Federal Action Plan and State Lobbyist Update

54:41And that does it for the consent agenda. We'll go to regular R75 Federal Action Plan and State Lobbyist Update.

54:50I believe we got the full team together today.

54:55Good morning commissioners. Ralph Lair, Intergovernmental Affairs Officer. Joining us today is Tracy Pugh with Ballard Partners, our federal lobbyist, to discuss our federal advocacy strategy going forward. On your desk you'll have a copy of that as well as their PowerPoint. So again, the strategy plan PowerPoint. Tracy?

55:21Good morning. Thanks Ralph and it's a pleasure to be back here in this beautiful building. We were in the other building the last time, so um just absolutely gorgeous. Um Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, uh wanna thank you For entrusting Ballard Partners with your federal priorities representation. As you all know, we are the leading bipartisan government and public

55:51affairs firm in the country. We're led by Brian Ballard, who has expanded the firm. From its Florida routes to Washington and beyond. And our DC office, you can go to the introduction slide. Our DC office is managed by Dan McFall. And he works closely with me on N the Pasco team.

56:24Thank you. Except for the natural one. Oh, there we go.

56:31Okay. Dan uh right in the center there. He works closely with uh with me and the Pasco team uh on representing you all um in Washington. Um and let me just add that it is a real pleasure to work with Mike and Ralph and the entire team uh for Pasco uh on on your priorities. Um We prepared the federal strategy document that Ralph um mentioned that's in

57:01your fold, in your briefing packet. Um and you can review that in detail. But today um I wanna highlight The key areas of our work together as we um wrap up uh FY26 and begin preparing for um the next fiscal year and the 120th Congress. Um I want to begin with uh appropriations.

57:32This is a um graph of just sort of the timeline and it's it's critically important that we talk about the timeline and I know that um we'll have a workshop going on in October but there's some work that we should and can do um before October. And let me just say that we're in we're in the process right now of the appropriation season. Uh the House has completed its

58:02work um and all twelve bills um have been passed out of committee. Um The Senate has not heard all 12 bills in committee. And as you all know, with the um unfortunate passing of Senator Graham and some other um absences and illnesses, I'm not sure what that timeline may look like. Um so we could possibly find ourselves in a situation where um On

58:33September 30th, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, um, we are in uh continuing resolution status. And but that doesn't necessarily mean a government shutdown if they pass a continuing resolution. And I think because we are in an election year, no one on on either side is interested in having a a shutdown. So Um what that possibly could mean is that um we'll have a lame duck Congress after the elections in November

59:04and um some form of uh a minibus or omnibus. Will be passed, you know, at the end of the year. But fortunately for you all, you have uh Representative Vilarakis and Representative Lee, who've um done really great by uh Pasco County in making sure that uh your federal priorities were included in their Appropriations request. So

59:35if you look on the bottom of page one of your strategy document, you'll see that over $9 million in federal funding has been submitted, and as I said, it has gone through the process and the committee process in the House. And we will continue to track and monitor. those projects through the process. We'll make sure our senators, Senator Scott and Senator Moody, their staffs are aware of them. We'll

1:00:05continue to track those as as they and monitor those as they go through the process.

1:00:15And and as we prepare for the hundred and twentieth Congress, I do want to emphasize that um Pasco will have a third representative and that benefits the county e even more because that means that you'll have three bites at this uh appropriations opportunity with um Congressman Bilarakis, who has been a long-term representative of this area and very familiar with your priorities, Congresswoman

1:00:46Lee, and then uh Congresswoman Luna will represent a portion of the county uh as well when we go into the 120th Congress. Um so That's uh something that when we come back in October to start talking about the workshop um we will be in the interim meeting with their staffs, meeting with their teams. We don't have to wait until after November. We know they're gonna,

1:01:17you know, be re-elected. Um um barring some major change. So um we'll start building those relationships with um Representative Luna's team that now and continue to um socialize Pasco's priorities with her office. And we are doing that throughout the fall and then when we come back in October, hopefully uh you all will have had an opportunity to meet

1:01:47with the team um and decide what you want to present for your CPFs for the next uh year in the 120th Congress. Um I'm suggesting that We begin that process before the new Congress is sworn in because as soon as the new Congress is sworn in, if you take a look at the chart, you'll see uh the president submits his budget. The new Congress is sworn in in January. The President,

1:02:18if if this timeline were to work. You know, as it's laid out, the president submits his budget in February. Um, in March, the House and Senate budget committees, um, they set the budget amounts, and then in April the process begins for appropriations hearings. And what that essentially means is that members begin Uh accepting requests. And so we want to have PASCO's request

1:02:49and all of our priorities ready to go for submission. The submission timelines vary depending on the member of Congress. Um, but I would say anywhere between April um Uh end of March to middle of May is when those submissions will be um required uh to be submitted to the members of Congress. Um And in addition to the work that

1:03:19we do on appropriations, uh Ballard will continue to work with you all to engage federal agencies directly. Um we provide and flag grant opportunities that may be of interest to local governments. Sometimes those um opportunities uh are a a good fit for your team and and we've talked with um with Ralph about streamlining that process so that it better aligns with um the

1:03:49priorities of the county. Um and now I want to talk a little bit about our timeline.

1:03:59We created a timeline just to sort of a work plan that will help us to guide our efforts. And as you'll see it starts in July of this year, which is now. Um in August the Congress takes a uh A month-long recess. So during that time, we'll work with committee staff and continue to track and monitor the primary elections in the state of Florida on the 18th. Once those primaries

1:04:30are done, we can pretty much get to work in terms of working with the new congressional delegate. In September, that will be an extremely busy month. As I said, the fiscal year ends on September 30th.

