Presentation - Commission Input on Fiscal Year 2022 Business Plan Initiatives

1:00:25We're gonna move on to R seventy five.

1:00:31Yes, sir. Commissioner this is um kind of an update of where we are with the budget process. Yeah to date, you know, we gave you a projection of revenues back in February. I will say I think the market's changed to the good significantly since then, so this is kind of updated to a certain extent in response to that. Uh kind of the general goal today is to give you a high level overview of where we are with respect to revenue and and some of the required expenses excuse

1:01:01me but also to kind of give you an idea of some of the business plan initiatives and the various funds that that we are recommending and then get your feedback as we go through to if there's anything we missed. Bob sent out last night uh a draft and it's Draft is still reasonably fluid, mainly because we're waiting on today, but also some other input of the general fund and municipal services fund business plan initiatives for your review and kind of

1:01:31to if you see something on there that you would like to elevate that time now's the time for us to to have that discussion. Um but he's also going to cover the other major funds. So I just wanted to tee that up. This leads in to developing the final budget and uh setting of the trim that you will do in July, and then obviously the budgets that are produced and distributed to the board prior to the public hearing in September. So still a lot of work to do, but this is really for a dialogue and discussion about making sure we're on the right track with respect to various BPIs

1:02:02in the gener in the different funds, not necessarily just the general fund, but the general other major funds. With that said, I'll turn it over to Bob and let him go into it.

1:02:11Thank you. Okay. So as we wait for the presentation to be pulled up, thank you. Go to the next slide, please. As Dan mentioned, we are in the point of the process where we have received our preliminary or draft budgets from our department directors, and those include any new spending, which we call business plan initiatives. And so as Dan mentioned, we want to review those business plan initiatives with you here at the time. Today, get your feedback on them and give you the opportunity, as Dan said, if there's anything we missed that you'd like to elevate, please bring that to our attention. Next, please. First, I'd like to talk about the preliminary

1:02:42taxable assessed values that we received from the property appraiser on June 1st. As you know, we get the preliminary June 1st, we'll get the final on July 1st. And the Preliminary that's uh mislabeled there, the preliminary taxable assessed values is just over $35 billion. You'll notice the new construction figure was just over a billion dollars last year, and the new construction this year is almost $1.4 billion. The re-evaluations, those are properties that had have had some sort of significant improvement

1:03:12made to them. That nearly doubled from $1.1 billion. billion dollars to two billion dollars between twenty one and twenty-two. Next please

1:03:21And so that $35 billion taxable assessed value is a 10.8% increase over last year, which is an astounding figure. And as you know, the that increase of 10.8% generates about $24.7 million in additional ad lorm tax revenues. We have an informal agreement with the sheriff and Which we split any new uh tax uh property tax revenues. And so of that 24 million, 12.4

1:03:52would go to the sheriff, 12.4 would go to the county and other constitutionals. Of that 12.36 million, we would deduct 4.92 million off the top, and that's the amount of money that goes to the community redevelopment agencies as well as the taxable. uh increment uh funding area, TIFF, and those are used for transportation, public transportation and public works. And so once we do that math, avail amount of money available to the board and constitutionals

1:04:22for new spending is seven point four four million. If we go to the next slide please. Anyone who's spent any time in Pasco County driving around would understand this new construction value of $1.38 billion in every year since 2014 after the recession. That has been an increase in every single year since 2014. Next please. And so we saw the $7.44 million there that we had an additional avalanche revenues in which to spend. We

1:04:53do have some things in which we call we categorize them as must spends. First is the the board gave us a directive to increase the general fund reserve, this is the emergency reserve, to 16.7%. So we'll be able to do that this year. We'll bring online fire stations three and fire station nine. Will come online this year. There has been an increase or a change to the employee retirement, both for employee for general employees and for public safety employees. That change is about

1:05:23$600,000 to the general fund. We have some contractual obligations with Starkey Park and Gulf Harbors. Medical Examiner, the number of the caseload for the medical examiner is increasing year over year. year. And then finally the contribution to State Medicaid. We pay about $7.4 million a year to State Medicaid. That increases about three to four hundred thousand dollars per year. Next please. So we're proposing some capital investments in the general fund to be funded from the general fund. And of course, the

1:05:53first two of these are facility investments to the upkeep of our current facilities and then IT hardware and software. Just ongoing kind of replacement, renovation, and upkeep of those things. The next two things are related to central facilities building. Central facilities currently works out of the fire station. At Land O' Lakes. In two years, that fire station will be demolished. That's one of the Bond project fire stations that's going to be rebuilt. So we need to relocate the central facilities crew. And to

1:06:23do that, we need to build the road that will lead to the fire training center in the central part of the county. And so the rest of these projects are small projects, and we finally conclude with the dredging and permitting design uh project of about six hundred and forty thousand dollars. Next please.

