Commissioner District 1 Rita Pritchett, Commissioner District 2

Bryan Lober, Commissioner District 4 Curt Smith, and

Commissioner District 5 Kristine Zonka

Present:

Commissioner District 3 John Tobia

Absent:

Present:

Rollcall

Commissioner District 1 Rita Pritchett, Commissioner District 2

Bryan Lober, Commissioner District 4 Curt Smith, and

Commissioner District 5 Kristine Zonka

Commissioner District 3 John Tobia

Absent:

II.

BUDGET PRESENTATION

Budget Overview

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated he is going to start by giving a brief overview of what

they are going to do today and try to go through it fairly quickly to allow the opportunity to ask

questions after each presentation, starting with Jill Hayes, Budget Office Director, who is going

to give some historical information on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and new construction,

and those two items are the heart of the general revenue and they will be for the upcoming

budget; they are going to do things a little different than they have done in the past years, they

are not going to go through all the buckets of money because they have seen that for the last

several years; they are going right into the heart of some things will and start with tourism,

which they have not had in front of the Board, the reason they are doing that is because he

really believes they have some good news on the economic recovery that they have had from

the pandemic and quite honestly, he believes they are going to be able to show the Board what

is happening with them has cut across other sectors of the economy as well in Brevard, where

they were during the pandemic, and where they are now; and what he would submit from their

perspective and what they are looking at revenue in other areas is that the same kind of thing is

happening across other sectors of the economy in Brevard. He advised from there they are

going to move to Human Resources; one of the big items in Human Resources which it has

been an important item for a number of years is group health insurance, it is one of the largest

employee benefits costs, it is a large component combined with the Florida Retirement System

(FRS), the pension related costs which they really do not have any control over in any way

shape, or form, but they are going to talk about those areas; and in part of Human Resources

presentation when Mr. Visco, Human Resources Director, speaks he is asking that they pay

particular attention to certain items; One, is the vacancy rates that they have in departments

and that is because it impacts not only the workforce but the services they provide, also those

vacancies are impacting this year especially the cost and overtime and Mr. Visco, will talk about

that and that will then play into the issue of compensation; they have talked and some may

remember briefly in the past they have talked about minimum wage requirements that is going

to be an issue for the upcoming budget and what compensation efforts have been in the past,

and where they are now; and he is going to close the meeting discussing where they are

hoping to go and looking for Board direction as they do that. He went on to say they will talk

about what they have done, what the Board has done, what Fire Rescue has done, what the

Sheriff will be looking for, and what needs to be done in the rest of the organization; they will be

listening very intently to see where the Board is on each of those things, in terms of the

feedback they choose to provide them with; then moving into an area that he thinks is a

critically important part of the presentation from staff’s perspective when Tom Mulligan, Solid

Waste Management Interim Director, speaks about Brevard’s Solid Waste disposal fees where

they are and where they need to go because of things they have to do at the Central Disposal

Facility, US 192, and costs that relate to capital needs and construction needs and what they

do in a five-year plan; he will be speaking about that planning for the future and to get some

recommendations from staff and then listening for Board direction on that. He added they are

going to talk about planning into the future Environmentally Endangered Lands which some

may know they have been talking to him about it, it ends in 2024, for what they currently have

in terms of the millage rates; the Board is going to have the options and Mike Knight,

Environmentally Endangered Lands Program manager, is going to talk about where they have

been, what they have done with those resources what they have purchased, what they are

maintaining, what the future looks like, and what they need to do with continuing maintaining to

get an idea in terms of where the Board wants staff to move in that area; and Mr. Knight will

have a rather short, but comprehensive presentation on that as well. He stated they are going

to talk about American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) very briefly there has been new treasury rules

that had a distribution of ARPA funds last year, they are going to get another one in May, and

Kathy Wall, Central Services Director, is going to be talking about that and talking about

economic development incentives because the Board is going to have to think about do they

want to re-up it that has to be done every 10 years by referendum the Board has done it twice

so she is going to talk a little bit about that and they will get some direction on that. He

mentioned once that is done he is going to give the Board some brief closing thoughts

especially as it relates to employee compensation and the other things that will be heard in the

presentations, he is now going to turn it over to Ms. Hayes Hayes to let her get started; and

staff will be going through one presentation right after the other and they should be able to get

through it fairly expeditiously.

Ms. Hayes stated the Brevard County Charter limits the growth in property tax revenue to the

lesser of three percent or the change in the CPI and they also have many other revenue

sources including non-Ad Valorem assessments and user fees that are also tied to the CPI; this

chart illustrates the history of change in CPI since 2012 and this year they are looking at a

change of 4.7 percent when comparing 2021 to 2020; as many of them may know this increase

is continuing to rise and the most recent data comparing January 2022 to January 2021

indicates an increase 7.5 percent but for the purposes of the development of next year’s

budget, they are looking at the 4.7 percent which is for the first time since 2008 are over that

three percent limit; in addition to showing the change in the CPI, she also wanted to highlight

the cumulative comparison of other price indices which they have reviewed in prior workshops,

and this is important because local government’s experience with inflation can differ

significantly from the national average; in Brevard County they have a lot of Capital

Improvement Projects, they also offer many programs and services that require the

procurement of governmental commodities, and contracted services; as illustrated in the chart

being shown over the past 10 years, the CPI has grown by 25 percent, while the municipal cost

index is at 31 percent, and the construction cost index is up by almost 40 percent; as they work

to develop the Fiscal Year 2022-2023 proposed budget and millage rates, and in accordance

with the Charter cap limitations they will be looking at that three percent cap which will be the

increase in the Countywide property tax revenue; this chart shows what that looks like for the

general Countywide Ad Valorem revenue or the General Fund.

Commissioner Lober asked if the Chair wanted questions at the end or in the middle as the

pertinent slide.

Mr. Abbate replied anytime.

Commissioner Lober asked if the Chair has a preference.

Chair Zonka replied it is fine as long as it does hinder the presentation if it is a quick question.

Commissioner Lober asked on the 10 year comparison why was the initial year starting other

than zero, it starts around four percent depending on baseline being looked at.

Ms. Hayes responded that is when they looked at the baseline year for that year in 2011, it

went up in that year by that particular amount.

Commission Lober stated it is the proceeding.

Ms. Hayes responded correct. She went on to say back to the General Fund Countywide Ad

Valorem projections, if they are looking just at that three percent increase they are looking at

$5 million in general Ad Valorem revenue for an increase, and that excludes new construction

which they will talk about on the next slide; she also wanted to illustrate again, since this the

first year where the actual change in CPI has been over three percent, what that would like in

terms of if the Ad Valorem revenue were to grow by that amount and; if they were to increase

revenue at the 4.7 percent rate that would be equal to an additional $2.8 million in General

Fund Property Tax Revenue for the next Fiscal Year.

Mr. Abbate added two things that they are going to be talking about a little differently, the way

the Board sees these numbers this year; he knows in past years they really have not seen

projections, in terms of what the potential revenue growth was, but he wanted staff to give that

so it would have an idea of what the potential was and staff is also going to give the Board what

potential they expected expenditures to be so they can see what is relative; he explained he

wants the Board to be very aware that these are very preliminary best professional guess

estimates and they can vary very substantially from what they ultimately get to, but what they

do know is that they do not intend and obviously the Board did something that went with a

critical need that needed four votes they cannot go higher than the numbers that they are

talking about, at least with the General Fund Revenue projections; and Ms. Hayes will talk

about the complimentary aspect of growth which is going to be the new development.

Ms. Hayes stated while they will not have the preliminary new construction numbers from the

Property Appraiser’s office until June, they do develop the budget based on historical data and

they use tools to forecast what that new construction revenue might be, also keeping in mind

as those property values rise because of the Charter cap they lower the millage rate in order to

stay within those revenue limitations, and because new construction can fluctuate significantly

every year they looked at a moving average to project and using this data they can reasonably

project what new construction revenue will look like for next Fiscal Year; Mr. Abbate mentioned

they are going to look at that a little bit later on when they discuss the overall impacts to the

budget; but at this time she is going to go ahead and turn the presentation over to Tourism

Development Director.

Mr. Abbate mentioned two things first, they have no input from the Property Appraiser yet and

secondly, they are using a rolling average over the past which is fairly conservative; so the

Board know that on the frontend.

Tourism Development

Peter Cranis, Tourism Development Director, stated that he is going to spend a little time

looking at Tourist Development Tax (TDT) collections as well as activities that impact that,

starting with a historic slide going back to 2010 to see TDT collections have fluctuated between

$8 and $10 million until about 2014 and 2015 when they really went on a fast upward trajectory;

in 2019 hit a previous high of $16 million and then it dips in 2020, that was the impact of COVID

and they lost about $3 million in TDT; they calculate that, that represents about $250 million in

lost visitor spending that year, a lot of the industry as well as jobs were impacted tremendously

by that year; last year they had a very interesting year a bit of a roller coaster and he will show

on the next slide what happened; they landed $16.9 million; $900,000 ahead of the previous

high only two years earlier and it was a pretty incredible turnaround; and he is going talk a little

about what led to that. He went on to say in Fiscal Year 2021 it was really a tale of two years

from October of 2020 to February of 2021, they were down about 28 percent and that matched

the previous year pretty well, as far as being down about that much; but starting in March of

2021 all the way through September, they had an incredible growth of revenues over 90

percent so 92 percent revenue increase and a lot of the factors that led to that are thought a

heavy desire for people to have outdoor experiences, return to traveling a lot of people had not

taken trips the prior year, they ran a significant marketing campaign last year, and they believe

from all the tracking numbers that had an incredible impact. He added they also had another

factor and they are continuing to see this 16 percent increase in hotel inventory so as more

inventory is added that certainly adds to the base of TDT, and they will see that continuing

probably for another couple of years actually; for this Fiscal Year Year 2021-2022 they

budgeted $15 million, certainly they are not sure at the time when they are doing the budgeting

where they would potentially land but they do think there is a good likelihood that they will not

only exceed the budget but exceed the prior $16.9 million actual; they think they are on track to

do that; the only concern right now that they are tracking is with all the new other states and

other destinations that are opening up, are they going have as strong as summer as they had

last summer; and he does not know if it will be quite at the 2022 level and that is the only

cautionary right now. He stated the next chart is interesting because it breaks down how TDT

gets allocated and he is looking forward to the potential for a $17 million budget in 2022-2023,

they can see how all the five pennies breakdown; the first section is the first two pennies and it

is about $3.4 million per penny, $6.8 million per penny for the first two pennies, advertising

represents 25 percent of that which is $1.7 million, beach improvement is 30 percent that gets

about $2 million, capital facilities just under $2.4 million, and then cultural and each penny from

there can be seen; the third cent includes additional beach revenues, the zoo gets a

percentage, tourist information center gets a percentage, the fourth penny pulls some money

from there to cover needs for the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) contract

that is a contracted amount that they have to keep in reserve, and then the rest goes to

marketing; and the fifth cent is 100 percent to marketing, they can see how they break out if

they end with a $17 million budget there. He added looking forward for future projections, he

mentioned 16 percent growth of having nearly another 1800, hotel rooms projected through

2023 that is another 16 to 17 percent growth on top of the base, that would bring them over to

12,350 hotel rooms; and additionally, there is about 3,900 vacation rentals that they track and

that has grown, that used to be about 25 percent of the total TDT collections, now it is

representing close to a third of collection, and that is an area that has grown significantly as

well and they can see that in consumer travel patterns. He explained some of the other areas

that he thinks will contribute significantly to the growth is Port Canaveral which is the second

largest cruise port in the United States by the end of this year they are expecting a home port

13 ships, there is a couple more ships coming in and that will generate in excess of $2 million

passengers every year; the airport has done a nice job of bringing in some outside operators

United Kingdom Tour Operator (TUI) they own airlines, cruise lines, and resorts all over the

world, they are bringing in direct service from the UK about 150,000 passengers this year but

he expects the seven year contract to significantly grow; Allegiant Air is one of the new

domestic carriers they just added three new markets and they have been talking with them

about potentially adding more to that; he thinks the future is bright, but if there is a pullback in

the economy they will be impacted just like every other destination; and but he believes they

are well positioned as a destination to weather any storm.