1:04:49The uh

1:04:53It is very unlikely that the Congress will be completed with all 12 appropriations bill. But again, we'll continue to monitor that. The entire month of October this year, because it is an election year. Year Congress is not in session in October, which will give us a lot of time to come to plan to identify the local priorities that you all have and to work with Mike and the team. On getting those

1:05:23submissions together. We'll begin to socialize those projects, meet with congressional staff, and then hopefully by December we can finalize the project so we'll be ready to go in the first quarter of 2027. In January, uh the the new Congress, the 120th, will be sworn in. I believe it will be really good to have some of uh the members of the commission to come up for the swearing in. Um you'll have a new delegation. So I

1:05:53think it's really important that they know you, that you have an opportunity to meet some members of their team. Uh and I know in February Or early March is usually when uh Commissioner uh Starkey and Commissioner Mariano usually come up for NACO. Um we'll do meetings at that time. We'll meet with staff and appropriators. The one good thing about our state that we're very fortunate of is that even

1:06:23outside of the members that represent PASCO directly. We have quite a few members from Florida who serve on the Appropriations Committee and in the House, and that is very beneficial to our state. And so we'll make sure that this go around that we are not just meeting with the members who have submitted your project request, but some of our appropriators. who are um we're fortunate that Floridians

1:06:54are very senior on appropriations. So there is a scenario where we could potentially have um a an appropriations chair in the next Congress or two that's from the state of Florida. So again, um all good things for for Florida. Um so after um Those submissions are due, like I said, it's a um it varies by deadline for the

1:07:24office from March um through May. Uh and then the process starts with appropriations hearings. Um we track the submissions, we make sure if the committee staff or the congressional staff have any questions or clarifications, budget. uh information that they need from you all that we're working with Mike and Ralph and the team to make sure that that information is provided um so that we can benefit and maximize the appropriations

1:07:55um opportunity. Um I do want to also mention that at least this past year um the amount of requests that members were able to to submit from their district was fifty uh twenty. It moved from fifteen to twenty. So again, that is beneficial because now we have three members that have twenty slots. And I believe Ralph, I'm not mistaken. I believe 20 20? 20 each. Each.

1:08:25Wow. So um a total of 60. And I'm thinking that for each one of them, you know, you all should at least submit five, but we can certainly talk about that as we go through your priorities. So that can be potentially 15 requests that um That you all are submitting. And one other thing, I know that there's been a lot of talk about, and this is more so along the lines of the federal agency

1:08:56funding. Both tracks are important. The congressional appropriations process is an important funding source. Well as uh opportunities uh for the federal grants. Our senators, our two senators, they don't submit uh appropriations requests, but they're very supportive in the federal grant process. Uh so we want to make sure that we take advantage of that. Uh I know there's been some talk about uh um

1:09:27changes to different um rules and um opportunities as it relates to federal grants. Let me just say that those federal grant opportunities have not disappeared. The rules for winning those grants, uh, some of those have evolved and they'll likely continue to evolve as the administration priorities change or are redefined. Um we'll work

1:09:57with PASCO to stay engaged with the agency. To make sure that you all are familiar with those priorities from the Trump administration. We can work with your team to align the projects, but it doesn't mean that the money is not there. The money is there, and we should certainly go after the money that makes sense for Pasco County. And lastly, I just want to point to um Uh

1:10:28in your document there's an appendix on on page nine. It sort of lays out our strategy overview for the grant process. And uh I think we're going to be much more uh aggressive and rigorous in going after federal grant dollars. Um As we move into this next fiscal year. There like as I said, we had great meetings um earlier this year with uh Commissioner

1:10:59um Starkey, Mariano, and Mike and the team. We um Have developed relationships with several agencies, including HUD, Department of Labor, and several others. So we will be looking vigorously at opportunities for funding through those projects as well and through those agencies. Mr. Chairman Mariano.

1:11:28Okay. Any questions? Mr. Starkey.

1:11:31Um do you think it's Mario who's gonna be I was just looking him up 'cause I I know him a little bit. But he's vice chair now, so

1:11:39Well, like I said, we have very senior appropriators, and I would say on both sides of the aisle, there is a possibility that um we could end up even with the chair and the ranking member, depending on who is in the majority, both being Floridians. Um, because that's just how senior the Floridians are on appropriation. Excellent. Um

1:12:05I

1:12:05was

1:12:05just talking with the county administrator this week about working on our our trip up and some of the things that we want to accomplish. So I'm looking forward to us setting a date. When we go up with NACO, we you know, we like doing our rounds, but we know we need to go up more often and at not necessarily And in in addition to that time. Um also as I'm chair again of the federal committee at FAC. And I think we are also planning a fact Federal fly in this year. Um

1:12:36Just to let you know that we I get well in my committee at NACO community economic development and workforce. Um we're sponsoring I'm sponsoring two resolutions which we all approved of here. One is to work on the HUD I might have talked to you about this last year. The HUD uh section eight vouchers. Mm-hmm. And uh and and the other one Um it has to do with capital gains uh when you sell your house. Uh right, the

1:13:07last time it was touched was in 1992. 250,000 for a single filer, 500,000 for a joint filer. And um working to double that to five hundred thousand for a single filer. and one million for joint filers that will free up a lot of money for for a lot of folks in the housing housing arena. The Council of Mayors has passed that. And I've got NAHB, National Home Builders Association, and the National

1:13:37Association of Realtors also getting on board. So I know we'll we'll want to talk about that. And for sure we want to talk about When we have folks that go into our jail. And they lose Uh they're um They're health insurance and we have to pick up the tab. We must fix that. Yeah, so we're gonna really make a big push on that.

1:14:03So let me just make one suggestion, Commissioner, and I know how involved you are in your leadership in NACO. Uh and coming up during NACO is a is a good time, but I will say that because there's So many other counties up during that time, it makes it a little bit more challenging for some of um some of the meetings. I mean we always have good meetings with our delegation, but with the agency meetings, I would say that if we can look at Possibly

1:14:34doing some virtual meetings or having you all come up um maybe a little bit later in the spring as um or early summer, um that would be a really good time as well to get sort of more in the weeds on some of the uh regulatory and policy issues.

1:14:53Um

1:14:54yeah, so are y'all gonna tackle the procurement?

1:14:59Is that

1:14:59a

1:14:59federal or

1:15:01the um Davis Bacon? Davis Bacon, which eats away from

1:15:04the Davis Bacon funding. Yes. Um

1:15:08I I want to tackle that on my committee, but I think we have to do it outside of that committee. So that's one of the issues that we want to talk about when we're up there.

1:15:18And we did have a conversation with Labour, uh, Mr. Chairman Mariano the last time you were here. It's um it's a challenge. Much just to be real frank with you.

1:15:31Even if we just change the floor from three thousand to five hundred thousand, it'll go a long way. But um I I kind of feel that with the administration we have now, now's the opportunity.