1:06:44So we ask all of our department directors to go out there, look at their levels of service, look at their performance measures. What kinds of things do they need in their budgets to provide the services that our customers, residents, and business owners would expect, and to come back to us with these business plan initiatives. You can see we've received over, well, there's 111 business plan initiatives there. Certainly we cannot afford to fund all of those and so we had to prioritize those in in our budgeting process.

1:07:14You'll notice the last item there, salary increase for firefighters and and BCC employees. That's a four percent increase for all employees and that's about three million dollars. Next please. And so once we took all the initiatives, all those 111 initiatives, we determined how much money we would have based on taking the 7.44 million, subtracting the must pays, et cetera, et cetera. And that is that's the list you have here. So the list that we provided to yesterday is the prioritized list. And I won't go

1:07:45into each and every one of these. However, if there are any that you would like me to spend more time on, any you have questions on, please let me know. I'll just touch on some of these. The first one I would like to touch on is our planning technical team in the development process. The planning zoning is an area that's kind of a bottleneck. And so we're putting a technical team in the current planning, and then you'll notice on the next page a zoning team to help us clear that bottleneck. We're adding some Some code enforcement officers. We're adding a records technician

1:08:15to help with the public records requests in 911. Currently we have a growing number of public records requests from the court system, and the courts put a very hard deadline on when we have to produce those documents and or voice recordings. And so currently, to keep up with that, from time to time we have to pull people off the line. That are call takers to help us fulfill those requests. And so this would put another person to just help us with the uh fulfilling those public records requests so we don't have to pull people off of

1:08:45the phones. And then finally, our veteran service officer in the uh caseloads is increasing in the central Elena Lakes office. There's one officer that works out of that office, and if that officer is on training or vacation or something, then then we'd have to do some Clever switching a route to make sure that that office isn't vacant. And so this would put another person in that particular location. Next please. Mr. Chairman

1:09:07Mariano. On the um planning technical team. Yes, sir. Is that going to be funded through the permitting fees?

1:09:15Yes, thank you. That's a great point. Yes. For the most part, those zoning and the training, sorry, the technical team are funded through fees. Yeah, so Thank you. Uh continuing on we have rescue 230, so in the Newport Ridge of Massachusetts uh Avenue area, there's a large call volume there, so we want to put an additional uh rescue unit at uh at uh station 30. The NIT network SCADA is the operating uh network, the sit the operating

1:09:45control system for your utility, and so we'd like to put uh another technician on that. And then facility maintenance technicians, as the amount of office space that we have, the amount of building space we have increases, we need more technicians, more folks in facilities to maintain those buildings. Next please. Outside funding provided by the county, we provide over $2 million a year to outside charitable organizations, including United Way, and you'll see we provide $15,000 to two museums,

1:10:15one on the east side and one on the west side of the county. Next, please.

1:10:22Uh as you're no doubt aware, uh Pasco County is required to contribute to the operation of the Sixth Judicial Circuit. Penellus and Pasco make up the Sixth Judicial Circuit. And you can see for the most part there the requests for funding from those various uh divisions haven't changed all that much with the exception of medical examiner. And so with the increase in population And with the alarming increase in use of opioids, the caseload for the medical examiner has

1:10:52been increasing, and so they're requesting additional funding this year to pay for those. We were fortunate in 20 and 21 that any of the autopsies that were performed that were found to be of COVID-related deaths, the cares. Money was able to pay for those autopsies. Pasco County residents didn't need to pay for those. Next, please.

1:11:18So here we have a summary of the constitutional officer budget requests. As you know, the sheriff, clerk, supervisor of elections, their budgets are due to the May 1st. The property appraiser, his budget is due June 1st, and then the tax collector's budget is due August 1st. So here's a summary of each of those four constitutional officers, and I'll go through each one of them in turn. Next please. You can see the sheriff's office requests. Here are some of the things that the sheriff has added

1:11:48in his budget. You'll notice that the sheriff uh built his budget with a nine million dollar increase, and that was at our request. We estimated that the budget would increase, the taxable assessed values would increase by about eight percent, and that would have yielded nine million dollars, and so that was the request. So based on our agreement that uh Half that nine million dollars will increase to about twelve point four million dollars and so staff will continue to work with the sheriff to uh update his budget to make sure that he's got

1:12:18funding that's needed. Yes ma'am.

1:12:20Well I have a question on that. So

1:12:22you

1:12:22did he did he request nine million and he's getting twelve?

1:12:26No, what we said was our our agreement is he gets half of new abnorm property taxes. So to help him give him a target on what what his budget should look like, we felt that eight percent increase in taxable assessed values was about right. And it turned out that it was ten point eight. And so it would increase from nine million dollars to twelve point four.

1:12:47But do we see what that Delta will Bias.