Human Resources

Mr. Visco, Human Resources Director, stated he wants to give an organizational overview of

some of the key areas in the Human Resource world and give situational awareness on some

of the key components that they are having to deal with these days; he is going to start by

giving a little bit of history with the group health plan and end with some discussion about the

trend where he thinks group health is going to be going over the next couple of years; then he

will move into the personal management area and talk about vacancies, overtime, and the

compensation issue; and lastly, he will wrap-up with a conversation about recruiting and

retention efforts with some of the things that are trying to do to address the issues that they are

going to be brought up this afternoon. He stated he will start with group health and show a little

bit of history of the employer premiums over the last several years even with the two percent

increase in employer premium they took this year 2022 they are still 6.5 percent below the

premiums that they were generating in 2017; if they look back one more year to 2016 they are

10 percent below where they were at height in 2016; the numbers for right now is $918 per

employee, per month and generating about $11,000 per employee per year an employer

premium, it is a fair amount of money and what that is fairly consistent funding levels over the

last several years and they are in $50 million range for premiums there are fluctuations based

upon rebates and recoveries, some of this changes in time when they are pharmacy rebates

that accounts for some of the change. He mentioned looking at the premium line very

consistently, because looking at that while the premiums have been consistent, expenses have

not, the trend at the bottom of the page show where they have moved from generating positive

revenue to starting to run losses over the last two years; they just ended the Fiscal Year 2021

with a $4.2 million expenses over revenue deficit; they are seeing a trend on this chart of blue

bars line is representing membership, there is a slight decrease in the membership; the red bar

line is a reflection of the expenses medical and pharmacy; the green represents the premium;

he pointed out the obvious gap between revenue and expenses that is fairly obvious but the

startling component of this is the dramatic move in the red claims line in the latter half of last

year and to date that is a significant bump in expense, and that has significantly driven the

trends; right now trends is running at about eight percent a year, significantly higher if looking

at the last couple of months. He stated he is not entirely sure what they are looking at here,

that it could be the result of delayed care, the care that is being put off during the pandemic, it

could be COVID related bounce, the expenses they are seeing in COVID is more than likely a

combination of the two of those that are driving the numbers for the last 12 months; in looking

at dollars in regards to a calendar year or in the plan year basis they can see the revenue,

there is some minor fluctuation in the revenue as he explained earlier that is a result of some of

the recoveries; the component that he wants to focus on is making projections for the current

year 2022 based on a couple of factors. by projecting a 4.5 percent increase in revenue in the

fourth quarter of this year October, November, and December if they get a premium increase

equal to that they will realize those dollars in the latter part of this year; for the claim side they

are using a six percent trend and that is a fairly conservative estimate; right now

Pricewaterhouse, national firm is projecting 6.5 percent, and like he said earlier they are

running about eight percent right now depending on how claims play out positively or negatively

the projections can change dramatically but based on a six percent trend they are looking at

almost a $10 million expense over revenue deficit by the end of this year. He added the good

news is they are still financially solvent, they have a lot reserve, they are able to absorb that,

and try to use some of that; reserve the philosophy has been to use that reserve to offset some

of the increase, sort of dampen the blow so they did not have to come forward; and ask for a

huge rate increases they will continue to erode reserve on a gradual basis and hopefully it will

stem that trend with modest premium increases as they move forward that is the plan; he

hopes that they can maintain that as they move forward into the next couple of years; but he

wished he could project that further out than that but given the volatility and claim is very

difficult to get beyond a year or two with those numbers.

Mr. Abbate commented going back two slides, in terms of things that have happened from

2017 and what is seen, especially when looking at the expense numbers is what has happened

over time, and the medical trend has been rather good when they were spending close to $40

million in Fiscal Year 2017-2018 and it is 43.5, in 2021 that is really a modest trend over that

period of time; during that same period of time the administrative costs, because of efforts that

have happened went down significantly and they can see that there by almost 50 percent; the

pharmacy costs which has been happening to other employers as well went up very

significantly higher on a percentage basis and that is something that Mr. Visco talked about;

while they got rebates that offsets a little bit of it but the overall expenses were significantly

higher; it is an area they have to pay particular attention to because of where they were over a

number of years when they go back to what Mr. Visco was talking about in terms of the

analysis that is done by paid claims and where they were for the last few years and the reserve

balance; they needed $14 million they have this past year $33 million, and that has given the

flexibility not to do what would otherwise be a much greater increases, but that cannot last

indefinitely and that is really why they have to go at the least the 4.5 percent. He advised they

will wait to see what the Board has to say in terms of needing more time to do more than that;

they will not need it for next year, but laying the ground work for how much of a loss they are

going to take the following year and eventually if they have to make up $12 or $14 million in a

year, that is not going to be possible to do; one of the things they will have to do is look at the

plan design and other alternatives, as shown earlier very steady from an employer and

employee perspective; they were able to do that for a variety of reasons and one of them was

also the shift because of things they did differently that the Board did, as it relates to retirees

and the burdens that they carry in terms of fully insured programs that are available, in a

nutshell that is really where they are where they are with the health plan now.

Commissioner Lober stated he is concerned in terms of the ending reserve balance that they

have had over the recent past; he appreciates the thought that they can use a portion of that to

dampen the increases that they have to pass along, but his concern is that is not sustainable

indefinitely; it is hard to analogize Solid Waste, Fire Rescue, and Utilities to this, but in some

ways he does not want to perpetuate a trend that is going to saddle folks that come after them

to have to do something even less popular, disruptive, and hurtful because they did not do the

right thing on the front end; he does not know as what degree to be mindful of that going into

this coming year; he thinks there needs to be some plan moving forward and he would be

receptive to that so, that they do not drive that into zero; and the other thing that goes unsaid,

at least as far as this particular slide is concerned is the value of $23 million or $37 million, any

of those numbers as they move down the line keeps getting eroded by inflation and costs going

up; $23 million in 2011 is not $23 million in 2022, and it will not be $23 million in 2033; it is a

concern; and he thinks they should have some sort of plan moving forward whatever staff has

as far as thoughts on that whether it is appropriate for today or down the road he would very

interested in them.

Mr. Visco stated he agrees with Commissioner Lober; he added as Mr. Abbate has illustrated,

they know that this is not sustainable and there is a definite need to generate additional

revenue to offset that trend; they can hope that the medical trend turns, but they know the

dynamics in the marketplace right now; and they talked about pharmacy for example biosimilar

medications, specialty medications, and genetically engineered medications that is only going

to continue and continue to drive the costs, and make up a more significant portion of their

spend year after year.

Mr. Abbate stated for purposes of the workshop is really what is critical for staff, is to

understand where the Board wants them to be going because like the one thing that he

mentioned earlier is they are going to be talking about projections of what they think the

potential revenue increases are and what they are anticipating the growth of what the expenses

are going to be and when he gives those numbers to the Board at the end of the day, they are

going to be trying to do what they have done in the past several years which is no tax increase

that is statutorily defined as a tax increase unless the Board tells them otherwise; they are

going to give the numbers today to tell the Board exactly where they anticipate things would be

if they address the things that staff think, and Board agrees if it does are the most important

things to fund and hearing what it has to say if they have to make alternative changes to how

they are going to fund services, programs, or dedicate whatever resources are available they

are going to have to figure that out between now and when they submit the budget based on

the input given today; and that maybe one of the considerations they will hear today which is

dampen what is going to happen most likely in group health insurance moving forward and they

will make the appropriate adjustments.

Commissioner Smith stated that was his thought when talking about what they are anticipating

this year, he would think it would be prudent for them as a Board to encourage staff to

decrease the losses in the first year, as opposed to trying to hold the cost in the interest of the

employees, and they can either rob Peter this year or they can rob him next year; if they do a

little bit this year then next year they do not have to do as much; and of course next year they

will have a better picture of where they are going to be going forward; and that would be his

suggestion to moderate that upwards.

Mr. Visco understands; he stated that is staff’s thought as well; and moderate with increases

over a period of time and using the buffer that the reserve affords them to allow that to happen

as opposed to what Mr. Abbate was mentioning is they had to make up a 20 to 30 percent

deficit at one time, that is way too big of an ask on both the employer of the employee side.

Commissioner Smith remarked he agrees.

Commissioner Pritchett suggested as she knows they are still settling in from the after COVID

effects which she is guessing they had less expenses as far as surgical procedures, the

medications that had to be given out to probably more people and she would like to see how

this settles later but, a thought might be working on increasing employee salaries instead of

doing that maybe start covering this and keeping this reserve at a good spot because this is a

non-taxable benefit.

Mr. Visco replied to Commissioner Pritchett that there has always been a trade-off there

between the they put on the benefit side versus the they put on the salary side.

Commissioner Pritchett thinks that would be a good solution, to cover more of this because

then they will have more disposable income, and that might be something as they move

forward; she would be open to that thought but they already come up with these ideas

anyways. She mentioned remembering when she first got on and Mr. Abbate was giving this

presentation, he said they have a lot in reserves, but they are going to have to end up using

them later; she is not shocked with this number; and she thanked staff for all it does because

she knows they are really on top of it.

Chair Zonka stated that as part of their job and part of Mr.Visco’s job is to make sure that the

employees are aware, it is one thing to put out a spreadsheet or look at total cost of employer

costs for benefits, but maybe explanation, this is what the plan is costing the County and they

are providing as the employer of what the employee cost is; it is very black and white, two

numbers, and they understand that there is cost; it is not the County saying they cover more

than they do; it is the County saying this is their total contribution because of the value of a

paycheck she thinks that would help people understand; and she thinks people are really

surprised because a lot of people do not know what the cost is per employee for health

coverage.

Commissioner Lober stated something to be mindful of potentially is folks that go into the

government line of work as opposed to private industry, knowing that the average salaries are

somewhat lower, but understanding that there is a benefit associated with that as well in the

form of in this case subsidized health insurance; over and above what is already been said by

the other Commissioners, he believes apples to apples if he were working any of a variety of

different jobs here, from his perspective he would rather have the health insurance be easier to

afford even if that means he had a lower salary as a result.

Mr. Visco understands; he stated that is great feedback; he discussed personal management

and he reminded staff of the makeup of the workforce; they are just under 2,400 employees at

the moment, over 600 is what they consider the blue-collar workforce, another 560 in the Fire

Rescue, and the remaining 1,200 employees make up the balance of the workforce; what is

being seen inside that workforce is vacancies; it is interesting when they looked at establishing

an average monthly vacancy count and they seen significant consistency from 2019 and 2020;

but then the movement was seen and it was very significant in the latter part of 2020 and

throughout 2021. He mentioned the current average is 348.8 vacancies per month through

2021, it is very significant; they can see where they blew up the trend just a little bit for 2021,

the increase in the latter half of the year is a very disturbing trend; to put some perspective on

this historically, and they have data going back 15 to 20 years, historically the County’s vacancy

trend has been running at around 10 percent; they are running a little bit above trend and the

impact is significant in several departments and they wanted to focus on those departments

that are seeing the most significant vacancies, the number can be seen on the board with

Public Works leading the pack at the moment with almost 22 percent vacancy rate; and they

have a nice cluster in the 17 to 18 percent range with Transit Services, Parks and Recreation

Planning and Development, Utility Services, and Solid Waste comes in at 15.6 percent, after

that then Housing and Human Services, and the good news is the bottom of the page with Fire

Rescue coming in at about 8.3 percent which is a significant turnaround from where they have

been in the last couple of years.

Mr. Abbate pointed out this impacts a variety of different areas that they are going to be talking

about; he wants the Board to be very clear on one point, which is if they looked over historically

what happened over time, there was vacancies that occurred where departments tried to keep

positions open because they had to, because the lack of funding; none of this is because of

lack of funding or not available resources; but it is inability to fill the positions with qualified

people, which is a different reasons and is more disturbing because they cannot provide the

service, and it is taxing the other employees who are here because they cannot fill the

vacancies. He mentioned it is for a lot of different reasons than when they had that 10 percent

in the past; was it really 10 percent or were some departments trying to save some money in

the personnel side to use for other things that they had to do where they did not have the

resources, where resources were somewhat more limited; and here it is because there is

actually the departments in a lot of areas, some of the ones seen here are struggling to fill what

are otherwise fairly critical positions, and the Board is going to hear more about that as they

move along,

Chair Zonkaif they thought about doing a career or job fair.

Mr. Visco replied several; and he stated he will get into that in a few minutes.

Mr. Abbate stated there are slides on that because it is an important aspect.

Chair Zonka state she would be happy to push it on her social media as well.

Mr. Abbate stated absolutely and they have several slides on that.

Commissioner Lober asked Mr. Visco with respect to these vacancies whether it is across the

board in particular departments or are they tending to see that they are spread fairly evenly

throughout the Districts across the 72 - plus miles, or are there clusters whether in Merritt

Island or Mims or having more issues in particular areas.

Mr. Visco answered that he honestly has not done that deep of a dive to break it down

geographically but his gut tells him they are across the board.

John Denninghoff, Assistant County Manager, stated how it works in Utility Services it is across

the board, there is fluctuations of course but it is pretty much across the board; with Solid

Waste those are very centralized, it does not really apply there; but it is definitely just all over

the place.

Mr.Abbate added not only geographically but also interestingly across the organization from

blue collar right through professional positions; it is cutting across and not only in one area

geographically or type of position, and they see that when they are going out to stores; he

mentioned he went the other day and saw how many restaurants are closed because they do

not have the staffing for it, so it is cutting across a variety of sectors; but it is hitting them

across a variety within all skilled craft positions, professional engineers, and administrative

support which they have seen it in a variety of different areas.

Commissioner Smith concurred that with his contacts in the community of business that it is

across the board, he does not care if it is waitresses, cooks, engineers, construction

supervisors and construction workers; it is like they are not out there; he does not understand

it; but he went through the same thing he thinks it was back in 2008/2009 when people could

not find employees and he does not know what the solution, is they are just not out there.

Mr. Abbate stated that he does not want to steal the thunder, but staff spent a lot of time on this

presentation and there is several slides coming up that Mr. Visco will address all the issues just

talked about in the last three to five minutes.

Commissioner Pritchett stated not that they have read ahead and know that stuff but she thinks

of an interesting phrase that was pegged out there that 2021 was the great year of the

resignation; and she thanked staff for finding competitive ways to create and to be competitive

for the workforce because it is definitely a lot of work right now to get people back to work.

