Tentative Millage Rates for Truth in Millage (TRIM) Notices and First Public Hearing – Fiscal Year 2025 Budget – No Funding Required – To Be Distributed

21:35P forty six.

21:38Amy, welcome.

21:40Hi, Amy Farrell, Budget Director with Pasco County's Office of Management and Budget. And today I'm here with item R46 or OMB 240038, where we're going to Hit a key milestone in our budget adoption process, one that is founded in transparency. We are here today to set the trim or the truth in millage. That's where the board will vote on the maximum at Ballora Millage rates that we can adopt

22:10in September. And this is what will go out on the trim notices to all of our residents. And so we're looking for general operating millage fire MSTU, the millages uh associated with our general obligation bonds, the roads rehabilitation MSTU, and our parks capital maintenance MSTU. Alright, so here's our agenda for today.

22:37So just to remind everyone the priorities that were set by the board for um To guide us through this budget process, we're looking at small business incentives and process streamlining, pedestrian safety, maintaining our reserve limits as appropriate. And then we have two new municipal services taxing units. And so our long-term financial strategy as we're building this budget and this has been pretty thematic over the years, we've got inflation and increased demands

23:07for service that are pressuring us. We're um These are ongoing concerns and so these are baked into our long-term strategy. And we're looking to remain competitive in the labor market while we're continuing to get caught up on our infrastructure improvements. So what you see in the budget this year is a good balance of new recurring expenses while also putting some investment towards those one-time capital infrastructure projects. So, our budget assumptions for today, we are assuming no change in our

23:37operating millage, no change in our fire MSTU millage, our stormwater assessment has maintained the same that it's been for a handful of years. We are in accordance with our water and wastewater four-year rate resolution. We are in year six of our seven for seven solid waste plan, and we are looking to establish those two new MSTUs we've discussed.

24:03All right, so general fund big picture. So we're starting off with a strong fund balance of $142 million. We're looking at about $152 coming in in revenue, and we will be spending roughly $582 million as proposed in this budget. So that budget is assuming that we're spending down roughly thirty million in fund balance again for some of those one-time infrastructure. things that we will be talking about.

24:31All right, so the last time we met, it was at the June workshop. At that time, we had preliminary taxable assessed values from the property appraiser's office. Rewind about a week and a day, we got our final taxable assessed values, and so we are looking at an increase of 14.1% over last year's taxable assessed value. And so this table shows you what that generates in terms of millions of dollars. And then here's that impact to our fire MSTU as well. So the sheriff with this increased number will get an additional $1.83

25:02million for his budget. The board and other constitutionals have $2.7 million. And we do have a slide that shows you the county administrator's recommendation on spending some of that money. And then for fire, that is an increase of 1.39 million from the June numbers that we saw.

25:21Alright, so we looked at this chart. It really hasn't changed much, even though we got some slightly higher numbers. We are still looking at roughly 91% of our budget to just make sure that we're able to maintain the services we do today tomorrow. We've got about four percent of the budget is geared towards what we're calling requirements, so those are just to refreshen everyone's memories, wage increases to include the fire union, corrections officer union, we've got D Shift coming online, and we also have things like

25:51a jail that we're expanding. And then 1% of it is towards what we call business plan initiatives. So those are new new things we're looking to add. Maybe it's services, maybe it's people, those types of things. And then 4% is geared towards our capital infrastructure.

26:09Alright, so the second table here really just highlights the things that the county administrator is proposing to add to the budget since the June workshop when we had the preliminary numbers. So just to touch on a couple, funding the design portion of an armory for the Sheriff's Office. Uh we've got Animal services has an increase in they're they're seeing some inflation, so an increase to their medical funding, and then increasing standby and call-out pay for animal services as well, so they can have a second

26:39officer on on call.

26:43All right, so how does that shake out for our constitutional officers? Really the only change from what you saw in June is the sheriff because he gets forty percent of that increased taxable assessed value. So This shows you what his budget is based off of our final taxable assessed value versus what he submitted when we were all Um planning off a ten percent increase, so that does generate roughly five point seven five million more for the shares budget.

27:14All right. The really only big change on this slide is before we were estimating our Medicaid number because we didn't have that from the state yet. We did get the state's number and that did go up about 1.77 million over last year. That is a 23.2% increase.

27:33Alright, so change in major funds. Just for the audience here today, major funds are typically defined as 10% of our overall budget, but we also include funds that are statutorily required as well as some funds that are of particular interest to the board. Um Let's just highlight what a couple of these changes are. Our general fund, no big surprise here. We've been talking about this a lot. There was roughly we saw in the previous slide. $22 million of that is the shares increase. We've got roughly

28:04sixteen million going to corrections for their D sh or their jail expansion plus their um Union contract wage increases. And then if we talk about fire rescue, we've got stations two and four coming online. We've got their union increases. And then we'll see some of the BPIs for these funds as well.

