to travel to and from homes of those

probates that has to do mandatory services and supervision; the School Crossing Guards

budget is about $779,000 total, with a majority of it being from the General Fund; and

compensation and benefits is an overwhelming majority of what the expenses are for School

Crossing Guards. He mentioned some fast facts of what the Medical Examiner’s Office was

doing last year in 2024 with over 1,000 autopsies that the three Medical Forensic Pathologists

performed, which is in line with what Florida guidance is; it is about 335 autopsies per Doctor,

per year, is what should be done, and is pretty much in line with staffing; Community

Corrections made sure releasing properly 875 pre and post-trial release folks who are waiting

for his or her trial; this is done in coordination with judges to ensure the right folks are released,

they have to apply and be vetted; that is done to keep the jail population under a targeted

amount which is quality of life and good living conditions for those folks who are in Sheriff Ivey’s

jail; School Crossing Guards crossed over 650,000 children going to and from school last year,

it was done at 57 designated crossing across the County; and they supported about 25

schools. He advised in looking forward he wanted to give the Board what the workload factors

are and what drives his or her work; for the Medical Examiner’s Office it is the number of

autopsies as the County’s population continues to grow; for Community Corrections it is the

number of inmates that can be serviced to try and get out on pre and post-trial release; and for

the School Crossing Guards is the number of designated crossings across the County, and as

the number of unincorporated schools grow and designate those crossings, that is what drives

the need for crossing guards.

John Scott, Emergency Management Director, stated from a mission and vision value

standpoint in Emergency Management there are three divisions who work for it, there is

Emergency Operation Center (EOC), Public Safety Radio System, and 9-1-1 System

Administration; Mr. Wallace and he work closely with those divisions and at the end of the day,

the vision is to be at its collective best when things seem their worse; one of the things

benefited from is their partnerships, it is a core principle for Emergency Management; very little

of what is used during disaster response or day-to-day operations is actually theirs, they

leverage their partners and existing relationships to meet the needs as they go through that;

and they have a small force that used a lot to get through and they rely on those partnerships;

and those partnerships are also a benefit to them, because they become, for the County and

for the community, the guy who knows a guy, who knows a guy to help get the people

connected. He continued to say a lot of that is done through coordinating information and

resources, sharing what is going on, and changing outcomes because they have that luxury of

the 50,000 square feet view, as opposed to the crews who are out in the field at a granular

level; the next slide is the overall Emergency Management organizational chart with about 20

folks who work in Emergency Management, across the three divisions; in moving forward,

budget-wise overwhelmingly Emergency Management is Special Revenue and User/Services

Fees funded in and about the 83 percent range; the 800 Megahertz (MHz) Public Safety Radio

System that is utilized by all public safety agencies, not just fire and law enforcement, but the

Health Department, Public Works, and the Space Coast Area Transit (SCAT) crew that all

connected through one system which allow leveraging resources as fast as they can; and

especially during times of emergencies, that is 52 User Agreements with agencies, and

Emergency Management works year-round to support them. He added Emergency

Management is also working when it comes to buildings and things like that to make sure it

gets good signal penetration in all of the different areas, especially as new construction

continues, that breakdown, from a support standpoint, is the 6,100 Radio Users, 646

Talkgroups, and supports 10 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP) through nine towers, nine

hubs, 210 Repeaters, it is a lot of equipment, and it is taken seriously, the responsibility of

delivering clear and concise communication for the teams in the field; from a budget standpoint,

overwhelmingly supported through the Radio User Fees, Emergency Management does

receive a small amount of General Fund and a slightly larger amount of Special Revenue

Funds; Administration of 9-1-1 systems are two primary components, the first piece is the

support of the PSAP, those are the dispatch centers, it provides all the technology there, not

the calltakers, but everything they need to handle the call that is coming in; he will be showing

the Board a chart with how they do that; they are making sure the right address is provided

because one of the big keys is being able to dispatch help, is to know where that person who

needs it is, and making sure the location data is the same; and they work with Planning and

Zoning for the address assignment and doing some address assignments for some of the

municipalities. He explained there are two core sites for equipment, which is the 10 PSAP

where the actual equipment is provided, and two host sites, which is the backbone of that

system where that technology comes from; the host sites are sort of the hub and the PSAP’s

are the spokes in this conversation; in addition, some services are being provided for the

telecommunicators, training, and funding dollars for the actual dispatch centers, as well; and

then a variety of other support options for the telecommunicators. He highlighted what that call

system looks like, it could be seen on the chart; there are many different steps, a call that has

to go from the call maker, the person experiencing the emergency before even getting to the

dispatcher; inside of the green box it shows all of the steps that have to happen within three

seconds; it is a lot of equipment that has to work and work well, in order for the dispatcher to