1:15:43They w they were actually, I think, fairly receptive. They were gonna do some research, so we need to follow follow back to the message. That's

1:15:48right. That's right. I th I

1:15:49believe they feel that

1:15:50there needs to be some uh statutory changes so they will take some congressional action as well.

1:15:57Okay. Um so I like your idea as far as this on the swearing in. Uh and I think the timing of it's good. It might be even just fly in for a day and fly back the same day, whatever it may be. Uh but I think it's a really good idea. It's before the February, and if we can get some meetings in during that point or a quick fly up, fly back, it'll be quick and easy, and then we're kind of like Better than February because when February they got so many people coming in and at them. They don't have the full attention. But this way here it may be just they may you know what? They were here to support me when we get elected, so i

1:16:27I think that that's some good merit. Um I'm gonna be uh at Bayonet I've got a two resolutions. I'm helping with a uh Jeff Branick from uh Texas on the consortium. We're gonna try to speed up the process. Um With part one, it's like a four year deal. We're gonna try to get it down to two years. Nice that helps the money spend quicker. With the oversight that right now Treasury does, they want to kind of like unload that and we got a resolution to actually take it away from the Treasury and just like put the trust on us like they do with C D B D

1:16:57R regular money that we do. All the maintenance to make sure we're following the rules, we're trying to push that one through. That takes the burden off them and and and speeds up that process as well. Um I need your help on with with the Army Corps of Engineers, still with permitting stuff. But um something that just I just was alerted to this past week, the steps to recovery program that we spent three million dollars on opioid money. And Congressman Belarakas did a phenomenal job getting $1.5 million. That building has got CO

1:17:28ready to open. So I could take thirty-two veterans that are homeless right now and put them into these buildings. Exactly. So what what the problem is, is the feds have to do their inspection. They may not get it done until September. Well, hate to uh worry but anyone see the all the ring we had last night? Hurricane season's coming up. I could take thirty two veterans out of the woods and put them in this building. I haven't even reached out to Bill Araco Just found out about I need I'm gonna probably need your help like later

1:17:58today, tomorrow, and start pushing this thing forward. But I figured while I get you right here right now, it's a it's a it should be a real easy thing to get them to go do the inspection. If not Wait on the inspection, but let him house the people right now that are homeless. I mean they want to s all these programs we have for homeless and I get a chance to do it and the Fed G federal governments want to hold me down in sixty more days.

1:18:18That's a problem with the Section Eight vouchers as well.

1:18:20It's uh th this so it's an easy hopefully we can like I say work on this real quick. Um and I'm glad you covered the health benefit thing. And four rivers is like another project coming up that we could look at to get some help. We got some great success early, but I haven't seen the legs go on it, so that that would be a great appropriation coming up. Um and as well, just got some permits for internal to Hudson some uh canal restoration. we're doing. So we've got our our money but we'd like to get some matching funds with that too, so we'll get with you on that. We just had this this

1:18:50meeting just happened like I think it was Thursday, so Good stuff coming up.

1:18:57Um and I w I wanted to say repres Representative Luna reached out to me and we uh met Two weeks ago and you just reminded me that she was gonna come up and tour 'cause my district now is she's in holiday. So we're gonna take our little tour of Amskills, Metapol Ministries. Hope. Uh Pasco Hope. And um I'd like to get her up to the Bay Care Behavior Health. It's not it's not in her district, but she's very interested in all that kind of stuff.

1:19:25I think that's excellent. Just familiarizing her more with the new part of her district um now is really good so that we can when we get ready to submit our projects, she'll be familiar with what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:40Yeah. Thank you very much.

1:19:45Thank you, Tracy. Um I just also want to mention uh County Administrator has met with Representative Luna's staff as well. Uh had a great meeting with them. So they're they're looking forward to uh helping out in uh representing Pasco County. I just wanted to uh close on the federal uh I know Tracy has brought it up a couple of times. So we're gonna going forward, we're gonna have our federal legislative workshop on Tuesday, October 13th at the West Pasco Government Center in New Perici. Uh this

1:20:15will be time our time to finalize our federal legislative priorities policy and funding. Uh I'll invite our federal legislative delegation members and their representatives to be a part of that uh workshop. It'll be our first one that we've done at the federal level. Uh so going uh forward up until that point I encourage you to get with staff on any funding initiatives that you all want to look at at the federal level or any policy issues. The um Resolutions

1:20:47you uh mentioned, Commissioner Starkey, Commissioner Mariano, those will be part of our federal platform, uh, as well as Davis Bacon. There's there's several that we've been discussing throughout the years uh that will all be included in that. So now I want to take this opportunity to uh invite our state legislative lobby team to come forward and go over the recap of the twenty twenty six legislative session. And fingers crossed we don't have any more special uh sessions before the election,

1:21:17but I'm not gonna bet on that. Uh so Sean Foster with Sunrise Consulting, Mike Moore with the Southern Group, and Sarah Susky with Advocacy Partners. Please go.

1:21:30To uh start off the meeting a little fun, I looked over at Sarah and Mike. I said, I just got a text message. We've got another special session. Just a joke, just a joke. Uh thank you. I'm suffering from some little sinus and headaches, so I got a little raspy voices, but we're gonna get through it. Um it was an interesting session. I think every time we come here we say it was an interesting session, but I think we can all shake our heads. It was one of the most interesting sessions that we've had and we've had in a very long time. We're gonna go through it kind of quickly because I know there's uh some issues that we're concerned about and want to talk about, and then we'll end

1:22:00up gonna wrap up a little bit about some of the stuff that passed in in special session. We can go to the uh next page. Yep, just real quick, just overall, I'm going to give you an understanding of what happened before session, and then all the lobbyists will agree with me. It was really crazy. About three days before session started, they filed about 780 bills. You know, so here we tried to work things through session. You try to go through committee weeks, you try to go through before you even get that. If you don't have a bill heard before session starts, yes, you know you're already in trouble. So you can see we had a very low amount of

1:22:30bills that passed, probably not a bad thing, right? But it was a lot of that, just stuff was not going through committees. We would go to committees even in the first, second weeks of session, you'd have three, four bills on there, and uh, you could just see the purpose. was really being slowed down the whole session. So very low amount. You see about everything that happened during special session, during redistricting, essentially the house came in and said, We're not gonna hear your other two issues on on health care and The AI bill. Thank you. That the governor said he said we're