Mr.Visco stated they wanted to touch on one of the more significant impacts of these

vacancies, it is the impact on overtime; they looked back over the last five years and it is

interesting the departments that they singled out here with the exception of Mosquito Control,

every one of these departments showed as the leaders on the vacancy report, and there is a

correlation there; they can see the dollars there have been averaging $9.5 million a year in

overtime; and as a result they can see where the breakdowns are and who the big players are,

these are significant dollars that if not spent in overtime could be better used elsewhere, and it

is a question for them to answer. He continued with the conversation about compensation and

he wanted to remind them of all the conversations they had last year on minimum wage

compliance and giving some updated information from where they were a year ago; they have

a year in under the new statutory requirements for minimum wage and they have given four

options to consider as they go forward; if all they do is meet the statutory requirements for

minimum wage and nothing else, the investment is very minimal in the in the nears years, but

looking towards getting point of full compliance in Fiscal Year 2026/2027 they will need to have

invested another $2.1 million just to meet statutory minimums and in doing so if that is all they

accomplish they will have significant wage compression and maybe even some wage inversion

as those minimum wage jobs overtake some of the other positions in the organization, so to

combat that staff will give three other options. He went on to say if they met the minimum wage

requirements and proceeded with a two percent Cost - of - Living Adjustment (COLA) for

example, they would need just over $2 million next year and over $11.5 million to get to full

compliance if they maintain that approach; that does a lot to meeting compression but they are

still going to have some significant compression in the later years a few will have to address; to

avoid compression entirely they will give everybody the new minimum wage and a dollar an

hour to every other employee, that was one of the options he thinks the Board had asked to

see the last time they had this conversation; and they can see the investment that needs to be

made to accomplish that. He explained they came up with a final option to say what if they just

did the greater of a dollar an hour or three percent to employees, that would clearly take care of

any compression issues get them to meet all statutory requirements, but the investment is

extremely significant.

Mr. Abbate pointed out a couple of things; first, this does not include Fire Rescue because they

are under a contract so they have already received what they had going, it is not for the 2,400

employees, it is minus those 500 it is for 1,900; this does not address the charter officers and

this is not just the General Fund cost, employees, and this is for those 1900 employees of what

would happen; as they develop the budget and do other things, but they had to give some kind

of benchmark to the Board to give them an idea and he will tell them that option number four is

where they are trying to go, because it is important for a variety of areas and things when they

have across the board problems of getting to that three percent; they can see the difference,

between a dollar an hour and three percent, there is very little difference, but he can the Board

tell the Board filling positions at the professional engineering, the Director Level and Assistant

Director Senior which they are going to hear a lot about succession planning today, finding

people for positions, and the salary scales; they cannot go out in the market they are really

struggling to find people who are willing to come within the organization; not doing as much as

they can do and that is where they have to balance what they do on the benefit side with the

compensation side, because if they do not have them here, they will not come with the

compensation keeping them with the benefits, and they cannot get there; and they have to

balance it in a way so they are going to be listening very intently to what they have to tell them

as they go through those numbers.

Commissioner Smith stated that he does not disagree and obviously they have to be

competitive in the marketplace with what they are paying; he does not think there is an easy

answer; and he is not sure that they could not put a bigger number on this and still solve the

lack of employee.

Mr. Abbate agreed; he stated Commissioner Smith is absolutely right because he is not so sure

that salary in itself would solve the issue, wherever they go with the salaries, because it is not

necessarily that; they dealt with that with Waste Management when they were dealing with

issues with drivers and what they were willing to pay, etcetera, which is way above where they

could ever be with comparable positions of that nature; and they still struggled for a significant

period of time.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she thinks to help them make this decision, they are going to

need that four-year trajectory because every year for the next four years this has got to bump

up; the minimum is going to hit $15 soon; and her question would be if they keep doing three

percent with the dollar, she needs to know in another four or five years it is even affordable.

Mr. Abbate informed the Board it is the second number on each one.

Mr. Visco indicated it is roughly $4.5 million a year and that will call out to that.

Commissioner Pritchett stated then her other questions will make her sound smarter; she

asked if they were going to be able to sustain this because with this, she knows they have to do

the Florida Retirement System (FRS) matches and all the other things, but just moving forward

into the years she asked Mr. Abbate if he thinks in the budget they are going to be able to

make this sustainable, she stated she knows there is a service organization and people are

number one of importance; and she asked what is the amount of increases they have been

able to give employees since they got on.

Mr. Abbate stated that is in a future slide and they have that for Commissioner Pritchett.

Mr. Visco continued to say with regards to compensation and how that affects the retention

efforts, as a reminder a couple years ago they engaged in an Evergreen Salary Study where

they targeted key positions in an effort to become more competitive in specific areas and job

descriptions; there was also some fallout from that, they dealt with compression that came as a

result of the Evergreen Study, there has been some movement there; in addition, they have

done a number of reclassifications and they have been pushing the notion of career ladder

development so they can afford some vertical movement for folks in lieu of waiting for

vacancies to get promotions; he is going to discuss career ladders in a minute, but to show

them how they have been unable to keep up with inflation just looking at it they are looking at a

12-year history of COLA it is worth pointing out Fiscal Year 2011/2012 with the negative

numbers there; and they actually gave a 2.5 percent COLA in Fiscal Year 2011/2012, but that

was the same year FRS took three percent from employees. He went on to say the net result

of that was a loss of one-half percent to actual paychecks over the 12 years; they can see the

numbers there at the bottom of the page, they are looking at a cumulative 22.86 percent CPI

against the 17.3 percent COLA; if they look back another two years because they went without

COLA’s for quite some time; and if they look back to Fiscal Year 2008/2009 to date the deficit

is even more significant and they are looking at almost a 29.5 percent CPI against that 17.3

percent COLA, roughly a 12.6 percent deficit and they have not been able to keep up.

Mr. Abbate stated the Board remember what happened during 2008, that is why they did not go

back that far with the economy tanking and everybody was struggling they had to have

furloughs and did a lot of things to try to keep things going; on the benefit side they have tried

to leave things and not increase the cost during these years for employees; the Board had

been very sensitive to that, when they were looking at what happened and what is happening

with health insurance as benefit; the Board outside of the three percent which the State put on

in FRS in Fiscal Year 2011/2012, they have not increase anything for employees in terms of the

premiums they pay for themselves or their families; they have tried to maintain that as best they

can, they did have some adjustments to the health insurance program, but in terms of the

premium increases they tried to leave it flat, especially as they went through this period; and

they can see the Board has done a lot, in terms of the COLA and they really have not kept up

with it in the 12 year for the reasons that Mr. Visco has spoken about.

Commissioner Pritchett asked if they only gave the COLA amounts; she stated she thought

they did a little bit better than that last year; and she ask if these amounts are what they

actually gave as Commission.

Mr. Visco replied yes; and he advised they worked very hard to be sensitive to the fact that they

did not want premiums to erode the little bit of COLA they were able to give.

Mr. Abbate mentioned that employees did get last year the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and

Economic Security Act (CARES) funding for certain things but those were one-time dollars, so

they did not included that.

Mr. Visco stated as long as they are talking about recruiting and retention, he wants to take a

quick snapshot of what has been going on there, clearly as they have recognized recruiting

talent today looks very different than it did one year and one-half to two years ago; they have

had to resort to a lot more virtual recruiting, in part because of COVID, and in part because

they had to reach a little bit further afield to find talent to try to entice people to come to the

area; the labor markets expectations were touched on already, it is just not about salary and

benefits anymore; the current labor market is looking for other things, one of those things is

telework, and it was known that it was a trend coming, it was accelerated as a result of COVID

and people have gotten accustomed to employers being able to accommodate telework which

is the demand right now; and they are losing people to other organizations who cannot afford

telework, it does not work for the County in all of its organization, so it becomes problematic in

their recruiting and ability to attract that next level of talent. He mentioned they talked about the

labor market and he wanted to share some comments that were made in the media last month

first; one, was from a local construction company that employers in every job sector are seeing

challenges with hiring and retaining workers construction, education, and engineering; the

blue-collar workforces technicians are particularly difficult to find employees; Career Source

Brevard, employers may have to lower their qualifications than they have required in the past in

order to attract more talent; they have asked themselves where all the people who have left the

labor market, what are they doing, well there is a couple of thoughts on that in Human

Resource world, and it believes that previously two income families have opted to become

one-income families; some of that was driven by COVID and the need to maintain some

presence at home to deal with school and child care issues people have become accustomed

to that and they are working on the one income; second, the great resignation is a real thing,

when they start talking about the Baby Boomer Generation employees in their late 50’s early

60’s opting to leave the workforce now and not return; the Ziprecruiter, a national online

recruiting firm has thrown some numbers out there to demonstrate that in their opinion the

record low ratio of unemployed people to vacancies has created probably the tightest labor

market that they have ever seen; this is not just local this is all over the country; the Florida

Department of Economic Opportunities (DEO) Chief Economist, said “ there are more job

openings than there are people looking for work”. There is a lot of churn with people moving

from one job to another; in the market; and it is indicative of employees belief that they can find

that next job and get a better position than the one they are currently leaving. He stated as the

Board can see, he found the most recent unemployment numbers for them when looking back

at the start of the pandemic, when they were starting to see the shutdowns 13.2 percent

unemployment in Brevard County is now down to 3.2 percent at the end of December, and that

is a significant number of people no longer in the workplace looking for employment, it is a job

seekers market which is probably the understatement of the year; he questioned what are they

doing about that now that they have addressed that as a particular problem; he stated they

have engaged in significantly more targeted recruiting than they had done in the past; they are

reaching out to the Veterans community, particularly they are working with Patrick Space Force

Base in their career transition office trying to take advantage of a Department of Defense

(DOD) program where the DOD will pay six to nine months of salary for a service member

transitioning from active duty to civilian duty work; they have been able to attract at least one

individual through that type of program; they are participating in military job fairs both virtually

and in person, they were in Tampa last month then, and they are headed to Jacksonville in

March to go face to face and try to find that those transitioning service members who can fill a

lot of the positions that the County has its greatest need in; they are emphasizing the use of

internships with the workforce through student programs at the high school and college level, in

addition to trying to work very closely with the vocational certification programs, at the high

school to fill our programs and he will discuss that more on the next slide. He added career

ladders and succession planning are the other tools they have available to them in an effort to

retain talent and keep good people here; he also talked about the relationship they have been

developing with Brevard Public Schools in their Career Technical Education (CTE) through

vocational studies, they have 50 different vocational programs to get certifications for students,

they can put them right to work after high school they have been reasonably successful in

placing some of those students in Public Works, Central Services, and Planning and

Development both in volunteer and internship positions, and in one of two occasions they have

turned them into full-time employees; they are looking to move the needle forward on that a lot

more this school year; they are also very proud of the movement that help them create the

Brevard Public Schools Fire Academy, they have been working on this for several years in

partnership with Brevard County Fire Rescue and the school system in Eastern Florida State

College to create a Fire Academy at the high school level; and the goal is to attract high school

students to the fire service, get them trained up and provide them scholarship opportunities, put

them in a position where they can try to generate some brand loyalty, and get local high school

kids to consider Brevard County Fire Rescue as a primary employer at graduation. He

mentioned he is happy to report that they targeted August of this year to start their first class at

Palm Bay High School and the interest so far at the student level has been exceptional, and

they are very pleased at the moment; hopefully that continues and they get a moderate amount

of success they hope to expand that program through central and north County as well. He

explained succession planning has always been important to them and has always been critical

to the organization’s future success, creating an effective process for recognizing, developing

it, and enhancing talent, and moving folks into position where they can fill the positions

internally; however, this year they spent some time creating a task force that was led by two

Lean Six Sigma Black Belts to look at what they are doing with succession planning and that

group came up with the Brevard County Succession Planning Tool Kit; they have developed a

succession planning matrix where the department directors have been asked to identify their

key critical positions and the individuals they believe will be in a position to step up and fill those

roles; once they have identified those individuals they need the departments to then work on

individual development plans with specific criteria necessary to move those people from the

planning stage, to make them successful when they ultimately assume the roles that were key

in identifying them; the tool that he thinks is most exciting is the transitional knowledge plan;

and he asked for all to think about this as the letter he or she would leave their successor for

what he or she do they needed to know to be successful in this job, what do they need to do

tomorrow and the next day to keep the ball moving forward to the projects he is working on

today, the critical components, the staff, the contacts, and everything they needed to know to

hit the ground running, to develop a formal knowledge plan and that ready to go is going to be

really important and very useful to those people when they assume there successor roles.

Chair Zonka stated that she assumes they would have enough leave time to prepare for that

and they are retiring and not leaving them to go somewhere else.

Mr. Abbate remarked as a matter of fact they have developed that matrix exactly with that, they

have it from people who are leaving in one to three years, three to five years, and which ones

they are focused on; they have been getting the transition plans and then identifying the people

to see how staff makes sure they have the opportunity to do the things that the transition plan

says they need to be doing, so that he or she are ready if they choose to apply; and staff can

put them in that position. He stated that they have been focused on that since late summer

early fall of last year and they are staying on top of it exactly, because there is a lot of transition

that they anticipate will be happening in the next few years.