1:12:59They've gone down with us when the property appraisers number's gone down, they've gone up when it's fluid. So you know,

1:13:05yeah, we will

1:13:06we're gonna work with our team to get an updated budget for to to match the updated number. And again, this is a preliminary number, so we we may work with them, but you know, we're gonna get a final number in about two and a half weeks. Okay. So we may not get an updated final one until we see what the final number is from the property appraiser on the first of July. Okay. So we we are working with our team to to make sure that we both stay in locked up with kind of that uh you know that

1:13:33I mean I would would guess they are probably like us, they have their list of priorities that they want and they had to cut it off at the Nine million. Whatever. And so I just wondered what was below the the

1:13:43Well

1:13:44yeah. Yeah. We'll get things we'll get back. I think one of the things which is good too, we've had discussions I think maybe so you had too is beefing up traffic enforcement. Yeah, absolutely. You had some constituents this morning talked about traffic enforcement and one of the things they've talked about is definitely it's definitely beefing up traffic enforcement, which I know that's we've all gotten those emails, which That's that is a good I'm just

1:14:06great to hear. Yep. Yeah. And I'm just hoping part of that is getting more deputies because I've I've heard them say, you know, we're we're growing a lot and we certainly want to have the right number of deputies out and about in the county. So I did see that they're getting uh thirty more. Mm-hmm. But I I don't know what the the best ratio is.

1:14:27patrol, but also, you know, as we expand the jail, there's gonna need to be more personnel costs with associated with that as well. So some of that may be you know built into that as well. So yeah. Mr.

1:14:38Chairman Mariano was

1:14:39a very good idea.

1:14:41Oh he was Mr Commission Mariano was way from

1:14:44Mariano. Thank you, Mr Chairman. You know what on the fifty fifty split it's fifty percent for the county, fifty percent for the sheriff, which on the county's end includes all the constitutionals. And I think we just saw the clerk's request is much higher and she can probably she'll choose go through all that, but that's a huge chunk of money, about four million dollars more money. And that's something that in the agreement should we be looking at that a little closer? If we have to have the extraordinary expense increase uh which we presented with, do we take a look at that agreement

1:15:14and maybe tweak it a little bit?

1:15:21Compare that to the other constitutionals, I think that's reasonable.

1:15:27His his his growth even at twelve million dollars a year is less than a ten percent growth year over year and as you look at the other requests, they're all in excess of twenty percent. So I I think

1:15:36as a percent is a total that's

1:15:38Yeah, i as a percent growth. And remember that the he He's still gotta deal with increased population. No,

1:15:44I I

1:15:44understand.

1:15:45I understand this

1:15:45is like a divergence of traffic enforcement. I you know, I I think his percent growth in his budget in if you actually go back in history, he's actually probably got some catching up that he needs to do. So I I think we're in a good place for that.

1:16:01Okay. Okay. Next please.

1:16:03Mr. Chairman Mariano. Mm-hmm. Who was that? I would also like the commission and Sashic. No, it didn't sound like you. Doesn't sound like you.

1:16:13All right, go ahead. My

1:16:14voice is changing right

1:16:15now.

1:16:16Um I would just like to also intervene and make mention I would like to make sure that we're retaining our officers and we're not losing our officers to surrounding counties and making sure that their salaries um are comparable to surrounding counties as well.

1:16:31Commissioner, we took care of that um before you got here.

1:16:34Yeah, we had to raise taxes for that. Yes. And

1:16:39hope consistently moved increasing. Thank you.

1:16:42All right, thank you. Thank you. Next slide, please. Uh the clerk and comptrollers request uh came in with a about a nine million dollar increase. The salary retirement health insurance increases of $365, or $365,000. Those are already included in the base budget for the clerk. Court-related technologies of $1.2 million. We took that request and added it to our business plan initiative list that's currently not funding. the cut line so it's it's not funded currently. And

1:17:12then we have the court related uh local requirements of seven million dollars. We don't feel that's an appropriate expense for the county. And so that is also not funded.

1:17:22Mr. Chairman would you like for me to I'd like to to talk on this. Do you want me to wait until after or

1:17:27no ask now?

1:17:28All right, great. Um thank you for um advising me the information. I didn't know but until right now what what the recommendation is. However, um I just want to point out the court related technology, it's not just for court related technology, it's also for the Board Services technology. So I just wanted to make sure that that was just accurately. And I um you know I I met with each of you back in April and I met with um Mr. Biles and his team. My

1:17:58team met with his team and we've talked through this increase. Um, you know, obviously didn't want it to become at the last minute, so walked through um some of the items, um, maybe many of the items on the list, down to um line Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get um the attorney's opinion, uh County Attorney wrote an opinion in regards to the funding request until last week, and so I sent a letter

1:18:28to um to this board requesting an opportunity for uh me to meet with Jeff Steinsnyder, our county attorney, um and to meet me and as well as Dan Biles with The specific purpose to look at the legal requirements for board funding of my office and it which includes the court-related portion of it. And I'd I'd like to have that opportunity and for us to focus on the legal requirements versus

1:18:59you know you know non-required funding. And if I could have that opportunity. opportunity to go through that with him. I think that we can probably come back and have better understanding of the numbers as it relates to the legal re the legal aspect of them. Okay.