1:23:00not going to hear it. We're going to agree with the map. He signed, he died, he went home. He left the Senate with it. And that's how that map got got passed. So the speaker was pretty adamant about that. Special session E, of course, about uh the state budget and of course the property taxes. And again, we will talk about that as we go through on the next two. I kind of like this next slide. It kind of just breaks down a little. Bit on some of the changes. Um sorry, but studied that you'll see the governor's proposal. The governor's proposal was actually two billion dollars higher than last year's budget

1:23:31at 115. The Senate came in at 115, the House at 113. I always kind of like joke around what's a couple billion dollars amongst friends. Well, it's a couple special sessions. That's what it is up being. So I give you these two numbers because you you hear two different numbers. The governor truly signed a $114.6 billion budget. That is the budget that passed on through the House and the Senate. When you hear the higher number, the $117, those are considered back-of-the-bill issues. Those are the items that they are bringing back up that some can be spent

1:24:01in 2025-26 and in 26-27. But the actual budget that passed afterwards was $114 billion. The $117 is everything that's added on top. Of that in the back of the bill. We've had stuff that you're not able to expend in that time span and you asked the legislature to give you another year. This one here is kind of gives a great explanation. I want you to kind of look at this one on the left first. Our general revenue, so when you talk about a $117 billion, $114 billion budget, the $52 billion is truly that

1:24:31coming from the state. The other $60 billion plus is coming from the federal government as pass-throughs, that's coming through trust funds. But you can see that their general revenue has gone up by 50% from 2020 to 2021. That's a lot. And where that growth is happening.

1:24:47them

1:24:48you can see over here education is now the largest component with 38% you can see where it was before and of course health and human services we're kind of seeing our predictions from the revenue estimating conference that the health and human services is going to go up we have an older generation we have more people dying in the state of Florida being born every day We have more people dying in the state of Florida, so you can see the amount, the age is going up very much. So I think you'll see that one kind of trigger. That was part of the reasons why they wanted to limit a lot of

1:25:18cuts because they said, listen, we're going to have a lot of needs coming ahead in the years ahead. The needs are going to be greater than the income coming in. And we'll talk about that. And I'm going to let Sarah take the next one.

1:25:30All right. Well I think Mike was gonna take the first one, but wanted to Yeah, that's quite all right. I'll let you have

1:25:37right- We're so here. All right, well let's talk about funding for Pasco County. Obviously we had a really, really um great year and so appreciative of our delegation. Our delegation worked very, very hard. This year on these appropriations. So we're starting off with the East Pasco emergency shelter. So I had two legislators tell me that this was the hardest they ever worked on appropriations ever in their life. This started off at about a hundred per a hundred thousand dollar placeholder. I got bounced around quite a bit. Um got up in the house

1:26:07to uh just over About a million dollars or so. And then thankfully, with the help of obviously our delegation and our Senate president, you got up to five million dollars in the sprinkle. Throughout that process, I think this is important to talk about because there's a lot of people involved in this. This this took a lot of work from a lot of people. So So besides Representative Maggard and Senator Burgess sponsoring this, obviously the Senate President was very involved, the Speaker of the House was very involved, Chair Schoaf

1:26:37was very involved in this as well as Chair DeSigley. And then it came down to the wire where it almost didn't make it through, and thankfully, for a lot of effort. talking to the governor's office, talking to the governor himself and staff, Kevin Guthrie got involved as well. He had approved this and he had actually had a meeting with the governor the Thursday before he actually signed the budget as well and was very, very helpful. So we're very grateful that this got through. This has been the second year we've worked on it. And uh five million

1:27:07dollars is a is a is a big a big deal, especially if you look at what got through in this budget for appropriations. That's what they're fair.

1:27:15Awesome, and it's good to see everybody. And uh when we got here the room was packed. I thought everybody was really excited to hear about our legislative updates and what happened during session this year, but uh it's thinned out a little bit, but everything is good. So um the the county has had I think a really good thoughtful process for appropriations requests as The state level, and as you can see by what was funded and what you guys have applied for, you

1:27:46had a real focus on things that the state likes to partner with local governments on. So public safety, emergency response, um and so these all reflect that. The other two uh uh Appropriations that were approved this year are the Rangeland Boulevard extension that is creating a new evacuation route for the residents of Pasco County, multimodal connectivity, etc. So

1:28:16that is a fantastic project that was sponsored by Representative Steele and Chair Hooper, who we are very sad to be losing in. the legislature um but pasco county will certainly not be losing him uh going forward so excited excited for him to um to go back to you know his his life um and play a lot of golf hopefully um uh the other project that was um also funded is the decontamination truck

1:28:46for the firefighters here they They put forth a lot of effort, multiple trips to Tallahassee and a lot of meetings. And I know this was very important to all of you guys to make sure that our firefighters have the uh you know are protected from carcinogens as quickly as possible once they've saved lives and saved property um within the county. So very grateful to your legislative delegation, to all of your staff who worked very hard putting These appropriations requests together, and we're very pleased

1:29:17to that the governor approved these ones. So I'll pass it back.

1:29:22Just to end, obviously we'll be working closely with your team and yourselves and Ralph and Mike on next year's request. And one of the things we have to think about is you have new leadership coming in. You're going to have a new governor? You're gonna have a new Speaker of the House, and you're gonna have a new Senate president. Thankfully, we have amazing relationships with all the above, whoever that may be. But we know this next Senate president is gonna be Senator Boyd, and Sam Garrison's gonna be the Speaker of the House. So what we have to think about in the meantime, we'll have these conversations with them. Again, what

1:29:52are their priorities? What are they going to lean towards? Because we want to make sure that we're aligning with what some of their priorities are so things get through. So once we know who the governor is, we'll sit down with the governor and her his or her staff. But we will have some pre-meetings here coming up with the Senate President and the next Speaker of the House.