Mr. Visco added in part, how they are staying on top of it is the County Manager and the Senior

Management team are going to be providing high level insight and feedback to the

departments; they are doing this on a regular basis, they have the Career Development

Manager coming to Senior Management meetings every two to three weeks to give an update

on what the departments are doing with this; the Career Development Manager will continue to

meet with those departments and continues to push the ball forward a little bit, by asking where

are they on the transition and, what about the individual development options; and this is

getting a lot visibility from senior staff and they hope to make a difference down the road. He

stated lastly, he wants to mention briefly about the career ladder program that they have been

implementing career ladders for some time; and it is an opportunity for them to recognize the

additional value employees bring to the table when they acquire additional skills, certifications,

and tenure, positive performance evaluations so that they can create an environment where

they can recognize and reward financially those employees as they bring more value to the

organization.

Commissioner Lober asked in terms of across the organization not specific to any particular

department but have they really pushed much in the way of cross training; and he understands

they are basically shifting the problem by means of cross training, but if it is so hard to get

these individual vacancies filled, he proposed maybe if they have some flexibility as to what the

existing workforce can do then maybe they are able to advertise for two different spots, fill one

of them, and then leave the person shifted or return them to where they originated.

Mr. Visco replied they have a component on the succession planning matrix, where they ask

about the ability to deploy a talent outside their particular department; they are looking at that

to see where that is transferable for skills; he cannot remember what is was called on the

matrix, but it was basically to say they have talent and they recognize that there is a need

organizationally, to spread that talent around; and if there is not an opportunity within the

department then step up, identify that individual, so senior management can identify maybe

another opportunity elsewhere in the organization.

Commissioner Lober remarked good to know.

Mr. Abbate informed Commissioner Lober that they are struggling and does not want to give

him a false sense that they do not have challenges and how significant they are; as they are

doing the succession planning, they are looking at the depth of the bench strength that they

have organizationally, and they are trying to get people for succession planning; he will tell him

three people that were among what he would say in the next three to five years should have

been key people moving up in succession plan, have found alternate employment in the last 30

days; this is a very significant issue for them to have to deal with when they have such a high

vacancy rate and they lose those individuals, and cross-training is where they are trying to keep

the organization going; they are trying to do what they can in that area and that is a very good

point; they do have a lot of challenges that they are trying to deal with; and that is really why

Mr. Visco’s presentation was the longest one that they are going to hear today.

Commission Lober stated that is fair.

Mr. Abbate stated they put this on first so that Mr. Visco can go give the bad news and Tom

Mulligan, Solid Waste Management Interim Director, is going to try and sneak through, and talk

about the challenges they have in Solid Waste; and hopefully they will get the Board’s support

for what they think the recommendations that are going to be necessary to move the Solid

Waste disposal program forward.

Solid Waste Management

Mr. Mulligan, stated that they are going to basically concentrate on the five-year Capital

Improvement Program; he will talk about the projects that are in that program; the effects that

current conditions have had on the programs, and the resulting funding needs; from there they

will take a look at the disposal assessment and compare it to the Consumer Price Index; and

finish it up with some items that are for Board consideration. He advised in April 2021 in

conjunction with the Budget Office they conducted a financial analysis for the future to

determine their budgeting and financing needs; the following projects were in the five-year

program; and he will explain them. He went on to say think of a gas headed like I-95 of landfill

gas that is the main conveyance to get gas from the south expansion landfill into the existing

system and over to the gas energy plant; the cost for that was determined by an engineer’s

estimate of costs, then it was locked in through competitive solicitation, and is currently a

project in progress; the gas system expansion is the actual gas wells installation of those wells

and the piping that would go to the header and the cost from that was an engineer’s estimate of

costs; the U.S. 192 facility is a replacement Class III facility, its scale house entrance and crew

quarters is a Class III landfill Cell, plus leachate collection and containment, and the cost for

that was an engineer’s estimate of costs; Titusville Transfer Station is a replacement for the 45

year old existing transfer station with something that is less maintenance intensive, it will be

located on the Mockingbird Way Facility on some undeveloped land that is there, and that cost

if from an engineer’s estimate of costs; Central Disposal Facility (CDF) cell two is a 41-acre

class I landfill Cell that will be located west of cell one at the south landfill in Cocoa and those

costs of $25 million was an engineer’s estimate of costs; and the CDF Cell three is a 53-acre

landfill that would be located south of Cells one and two and the cost from them were derived

by taking a per acre cost of Cell two and multiplying it out. He added in January they did an

update on all this and what affected the cost for these especially was the rising inflation, related

construction cost increases, and another thing that had to be adjusted was the schedule for

Cell three for two different reasons; it needs to be moved up to years and the increase in the

upcoming waste in the incoming waste stream; they have had a 12 percent increase in waste,

not only from clean outs and projects from COVID, but also the new construction that has

happened in the County; the majority of what is coming in right now ends up being new

construction and renovations as well as roofing; another thing that has increased is since the

ban on land application of biosolids, they have seen a 19 percent increase of that coming into

the facility; that coupled with the anticipated impact of the Sarno Road landfill reaching full

capacity; and the amount of waste that is disposed right now on Sarno Road landfill represents

20 percent of what is disposed of a the CDF so once all the waste that would have gone to

Sarno is diverted to CDF that is an instantaneous 20 percent increase in waste. He referred to

the chart as the first two columns are the projects they just went over; the next column over is

the adjusted cost for gas header it is a reduction in cost because it was a project in progress,

and they have already expanded some of the funds in Fiscal Year 2021; the expansion system

cost did not change because they did some value-added engineering to try to keep materials

and construction cost from rising; the US 192 facility is from an updated engineers estimate of

costs and he is anticipating an additional updated engineers estimate of costs at the end of this

week, and he does not anticipate it to include a reduction in cost; the Titusville Transfer Station

was another engineer’s estimate update; cell two was the result of competitive solicitation, that

is the cost of the actual construction and engineering oversight and certification, and that was

somewhat of shocker to staff he can tell the Board that it was also a shock to every County

Solid Waste Department in the State of Florida; and Cell three is just breaking down Cell two

into a per acre basis and getting that cost. He reiterated what Jill Hayes, Budget Office

Director, was saying with the Construction Cost Index being up 40 percent since a certain time,

they have seen that basically in less than a year’s time, and they have almost seen a 40

percent rise, they are subject not only to the increases in construction costs, but a lot of the

materials that are used to build these landfills are from petroleum-based products and they are

also tied to the cost of oil; the next column over represents the available funding this year; what

that will do effectively exhaust the capital outlay that they have right now minus what is

necessary to leave in the reserves; then the next column is the $21 million representing the

capital outlay that they will be able to accumulate and use for these projects over Fiscal Year

2023-2027 with the main source of that revenue of course is disposal assessments and the

gate charges; and that leaves them with the final column that shows what the outstanding

funding gap is for these projects that are necessary for expansion and operation of the system.

He explained the next slide is just a graphical interpretation a comparison of the disposal

assessment with the impact of the CPI for garbage and trash; he is only going to use

residential and disposal commercial disposal assessments are just a multiplication factor of

residential they would track up and down the same and would just clutter the graph, but what

they are looking at is the solid blue line represents the disposal assessment history starting in

Fiscal Year 1991-1992 and it was $61; it ends up in Fiscal Year 2022 at $57; the dashed blue

line representing one of the items that is up for Board consideration, he thinks this serves as a

good visual in Fiscal Year 2022 to compare with the red line which is what the assessment

would have been had it been tied annually to the CPI for garbage and trash starting from the

Fiscal Year 1993 on; and looking at Fiscal Year 2022 they can see a good gap between where

they are and where they might have been. He continued to say the next slide is basically a

numerical table of the same data; the upper rows represent the assessment history again going

from $61 in 1991 to being reduced in 1995, reduced again in 1998, increased to $57 in 2005

which is where it remains today; the final column for Fiscal Year 2022-2023 represents the item

up for Board consideration which is 20 percent increase in the assessment rates; the lower

rows represent if they had applied the annually CPI for garbage and trash from Fiscal Year

1993 on; if looking at Fiscal Year 2021-2022 they can see that basically right now residents

would be paying $104 more than they are now if they had been keeping up with inflation; one

thing to look in it for perspective as well is the $68.40 for residential assessment, that

potentially is asking for; if looking in Fiscal Year 1995, that is still less than residents would

have been paying 26 years ago if they had been keeping up with inflation; and now what that

brings them to are some items for Board consideration. He stated the first is an increase in the

residential and commercial disposal assessment that is 20 percent increase, plus tying future

annual assessments to the CPI; second is authorizing staff to look at the most efficient

financing method for that funding gap, that was demonstrated of the $105 milling funding gap,

and that is $65 million in the immediate future to cover US 192, Titusville Transfer Station and

CDF Cell two, and another $40 million in the future for CDF Cell three; is to authorize staff to do

a third-party engineering study, their consultant would work in combination with Finance and

the Budget Office; that study is required for financing of this magnitude; fourth is not on this

slide, but if they were to move forward with this they would also need authorization for the

printing and mailing of the notice of public hearing that would have to go out to every owner of

improved properties in Brevard County for them to have a public hearing on the rate increase;

and staff is not to be presumptuous that the Board is going to move forward on anything, but it

is prepared with an aggressive timeline to tackle this if it does make that choice.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated what the Board has heard is really what their needs are

for them to take care of the disposal needs and this is not really wants this is what they need to

have, because if they do not have that Cell expansion they have nowhere to put the garbage

for Class I is in Cocoa; it is very necessary for them to be able to transfer in Titusville and they

need that facility, they will not have the ability to do anything at Sarno, and they have to be able

to move something to Class III and not use the most valuable Class I facility in Cocoa for any

time longer than what they need to; what Mr. Mulligan is asking for is the Board’s consideration

compared to what is happening in other areas looking at the rates, they went from $61 back in

1991, and they actually lowered it over time because they did not move forward on US 192 at

that time, and lost all that ground; the Board has been extremely supportive of doing CPI and

realizing that they have to have a tie-in there; and they are not even coming close to that tie-in,

they are asking for one-fifth of what that would have been.

Mr. Mulligan added that is also the Cell expansions because of the regulations between the

time they had the original slurry wall landfill which they started with 192 acres, with a clay wall

around it that only cost a couple of million dollars; after that there is a 192 acres to just pile

garbage on top of; now every time they do a new Cell they must have a double liner with 60 mil

liner they have got to do the leachate collection system and the cost for each that are much

more than they have invested in the original landfill itself.

Mr. Abbate stated they are looking for the Board’s input on if it would be supportive of staff

trying to move forward and authorize for the ability to come back to the Board proposing

something that would go to a public hearing, by bringing an agenda back to the Board early in

March to look at a proposed increase of that 20 percent, which they saw one-fifth of a fraction

of what it would have been with the CPI increase.

Commissioner Lober stated first his preference, rather than saying one, two, three, a,b,c is

whatever the least expensive sustainable option is; he thinks with something like this he is not

trying to be distrustful of what they are telling him in the least; he believes everything that staff

is telling the Board right now, but he thinks when talking about an increase that is that

significant, and following other increases that they have necessarily had to make; he asked

when the most recent time was they had a third party look to determine, or has there been

third-party look to determine specifically what the least expensive sustainable numbers would

be for them; he stated they could simply verify the work product and methodology and say yes,

they are exactly correct; and he would feel more comfortable with that.

Mr. Mulligan responded that is something that he has a task order being made to do as well.

Commissioner Lober advised not so much for staff, but for his colleagues on the Commission;

if the third party comes back and is consistent with that, he understands this and may be

drawing a line in the sand, but unfortunately, this is one of those instances in which that may be

appropriate; he is not going to vote for anything along these lines, even if that is what the third

party says, unless it is agreed to have some funding set aside to do a feasibility study looking

at bringing in waste collection in-house because he thinks that will put them in the position

where they can stem the overall increases, that people relying on the system face; he deferred

to staff in terms of what the cost is; he know some high numbers were floated for feasibility

study when he had some informal conversations with them in the league of maybe $200,000

and maybe that has gone up or down; but he thinks this is something where they really need to

have a long-term approach as opposed to just doing this piecemeal every single year.

Mr. Mulligan stated actually the funds for doing the study for bringing waste in and

municipalizing the waste collection would come out of the collection funding and not the

disposal.

Commissioner Lober stated if that is made part of a motion later, he would be far more inclined

to support it.

Mr. Mulligan advised he has asked the consultant to give him a task order to do that, so that he

can get one at least started in this Fiscal Year that does not necessarily mean it will be finished

by the time they want to make a decision on this, but he does intend to start one this year.

Commissioner Smith remarked that he is in agreeance with Commissioner Lober, not that he

thinks it is going to be appreciably different, but he thinks it is worthwhile that they offer their

constituents the opportunity to know that they did that; he is concerned that they are trying to

compete with somebody that knows what they are doing, meaning that they are, not in the

trash collection business, Waste Management and companies like that are and they are

probably a little bit more streamlined as to what they are doing and can do; they are having a

terrific time, as the Board already knows getting employees, so there is that issue also; but at

the same time if there is a possible savings maybe a study would show that and if not they can

just leave that behind.