1:19:18Mr. Chairman Mariano. I think you know as a board and and I I guess I can only speak for myself now, but you know, our county attorney is where we take our direction from, and our current attorney's office is the one that does the research for the Board of County Commissioners and and our board. So that's the recommendation as a board that you know we're entrusted to follow our county attorneys in interpretation of statutes and of laws. Um that's typically the counsel

1:19:49we that we are re should and are probably required to follow to be honest with you.

1:19:55Oh uh Mr. Chairman M and uh I do want to say I talked with our administrator yesterday about the technology uh funding and I think that's something that we might be able to do at least part of that in the delta that we got between the eight and the ten point eight. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to throw some money there and help them with that part of the budget. Um I guess, you know, w as far as the courthouse um issue and I don't know if you want to spell that

1:20:25out a little more what's going on but I guess um there's a dispute on because we're unusual and we have two courthouses um that

1:20:38that um we should be funding it differently and and as the commissioner said our attorney has a different uh interpretation than your attorney so you know what happens when attorneys disagree. I'm sure we'll I'm sure there'll be more discussion on that one and I think we I think it's good to have a dialogue though that you guys should be talking to our guys so that we can you know see if we can come to a resolution with that Going down a road that when you have two opposing attorneys views. So I hope we can come to

1:21:08some kind of agreement on um what's appropriate there. Um but I agree with Commissioner Moore, we gotta follow our attorney's advice and then see where that that takes us. But I do want to um see if we can't help you get to s to where you need with some of this um Delta money that we got between. Yeah. Eight percent and ten ten percent? Ten point eight. Ten point eight.

1:21:31Mr. Biles have you all set up a meeting to have with the clerk?

1:21:34Yes sir, I I think specifically she asks also for the County Attorney's Office to attend. And so yeah we can we can work to set something up and we've looked at all the other numbers and we've kind of broken out Some things we are more inclined to support than others. I mean that's part of the BPI list. Um again, this is about getting feedback from the board from the on that list. And so that will help us finalize the list between now and the the next meeting in July.

1:22:00Okay. Good.

1:22:03It's

1:22:03okay.

1:22:04It's a little bit

1:22:06Yeah,

1:22:06measure the higher. Um I just wanted to mention while looking over the budget and looking at specific costs associated with accounting and other services, if the board's using ninety-one or ninety-two percent or whatever the pet events are, whether it's fifty and fifty, we should be covering our portion of what the OCC is utilizing. sure it is fair, I'll wear them.

1:22:39Because if you take the accounting and then we see how much we use compared to how much our office is using, we should be covering our costs. That we incur.

1:22:55And I believe our clerk has the breakdown of that as well.

1:22:59I don't understand the question. Uh Commissioner Fitzpatrick, could you please repeat?

1:23:05I was saying I was explaining if we're utilizing specific services. Whether it's through accounting or whatever services that we're the the the services that the board is using then the clerk's office should be compensated to the services is active board specifically is you think.

1:23:22Uh yes ma'am.

1:23:26When I specifically asked, okay, what's the breakdown? How many general transactions were you creating for the board compared to creating for other services? What is the breakdown of how many checks you have to write? And I was getting a breakdown and feedback of everything that you were doing for the BOTC compared to Big Right.

1:23:49Yes, ma'am.

1:23:50And or

1:23:51packs? Correct. Um I had emailed the information to you. Uh I don't know if you want to just confirm that yes, that was provided. But it was um we're able with with the newer technology, with the newer system with the financial system, um we're able to pull uh better reports and we're able to look at the uh transactions, the types of transactions and whether it is a board-related uh financial transaction or if it's a clerk-related financial transaction. So the amount for um

1:24:21covering board services cost. We did it as a uh a a workload measure, an unweighted workload measure, it was just a one for one and um broke that percentage out as you know certain percent uh for the board work versus the other percent for the clerk's work.

1:24:38Correct, so I just wanted to make sure that all sides were compensated.

1:24:45Thank you. It is accounted for the request.

1:24:47Thank you for request.

1:24:49Right. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next please. So as you know, the property appraiser uh budget was due on June first. We just got that. We uh going through is continuing to evaluate that budget. As you know, we have a new property appraiser included in the increase of about 1.2 million as the salary, retirement and uh health care increases, but we'll come back to you with uh the remainder of of the budget drivers for this particular constitutional. Uh next please. Supervisor

1:25:20of Elections has requested $1.2 million for the things you can see on the screen. In addition to that, we're expecting with the new census that there will be some redistricting costs coming up in the future. There are some redistricting costs built into the Supervisor of Elections budget, but at this time we don't know what the redistricting is going to look like. So we're just estimating what those uh redistricting. restricting costs will be.