1:30:12I was gonna go into some of the the policy items. If if you have questions, you can obviously interject anytime or we can do them at the end, whatever whatever you fail. We try to go over some of the bills that have some policy impacts, and obviously anytime you increase FRS or make adjustments. So I wanted to just go over the brief. It was a big bill, but one of the items that came out of there was overall regular class employee costs uh decreased, while cost for the uh other employees class. Increase. The drop fund access. This was a big thing for folks here for the elected officials now

1:30:42at over age 59 and a half without terminating office, will have access to their drop funds. They did not have that before. They will not have access to their retirement, they will have access to their through their drop funds. The other one point here is really with the financial impact that you'll see is the 1.5% impact. But ultimately the overall retirement is up to 2.8 when you're talking about the special risk employees and their cola, as you know, that's assessed once a year. So that will have an impact for you all in the future. So

1:31:13moving down to the next. Mike and I are gonna share these a little bit. You're gonna start with the right-of-way.

1:31:17Yeah, sorry. All right, so first one sovereign immunity. We hear that every year. It keeps coming back and back and back. Um it did pass this year, but it got beat to the by the governor. Um what that would have done is raised the limits from $200,000 to $300,000, or incident to $350,000 and $500. They were trying to get this up to even $750. So it's into a million. We'll be surprised if it comes back again next year because the main sponsor will be back again next year. The governor did veto it. He stated

1:31:47that he was worried about frivolous lawsuits that could happen. He's also concerned about the impact it could have on the local government. So we are, I know Jeff probably.

1:32:05As you can see, we're just got we all work on these issues and um the next three are kind of explainable. Uh the DEI prohibition, uh the net zero policy uh prohibits any governmental agencies from taking action against supports of net zero. But the next one really here is kind of important too, is it mandates an annual ten percent reduction exercise and requires posting uh of employees' salaries for publicity. So Yeah a lot of this is gonna be oh you wanna say anything on that so we'll go to the next one?

1:32:32Well i it's uh just to go on that government um thirteen twenty nine there's a couple other things. Yeah that that was huge. It's obviously it's gonna have an impact on the county. I think Mike's taking a look at that in in Jeff as well. But there's a few other things I think I just wanted to point out because it's gonna require counties municipalities to post their tinder budgets online. Didn't

1:32:51we already do that?

1:32:52Well it's a ten it is five days before public hearing happen. Um you may already do that, I'm not sure, but you're required to do that going forward. Um but also one of the big things like like shop this budget exercise, mandating that that budget exercise and having it during a workshop and posting that you have this is what the results are and showing how you can reduce your budget by ten percent.

1:33:17Is this for state and local or just local?

1:33:20This is um county municipalities and it also it also it also affects um no it also

1:33:28as well. That they have not that the next thing will possibly. The next item um affect the constitutional as well. This is a this is something you don't permanently do, but it blu it it requires counties and municipalities to publish their quarterly compensation summaries online as well. So So your full your employees, what their salaries are, are gonna have to be published online going forward. Now you can still get access to that. It's public record, but it still doesn't go on the web on the site. And that actually affects constitutionals, not just municipalities and county commission.

1:33:59Um I think that's most there's some things about the impact fee

1:34:04And the

1:34:04XY development.

1:34:09Sorry. Gonna go through these in a little bit. Um allows code enforcement officers to enforce derelict vessels. Anchoring is subject to FT FWC approval that had not been there before, so that's giving us some of those rights and necessary. Matter of fact, I saw some out there. There's

1:34:24one in Gulf Harbor, it's all on fires. Yeah. sitting there for uh

1:34:27the Schimberg study this is this was really, really important. Um The House wanted to get rid of the Schimberg study at all. Remember the Schimberg study, right? It tells you what you can do with affordable housing. So it's now gone to three years. What does that mean? Well, it kind of weakens it, meaning now they can look over three years instead of a 12-month. They kind of saw the next 12 months and it was gonna be a huge difference to them, and it was more beneficial. if they did the three years, not as beneficial for us as counties

1:34:57for the three years on the Schimberg study. So I want to make that kind of clear. 290 real direct pre-limps local governments from restrictions on gas-powered small engines. There were some cities and counties around the states that had done that. And uh the last one, this was an issue too, restricts the use of excess funds from the building department to build a building to house building department. In the past we were able to do that. All of these bills that we just mentioned have you seen on the bottom there have all been approved by the governor. I'm gonna let you start off

1:35:28with the developer one, right? That's dumb.

1:35:33There we go. This is what we do all session. We do go back and forth. We're good at this guy. Sarah, I think you're jumping in on one of these coming at the end. Uh three ninety-nine, another just huge, huge bill. Uh I want to talk about four or five items that are on there real quick. Uh you can see the application fees for development and permits orders must relate to direct and reason reasonable costs. There's even issues in there about hourly and how We would look at an employee with hourly charges. Local governments must allow a school district and charter schools reasonable access to public easements and

1:36:03right-of-way and inter-local agreements. We have talked about that and seen that in the past. Number three, off-site constructed dwellings prohibits, this is a big one, local governments from restricting the use of off-site constructed residential dwellings beyond requirements. That apply to other types of residential dwellings in the same zoning district. Residential compatibility makes any change relating to residential compatibility. Local governments must include factors to assess compatible

1:36:34residential uses. In the last, you'll see again. This was uh approved by the governor. A local government cannot require additional property be purchased for approval of a compost facility. Yes, that was in there. I think that was the one in Orlando or Orange County uh that that issue was really big. But

1:36:53I I have a question on number four. Go ahead. Um does that preempt local um HOA documents

1:37:01or no? It's it's only us. It's only local documents. I didn't see that in there.

1:37:05Right. And that statute would just pertain to local documents.

1:37:08Oh, I'm sorry, number three.

1:37:09Right.

1:37:09Number three. Does that preempt HOA rules?

1:37:15I didn't see that either. I can follow Jeffrey I th Steiner, I didn't see that, no. I

1:37:20Normally they stay away from the right-of-way.

1:37:23Color of the house, what mulch they put in there, all that that you are not restricted to.

1:37:28Well I'm sorry, what did you say?

1:37:29Well I'm saying HOAs have a lot more flexibility that they can have in their um documents from telegram.

1:37:35Yeah, like we don't preempt with the

1:37:37Right.

1:37:37Yeah. We don't preempt them either.

1:37:39No, you don't preempt them. I'm just saying they could tell them, you

1:37:41know,

1:37:41what color of bark can be in their front yard. So

1:37:44All right, number four, residential compatibility. Is there like a new definition for compatibility?