get the call, and know where that person is; and once they are on the line, they are constantly

refreshing that location for if it changes because they need to make sure the actual services go

to the person who needs them. He added in the 9-1-1- Systems Administration budget is at 99

percent of Special Revenue funds, that comes through a variety of different fees received when

talking about State money; the Emergency Management and the actual EOC side of the house

from a hazard profile, because he thinks it is important to note having a very unique hazard

profile in Brevard County; it has three rivers, 72 miles of oceans, several different kinds of

habitat, since 1950, there has been 45 Federally declared disasters in Brevard County, and

putting Brevard County three times in the national average with 10 in the State of Florida and

keeping them very busy; there is also Port Canaveral which is the world’s largest cruise Port;

being in the 50-mile ingestion pathway for the St. Lucie Power Plant that equates to the chart

and the numbers seen on the slide; total activations were 116 times, making Brevard County

the most activated EOC in the State of Florida, and one of the most activated EOC’s in the

country; and additional numbers could be seen to support all of the day-to-day activities being

done. He mentioned Hurricane Milton and the team that was behind that is shown on the slide;

it is a lot of work that goes into any sort of disaster response; Brevard County was lucky with

Hurricane Milton, that it experienced minimal impacts, minimal consequences from it, and the

chart for Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Matthew looks significantly larger; he highlighted how

proud the Directors are of the new EOC; last year it opened on June 1, that was the

culmination of probably 25 years of community work; there was tremendous support from the

County Manager and his team, from all Commissions, from the State Legislatures, from the

Federal folks, and from the community to make sure it got there; prior to opening, they were in

a civil era defense bunker that was the second oldest EOC, and they were putting 200 to 300

people in there; the County is in a much better situation and it shares that facility with the

Brevard County Sheriff Office and its unified communication center; those kinds of things have

been a tremendous improvement; he wanted to highlight on when the EOC opened, it was

talked about having a commitment with partners and the community, and 104 meetings and

trainings were hosted; and it not just a gray skies kind of facility, but is a place being used all

the time, for all of the partners so that everyone is benefiting from the additional space and

increased technology. He talked about Emergency Operations primarily governed by Florida

Statues 252 and Brevard County has an Emergency Management Ordinance, all of the details

is shown on the slides; he pointed out it is a requirement by law to have an emergency

management program with a director, a special needs shelter registries, a comprehensive

emergency management plan with a local mitigation strategy, the authorities who give

implemented protective actions, and locally, the Ordinance defines roles and responsibilities,

and helps to put guardrails, as it goes through it; the operations side of the budget, is the

portion that gets the largest from General Fund; there is a small portion of User/Service Fees

and some protected Fees received from the State and Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA), and the General Fund; the table accompanying the chart shows a breakdown

of what those primary expenses are; about $131,000 is the required match for the Federal

grant received; and the rest of the money is pretty much between staff and operating the new

facility, as it is significantly larger and more complicated than the previous facility.

Commissioner Altman stated when talking about the color money, he sees there is Special

Revenue Funds covered for his hat and tie; and he asked if he has green pants on, too.

Mr. Scott responded just a green suit.

Commissioner Altman remarked he has the color of money covered and that is good, and

helpful.

C.7. Save Our Indian River Lagoon

Virginia Barker, Natural Resources Management Director, stated she is presenting on the Save

Our Indian River Lagoon (SOIRL) Program only, which is one of her department’s programs;

she is going to skip her presentation outline; Amanda Elmore, Natural Resources Management

Deputy Director, is going to talk about the other five programs within the Natural Resources

office; the slide shown is about the colors of money pie and it is predominantly pink, pink, pink,

pink, pink, with one tiny sliver of green that is what Ms. Elmore will be presenting; diving into

just the SOIRL Program, it is entirely pink for special revenue funds; and the expense pie chart

shows very little for compensation and benefits and operating expenses, the rest in purple,

gray, and yellow is all going to projects. She stated the Lagoon is important to a healthy

economy and she will not take up time for that; healthy seagrass meadows are the foundation

of Lagoon productivity and fisheries abundance; 70 percent of sportfish use seagrass, like all

plants seagrasses need sunlight to grow, and dirty polluted water is a problem; in 2016, there

was a horrible fish kill, the Board asked the Governor for help, and it was told it needed a plan;

staff was directed to develop a plan, and come up with referendum options to help fund the

plan; and by August the Board had a plan, ballot language, an enabling Ordinance, established

a Citizen Oversight Committee (COC), a trust fund, and directed staff to negotiate sales tax use

and distribution agreements with cities, for all of the money to go into one pot and work

together. She highlighted on the ballot language, the purpose of this funding was projects and

programs designed to improve water quality, fish, wildlife and marine habitat, remove muck and

reduce pollution, with the COC and annual independent audits; she is not going to go into the

election results, but obviously it passed; the COC is made up of a whole bunch of different

fields of expertise, which half of the members are nominated by the League of Cities since they

allowed all of the money to go into one pot that is managed by the County; the other half of the

members are nominated by the County; and the role of the COC is important for many reasons.