1:25:47Next please. If we turn to the fire MSTU fund, you'll notice that the calls for fire rescue have been expanding rapidly from just under 55,000 in 2009 to over 80,000 today. 70% of those calls are for our ambulance rescue unit. If you'll go to the next slide, please.

1:26:13Values increased by 10.8%. The FIRE MSTU taxable assessed values increased by 11.9%. And so that yields an additional $6.49 million in property tax revenue. The fire department has created this seven-year plan to premium. Based on the 8% increase in taxable assessed values, we felt that it may be necessary. To recommend an increase in the fire MSTU millage. However, we'd like to take some

1:26:44time and look at what is the impact of that increase from 8% to 11.9%, and does that still warrant an increase in the fire MSTU? So if you'll bear with us, we will take a look at the data, crunch some numbers, and come back to you with. the recommendation at a later date.

1:27:05Next please.

1:27:09Obviously that recommendation will have to happen at the July meeting. It can't be extended past that if we want to make a change. But again, we this this data's less than a week old or it's about a week old. We we still gotta crunch some numbers and see what it does to you know long term fund balance and the fund for the fire fire rescue. So Okay.

1:27:30All right, moving on to the building department fund. We have uh, as you can see, you've seen these figures before. There's really no abatement in the number of new single-family homes that are being built. Uh, we're still up around record setting uh permit uh receipts at about eight to nine hundred uh single family res uh building permit receipts every month. Next please. And so the building department would uh these are the New funding initiatives, the new business plan initiatives requested by the building department, uh contractual services for OSELA

1:28:00to do some updating, maintenance and that sort of thing on the Acela software, and then to add some uh FTEs, some folks around permitting uh building inspectors and then some floodplain technicians. These of course will all be paid through fees that are generated by the building department. Next please. So turning to public works, you can see over the past three years, Brantford and the crews and the public works crews have really been knocking it out of the park. If you look at the number of lane miles that

1:28:30have been paved, has increased from 24.5 in 2020 to projecting 34.5 next year. PVAS was at almost 16, and now in 2022 will be almost 24 lane miles paved. Next please.

1:28:45Uh stay on the slide, Mr. Chairman. Go ahead. Um this past week I was over to uh Zephyrhills. They had a uh APS had a really interesting paving project dis display program on how they took paving itself for repaving a road where they put down the tack simultaneously to putting down the asphalt, which gave it a pure bond all the way through. Even the joint They had the spray going in to seal it out. It was a really interesting project. Uh the one thing with that

1:29:16uh apparatus, which is like twenty percent more effective as far as the bond strength and and effectiveness, I think the ten uh the strength is even like thirty percent, but the bonding itself was even at uh twenty-two percent. I think it's something we should be taking a look at and I was asking them to come to the MPO meeting, but they're just gonna do public comment I think. But it's something that I I think it we should all should all take a look at. I'll meet with these folks and maybe we should even take a look as far as working with these guys for the future.

1:29:48They are,

1:29:49yes. Yeah, so I mean we can work with them now. They can talk to public works about that. Oh

1:29:53yeah, Methic they actually did it they did a Test project I literally. They did one side with it, one not, did a test on it, and the results were the cost is about the same, but the per the performance is so much better.

1:30:04Yeah, well we'll see long term. But yeah, I mean I I think again if they're working with public works, that's the right place to them to be working.

1:30:10Yeah, I'm just and again, yeah, I'm gonna ask them to come before the bullet on the MPO coming up, but it'll be just a short presentation and probably won't get back to us. But it's some uh your staff's are already aware of They've already looked at, seen it, so just wanna alert the birdle.

1:30:22Uh-huh.

1:30:25Thank you. Public Works is aware of that. Next please. So this is the operating budget for public works. This includes public works road maintenance as well as the stormwater. They're requesting an engineer, construction specialist, and then they plan on doing some additional sidewalk construction, ditch cleaning, that kind of thing in the stormwater department. Next please. If we turn to the capital, these are the projects that are slated for PVAS in

1:30:552022 to the tune of about almost $3 million. Next please. If we look at program maintenance, these are existing roads that are having maintenance uh on them, about ten and a half, ten point six million dollars, and you can see each of the roads there from county line to Little Road and the areas of those, each of those roads that will be repaved in in fiscal twenty-two.

1:31:23Next please. We have some pathways. You see the three pathways there that will be started construction in 22, as well as there have been four traffic signals at these intersections that have been approved for installation in 2022. Next please.

1:31:44Uh stormwater capital, you can see there are some very specific projects in here, for example Colonial Manor Seapines, and then there are some overarching projects that will occur all over the county, for example, culvert renewal and replacement, renewal and replacement, and that will spend about six million dollars on those capital projects in the upcoming year. Next please. So you can see this chart here shows the uh the gray bars are the number of connections to our utility system. The

1:32:15dark, I think that's red at the top, that is the American Waterworks Association standard for the number of employees for the number of connections. The the yellow line is the actual number that we have in our utility for 2021. or 2021 are actual for 22, those are kind of an estimate. These are The business plan initiatives that we've requested for the utility in 22 will allow us to

1:32:45maintain that distance. We won't fall behind. We're not necessarily going to catch up, but we'll be able to maintain that distance with the business plan initiatives that we're adding. All those business plan initiatives that you'll see on the next slide will be paid for through new growth to the system. Next please.