1:37:49I wouldn't get that. I'm sorry. Andrew actually my Andrew in my office took the lead, but I will find that out for you.

1:37:54It's pretty

1:37:54awful.

1:37:55So does that deal with zoning or does it deal with land use?

1:37:59Zoning. Zoning.

1:38:01Okay. But you

1:38:04Yeah, y you're it's more to the zoning cla classification the What local government used to be able to determine as compatibility, they have now said needs to be in your codes. So it's We can we can give you a more detailed analysis of that it makes it more difficult for you to deny a project on the ba basis of compatible with the next

1:38:33meeting. I think it's maybe for the next meeting we're gonna have a little discussion point of that in the items.

1:38:39On on number one, I actually you know, I saw some abuses in the state on this. I I know of a city that might be in our county. Um where I had a friend who was building a house that was A very nice house in the three million dollar range. And they based the build the building permit on the value of the house. So he was paying. Uh almost a hundred thousand dollars, you know, for his Building permit review. What's

1:39:11is kinda crazy. He sued, but he didn't he ended up having to drop it.

1:39:16Okay. All right.

1:39:19Okay.

1:39:20But we can come back to that.

1:39:22Another big

1:39:22one, eight oh three.

1:39:25Yeah, so I'll I'll take this one. So talking more about that offsite manufactured homes uh must be allowed any zoning area where single detached homes are allowed. I I again Yeah, that's be a little redundant here but it's

1:39:44How I put it. Yeah, it's gonna be a problem. You know, it you know, for lots of the neighborhoods, um, not just within the county but within the cities as well. A lot of cities are very, very concerned about that 'cause a lot of the cities, municipalities, don't have as many HOAs, they don't have as many C D Ds as the county does, but it's still within the county. So that's turning out to be a really, really Big concern. Now, you know, I I'll let you listen to your attorney, but there may be ways that

1:40:14you can look at the structures themselves. And there's certain type you might be able to put certain thresholds on the structures. Jeff, I mean

1:40:29I mean we had talked about the board had talked about in the past, um, you know, things like the requirement for a garage. your normal manufactured home is not gonna come with a garage, so that might be a way that you could keep them out of a Construction, uh what we used to just have as as residential stick-built areas. Um

1:40:58Yeah.

1:40:58Yeah, so I think it's something obviously the county attorney's office has to discuss. So let's go to the uniform commercial permit application. The state's going to adopt a uniform commercial permit application to be used statewide for all commercial construction process. So they're gonna be working on that now, and I think it's by July, I think, of next year, this is going to be done. So all municipalities, all counties are gonna have to use that. Going forward. Um, next next slide. I can see it. So it's inspection fees, um, single-family home

1:41:29threshold. That's a big one for everybody here. Uh, no permits, new no permits required for single-family dwellings if the work is valued at less than seventy-five hundred dollars. That's great. Now, obviously, when it comes to electrical, plumbing, structural, mechanical, or gas work, obviously. Those are left out. But going forward, you know, that will have an impact, obviously, on your on your building department. You will not be able to charge for those items. Hurricane and flood protections. No permits permits are required for the installation of temporary residential hurricanes

1:41:59and flood protection walls or barriers going forward. An inspection fee. Um you're gonna have to take a close look at that. It's pro um prohibits inspection fees based on the total cost of the project. Fees must be based on actual costs occurred in the agency by the agency to perform and approve the inspection required for a permit. If you go to the next slide real quick.

1:42:26Yeah, that's right.

1:42:32I think

1:42:33I have a question on the inspection fee.

1:42:34Yeah, okay, go back if you would. Go back.

1:42:38Commissioner Starkey.

1:42:39I think we now have a fee. For the fire marshal? That goes under buildings, is that right? Every yeah. And Oh. Just curious if that's gonna fly with this.

1:42:55Oh, good. Uh thank you for the question. The fire fees are separate, they're not considered building permitting fees because it's under the fire administration. So we'll talk about that later in the

1:43:06session. Name and

1:43:07title. Oh JP Murphy, I'm Director of Business.

1:43:10Don't they go in businesses annually?

1:43:13Well I don't know the answer to that question. That would be left for the Chief.

1:43:16I think that started rec okay, here comes the fire cheek.

1:43:22Mr. Weightman. Uh Sean or Mike or whoever. On the glazing requirement, does that conflict with the federal rule? For windows? Because of global warming and whatnot, I

1:43:35I I I I I don't know what the federal rule is. I mean I again I know you guys like more, uh of course for the the looks of the building and everything else. I are you asking me, is it is the are we going more

1:43:47or less? Less. I think the the federal requirement

1:43:55I didn't know they had a

1:43:56For glazing.

1:43:58I'd have to chat cheap to you.

1:44:01I I'd be surprised though if they would they would get their staff.

1:44:12Yeah.

1:44:13That would surprise me. I'd surprise me that we'd be allowed to go less than the federal

1:44:18Well who would have thought we'd be talking about glazing in here? I didn't know we required glaze. I mean

1:44:24The the state just felt we were requiring more glass, but I think the understanding then this talking was going committee because it the aesthetics look better with a lot of the glass that you guys were asking.

1:44:35I was just I was just curious as well. I

1:44:37think one more thing to hit on this too is the private provider part of this. So it actually specifies permit fees for commercial construction. Project must be reduced by at least 25% when you use a private provider going forward. That's for plane reviews or building inspection services. They get to reduce it by at least 50% when a private provider is used for all plane reviews and building inspection services. So that's something else that will have an impact on return.

1:45:03Oh, here we

1:45:04go. Um the fire marshal was gonna answer my question just real fast. I mean that fire chief.

1:45:11Thank you Commissioner Oakley and Fire Chief. I think we charge a flat fee and then depending on square footage we have an increase around top of that for reinspections.

1:45:20Okay. If if someone could email me what it is, I'd

1:45:23absolutely

1:45:24Okay.

1:45:25Yep. The D.

1:45:29Yeah, there are no federal requirements.

1:45:32Did not for button. There wasn't for there wasn't for global warming and that whole deal? All right.