Mr. Abbate assured that there will not be a savings, there is tremendous capital costs that are

needed on the front end which would come in on any study that they are looking at long term;

he asked the Board to understand too, that they want to do it in a timely manner; they have

heard Mr. Mulligan talk about what costs have changed just in the last 12 months; the contract

with Waste Management is a seven-year contract and they have to be careful how early it is

done for feasibility; a lot of planning will be needed for that and it is going to take a lot of time if

the Board chooses to move forward, so they want to do it early; and how early and how

valuable, is something that would have to be measured.

Commissioner Smith stated he has his doubt that they can compete with them, but at the same

time just for curiosity’s sake and to educate the public that this is not feasible or this is a

diamond in the rough that they should pursue; and he highly doubts it.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she thinks they are talking about two different areas right now;

her guess on this is the upfront capital cost is going to really bite at first, so there is going to be

an increase to do that; they probably will have to get the analysis of how much more they are

going to pay up front to cover that or pay with loans; she knows interest rates are about to get

four pots this year; and trying to get loans and bonds are going to be very expensive unless

they have a lot of cash sitting around. She asked how is the reserves they have been kind of

kicking this around for a while and she remembers they found a way to find some more

reserves; and she asked if reserves are still taking a bunk down or if they are stable.

Mr. Mulligan replied that the reserves are stable and they have eaten into little of the capital

reserve because of the increased cost that they have right now; he stated the amount of

vegetative waste that is coming in and the cost of processing has pretty much gone over the

budget for this Fiscal Year and they are not even halfway through at this point, but they are

fairly stable; there are reserves that are required by law to be held back which are reserves for

closures, reserves for operating, and other reserves that they need to have reserves set aside

for the first three month of the next year because they need that money to operate before the

new tax money keeps rolling in there are certain reserves they need to keep behind; and they

need reserves for equipment which is the depreciation of all rolling stock. He indicated the

reserves right now are in decent shape, it is just the capital reserve that they had for projects

like this is nowhere where what they need for the expenses that they are seeing.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she went back and looked at the 1991 numbers and like Mr.

Abbate mentioned, they actually did a decrease; that probably was not the best move they did

back then because she knows they had to make some changes here recently, as far as some

charges for reserves; she took that number and the change is $68.40 and that is only a 12

percent increase instead of 20; she thinks from cutting it back they hurt themselves; and if they

go back and look at the numbers at a time when they were $61 to now is only a 12 percent

increase. She added for the new construction, maybe they need to go back and examine the

impact fees and see if they need to make a little bump there to help with these types of costs;

and they are going in the hole and that is probably why they are having to do this; she is going

to support this moving forward; they still will need to have a lot of conversations; but they do

have her support on this today.

Mr. Mulligan stated with the impact fees right now they receive about $1 million somewhere

between $900,000 and $1 million a year in impact fees; and if they multiplied them by 10, it

would not change the amount of money that they need for these necessary expansions.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she knows; and she was just saying if they increase the impact

fees.

Chair Zonka stated she does not think Commissioner Pritchett was suggesting he fund the

entire Solid Waste with impact fees.

Commissioner Pritchett stated no, unless he can pull it off.

Mr. Mulligan remarked no, but they can do a study on that as well; he does not think a study

has been done on impact fees since 1991.

Chair Zonka stated her largest concern is that they are playing makeup for all of these

departments that have not had increases over the last 10, 12, 14 years and how many

departments are they going to say sorry, there is a 20 percent increase in the bill, but not a 20

percent increase in wages; they can talk about what people making and then what their

households can afford she is not comfortable at 20 percent even though it is a few dollars; he

or she might be able to afford it, with that and their utility increases; she is not comfortable with

that and they already know how she feels about the landfill on US 192 and that was a huge part

of the Solid Waste cost; and she is not going to support a 20 percent increase.

Commissioner Lober stated he would like to throw a couple of other thoughts that he has not

brought up or heard at least thus far he does not like a 20 percent increase; he is just throwing

these numbers for hypothetical sake, if it is 20 percent now or 33 percent next year, it may be

better to split it over a period of two years because they are essentially delaying the pain, and

delaying a more severe pain if they do not keep up with what the costs are; obviously, they

have to balance at the end of the year, not factoring in the reserve either replenishing it or

depleting it, and they do not have an option but to balance out. He stated as far as the

comments have come up both from staff and from Commissioners with respect to the potential

thought of bringing in waste collection in-house, like for instance Rockledge or Titusville do;

there are at least a couple of different, perhaps harder to quantify benefits that may be

associated with that apart from just the numbers they have now versus the numbers that it

would cost; first, they have a potential to stem future increases because they have to put that

out to bid, or they have historically put it out to bid every seven years; he does not know about

the other districts as much as he knows about his own but he can tell that over the past couple

of years and admittedly it is gotten a lot better in the past few months; they had terrible service

for a long period of time, so in a sense if they can guarantee decent service he would be

happier to pay a little bit more to get far better service, if that is the choice; if they really are

going to pick up when they say they are going to pick up; lastly he would just point out even if

they do not go forward with bringing something in-house over and above the benefits that

Commissioner Smith talked about, by way of being transparent with the public and letting them

know, they really are not really getting ruined to the extent that they may think they are with

what they are paying; the fact that they are willing to expend some funds and doing a feasibility

study, he thinks will serve, if nothing else to indicate to the folks that may serve to bid or may

choose to bid down the road in the next seven year contract cycle, it may sort of indicate to

them that if it really does come back ridiculously the County has expressed some level of

interest in bringing this in-house, so it may stem those bids down the road even in a way that

they cannot necessarily tie back to the feasibility study; but he thinks there is a lot reasons to

consider going in that direction, but for reasons different than Chair Zonka, he is not going to

support it today.

Chair Zonka stated she would agree with him, but she does not want this Commission to spend

$200,000 for a talking point because in reality if the professionals in the industry and their

Manager is saying they have looked at this and they know that the capital cost are exponential,

and they know that companies like Waste Management; she does not mean to say their name

publicly but companies like them provide service to multiple municipalities, so that capital

investment for them is spread over the cost of doing business all over the entire County and all

surrounding counties.

Commissioner Lober stated that he does not disagree with Chair Zonka, he thinks there is an

offset to that, but the counterpoint is essentially that they do not exist for altruistic proposes

they exist to have a return for the stock payers to what degree one counter balances the other

he does not know.

Chair Zonka stated but one grows government and provides a lot of jobs, which she gets

because they cannot even fulfill now, and at a higher cost as opposed to letting the private

sector do it and holding those private sector companies accountable when they are failing.

Commissioner Lober stated if they are confident, it is a higher cost; he would be 100 percent on

board with it, he just wants to see apples to apples; but if that ends up being a higher cost

relative to what they will be paying now then he agrees with Chair Zonka.

Commissioner Pritchett asked if they do not find some kind of increase what are they looking at

in the next year.

Mr. Abbate replied what they would be looking at is the Board has seen an Agenda Item they

are going to see another one Tuesday about the challenge of getting and purchasing

equipment having, and having truck drivers to drive that equipment; very recently they went out

on a special contract so that we could transport waste from the Sarno Transfer Station up to

Cocoa and use the landfill space; all those costs are significantly higher than what it would be

whenever they are able to start bringing Class three to the US 192 facility; that would be an

increased cost which they have shared with the Board in the past, but they can update

numbers if that is what the Board would like to see what those additional costs are because the

bottom line is they have to be able to dispose of all that trash and their option is they are either

going to bring it to the Class I facility, and have those additional trucking cost during; but they

do not even have the trucks. He asked Mr. Mulligan how many days’ time to get those.

Mr. Mulligan responded it is a 480 day build and deliver turnaround time for semi-trucks.

Mr. Abbate asked how many trucks are coming up on that Agenda.

Mr. Mulligan replied that they are asking for the purchase of seven that are slated for

replacement in the proposed 2023 budget; some trailers that are slated for replacement in the

2023 budget; but they would have to start the purchasing process now for them to be able to

receive and utilize those trucks in the next Fiscal Year.

Commissioner Smith asked what kind of trucks are they.

Mr. Mulligan replied Mack semi-truck tractors, they are basically the transfer trucks that they

use to go from Titusville to Melbourne to the Central Disposal Facility.

Chair Zonka stated in fairness they do not know what the landscape is going to look like in 18

months with construction costs and build manufacturing because they could not have predicted

this what they are experiencing now; and she understands the caution.

Commissioner Pritchett asked if it is possible to do maybe 10 percent use and reserves, and

then they can look at it again in six months.

Mr. Abbate responded yes, because as Mr. Mulligan had shown in that prior slide there are two;

he stated he was looking at the second Cell where there was $40 million and there was one

bond issue that would be $60 to $65 million would be for the first one; one of the questions was

for staff to really evaluate what the most efficient financing needs are; the answer is if the

Board does not want to go with it at 20, could it do it over a period of a couple years, and he

thinks the answer is yes; they still need to get moving on the Fiscal Year 2022 $65 million one

and they can figure out what that would be and what would be needed to do that if that is

something that would be more in the Board’s interest; and they will prepare something and

bring it back to the Board on something that they would be more comfortable with.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she does do they have a concern because of that one in Cocoa;

that is the only one they have in the County that is able to take those items; if they start filling it

up because they cannot use Sarno, they are going to be in a bigger predicament of trying to

figure out where to put those items; and she thinks they need to be real cautious of what they

put in that one because of the items they can put in.

Mr. Mulligan stated they were already in somewhat of a predicament because of the cost of

Cell two that they do not have right now the reserves to pay the full cost Cell two if they cannot

get that, Cell one only has so much capacity left; and once they run out of capacity then they

are trucking all the garbage out of the County, which would be a bottleneck because they still

do not have the transfer fleet to be able to do something like that.

Mr. Abbate mentioned that is the $65 million issue.

Commissioner Pritchett stated they are going to have to figure something out here or maybe

they can do something gradual.

Mr. Abbate advised he thinks the Board has given enough time to come back and do

something the Board will be able to consider; staff really wants to bring it back to the Board in

March, for it to consider; but they will modify what they were going to do based on the input

from today.

Commissioner Lober stated he is looking at the chart that has the impact of the CPI, the

garbage and trash specific CPI on the assessment; and he inquired about the past year of what

the actual CPI percent within that particular index, is whether that number is seven percent, or

twelve percent or some other percent because it is hard for him to look at this graphically, and

have a good idea.

Mr. Mulligan responded between last year and this year it was 4.7 percent; but he stated he

can get those numbers to Commissioner Lober because he does have them going from each

year all the way back to 1991.

Commissioner Lober stated he appreciates that; he will throw out there as well, even without

any of the conditions that he laid out before, he would support a 4.7 percent, and just to tie in

with that index this year; and he knows that is not going to resolve the problems, but he thinks

another option for folks to consider, if they need an additional votes, he would support either

what he proposed before or a 4.7 percent increase now.

Commissioner Pritchett asked if he could bring this back at a meeting, because her question

would be if they only did a 4.7 percent how much of the reserves do they have to use up, and

how long will they last. She added that they are going to need more data by these questions,

unless they can get residents to start a fire in their front yard, and they cut down on trash.

John Denninghoff, Assistant County Manager, explained the plan that was spelled out assumes

the reduction of the reserves down to what they cannot go below in order to operate from one

year to the next, as far as tax collections and the legal requirements to maintain reserves for

the closure of the landfill in the future; that is kind of what they can do and what they cannot do

as he sees it; and when Cell one is full and if they do not have Cell two ready to go, the

consequences of that are going to be very severe.

Commissioner Pritchett asked if they have time to look at impact fees a little bit for the

commercial, that would cover these costs since there is so much of a cost, and do that analysis

before time.

Mr. Denninghoff replied they can get started on that but he does not know how long will take do

an impact fee study, a targeted one just for Solid Waste; but he thinks the real key is going to

be what Mr. Abbate was talking about trying to come back and show if they just did the $65

million what would they have to do and what would that look like, in terms of an increase; and

that will buy some time for the Cell three which would not be ready to start until 2025.

Mr. Abbate advised staff he will see if there is any way to do anything with impact fees that

could offset what would otherwise be that increase. they will try to look at that.

Mr. Denninghoff stated there is no doubt it would help it is not going to make a substantial

difference it is a small amount compared to their collections for the assessment.