1:33:03And so you can see here in the utility we're looking to add uh 23 business plan initiatives, 33 FTEs altogether, and those new new FTEs are employees that will be plant operators, mechanics, maintenance folks, engineers, that kind of thing.

1:33:23Mr. Chairman Mariano. Quick question. Thanks. This might be a question for Mr. Karbala, but Are we able to cover our costs? He's saying yes. Wanna make sure on every new quote hookup. So if XYZ development comes, has a hundred homes, the cost of connection connecting is a hundred percent covered. There's nothing that we're going to um take a loss from in any instance.

1:33:56Trying to unpack that, forgive me for a second. So if if you're talking about does development pay for itself, is that Yes. It it does not? No. What's that? It does not. Okay.

1:34:09No you have to include the plant explanation required for the growth and that is not covered by the the water or sewer connection use.

1:34:21So if I go out and develop a twenty acre parcel with Hundred and twenty homes.

1:34:29Mm.

1:34:29what I'm paying to make that connection. today does not cover the

1:34:35county's cost. Correct. It does not cover the treatment cost. We typically we we put the burden of the the pipes, if you will, and the collection on the developer. So they install that infrastructure which then we we take over and maintain and those costs are recovered through our rates. The cost of well capacity charges, impact fee that come in uh are are devoted to treatment. However uh those those fees do not uh amply cover what the cost of the plant expansion would be. Yeah. So let

1:35:03me let me expand upon that a little bit. Um if you didn't have to use additional funds Or should you say dollars out of your funds, how your fund, would there be a possibility that you could even possibly lower utility rates because your cost isn't as high or what you're having to take out of your fund? Could that make up a possible delta?

1:35:31If if we were completely whole, made whole through through development, just for the sake of argument, uh I would say that we are we are a cost recovery system. That's how our rates are based. Yep. Costs are always increasing, so I would say that um uh probably not. It would it would depend on on what what costs are doing to the markets. Okay.

1:35:53We are completing the rates rate study and analysis to include our impact fee and capacity charges. We'll we'll be briefing you on

1:36:01those and I say that and and I see Commissioner Mariano, I think he's his mind has spinning a little bit too. What I don't want to see is obviously a cost of a new de uh the product of new development to have a negative impact on your funds that we're going to have to draw out of that fund to cover those extra costs. where if we cover it we were able to do that or gain a little bit back, we wouldn't have to continue to in the future. I mean I understand over time you're going to have to raise

1:36:31utility rates. It is what it is. But maybe not as drastic of increases. No, because I always want and I say this 'cause we still don't we still remember and we need to think about the people that are here and they've been here. It should never have a negative impact and it should not cost them more money for something new to come.

1:36:51I don't think you disagree, you know. But

1:36:53I I understand. Uh yes,

1:36:54I so I always wanna make sure, you know, listen, if if I'm gonna go do a new development tomorrow, I decide Mike Moore decides he's gonna go build something and you need to make a connection, I should not the county should not be under water because of that. And I'll and I'll and I'm done.

1:37:11So Commissioner, I think the the challenge is a lot of the plans expansion that we need to do and saw the books today is already baked in based on growth that's already happened. to include growth that's coming.

1:37:22Right.

1:37:23I'll talk about future now. What the past is the past, I'm talking about the future. But the plant expansions also are dealing with current growth and growth that has been that and so we already have a negative delta from a funding from a plant capacity standpoint because in general and I'm gonna because they're still doing the rate sufficiency analysis, this is an estimate, you probably have to increase your connection charges at least three times to cover that plant expansion cost, if not more. And so that's baked in. If

1:37:53you don't if you don't do that, so you're today when somebody com pays a connection fee, they are not covering their costs or cover maybe a third of their planned expansion cost. So if if you said okay we don't want to do that anymore then we are probably somewhere between twelve and 24 months of a building moratorium because we can't expand our plants. And again, that's I could be off a little bit because we're still running some numbers on those numbers. So if you can't expand your plants, you can't make new connections, which means you will have basin after basin

1:38:24go down to building moratorium, except where we're not having growth. So it's a yes you know there is significant cost being borne by the ratepayer for plant expansions that are due mainly to growth. But they are also, most of them are part of the growth that led up to that. Two. So and they didn't pay the the impact fee that they may have necessarily needed to pay to deal with their growth either. So it's you'd have

1:38:54to go back and say, okay, when did this start and how do you recover that cost? Because it's not just the the next one, there is also growth already baked into the system.

1:39:04And there were people that never paid an impact fee. Right.