1:45:39Um and so uh related to those previous two bills, I think there have been a lot of concerns from local governments, you know, the manufactured homes provisions, et cetera. Um and I do feel that there are is a a desire of the legislative sponsors to address some concerns next year. So certainly, you know, once we've gone through Through all of the points of any of this legislation, certainly we ought to consider putting

1:46:10things on next year's legislative agenda if there's a fix for something that is that is truly concerning. And but just moving quickly through the next slide, we've got a bunch of biosolids legislation that was proposed this year. Um two bills that passed, one or two bills that were signed by the governor, one that was vetoed. So the first one, Senate Bill 290, um uh limits the land application

1:46:40of biosolids to only class AA biosolids. Um and so that is, you know, all of these things are here to help protect the environment. The House Bill 1245 was vetoed by the governor, and then House Bill 1285. um originated from an issue going on in the Panhandle and in a county within the Panhandle who spent significant time monetary

1:47:11resources to upgrade their wastewater treatment facility and still had some businesses in the area making applications to land apply their septage. And you know I think the county had a desire to protect the environment and and stop that from happening. So this legislation will create a 30-mile port perimeter around any um uh class B wastewater treatment facility if um uh you

1:47:41know if it has capacity and is close enough then people should not be land applying their uh biosolids.

1:47:48Question Chair.

1:47:49And so yes.

1:47:50Commissioner Weightman Does that go across county lines?

1:47:56Um I believe it's with a thirty mile radius.

1:47:59So thirty miles and it can go over like say Pasco into Hernando. There's not like a flow control Component to this.

1:48:07Let me look into that for you, but I believe that it's a statewide law and the thirty mile, but I I'll confirm that for you, Commissioner. Yes, sir. Um and then moving on. Data centers, gosh, you guys are dealing with it right now as we speak. And so there was legislation proposed this year. The initial legislation out of the House of Representatives would have, for all intents and purposes, banned large-scale data centers within our state

1:48:38through a lot of stakeholder input, and you would be You probably would not be surprised, but a lot of other folks would be surprised how many stakeholders are really interested in data centers. You know, there's an economic impact, there are sound concerns, there are Just a multitude of things that people are considering, and that I know is is on your agenda later this afternoon. But the legislature in their wisdom decided to take a more measured approach rather

1:49:08than banning them altogether. And they kind of created a framework for data centers within the state of Florida that they believe and the governor believes. Will protect consumers and homeowners within the state. So it prohibits utility companies from shifting any of the costs for the electricity, et cetera, to residents in the area by creating tariffs and prohibiting the splitting up of the load

1:49:39and trying to pretend like it's a it's a smaller, a bunch of smaller customers. When we all know that it's a big data center. They have also restricted water usage and encouraged the use of reuse water where available.

1:49:56U uh given the water management district, so the governor and DEP are very involved in water management districts as well, so I think that's a big backstop, but giving them permitting standards and and some authority over these facilities. Um it o also gave you guys control over zoning, planning, um, and permitting which is a a huge help. Um and also

1:50:24A lot of irony right there. I'm just going to say on the record there's a lot of irony. In S B four eight four. I'll leave it at that.

1:50:36Indeed. Um and the legislation also prohibits um utilities from contracting with foreign companies of concern um to try and keep some bad actors out of the United States related to data centers which are all over the place. So um and with that I think I will Pass it along.

1:50:56We're all we're all gonna kind of jump into this. So we're gonna end with this, uh folks. We're gonna be doing some property tax discussion and uh talk about it real quick. So as you know, this was the the big issue that happened in the special session. Uh it's gonna need 60% approval. I don't have to tell you about the numbers, 150 up to 250, but I what I will give you this. It just came out literally as we were sitting here. The revenue estimated conference just this is the reverse, this is not the Florida League of Cities, not the Floor Association of Counties. In year one, Pasco County will feel a $145

1:51:27million impact. In year five, that jumps to $336, year two, $250. Your special districts in year one are $5.9 million. And just the Day City alone, right here we're at, will have 1.1 million. It doubles almost in year five to two million. We're happy to share that that just came out right before we came out. I will say there's been a lot of speculation whether this is gonna pass or not pass. But let me give you this: three property tax exemptions have not passed since 2018. In 2018, the

1:51:57voters had an opportunity to increase the 25,000 up to 100, they voted that down. It was at 58%. It had no support, it had no opposition. They also voted two down in 2022. One that would have done law enforcement, teachers, and firefighters. They voted that down. And they also voted one down that would have helped families going through issues with recovery from a sinkhole to a hurricane. Remember, they did that one also, reducing it. So there are there is some huge. History uh with us voting them down. So trust for local

1:52:27governments of course was kept out in the schools of uh of that resolution. And the last thing right here, I'll let you go ahead and jump to that last one, Mike.

1:52:36If you if you would j go back to that just for a second. Um so I I I was reading once one poll was done maybe a week or so ago. Yes, sir. And it was said there was about a sixty-four percent chance of passing.

1:52:49Yeah, I heard that.

1:52:50I then just saw another one from USA Today, and that one that was a little bit skewed, it had like three percent more Democrats than Republicans, independents were neutral. Um that one showed fifty-four percent. Mm. So I mean this is a huge gap to what's going on.

1:53:05The polling that I have shown to you all know what a push poll is once they're notified of what the implications are of the parks, the libraries, those situations that impact us every day, uh the voting goes down. So when the push polls are done and they're say but would you still vote for it if you think that your library is gonna be restricted, or if your parks are gonna be restricted, or if your fees and other areas are gonna go up. That obviously hits it dramatically. There's a couple items with it. There's also a couple of lawsuits that are saying the way that it's done right now, saying the new homeowners uh cannot get the

1:53:35exemption for five years is not legal constitutionally. They're also finding the constitutionality of the language on the actual um there because they extended it and also the way that it's said. Uh

1:53:46but all they have to do is rewrite the language, right? It doesn't kill, does it mislead it? No, that's

1:53:51history.