Environmentally Endangered Lands Program (EEL)

Mike Knight, Environmentally Endangered Lands Program Manager, stated his presentation

should be fairly short first, he is going to touch on referendum history, program, structure,

general facility and land inventory that they currently have, land management activities,

program expenses, revenue history expenses, and options for the future; he explained there

have been two referendums, the first one in 1990, and the second one was in 2004; the first

referendum sunsetted in 2011 at the end of that 20-year cycle; bonding for the referendums

respectively was $55 million and $60 million and not all of that was bonded, as they can see on

the slide about $45.6 million was bonded of the $55 million and $45 million, was bonded of the

$60 million milliage rates were a little different from the two referendums; and the first one was

a quarter million, the second one was .2085, and the yellow highlighted areas were intended to

highlight the basic language within each of the two ballot languages, which are presented here

focusing on acquiring, maintaining the land, and making improvements as necessary. He

discussed the programs that are essentially structured into four components they have the

management of the lands, environmental education, passive recreation, and land acquisition;

the inventory of land, as far as the lands that they are responsible for managing is 19,000 acres

that represent about 29 different Sanctuary sites around the County; about 12,000 acres of that

are owned by the State of Florida because they were within the Florida Forever project

boundaries; about 600 acres are in County ownership, about 1,600 acres are in both County

and State ownership, but they are the result of private development develop mitigation projects

for offsetting impacts and development projects; some of that was also U.S. Air Force for scrub

habitat impacts on the U.S. Air Force Station; and about 340 acres were under Florida

Communities Trust Grant which represents Thousand Islands Primarily. He continued to say

from public use and facility resources they have three Environmental Education Centers that is

the Enchanted Forest in Titusville, Sams House in Merritt Island, and Barrier Island Center in

South Melbourne Beach; visitation in 2019 was about 71,000, and in 2020 was about 53,000

that largely had to do with COVID impacts because, centers were closed for some period of

time; they also have the EEL Administration Office in Melbourne; they have a maintenance and

caretaker house at Maritime Hammock; they have a small Field Station at Hog Point Cove

where they have an agreement with Florida Institute of Technology on research primarily out of

that site with about 75 miles of terrestrial trails meaning just trails that are on the ground rather

than in the water; they have done some camera data analysis on trails and they believe

conservatively that there is 150,000 visitors just on the trails by themselves excluding the

education centers annually; and about six and one-half miles of paddling trails just primarily

Pine Island Conservation Area Thousand Island, and he thinks Crane Creek. He added Land

Management primary efforts are fire they have about 158 fire management units and those

units are burned on rotation usually anywhere from a three to 10-year cycle; they have about

102 miles of fire line maintenance and those are maintained two to three times a year with a

disc harrow tractor, just to keep the lines in a dirt state so fire does not cross them; they have a

variety of restoration, and whether it is scrub restoration or hydrologic restoration which usually

is ditch restoration where they can do so without causing issues for other people; and they

have 75 miles of trails, 49 miles of maintenance roads that they to maintain, 61 miles of fence

line, 33 trailheads, and they are also dealing with a lot of exotic species. He stated looking at

the expenses this is a quick look at the actual expenses, for 2021 Fiscal Year, and is broken

down by administration, education and trails and mitigation/acquisition; they really are not doing

any acquisition the only cost here had to do with the Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND)

exchange that they did and general land management; there is within that 29 staff overall, 22

are full-time, seven are part-time, 18 of those are field staff, and the rest will be education and

administration; and the debt expense for 2021 was the a little over $3 million. He talked about

millage history, the 1990 rate compared to the 2004 rate and what the current rate is now, and

a graphical look at how that overall millage has fluctuated over the years; he went over a

couple graphs that show a comparison between debt and operations revenue and debt

operations expenses, the most significant thing is the sharp spike on the bottom graph

represents the development of two education centers back at that time that was the Barrier

Island Center and the Sams House Education Center, which he believes contributed to that

spike; the EEL Referendum is cycling around here in 2024, ending in its second 20-year cycle;

options that are available for the Board to consider could be putting a new referendum on the

ballot that could take two forms, it could be just a referendum that deals with the maintenance

of the lands, and then there could be a scenario where they have additional land acquisition

associated with that as well; it could be funded under Parks and Recreation in theory, under its

budget, or it could also be funded with additional General Fund which judging by the other

presentations would be challenging; and not exploring further options is certainly an option as

well.

Mr. Abbate stated the reason they brought this forward to the Board is because it ends in 2024;

staff would like some planning so it has some opportunity if it was going to go through a

referendum and there was some kind of millage for either maintenance or preservation which

they just continue doing what they are doing then to do it constantly over time with the millage

staying in place year after year they have to do it this year in 2022, because if they do it in 2024

which is when the next general election would be they are going to lose a year; if the Board has

no interest in doing referendum then does it want staff to continue maintaining it, they have to

figure out where is that going to come and they have to build a budget, that deals with the fact,

that Parks and Recreation is going to have to fund it, or when they balance everything else that

they were talking about like the General Fund and whatever those additional dollars are, he

asked if a portion of that is going to have to come out of the General Fund which then changes

the equation for what they would do in all those other areas where there is compensation,

employed benefits, and the officers may need, or any other program services that the Board

thinks are critical that they want them to be moving on; he advised if none of those three

options are there then basically they would be looking to shut down the program and not

exploring future funding would mean there is no resources for continuing everything that Mr.

Knight was talking about earlier in the slides; and that is why they gave the slide so the Board

could see what they are doing, what they are maintaining, and what they are trying to preserve.

Commissioner Lober stated as it is written either for the 1990 or the 2004 tax, he does not

support either of them; he is not saying he would love anything but he will tell what really is a

non-starter for him, as far as the language in those; first, as far as acquiring new land, he does

not think his constituents by and large want them spending money doing that; as they have

seen cost go up he does not think that is something else that they want to absorb so, if there

were something, again, he is not sure if he would support it or not, but he will not support

anything that involves acquisition of additional land; if there is something for him to even

consider supporting, it would have to be maintenance only; other than that, he thinks given the

issues that they have in the recent past with one of the municipal partners over the last several

meetings when they have had the Malabar Scrub issue; he thinks they need to have some

better wording if they put this back on the ballot; for instance, when they are talking about the

goals of it, depending on whether they are using the 1990 or the 2004 language as the basis,

when they are talking about acquiring, protecting, and maintaining; obviously, they get rid of

acquiring, so it would be protecting and maintaining EEL; when it goes on it and says and

making improvements is appropriate for passive recreation and so forth, he thinks before the

word making, and after the word and, throw a comma in there or throw in the terms and when

not in conflict with these goals, and then throw in passive recreation because he does not think

that folks in his district, with all due respect to everyone wants to subsidize passive reaction in

each district, and the constituents do not want to subsidize passive recreation in his district but

in EEL, if some species that happen to be in another district or someone else district they may

be okay with that; and he would look at whatever is brought back but those are few things that

he really feels strongly about.

Commissioner Smith stated that he has seen people who are very adamant in their support of

purchasing and protecting these EEL; he would be in favor of the language if it included

purchasing more lands; he thinks that it is really up to the people and that is why they put it on

the ballot, let the people decide; they can each have an idea of what they think their people will

support, but until they get in the voting booth they really do not know; and given that they have

passed with 60 to 70 percent approval in the past, he thinks it is a little presumptuous to

assume anything at this point that people would not be supportive, but it all depends on the

wording and how it is put on the ballot.

Commissioner Lober stated he does not know that there is ever an opportunity to give them

necessarily a choice among two options, where one involves acquisition and the other does

not; he was not in Brevard in 1990 he was in Seminole County at the time; he does not think

they were given a choice between just protecting and maintaining because there was nothing

required to protect and maintain at that point; but at this point, since they have it, he has no

problem looking to see what their preference is, but again, anecdotally, he has seen what he

has seen.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she would in favor of trying to get the funds to keep it

maintained, they have a lot of acreage right now; her concern is watching this over the years

the incredible cost it takes to maintain these lands once they get them and it is on Board, so

even if they did not put it back on the ballot, now they have to come up with General Fund

funds to try to support the properties; she would have to have someone come up and show a

real need of an endangered property right now, with something specific for her to want to pick

up more property at this point, just because of the expense they are seeing right now, and

especially with the property they are having to fix with the Scrub Jays; it is a good thought and

feeling, but when she looks at the numbers of how many acreages they already owned, she

thinks it is kind of substantial; but if somebody came up with something and said they have

something, she would really have to be sold on specific place right now to try to get them more

inventory that they have to maintain.

Chair Zonka stated she thinks she has been very vocal on the acquisition and the maintenance

being the priority; however, her concern is and maybe the compromise with where

Commissioner Lober and Commissioner Smith are sitting, and assuming is that the

maintenance is being kept up and then they can acquire, if it is feasible that those costs will not

exceed that or make it, or not make them be able to maintain what they have; she does not

know how to put that in legalese because people do overwhelmingly support the EELS

program, they support what they are doing, and whether they are passive recreation fan or a

Scrub Jay fan it does not matter; she thinks that it is up to people and they will have the

opportunity to vote on it, but she thinks there could be some language assuming they can find a

way to balance the budget before being able to do the maintenance before acquiring; additional

property, which she would be okay with; she would hate to close that door only because they

may have an opportunity to acquire some land at a very good rate or to even accept donated

land; that is concerning to her; but she believes they definitely needs to put it back on the ballot

and she is all for that, because she believes that people feel very strongly about it.

Commissioner Smith stated the key is in the wording to cover the cost; maintenance is

extremely important because he remembers back in 1990, it did not provide for him

maintenance, and they were trying to take the maintenance out of the cost of the purchasing;

and he thinks the wording has to include maintenance.

Chair Zonka mentioned the Malabar Scrub Jay issue has been sort of unique; they have not

run into a problem like this before; she reminded the Board that their argument may be passive

recreation and they are not denying anybody passive recreation, they just want a certain type of

passive recreation; hopefully, they can come up with a solution and maybe moving the trail

works; but she thinks that will open up another can of worms just speaking on that item for

people that do not want that trail moved. She reiterated as long as they are not denying that

passive recreation then they do not have to worry about that in her opinion, it is always going to

be up to the EELs Committee, and it will always be up to the Board; that is sort of where the

buck stops; she would definitely want to make sure that it is up to the Board, as far as direction

goes; she has always said she wants maintenance, she wants to be able to maintain what they

have so they can protect that land, and protect the species that are designed with some of

those protected lands; and she definitely wants it back on the ballot. She explained that she

does have public comment cards, but it is about what has been previously discussed; they are

not permitted speak in front of other Items because they have other departments to go through;

and they will have to wait until public comment.

Mr. Abbate stated there is going to be a variety of things that the Board is going to want to

consider depending on what the language is and whether or not it is just a millage and it is not

related to debt, and it is going to impact whether or not it is going to fall under the charter cap

and whether that millage is going to be impacted overall; there is going to things that they are

going to want to consider because if it is millage for maintenance, it is going to impact other

millages, because it is going to be part of the overall cap of where they could be unless they

wanted to show it as a tax increase, which the Board has historically told them to present a

budget that does not do that; they have the critical need issue out there and other things, so it

is just a factor that all comes into play because if it is not debt related to a bond and they

cannot bond out maintenance; and they are not bonding out for maintenance; he is not trying to

make it more complicated, but this is not just easy and let them just do it that way.

Commissioner Pritchett stated that she likes Chair Zonka’s suggestion; there may be a way of

phrasing it, that if they put it on the ballot the primary purpose of this is first to take care of

maintenance; and then however, they want to word it about what other properties they do

acquire, and what the criteria on that as well would be good.

Commissioner Lober stated he will look at whatever staff brings back.

Jill Hayes, Budget Office Director, clarified by saying for the operating and maintenance that

would be part of the aggregate millage rate, so that would impact whether or not they would

advertise a tax increase; however, if the existing operating EELs millage rate sunsets that will

go away from the aggregate, so it would kind of offset that; but in terms of the charter cap, the

voter approved referendums and millages are not subject to the charter cap but, again it does

impact the aggregate rate.

Mr. Abbate stated what she is really saying is if they want to do it and do it in a substitute kind

of way where it is not going to hurt other areas then it really needs to go on the ballot in 2022

when they still have it, for when that 2024 that conversion occurs.

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)

Kathy Wall, Assistant to the County Manager, stated the United States Department of Treasury

issued their final rule last month for the ARPA the changes may make some changes to the

County’s plan for the next tranche; one of the changes that were made is they improved the

revenue loss formula; before last summer staff gave the Board an estimate for a 2020 revenue

loss of $18.5 million; the actual revenue loss based on this new formula was $21.7 million

which means there is a difference of $3.2 million that were not allocated; the County will have

another opportunity to look at revenue loss for the Fiscal Year ending September 30, 2021;

they will be able to do that as soon as the financial statements are finished in March; and staff

will get back with the Board when they get the second tranche. She added this will impact the

second tranche and as said before, the revenue loss calculation and the revenues that they can

get from the ARPA funds are more flexible than the other funds that are available through that

fund. She mentioned another change that has been made is to the water and sewer projects

which includes culvert repair, resizing and replacing stormwater infrastructure; another item that

was added to the list was for capital expenditure was the Emergency Operation Center (EOC);

another category that was added was to restore public sector capacity, by providing worker

retention incentives, administrative costs for hiring support, and retention programs as well as

the continuation of assistance for the impacted communities that had been provided in the prior

ruling; and she asked if there were any questions about the ARPA.

Tax Abatement Program

Kathy Wall, Assistant County Manager, talked about the economic Tax Abatement Program

that will expire November 2024; this program comes back every ten years and is approved by

the voters; the abatement program has been in existence for close to 30 years, it started in

1994; this program has assisted both large and small businesses, new businesses coming into

the County, as well as expansion of existing businesses within the community; based on the

2020 annual reports for the businesses, that have been granted for abatements for, and these

businesses were abated $1.2 million in 2020; however, they actually paid $6.3 million in taxes

because the abatement is based on what they add to the property role once approved for the

abatement plan; also in the 2020 annual reports they created 6,200 jobs with an average wage

of $85,559; and that will have to be approved by the voters in 2024 if they decide to put that

back on the ballot.