She mentioned how the money is spent, it is called the four R’s; reducing the sources of

pollution, removing pollution that is already there, restoring the natural shock absorbers in

system, and responding to new information and opportunities; they needed to hit the ground

running to lose no time for analysis, paralysis, more studies, use the best available data, get

going with no regrets strategies, and as they learn adapt the plan; and that is part of why the

COC is so important for that annual adaptation process to provide, to listen to the community

and provide recommendations to the Commission. She added the sources of pollutions have

changed dramatically and people have different perceptions based on when he or she were

paying attention to what was going on; in the 1990’s point sources was wastewater being the

biggest source and that has changed dramatically by the time the plan was being developed;

some sources had been contained and reduced, and other sources had grown with more and

more people moving here; the plan has got to be relevant to the problems of today; she is not

going to go through the 428 projects that are in the plan; but she provided the Board with a

handout that shows what the projects are, where the money is going, and what the progress is.

She stated to illustrate how much has changed since the original plan, the change could be

seen from the gray on the left-hand pie chart that is mostly removing pollution that was already

in the Lagoon, to the right-hand that is mostly yellow, orange, brown, and blue that are

wastewater and stormwater projects, to stop pollution from getting into the Lagoon in the first

place; next is the same information but in a tabular format; and in the far right column is an

increase of almost all of the increased revenues collected, since initial projections have gone to

wastewater projects and stormwater projects. She stated this graph has different scales of

pollution sources, which is shown on the wide bars of muck flux, stormwater, air pollution, and

septic that are the largest sources; she overlaid with pink for revenue and the revenue roughly

follows the contours of the sources, with the exception of septic systems that receive emphasis

due to a lot of public and policy issues; the Natural Resources Management program, like all of

the other Directors have had to deal with inflation, and it has been a wild ride that was not

anticipated in 2016; it has affected revenues year after year; in 2020 revenues actually went

down, but then a major recovery in 2021-2022; it is pretty stable now and staff is hoping that

continues through the end of the 10-year tax; and overall it shows, comparing projections to

actuals, that has done pretty well, in fact, for the 2024 calendar year 99.8 percent of the

projected revenue was collected. She added on the construction side there is inflation issues

and the slide shows the difference between what was in the 2024 plan versus what is actually

happening in the world; the 2025 plan was adjusted for inflation on all of the projects to help

address that issue; this graph shows the significant growth in homeowner projects completed in

the last couple of years and she was going to tell the Board why, but she is skipping that; it is a

bunch of repairing broken sewer pipes, connecting them to adjacent sewer lines, and

upgrading septic; and this graph shown is similar to the homeowner projects, this crescendo in

the big capital projects, and this graph shown is without and with the cities, but both the County

and the cities have struggled a little bit in the last year with inflation exceeding the budgets, and

having to reject bids and delay getting projects under construction. She went on to say staff

has tried to make up a lot of the delta by leveraging grants and the graph shows how success

with grants has changed significantly over the years; she added some extra bits since the

FY2025 budget was adopted and it has received $5.8 million in Legislative appropriations last

session and on Tuesday, the Governor announced $19 million in State grants awarded from

the Indian River Lagoon Protection Fund; the number of Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) has

increased, managing grants to keep up the workload; it takes money to make money and

because of the SOIRL tax being collected from the citizens, it takes about one-fifth of that from

tourists, and uses that to leverage grant dollars and to get more funding from their partners;

every dollar paid by a local at the checkout counter is getting about $2.50 worth of project

delivery; she showed a list of Legislative appropriations from last year versus this year’s list;

and the ones that are lined through were vetoed by the Governor, she will see how it does this

year, but she appreciates whatever they could get. She stated 101 projects were completed,

46 of those were by cities, and collaboration with the cities is important to addressing hotspots

in the community, that is where pollution tends to be most concentrated entering the Lagoon,

and they need to work with the cities to address those problems; on the middle column of the

slide where it says spent, plus in progress, is showing between what was spent to date, plus

the projects that are in progress, in design, in construction, in permitting, and totaling $411

million; they have collected $434 million and are trying to keep up collections and push projects

forward at a pace with the collections; is staff picking the right projects, they put in 45

groundwater wells up and down the County to determine that, the green bar is pollution levels

in natural areas and conservation lands, the red bar shows what the pollution levels are in the

groundwater at homes that are on septic, and the blue bar shows what the pollution level is in

homes that are on sewer service; there is still increased pollution with people who are on

sewer, but it is nowhere near what septic systems are like; there is a huge benefit when

converting people from septic-to-sewer; then the treated sewage is sent back to people to use

for irrigation, but they are still getting the nutrients; and though the upgrade has to be done, the

wastewater treatment plants, and the advanced wastewater treatment that Edward Fontanin,