1:39:07Sure, of course. So we're We're still working through the rates efficiency analysis. They briefed me last night. They're still working on that. Um, it will be you know, they'll they'll be ready to start sitting with down with y'all over the next few weeks before they bring the rate resolution to the board. I will say, even with all that, we are going to be probably one of the lowest utility rates in the region. Um, and so even with what they they think. the right number, which is probably about what you've seen over the last four years anyway. Um to include

1:39:37some changes to how we uh bill reclaimed. No

1:39:40I appreciate it.

1:39:50equate it to buying a a a car, for example, you know? Um If I'm somebody that wants to buy a Mercedes, I'm gonna pay more. Right? And then I'm gonna pay for a UCA. It's a big difference between those two, right? Pasco County. is on its way to being a Mercedes. You may have to pay a little bit more to get in the game. But the people that were already

1:40:20in the game shouldn't have to pay more because they were already in the game.

1:40:25What if you never paid anything?

1:40:27Then you that's something you gotta figure out. I'm not in I'm not in that chamber. It gets complicated. What are our fans

1:40:34supposed to be doing for some

1:40:36Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. Commissioner We bring up a good point because we just were talking the other day about new projects coming in, what the effects would be, et cetera. And I I think it's a a real good point. The reason we pushed the impact fee many years ago was to get new growth to pay. Um and I'm sure Commissioner's gonna start Commissioner Starkey about this in a minute in a committee report when it comes because the Lindric system that we just got a great

1:41:02don't stall, don't take my

1:41:03phone.

1:41:06But but so all the all the other FGs, all the other FGAs we want to want to take over time, we're looking at the increase how it's gonna affect all the other people. Right. Now those people were here. Up through no fault of their own, they should be included to the regular rates. But everything new coming in, I think we need to go take a look at that because if it's it's going to keep us from taking care of the people that are already here because we can't afford it because the new growth's coming, I'm I'm I I think that people would say, Let the growth pay for itself, at least as it gets started. And what could happen is that we

1:41:36have that growth that still comes, and I think part of the reason our rate are so competitive if you compare everyone else, is because we are so unincorporated that we can put a better system together over a over a longer time and we do get the growth come in it should get better. But if we don't collect the money we need up front We're going to keep consently lag behind instead of getting more efficient down the road. So even these people we charge up front are going to benefit later. I don't even compare it to a lady who was coming from Hillsborough and we had the school impact thing many years ago. She

1:42:06says, Look, I liked coming to Pasco County because you guys were planning for the future. I didn't mind paying those extra fees because I knew you'd have the capacity to go service my children when they're gonna go to school. And I think utility is about the same type of thing. Let's let's take a close look at that. Thank you.

1:42:22I want to reiterate something. I think uh commission or Mr. Biles a little while ago you made reference to something that it's it's it was a hypothetical thing that can happen. So I don't want it correct d yeah, don't get the right wrong idea from what the county administrator said. It's not going to go about some type of moratorium or something. That's not the case. But you're giving a hy you were giving a hypothetical of what something possibly could happen I whether it be in any county or somewhere in the nation. So make sure.

1:42:48Southern Hill's broken.

1:42:54And so We have funding.

1:42:59I I will say I think what you'll see is probably something very similar to what you saw over the last four years.

1:43:04Yeah. Yeah. So I was saying I was wondering it's hypothetical what you said. We have we have no there's no shortage.

1:43:11The the recommended plan is gonna take care of that where that is not an issue. Right. You know we are finalizing that, you will get that soon, but it will look a lot like what you've seen over the last four years. Okay.

1:43:32Um, it took a long time before we had that stormwater utility fee and others and that you know, that's shame on us really that we weren't Collected that a long time ago. I know when I sat on the Swift Mud Board for six years. And um I would go drive down to my budget meetings for my PA Basin Board with the twenty five and then fifty million dollar budget that we could spend on stormwater and utility projects. I Pasco County couldn't participate because we didn't have the matching funds. So we

1:44:03you know, we we kinda did that to ourselves also that we weren't collecting that money they way back

1:44:09that we they

1:44:10Yeah they long before I was sitting on here um but and uh maybe Jack was here.

1:44:18But he was only one of five. Um but you know we we didn't have that mindset to um we never went after grants. We didn't charge a lot of fees. Right. It was very cheap to live here. We did you didn't get a whole lot for it, but you could live here cheap. So um good discussion.

1:44:36Well you know, just Commissioner, one final thing is keep in mind most of the new growth is connected to our reclaim system. Right now we're delivering about twenty-three million gallons a day of reclaim, which is three twenty-three million gallons a day. We're not buying the Tampa Bay water, which means the ratepayers are saving money because of the reclaim system, which is mostly going into new, you know, basic basically all new growth is connected. Yeah, it's great where most of that is. And so there is a balance there, and so there is some savings there. You know, that's a tremendous amount of water. We

1:45:06are not pulling out of the aquifer.