1:53:53So Sean, when we were up in Tallahassee we talked about you know the growth that this county has. When we if we have to build the road, we don't build it for five years or five percent that's coming in. You gotta build it for a twenty-year road. When we built the overpass at 75, we built it way ahead of time to be a lot cheaper than You know, for fifty, sixty million dollars compared to we're going to spend 184 million to fifty four because we waited too long. So by being ahead ahead of the curve, wastewater plants you just talked about, advanced wastewater cost a lot more money. And we gotta build it. We don't build it for the 5%

1:54:23growth we got 2% growth we're coming. We're building it for 20 years down the road so we've got capacity and sometimes those surges throw your budget up. Ridge road. If Army Corps of Engineers was out of the way, we could have that thing done for one tenth the price. Right, right. Um when we're up there, you also mentioned as far as the growth with the government. So the state government, the slide you showed from 2021, fifty percent. That's the biggest slide out there. What was that growth been? Probably about the same. the same. So if we're so bad, yeah, what are they doing?

1:54:54And as they say, that's a one we'll take a look at.

1:55:09He also offered a quarter of a penny, and that was not. So he And the reason that they said it was a little bit more than a little bit. Here it comes the pun, is they said they knew that there was tougher times coming ahead and the needs were outlasting the funding and they couldn't reduce it.

1:55:23Okay, so tougher times are coming for them, but not for us.

1:55:32So when I look at it, they protected the schools, that's fifty percent of your tax budget.

1:55:37Right.

1:55:37They protected fire safety, which is at least. 50% of e budget. And now they're gonna take the twenty-five percent that's left, and that's what's gonna save everything to cut and eliminate property taxes. Absolutely absurd to me. Uh Commissioner Yeager.

1:55:51Okay. So my question is, and I guess we we kind of talked about it a little bit, but what is the financial outlook of the state? And the second part of it is The governor's grant has now been taken away by the House. So if property taxes do pass, so what what does that look like?

1:56:11I I'll do the first one real quick. Um the review SMA conference who just met does not give the best look uh for the state of Florida. The state of Florida does very well because we don't have an income tax. And why do we not have an income tax? Because we have tourism. So um I I'll say this. The sales tax is maintaining well Uh with tourism. The tourism just came down for the first time in 10 years. We had a small small slight reduction in the state of Florida for the tourism. We're also seeing those numbers down a little bit right now. Why? Because part

1:56:42of the economy. Another big factor was the unemployment. The unemployment has ticked up 0.1% every month since February. So we're at 4.1, we're starting to go to 4.6. They see that continue to To go. They also look at every avenue looking at permits. Permits for the state of Florida, maybe not all here in Pasco, but have gone down drastically to about one-third of what they were two years ago statewide. That is developers starting to see the need drop. Homes uh have stopped, and one of the things that has maintained,

1:57:12and I talked about a little bit earlier in the state of Florida is our growth. Our growth. Is not what it was back in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025. Saw a net migration of only 25,000 people coming to the state of Florida. The areas that you are still seeing growth are very, very few. We're not there. It is Sumter and it is Duvall. And what the Review Estimating Conference just said is with the population going down, because our state of Florida has done extremely well by people coming to Florida,

1:57:43that's where extra growth is. If the growth comes down, which is what they're predicting, that is going to become a lot more problems with us and the counties with the less growth coming into the state of Florida. It doesn't look good, and they're looking at a seven to eight billion dollar. less money than to meet all the needs three years from now for the state of Florida. Seven to eight billion dollars. That that is a huge number.

1:58:05And just just a follow up, you know For local government, we we go to you guys and say, Hey, we really need this decontract, hey, we really need this, and that's with the taxpayers' money. Right. So I just wonder what that looks like if it does pass, how are all these 'cause there's gonna be a lot of needy counties.

1:58:25Well, one of the things you see you have twenty seven counties in the state of Florida that call it fiscally constrained. That number will go up to thirty seven. We have six 67 counties in the state of Florida, 37 of the 67 will not be able to create more than $5 million per millage that they have in their county, meaning they can't build their schools, they can't build their county buildings, they can't build the Department of Health in 37 of the 67 counties if this passes.

1:58:50I heard the two of the state of the cash flow.

1:58:54Right. But I do want to say on the record, I am all for cutting taxes. We definitely need to cut, but um I just had some questions on if this does pass. So thank you.

1:59:04Ms. Turkey. Um Yeah, I heard some of those counties will have to merge. Um I also heard when we were at FAC um People were saying that they had heard from legislators that unless your millage is at ten, don't ask for any help from the state. Right.

1:59:21I I think some of the most immediate needs are gonna be special districts. You guys will have other areas. Special districts do not.

1:59:26Because we have one.

1:59:27So the number that I just showed you is for the special districts of the county are are unbelievable. So they're the ones that are gonna have a lot of trouble too throughout the state. Fire others.

1:59:45One one thing I wrote w read with Florida Tax Watch too, if and I've I said this a long time ago, if they put a higher sales tax in, that panhandle is gonna get crushed. Everybody's gonna go shop to the north like they do now, right? We see it in Tallahassee. And that is gonna if they do take the sales tax to offset all this, it goes from six percent to fifteen percent. That jump would actually devastate not only the panhandle, but now you go down south. And it's gonna whack everybody down there. And those counties that are in b bad shape now, it's gonna get even

2:00:15worse. So this whole thing could be a j a giant gigantic disaster for the state. So we're gonna treat I'm I'm gonna keep on getting the word out.

2:00:22I I I think it's important since rounds about it closed is again just to thank our uh legislators and thank our delegation for all their hard work, you know, when it came to preparations and things this year. You're gonna have two new members in the delegation this year, as it was stated earlier. Senator Hooper is or three. I'm sorry, you're right. Three, I forgot about steel. So you're gonna have three because Holcombs has um decided to move on, and you have um Representative Steele that's decided to move on, and then Hooper is retired. So you're gonna have three new members of your delegation coming up. So we

2:00:52will know by November, some earlier than that.

2:01:03I want to say I want to thank you guys for all the great work you've done. I I love that you guys work together. If you didn't work together as tightly as you did, we wouldn't have got what we got this year. So thank you for all working.

2:01:15Can I add one one thing onto that? Is that I wanna also thank you guys because this I we I say it every year but this session was was not easy. Last session wasn't easy. Um You know, they're they're trying to cut the budget every year, but our needs are going up. So I know you guys fight tooth and nail to the very end. And I know everything you guys put into it, so thank you very much. And um sometimes your job looks fun and glorious, but I know it's super hard and we appreciate you.

2:01:45Okay, so I wanna I wanna stop this Ralph. You wanna make some comments I'll have to do them later. Um I've got Bill Cronen here.