Utility Services Director, had described in his presentation. She stated muck removal is

vacuuming out the accumulation of past pollution that collects in the low spots; she jumped to

do these projects work; first, is the Titusville Osprey Waste Water Treatment Plant project, the

brown bars are showing what was pre-pollution level, the blue bars are clean water afterwards,

whether it is a wastewater treatment plant upgrade, a septic-to-sewer project, reducing turbidity

or dredging and reducing bloom severity, these projects work; collectively 101 projects have

removed over 800,000 pounds of pollution from the Lagoon; she showed the bloom levels map

from 2016 to present; those peaks are when there was a major bloom; the first peak, on the left

end is the 2016 fish kill; the next peak is 2018, which was in bloom the whole year; the center

peak is the worst one from Thanksgiving to Christmas in 2020 when there were fish kills in both

the Banana and Indian Rivers; but then after that it has been relatively calm and right after

December 2020, it calmed down. She explained what that means is that the green bars are

hectares of seagrass in the Lagoon; seagrass was expanding up until 2010; in 2011, there is

the super bloom and it is showing the first decline; in 2016, is the next decline; in 2020, is the

last decline; since 2020, staff has progressively been expanding seagrass; there is a long way

to go, but recovery is clearly possible, if they keep doing what works; and she was going to tell

all about the challenges of septic, but she would skip that and go to questions.

Commissioner Delaney inquired if there are test wells near any of the wastewater treatment

plants, not just by the homes that have sewers.

Ms. Barker responded there are test wells at the homes that are close enough to the

wastewater treatment plants, that are receiving reclaimed water for irrigation, but not at the

wastewater treatment plants; staff does the sampling by downloading the reports that the

wastewater treatment plants have to submit to the State; those are tracked and they also, pour

water samples directly out of people’s sprinkler systems; and sends that water to the lab so that

staff knows what is reaching the homes, not what is coming out of the wastewater treatment

plant.

Commissioner Delaney asked about the cities that have those near the wastewater treatment

plants.

Ms. Barker replied staff does a representative subsample and does not monitor every, single

project; and staff does not want to spend that much money on monitoring.

Commissioner Delaney inquired which ones those are by.

Ms. Barker responded Titusville and Palm Bay has one.

Chairman Feltner advised it seems unrealistic to get through the next presentation; before

calling it quits, the Board needs to pick the date for the next Budget workshop; and he is open

to suggestions. He mentioned having it on April 9, 10, 15, or 16; he understands on April 10,

there is Transportation Planning Organization (TPO); but that could probably be skipped to

come here to do a Budget workshop, if it works for the staff.

Commissioner Goodson felt he was thinking about dying on that day.

Chairman Feltner asked him to hang in a little longer.

Commissioner Goodson stated he thinks he could make it.

Chairman Feltner stated he is sure his insurance annuity would be better by then.

Commissioner Delaney stated she has a Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) board

meeting on April 10 in the morning. She asked if April 14 or 15 would be possible.

Chairman Feltner advised on April 15, he thinks he has a meeting at 11:00 a.m., that he cannot

move, and it would have to be in the afternoon; and he thinks they all have to move some

things.

Commissioner Altman asked what day.

Chairman Feltner stated the Board is agreeing in the afternoon at 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on

April 15. He asked Don Walker, Communications/SCGTV Director, if there are any Speaker

Cards.

Mr. Walker responded no.

F.5. Commissioner Kim Adkinson District 3, Re: Board Report

Commissioner Adkinson stated first, she took the Board’s direction and reached out to the

Property Appraiser and the Tax Collector on March 11, to request information on what kind of

taxes the partners in space are paying; she sent the request on March 12; she did not hear

anything for a week and she re-checked with them, but she has yet to hear anything;

eventually, she will, and when she does, she would bring that information back to the Board

and the residents that she has that are questioning that; and secondly, she expressed her

thanks to Billy Prasad, Interim Planning and Development Director, and to all of his staff, for all

the work done on the Barrier Island Protection Act, she knows it has been a lot, and she

appreciates it.

F.7. Commissioner Rob Feltner District 4, Re: Board Report

Commissioner Feltner stated his one thing was picking the date for the next workshop,

because he did not think staff was going to get through all of it; he believes there will be some

news, maybe over the weekend from the Legislature regarding Wuesthoff Hospital, but he does

not have specific details; and that is something that is continued to be looked at in the

Legislature.