1:45:08You're right.

1:45:10And we could have had 25 million more dollars that we didn't. didn't have to pay if things had worked out the way we had hoped. Or was it would have been half of twenty five million? Twelve and a half million. That was an unfortunate

1:45:23event for Pasco County Administrator.

1:45:25Mr. Mariano. Mr. Chairman Mariano. I want to make two points coming up and I'll talk reclaim water in a second. But on redevelopment issues.

1:45:37I'll give you an example. On Little Road we had a insurance my insurance company, not my insurance company, but the current company I'm agent for, didn't did a bought a home and then brought a commercial facility in. The use of the commercial facility should be a lot less the res residential use. the impact of that because of using a larger pipe to a smaller pipe was substantial in the effect, which also affects our total calculation. So the data they were using I think was back from 1950s data. But finally with the engineer they found they

1:46:07got it to a better size than what was first proposed. But I think we need to go dig into that and go take a look at that because if we're gonna redevelop the long 19 I won't The growth to pay for itself. At the same time, I don't want to be overcharged or even overuse our capacity that we don't need to have. And one thing with reclaimed water, I've talked to several different golf courses all around. I've brought this up before. But I'm gonna tell you, when you have a community that's got a golf course in place that's functional, that's viable, etc., it helps those property values, which helps

1:46:37the tax base. Sure. all of a sudden take the cost and quadruple them, it affects their budget tremendously. And we get nice communities like Heritage Pines, uh Seven Springs, etc. that used to get it real cheap, now they don't. And if we're not going to let them use the reclaim water, maybe we need to work with Swift Mont to get them a a the pumping permits established where they can just go pump more water. I think we're better off if they use the regular water reclaim, but I think we need to go look at what these golf course communities cause we It

1:47:08it's it's a good part of our economic base when people can play golf. I mean you got I think it's I think it goes kind of like beaches fishing and golf courses. And we got some great golf courses, plantation palms, and Commissioner Moore I'll I'll just give you accolades as far as how you worked with the new owner that came in and worked with the residents to make sure how important that golf course was to them. So I think we need to go take a look at those reclaim water rates as well. Let's go look to what we promised those. people when they first signed up for the Reclaim Water? And then should we go onto those contracts or back then with moderate price

1:47:38increases instead of the dramatic ones they face?

1:47:40Yeah.

1:47:41Thank you. Okay.

1:47:43Let's

1:47:43go back.

1:47:44Yeah, thanks for coming. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks,

1:47:49Mike. Mike, there's two more slides. Yeah. Next please.

1:47:57And so, as we've just been talking, the Water Wastewater Utility is a capital-intensive uh program, and these are the kind of the capital projects that we're looking forward to uh in the upcoming years. Next, please.

1:48:12And then the final fund we want to talk about is a solid waste uh fund. Solid waste the amount of trash we generated actually increased during the pandemic with everyone getting box after box of stuff from Amazon. And so their uh initiatives they'd like to add uh three new employees, a plant mechanic, solid waste attendant, and an equipment operator. Next, please.

1:48:36And then next steps, we're expecting the final taxable assessed values on July 1st, and we'll adjust the budget according to what happens to the taxable assessed values. They could go up, they could go down. We don't know at this point. And then at July 6th, we'll meet again to set the trim, which is the truth in millage. And at that point, we will set millage rate for the uh general operating millage as well as. The fire MSTU that we can then advertise that millage rate to the residents. They

1:49:07will receive that advertisement in August and September telling them what the millage rate, the maximum the millage rate will be. So when we set the millage rate in July, that millage rate can go down, but it can't go up during the final hearings. And it will also communicate to the residents when the final hearings are so that they can. come in and give us their feedback on the budget. And with that, that's all I have. Happy to answer any further questions you might have. Mr.

1:49:34Um so is the land which one of these is uh waste to energy?

1:49:40So I'll waste one.

1:49:45Where is it? Is that the

1:49:46It's the next to last?

1:49:48I'm sorry, I'm trying to I'm following the

1:49:54Oh I see. A hundred and ten million?

1:49:55Yep.

1:49:56So um are you saying that's built into our budget?

1:49:59Yes, that's built in the upcoming budget for the solid waste plant.

1:50:02Wait, is that hundred and ten thousand?

1:50:04Hundred and ten thousand.

1:50:05Wait, wait. I thought we had to build a new

1:50:06that is not constructing the new waste energy plant. No, that is a that's a BPI for solid waste as part of the waste energy program. That's what that is. So where are we

1:50:15getting money?

1:50:18It's an insurance deal.

1:50:20Yeah, your solid waste assessment. You know, you you adopt a plan a few years back to increase so much each year to build the cash up to be able to expand and build the fourth burner. We're still in that program okay and we're still moving down the track to build and have that program.

1:50:35So we're squirreling money away for that.

1:50:37Yes ma'am

1:50:37okay.

1:50:41Yes.