Fire Station 4 construction match funding

1:36:08Very simple. Oh yes, correct. And our next one is Fire Station 4, which is located in the Starkey area off of 54. We are asking for a $7 million match to finish building that fire station. We currently have not identified funding for it. That service area was identified back in 2016 as being needed. Currently we've run to date over a thousand calls in that area, of which 89% of them have over

1:36:38a 12-minute response time. So we're in a bit of a desperate need for that.

1:36:43Chief, are we still considered uh one of the busiest ambulatory services in the state?

1:36:48Third busiest in the United States, sir.

1:36:55Again, your local match made. In the house, maybe just some issue.

1:37:03So Um it's I mean if it's a a a eleven million dollar project they the house would not even consider it that you had a fifty percent.

1:37:15Okay, um

1:37:15here comes data.

1:37:20So the uh seven million dollars is for uh that's a fifty percent match. So we are prepared to match uh the county's prepared for the other seven million.

1:37:29Well that needs to be reflected here. Yeah.

1:37:33It says four million local guys more than seven million.

1:37:38We just got uh recent uh construction costs for the newest fire station was fifteen million. So fourteen million is uh is uh

1:37:47Okay, so these numbers are up.

1:37:54Uh we talk for the counties where we're prepared to do a fifty-fifty match.

1:37:59Some of us still remember. and two person engines, so way back to the easy one. Former former

1:38:04firemen there. Senator, you know we're in a mobile home now. Uh

1:38:10No truck. You're at a mobile home now? What do you mean?

1:38:13Uh station nineteen uh flooded out, so we are in temporary housing there behind the fire station.

1:38:21Seven seven

1:38:21Springs

1:38:22Station is gonna eventually open.

1:38:24Eventually, yes.

1:38:25Well

1:38:25sure that

1:38:26for the last eight years we've been doing a lot for the fire stations. Yeah pretty times. Well that great.

1:38:35Yeah. So let me ask this Senator, if we're gonna go in ask you for seven for out of a fourteen million dollar project. Does the state have any hardcore if let's say we got the seven million from you and we went to the feds and we got seven million from them?

1:38:51They don't care what I I'm I Brandy can speak for the ho I don't think they care where the match comes from as long as it's at least fifty percent. It could be a combination of Okay.

1:39:05Ralph, if I may, uh I know that uh work session for both chambers. Um first committee week. Uh last year we had uh four thousand local funding requests. If you're in the Senate that's a hundred percent. uh totaling over three billion dollars in local funding asked. That number is going to be, I can assure you, significantly lower this year. Um How much I don't know, but uh I I'll use

1:39:35me for instance. Last year I probably had Fifty requests and we have six funding silos. We can't take money from healthcare and put it in education or vice versa.

1:39:47We have silos too.

1:39:50just as a reality check, this may be the year that uh me and Representative Maggart and everybody else may be asked to please identify your top three or four at each side. Don't send me twenty. So

1:40:08I can piggyback on that. I can pretty well tell you that's how the house is our speaker made it clear to us. He's cutting four billion dollars out of our budget. Yeah. In the next two years. So something's not gonna get funded. So we're gonna have to on the house side and we're still figuring out why, you know, we're we're there's a lot of you know we we have a lot of things going on. The three storms were the averted all of our attention right. So when I see stormwater projects and things like that, I think those may be a little bit more palatable

1:40:38to the state to try to solve the flooding issue. S cost issue relates back to our engines rates. Um they have talked many times about if it's a landlord issue landlord project it probably will not be looked favorably. That's coming to years. So we're still trying to figure out what that means.

1:41:00That's above my pay rate there. But I do know he's cutting back and he i if I didn't understand it, it's my fault. Uh

1:41:10We are going to be focusing on cutting because our cost of the budget running up compared to the cre increase of the people, we're way out of lack. Yeah, the kind the states decided let's stop it. Uh so we're dropping four billion. where the number came from, I wouldn't ask. Um but they have said it at every board meeting, every meeting I was just there Friday, I'm going Wednesday. They've said it over and over

1:41:40and over. Appropriations will not be there like they have been over the last six years.

1:41:47So be prepared for that. So I'm finding

1:41:50out

1:41:50that's

1:41:50what we can. And part of that's you know, with COVID money and post COVID money came flowing down from Washington, we had money we didn't know how to spend. Um Now I s I still believe that we're gonna create a a pot of money that will be labeled somewhat like disaster relief uh silo that. Communities like all up and down the west coast of Florida that need that infrastructure help to get back on their feet. that may be a funding source that

1:42:20we've never had before. And some of that money may come out of our fourteen billion dollar reserves, as it should. Um It may be a combination of general revenue and and resurveys, but Uh Representative Maggers right, I think both presiding officers have preached this message since before the election that uh post-COVID money is not there anymore and member projects will feel the pain of that probably more than any other

1:42:51part of the process.

1:42:53Um I I asked the um chief to come up just to mention how many fire stations we have opened up. You know, we we did a um a uh bond referendum for fire and we built uh s how many fire stations? Uh

1:43:10six right now. We're currently gonna open up two more.

1:43:12Yeah, so we're trying to keep up with the growth but we we're we just we're not there. Yeah we reopened the ice station. And we are Scaling back, I mean I I think if you look at seventeen it's absolutely beautiful, but maybe maybe there's some cost cutting we can do on the future ones so we can stretch our dollars eve even more. So just want to make sure

1:43:34you've got people that in the fire service they

1:43:36want

1:43:36to come work for Pasco County all of a sudden. I don't know

1:43:39why. D Set

1:43:43Many of the initiatives and motor and some of Actually included in the fire station. So the cancer initiatives that we've included in the fire station is a big selling point to a lot of individuals. So yeah.

1:43:53All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Which one are we on now?