Commissioner Smith stated he is in favor.

Chair Zonka stated that was overwhelmingly supported.

Commissioner Lober stated as with anything, he thinks the specific language used is going to

be important on that so the sooner they get it the better.

Chair Zonka asked Commissioner Pritchett if she supports it.

Commissioner Pritchett replied yes.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated he wanted to close very quickly on anticipated General

Fund impacts; staff spoke to the Sheriff’s Office, they have come in and tried to be a great

partner with them over the last several years, and asked them what they thought was going to

happen this year; he was reminded that some of the increases that they thought were important

in the past that they have foregone and waited so the Board could do certain things like in the

area of Fire Rescue, like it did last year with the assessment; and he thinks specific words were

used last year to make sure the Board understands that by doing that they are digging a hole,

in terms of capital needs that they had and they did indicate that they have transferred a lot of

their capital needs utilizing what was previously General Fund dollars, and that is how they

have been trying to balance their budget in the last few years, by using dollars that were

originally from the Coronavirus Aid Relief Economic Security Act (CARES) dollars that were

Public Safety dollars that they had and the Board gave them a certain allocation; they have

been using that to fund some of the capital needs but that is creating a bigger hole not for this

year maybe not even for the next year; but it is going to be there in the future. He added other

things that they indicated that are significant for them are contract negotiations, they are

struggling like they talked about very generally in their own Human Resources presentation

with competing with surrounding departments, and filling holes; they are looking at significant

increases during the ongoing contract negotiations that they have right now with the deputies,

especially where Palm Bay and Titusville having higher starting salaries than the Sheriff has for

his deputies; the Sheriff said that is an issue that he feels he needs to be able to address; they

talked about what is the General Fund impact on that; and the Sheriff said if the Board goes to

the maximum on the three percent that can do in the General Fund, he would need about $4.4

million, and they looked at putting that together with the General Fund impact of what he would

need. He went on to say that would have included going at three percent on health insurance,

which they told the Board four and one-half percent; after today’s discussion they are going to

look at whether it is higher, there is a corresponding increase for the Sheriff for every percent

and one-half it is about $300,000, and he will be looking for the General Fund contribution of

that; that is something they will have to look at and they wanted to give the Board what the

General Fund impact compared to the numbers they showed the Board, compared to the

numbers shown of doing certain salary increases; and staff has provided that for the Board a

three percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) would have been $1.74 million, $1 an hour

across the board is significantly higher at $2.7 million, and if they did one percent for every one

or three percent whichever is higher is incrementally only $100,000 more the General Fund

impact because most people at $1 an hour is more than three percent for most people,

because most of the wages are at that lower level and that is where the majority of the

employees are; a four and one-half percent increase on the General Fund side for Board

employees would be $643,000; that is the General Fund impact, obviously Enterprise Funds

and other budgets are going to have other contributions; and here he wanted to give the Board

an idea of what the General Fund impact against the revenues told could generate. He asked

the Board to remember what he said about Ad Valorem, if they went to the full three percent

Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase would give them $5 million; on the conservative approach

to new construction would be $2.7 million, that gives them $7.7 million; if looked at with what

the Sheriff had indicated that he is going to need; and one thing the Sheriff also said was that if

they did this on the General Fund, the Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MTSU) he would live

within the three percent and they would not be looking for a critical need there. He went on to

say that other charter officers, assuming that the Board is going to want to do that, he is just

using the three percent number as a factor that would be $920,000 would be the General Fund

impact on that; for COLA if the Board was going to try to build the budget, the General Fund

impact of that while it was $5.1 million would be about $2.7 million because it does not include

Fire Rescue and includes everything else; with the health insurance premiums, as he indicated

four one-half percent; they need $8.7 million they are anticipating $7.7 million, and they are

going to have to figure it out; staff does believe these are conservative numbers and there are

other aspects to it, new construction might come in better they do not know; but looking at

everything they are talking about today in terms of shifting EELs program in the future, what it

is going to involve they just want to give the Board some kind of feel for where things are going,

and he thinks it has given staff a lot to think about and realize. He concluded by saying that is

what they are looking at as they are moving forward in light of what the Board has said; and

staff is available to answer any questions it may have.

Chair Zonka stated she is going to do public comments now because Vince Lamb has been

standing there for a while.

III.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Mr. Lamb stated he could not figure out what the public comment arrangement was under this

workshop, but he should have assumed the budget workshop would allow for public comments;

he will be very brief and what is going on here is the Board requested a poll to be conducted by

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) regarding answering questions like Commissioner Lober’s

comment about whether the public wants additional conservation land and is willing to deal with

the cost or not; they are all set to go with this, but about a month ago the TNC came to him and

asked him what he wanted to use as the draft ballot language, because as part of this poll they

are going to use the ballot language and say would he or she vote for this; his thought is he

wants to be as close to the 2004 as they can because that passed and it withstood the scrutiny

at that point in time; and he requested some help in terms of trying to figure out what exactly

the millage cap number needs to be for this. He continued to say he had a meeting set up by

the courtesy of Commissioner Smith on this, but he broke his hip and messed things up; TNC

wants to kickoff this poll in the next week or so, so that it would be ready in May and then in

June or July the Commission would vote on whether or not to let the voters decide to put this

on the November ballot; as far as all of this is concerned, he wanted to point out to the Board

that all the voters are doing with this is basically enabling the Board to do their job, hopefully

with a little direction of letting them know that the public wants the Conservation Land Program,

and certainly wants the conservation lands managed; everything the program does comes to

the Board for a vote; to buy a single piece of land goes through a very detailed procedure of

appraisals and everything, it comes to the Commission, and if they are buying it for less than

the State assessed value it takes three votes, if it is anything more than that it takes a

super-majority, if there is a decision that the voters want to vote to have a conservation land

purchase edition in there; he personally thinks that more conservation land would probably help

with focusing on protecting the Indian River Lagoon, and what more can they do that would

protect the Indian River Lagoon; and there are some things that can be done, but as far as that

is concerned the Board gets to decide on individual properties and gets to decide on control

with the specifics of issuing the bonds, it gets to decide how big of a bond issue, what are the

terms that are available from the bond market, how they do that, and that is all controlled by the

County Commission after the vote occurred. He pointed out to do this successfully, there are

well recognized dedicated private citizens, and they have a group of Keith Winsten, Jim Swann,

and Laurilee Thompson.

Sandra Sullivan stated she has a couple of points to make while she was listening to the

presentation, she had her husband look up what they pay on their property in South Florida for

garbage, it is $25.48 for garbage, $3.51 for recycling, and a total of $28.99 for Solid Waste fee;

by comparison it is $57.60 here, considerably more expensive here already, and they are

talking about another increase; they had 39 percent last year with a three percent per year; she

looked up the CPI average over the last 10 years and even with the jump this year it would be

1.884, and they are throwing around a three percent number a lot; she also talked about the

garbage facility because she attended more than three years’ worth of County Commissioner

meetings, more than any other topic this has been discussed the most; she thinks it is

reasonable to consider the alternative and put it on the table of the dollars for Florida recyclers

which per the May 18 meeting, that would extend the Sarno facility by 19 years and with the

increases in what they are talking about down on US 192 looks like it would be a whole lot

more cost effective as an alternative; she believes that the number they threw out which was a

number in the ballpark of $10 million which basically they are told to sharpen a pencil at the

time, but she does not know what happened there on May 13 that meeting said that they were

going to run out of Sarno space during the summer, she was looking all summer for the budget

to come up looking at it, and US 192 is not on it; but it was approved to build in the May

meeting and then the meeting on October 26, they were looking at hiring, they approved three

trucks and transferring garbage, and it just raises the question why after three years they have

left this to the last minute and now they are going to put it on the taxpayers. She strongly

advised the Board to look at impact fees; in 2016 there was an impact fee study that the

Commission rejected after a moratorium between 2009 and 2016, which is a loss of

approximately $53 million; impact fees have not been updated in 15 years or more; a lot of the

costs that they are talking about have to do with growth and the developers that are developing

should be paying a fair share of that, and not putting the burden on the taxpayers who are not

getting a three percent increase in their wages every year; and they have across the Board

three percent increase on this and three percent increase on that, she understands they need

to keep up with CPI, but the CPI is 1.884.

Bo Platt stated he is there representing two groups the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition

and the Conradina Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society; the members love Brevard for a

lot of things, but mostly for the its natural features, the beaches, the beauty of the natural

areas, the abundance of wildlife, and so much more; as it has been previously stated at the

center of our natural beauty and he thinks Brevard trademark is the Indian River Lagoon, it

bisects the County and while only about half of the Lagoon’s length is in Brevard, and 70

percent of the water is here; Brevard residents acknowledge their love of the Lagoon six years

ago when they voted overwhelmingly to pass a sales tax devoted to the Lagoon improvements;

now they have a chance to reinforce the previous actions by extending funding for the

Environmentally Endangered Lands and preservation and conservation of lands serves several

purposes, it provides habitat for native plants and animals, provides areas for enjoying the

natural beauty, provides passive recreation, bird watching, hiking, biking, kayaking, horseback

riding, and more; it also serves integral function of the Lagoon Environmentally Endangered

Lands also serves an integral function related to the Lagoon, the natural areas mitigated

stormwater impacts; and these lands provide for natural filtration or rainfall so that the water is

naturally cleaned and filtered before making its way to the Lagoon. He added the natural

shorelines promote Lagoon health; 70 years ago when he arrived here this was taken for

granted; Brevard’s population was a little over 20,000 and natural areas were abundant with

very little well it was developed now, 70 years later there is over 600,000 that is a 3,000 percent

population increase; he asked where else has that happened; he continued to say it is

conditioning to grow and they are not going to slow down; they have the opportunity now to

continue the maintenance of the natural areas, as well as to purchase more; and he knows the

land is expensive nobody will argue that. He went on to say that he will remind the Board of a

quote from over 100 years ago by Will Rogers, “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the

stuff”, nowhere is that more true than here; they should continue the actions of the past in

promoting the natural beauty of Brevard for generations to come; and his groups and members

support continuing funding of the EELs program both maintenance and acquisition, and they

ask that the Board allow Brevard’s voters to make the decision.

Craig Wallace stated he is also representing the Brevard Indian Lagoon Coalition and he

mainly wanted to talk about the Environmentally Endangered Lands; he is from South Florida

and has lived there most of his life, he moved here because of the Lagoon and the natural

beauty of the land areas around here; and he thinks if they have talked to most of the

residents, they would find the same reaction. He advised he is really pleading with the Board

because he feels like trying to hold off on purchasing land is going to burn them in the future,

because there is no more land that they can create here in Brevard County; as they develop

more, they have to offset that somehow, they have to let the water percolate through and get

into the aquifer and clean water into the Lagoon; the only place to really do that is with

undeveloped lands; they have not quite figured out a way to both develop land and preserve

the water quality; he is pleading with the Board to try to keep as much funding as possible; he

understands that the budget is limited; but whatever they can reserve for purchasing additional

lands, he thinks is ultimate and critical going forward, even if they cannot do it today it should

be kept on the ballot so people can have a say.

Chair Zonka thanked staff for another amazing presentation, she cannot believe that John

Denninghoff, Assistant County Manager, has not spoken this entire meeting, she asked if he

would like to talk about roads; and she explained the reason why she asked that is because

they usually need his expertise and they need him to talk.

Mr. Denninghoff answered no.

Chair Zonka stated she was speaking at an Eastern Florida State Colege class and she

mentioned knowing this is not going to get them excited; it was a younger crowd with some

middle aged like herself there; she talked about having a lot of roads done and the class just

looked at her with a blank stare; and she was actually impressed by the gentleman who invited

her there and the interest the class had about the County’s budget and the process, and it was

actually a really good experience.

IV.

BOARD DISCUSSION

Chair Zonka asked if anyone has anything to add.

Commissioner Lober responded he has a couple of thoughts on the public comments that they

have received.

Chair Zonka advised to keep it brief.