28:27Alright, so. Here's just uh

28:33A few of our funds because our fire MSTU fund and then our water and wastewater we have separate slides dedicated to those BPIs. But here you're looking at some modest investments in staffing, technology, and equipment through these major funds. And then for the fire MSTU. We'll just touch on a couple here. We've got that D-Shift we've been talking about outside promotional testing. So when there folks are going through promotions through the ranking, we'll have a third-party vendor come in and facilitate

29:03the testing for those positions. uh branch communications coordinator. Just to name a few. And then our water utility fund. We've grouped these by programs so they'd make a little bit more sense, but you see a lot of investments in water quality and then some of our some staffing as well.

29:28Alright, really no change on this slide. We do still have a five-year $1.8 billion capital improvement plan.

29:37And then there's our five-year transportation engineering capital plan. Again, this is the same as we walked through at the workshop, so I won't spend too much time.

29:47And then of notes are two new levies that we're looking to set maximum millage on today, so our parks. And what you see here is a millage rate based off staff recommendation to generate $8.2 million worth of revenue. And then for the roads, staff recommendation for $24.8 million of revenue generated, the millages that would generate that revenue. And then your second to last column shows you the cost per $100,000 worth of taxable assessed value.

30:17So that is scalable if you do the math based off of what your home taxable assessed value is. That'll get you close to what you would be paying. And then our median, the cost for median. Value home is that final column and the median home value is 163,579.

30:40All right, so what have we done so far in the budget cycle? Well it's February we got to hang out and we talked about revenue. In March we briefed um each of you on what the status of the general fund looked like, our fire MSTU and then we went into meetings with county leadership, the county administrator and we worked through um refining those budgets. June we had a workshop. And now of July, we're here to set trim and the date for our first. public hearing.

31:11Alright, so our recommended board action for today is to approve the proposed millage rates for trim, and remember that is the maximum value for the millage rates. We can go down in September, we just can't come back up. And then to set our first public hearing for September 3rd at 515 here in Dade City. And yes, we did check it does not conflict with the school board.

31:36That has happened.

31:38I I had a note that said, Make sure you say that. Yeah.

31:47All right, and so those proposed millage rates are here and there's also a table in your handout. The third column is the proposed millage and that is what we are proposing we set today to go out on the trim notices to the citizens.

32:04Okay.

32:23Mr. Chairman Mariano I've got a question for either Amy or the administrator, one of the one of the two. Yep. So

32:32The MSBUs that we have hearings for in August-ish, Sept early September, they also get transmitted with this trim, correct?

32:54No. No sir.

32:55So they're not on the they're not on the term.

32:57No.

32:59Okay.

33:03Okay.

33:06So it's uh Justin Grant, Director of Public Infrastructure, Fiscal Invest Administration. Uh MSBUs, if they're non-ad valorum, yes, they don't they don't transmit on the ad valorem section of the trim, but we are required to also submit those roles to the property appraiser and to the tax collector through this process so that at the bottom of their trim notice you will see if you're a part of that in that subject area for an MSBU, you would have that item. Put up. So for example we have uh you know Fox Ridge M SBU that runs and Highlands of M

33:36SPU that runs. So our office in infrastructure, we submit those numbers annually. They don't have to go through the ad valorem section of this process that that the budget director is presenting right now, but they do land on the trim notes.

33:48Okay. Does that answer your question? That answers my question. Okay. Thank you, Chairman

33:52Mariano.

33:53And Commissioner Oakley.

33:55I I can wait. You

33:56can wait till all your old business for your for your MSB.

34:00Okay, I need to

34:00bring something up.

34:01Um I'm looking for

34:03it

34:03though.

34:04No, no, I mean it doesn't you don't have to act uh before this item. You can wait till old business and pick up the one we talked about. I might need to have you

34:13send it to me again because I can't find it.

34:16Okay.

34:18Alright. Any questions?

34:24Does this require any action today or

34:27it

34:27does?

34:28Yes.

34:29Okay. And it is public hearing, so

34:33It is a regular item.

34:34It's a regular item. So any questions from the board?

34:42I think we're getting a lot done.

34:44Yeah.

34:46I sent an email thank I sent a little thank you to Mike Wells and Brendan. Um I'm very happy that we're gonna be able to fund some more deputies, as we all are. Yeah. And um get some more things done. There's still a lot of things on our list that we need to do. Right. Um there's never never enough money to do everything, but um I think we're we're fortunate to be a growing county and to have some money

35:16that we can get some of these important projects done.

35:19Okay. Entertain the motion.

35:22If there's no board discussion, your motion would be approved and proposed millage rate. No, there's it's a regular item.

35:29Regular item.

35:30Approve the proposed millage rates, authorize notification to the property phraser and tax collector of the proposed millage rates and schedule the first public hearing at the historic Pasco County Courthouse. 37918 Meridian Avenue, Dade City, Florida, on September 3rd, 2024 at 515 PM

35:54So movie. I got a motion.

35:57Second.

35:57And a second. This is not a roll call voter, is it? No, it is not. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed like sigh? Motion passed 5-0.

36:15Okay. Can

36:16you go back to your public hearing items? We

36:18go back to where am I at here? Right