Commission Lober stated he just wanted to address primarily the comments from Vince Lamb,

there are a couple of topics that he would like to address with it, first polls, and the second, the

concept of bundling; with respect to polls, he thinks that is important to be mindful that polls are

truly only as meaningful as the verbiage used allows, so to give them a ridiculous example, but

to give one that certainly illustrates the point, if he puts a poll out that says John can either eat

his firstborn or kill an endangered animal, John, is going to vote kill an endangered animal, and

it entirely depends on the verbiage; with respect to bundling they have about the constitutional

amendments, he despises bundling because it does not give the voters the choice, but people

say the voters voted to do x, y, and z; they really may have wanted to do one or two of those

things but they were forced because they did not have the option only to support that one thing;

people want to simply maintain, just to bring it home to the issue at hand if they just want to

maintain EELs land, but that option is not available unless they also have to vote yes, to

acquire and maintain, they may have no desire whatsoever to acquire it; but they may vote do

that because they have no choice just to maintain it. He went on to say he is going to give

another extreme example if someone has a terminal illness like metastatic cancer and the

doctor says they are going to go ahead and give them chemotherapy and radiation and they

will do the surgery, but has to buy a Lexus in order to do this; they may not want to buy a Lexus

but if the money is there do it, or if they borrow, beg, plead, or steal then they are going to get

the Lexus so they can get the metastatic cancer addressed; he advised his issue is they have

numbers north of 20 percent today, in terms of proposed increases; money is tight, they have

Enterprise Funds that have to zero out and have to balance out at the end of the year; most of

them sitting up there and in the audience are fortunate enough that they can afford the

additional increase in millage or the maintenance of that increased millage, but not everyone is

in the same boat that they are in; and he can tell them that the real estate market is

disgustingly inflated, in terms of what costs are; for them to talk about buying new land now

when they have not given the voters a real poll that addresses that is an option, separate and

apart from simply maintaining it, is not going to tell them what they need to know. He added for

the Lagoon if they look at the ballot language from 2004 or from 1990, he does not know if the

Lagoon was necessarily even referenced in there; if they want to talk about the Lagoon as a

motivating factor for doing anything with respect to EELs, EELs, may be great or terrible on its

own merits, but he thinks to throw in things that are at best tertiary to the overall goal of EELS

does not leave him feeling warm and fuzzy; when they are looking at the Return of Investment

(ROI) they could have; as an example, not to pick on District one, it was not the County’s

system but was in the Titusville system, and they just had seven million gallon leak; he is going

to do some rough math in his head and it has been a while since the 90’s that he has taken a

math class, so bear with him if he is off a little bit; he know from having a monster triple digit

gallon reef tank in his house with a ton of filtration, that is on battery backup and generator

power, a gallon of freshwater without salt weighs about 8.4 pounds; when salt is added or any

kind of particulate whether it is something that gets flushed out a toilet or otherwise they are

adding to the weight, but conservatively say about eight and one-half pounds per gallon; by

taking seven million gallons they are in the ballpark of 60 million pounds for one leak; if they

prevent that one leak and what he remembers from the numbers before, if staff has a better

idea, God bless them and fill him in, and before all the crazy cost overruns they were looking at

spending up to $1,500 a pound to remove nitrogen containing chemicals or organics from the

water; if two percent of that 60 million pounds qualified as organic; and if they are spending

$400 a pound, not $1,500 a pound to remove it they are right in that ballpark of probably $480

to $490 million, and if he is off a little it is because he is doing it in his head.

Chair Zonka interrupted by saying could he get to the point.

Commissioner Lober stated his point is if they want to spend money to help the Lagoon, do it in

a way that has the greatest ROI and he thinks throwing the Lagoon in with EELs, to him is such

a red herring, because the ROI is essentially minuscule compared to actions that actually stand

to resolve it; he does not have a problem looking at ballot language and he has no problem with

folks doing polls, but he thinks it is important to give the voters a choice between maintaining

and maintaining and acquiring to see whether they really do have a preference to simply

maintain it or to maintain and acquire; and if he is wrong, in terms of his anecdotal observations

with what it is that his constituents want it is not that he is inflexible, but he thinks it is important

to do it the right way if they are going to do it all.

Rita Pritchett, Commissioner District 1

Commissioner Pritchett stated she has a couple items; she has been dealing with an email

chain that came and she thinks the thing they have to consider is that there is a communication

issue; she is sure that would have been within the parameters of what they were doing; and

she thinks they need to work on the communication of how they are using Purchasing cards.

She suggested an idea that she talked with Abigail Jorandby, County Attorney, about doing for

a Board policy for Purchasing cards, that they work on a policy that they will not do third party

transactions on their Purchasing cards which they most do not; that would have sent the

CARES funds to the right area and finance to where they would have been categorized,

because right now she does not know what went to Humane Society, and all those things are

important to her to see; Commissioner Lober is a lawyer and she is an accountant, so there

are things that she needs; she thinks if they do no third party Purchasing cards and from now

on when they do the Purchasing cards, she thinks they are being responsible with them; but

when sending it to bill finder, staff cannot look over these things. She would not have known to

ask to figure it out when they get questions, when they have to defend what they do; if they just

throw the Purchasing cad into bill finder it will not be a big deal at the end; she thinks if the

Board thinks about what they think is appropriate for things to be put on their Purchasing cards

and then they can get it set for future commissions because right now it is one of those things

they do not have any regulation on; and she thinks this is the best thing to do, she read about

going to the Administrative Orders, but thinks their own Board policy is better with this, because

it is going to take a lot of pressure off the staff, and is something she is going to ask Attorney

Jorandby to do at the next meeting, as they would think through that.

Commissioner Lober asked if that is for the meeting this week or the following week, because

he is planning on bringing on that same sort of vein for the following meeting.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she wants to get ahead of Commissioner Lober on it for the

Board; she mentioned the other things is she had been reading some of these Save Our

Indian River Lagoon (SOIRL) emails; she asked County staff to give her all the emails for the

last couple weeks because she does not know if they are getting all the threads running

through but she is really picking up an agenda from a group, she would like for the Board to get

them and read them because her concern is, Virginia Barker, Natural Resource Management

Director, is really getting a lot of push on something; and she thinks this needs to come before

the County Commission before she has to start responding to some of the things they are

calling her to do as action items. She stated she believes that Ms. Barker has done a great job

and she thinks the emails are beating her up a little bit, and she does not like them; she would

like for the Board to get those as well and read them; and she is noticing some people sending

them in, and there is no way they can write them on their own.

Chair Zonka asked who is sending them just so she knows because then she will know where

to request them.

Commissioner Pritchett replied she just asked Attorney Jorandby.

Attorney Jorandby explained her office can send them all to her if that is what she wants.

Chair Zonka replied that would be great; and she stated she thinks she knows what

Commissioner Pritchett is talking about, because she received one.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she went ahead and got all of them, she thinks if they would

read them because she does not want Ms. Barker feeling so pressured with this, because she

is doing a great job, and the nature of them are starting to concern her.

Commissioner Lober stated he thinks he is familiar with what Commissioner Pritchett is talking

about but he may not be and he does not want to be on a different page and thinking he is on

the same page; there were two separate general groups of emails that he has either seen or

was told about or a combination; one of them was from a Board appointee who is serving on a

Committee and another was from someone who is not a Board appointee, and it did look like

there might have been some overlap, in terms of what they were both asking about; but from

his perspective, as far as staff going above and beyond the public records policy, if the Board

has essentially elected to put a particular individual in an Advisory Board to report back to them

and do exactly what an Advisory Board does; he thinks it is totally appropriate for staff to go

that extra mile for them, where they are not necessarily charging them for public records; if they

have someone who is not on an Advisory Board whoever that is, whether it is this instance, or

another instance that is where he starts to have concerns about staff’s time; if it is something

that is public record obviously they have to produce it; but when it comes to the cost, he has

much more concern and equivocation waiving them for someone that they have elected to do a

job for them.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she is not concerned about that at all, she just thinks it needs to

come on Tuesday so they can all read through this before Ms. Barker tries jumping through all

these hoops, challenging if she has done correct procedures; and she wants the Commission

to hear it.

Chair Zonka stated she thinks everybody should pay for public records because she thinks it is

abused; and she asked if Commissioner Tobia pays for his own public records when he does a

request.

Frank Abbate, County Manager replied yes, he does.

Chair Zonka stated if it is easily accessible through an email or something but if their staff is

spending time and they are an appointee, she is not responsible for anyone else who ends up

on a Board because they could lose their mind and ask for five hours of Jill Hayes, Budget

Office Director, time because they want to dig into something; Ms. Hayes would have to take

her time serving the rest of the County doing her job by going a goose chase for public records

request; and she thinks anybody requiring that kind of time should definitely pay public records.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, stated if there is an Advisory Board whatever that Board is

from staffs perspective right now, if it were coming from the Advisory Board to a staff member

to do something and it came from the Board as a whole on a vote or whatever, of course they

would comply; but is different from what he thinks he heard Commissioner Lober saying any

Advisory Board member that makes any kind of public records request, that is not treated as

staff he does not believe they have been treating that differently than any other public records

request.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she just wanted to make sure right now until they get to Tuesday

that Ms. Barker is not having to do anything outside of her typical parameters until they have a

discussion with this and are able to read them; she thinks there is a lot of pressure being put on

her as far as the public records; it does not matter and she spent a lot of time trying to answer

a lot of stuff right now; and she thinks that after they have a Board discussion that will narrow it

down to what the Board is wanting to do at that time.

Commissioner Lober stated just a couple of thoughts with respect to that, he understand where

Commissioner Pritchett is coming from; and he is not trying to be contradictory at all, because

when he is she knows it. He agreed with her concern, but he just wants to be careful because

as a Board, they do not give staff, the public, or anyone else the impression that they are

suggesting that they do not want to comply with public records disclosure; if someone is asking

them to do things and they want to have a discussion about it, he is totally good with that; but if

someone has made a public records request and the records that they request are something

that they have or foreseeably have, if they were given a quote, and they paid the quote, he

does not think they should hold up producing it, unless there is some reason to think that they

do not have a complete production or some other extenuating circumstances.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she is not saying public records, they are giving her action

items; some of those things are going to get her sidetracked right now and she thinks if they

have a discussion on Tuesday and all this comes out, and they read this; she believes there is

a definite agenda here and if they read them it is going to be decided by the County

Commission; they are not trying to withhold any information at all, but she thinks it is outside

the scope of what she typically does because she thinks there is an agenda on it; and she

wants to get together on Tuesday after they have had time to think through it, so that

Commission staff that works hard really having to do things that just probably is not very

appropriate.

Chair Zonka stated that she is a little lost and she would like to read through them.

Commissioner Lober stated he, too, and the only other thing with respect to it is if he

understands where Chair Zonka is coming from with respect to treating everyone the same with

that, but he would just say there is another argument to be had not that either is necessarily

right or wrong, that if they as a Board elected to put someone whether it is District four

appointee that they all had to vote on or a District two; he does not think they should be able to

create a thousand hours of work for staff; but if they have something that takes more than 15

minutes and it is an hour and it relates to their service on that board, he does not have a

problem with staff weighing the cost on that.

Chair Zonka stated if that is his appointee and he is certain that they are not wasting staff’s

time or that they ought to do free public requests, maybe he ought to request those public

records.

Commissioner Lober remarked that is an interesting way to do it.

Commissioner Zonka opinioned there could be possible Board members that are running for

office and they are going to allow them to abuse that position.

Commissioner Lober stated he thinks that will do it; and they at least have to have one of them

vet it to say.

Chair Zonka stated that she has seen Commissioners overcharge for public records from their

own offices, so she thinks they just need to be very careful and need to make sure they are

treating everybody the same; and she tries not to charge anybody if it is quick and findable and

does not take a bunch of staff time, they just produce them.

Commissioner Smith stated he thinks she makes a good point that is fair, just because if it

goes through the filter of the Commissioner then it adds some legitimacy to the request.

Chair Zonka stated they are sort of validating the request if they want it for free, if they want

that information for free then the Commissioner is making it their priority, too; but if they have

an agenda, she does not like them abusing the free public records option for their agenda, she

thinks that is wrong.

Commissioner Lober agreed.

Chair Zonka advised she is happy to read through those emails; she asked what Board

Member; and no name has to be mentioned.

Commissioner Pritchett replied all the ones she sent to Attorney Jorandy will help her.

Commissioner Lober asked if they could at least let whoever it is know that it plans on being

brought up, so if that person is available and wants to show up at the meeting to defend

themselves he or she has the ability to do that.

Commissioner Pritchett stated she does not think it will be an individual personal attack on

anybody; and she thinks it is just overlooking the items and making a decision.

Abigail Jorandby, County Attorney, stated just for the record the emails that her office collected

from Commissioner Pritchett involved SOIRL and any emails that have been exchanged with

County Attorney’s office and with Ms. Barker within the last three weeks; and the search terms

used were SOIRL, Ms. Barker, and anybody in her office about that topic

Curt Smith, Commissioner District 4, Vice Chair

Commissioner Smith stated before them is an updated spreadsheet for the rates for towing and

Kendall Moore was before the Board several meetings ago and his client had a few issues, but

the main issue was there is an Ordinance in place from 2008 to current; the tow companies or

the wrecking companies were supposed to get three percent or Consumer Price Index (CPI)

whichever was less; it was not done, so his staff has gone through the trouble of actually doing

each year, whether it was three percent or CPI whichever was less, and came up with what the

numbers should be currently; and he just wanted to bring that to the Board’s attention. He

mentioned he met with Florida Highway Patrol and they have looked over the broad language

that he put together for a future tow ordinance; it would be an ordinance so that they would

have to adhere to it; he has a meeting this week with the Sheriff; he will be bringing back an

ordinance for the Board to look at, comment on, and maybe make some changes; they will

have something in place that he thinks is very fair to the towing and wrecking companies; it will

be more than protective of their constituents because he really had a lot of heartburn having

observed that business model that they have been working on for a lot of years; and a lot of

things go under the radar that people get charged for and he has given some examples, and

the constituents are being abused so this will prevent that, he thinks..

Chair Zonka stated what is great about him bringing this forward is and it actually brought all

these things to light because, them asking for those crazy increases actually brought some of

the problems forward; and she really appreciates the work he put into it.

Commissioner Pritchett stated that he was competing with Commissioner Tobia on the

spreadsheet.

Commissioner Smith stated that he can incorporate whatever he is doing, he is totally fluent on

this, and he just wants to do what is best for the people.