R-38 fiscal year 2024 budget outlook

19:34Again now to the regular agenda, starting with R 38, presentation only.

19:47Good morning. Bob Burke, the Pasco County Budget Director.

19:56This morning we'd like to talk to you about our early thoughts on the economy for the upcoming year as well as the potential impact that might have on revenues for the fiscal year 2024 budgeting process. So we've all heard the horror stories out there. There's going to be a recession, there's not going to be a recession, there's going to be an economic downturn. There won't be an economic downturn. One thing we know is with the exception of the wild swing in the economy at the beginning of the uh COVID. The

20:27economy has been growing at about 2% per quarter for the past 10 years. We expect that trend to continue for the near upcoming future. And if there is a recession, we believe that our area, because of the growth in our region, we are much more able to withstand the negative impacts of any recession, more so than other areas of the economy. There are two economic indicators we are keeping. Keeping our eye on that, we do believe will have an impact on the 2024 budget. The first is the unemployment rate. As

20:58you know, the unemployment rate is at historic lows, which is causing wages to rise. So it's a simple supply and demand. As the supply of labor goes down, the demand of labor goes up, the cost of that labor also goes up. And you can see the impact on the economic or the employment cost of index there. It's been increasing uh every quarter since 2019. The second area that we're expecting to have an impact on the budget is inflation. Inflation is now 9.6%,

21:28down from its high of over 10% a few months ago. It has been declining. Uh the Fed is taking steps to reduce the inflation. And as the stimulus money moves through and out of the economy, we expect this inflation to go down. However, it's not going to be down anywhere near where we want this. So inflation for our purposes is primarily going to be impacting health care, energy, vehicles,

21:59and As Andrew Baxter is painfully aware, construction.

22:05So, in a nutshell looking at the economy, we are expecting the unemployment rate and inflation to impact our costs, our expenditures in 2024. One bright spot on the horizon is tourism is back to where it was prior to the pandemic. And tourism is important to us because about 12% of our sales tax revenue comes from visitors to the county. Building activity remains strong and just for planning purposes we're expecting this to continue

22:36to increase in the short term. In the long term, as the Fed increases interest rates to bring inflation down, that is also going to impact the mortgage rates, mortgage interest rates. So in the long term that's going to bring down the number of people who are willing to buy a house. So as we look at our permitting, you can see we are at record highs in our building permits, and for that reason we're expecting the 2024 taxable assessed values to be at or a little below where they were in 2023.

23:07As you can see in 2023 their taxable assessment values increased by 16.7%. We're just showing on the graph we expected. to increase anywhere between twelve and sixteen percent. So, for planning purposes, we've laid out three scenarios here. We don't believe the 8% scenario is a realistic scenario, although we do have it there for your viewing pleasure. But if we just look at the middle section there, if the taxable assessed values increase by 12%, that would yield an additional

23:37$35.5 million in property tax revenues. Of that $35 million, 40% percent of that or $14 million would be the sheriff's allocation. Almost three quarters of a million would go to the county's community redevelopment agencies. Two and a quarter million dollars would go to our tax increment financing district, which is the entire county, and that's used to fund transportation projects. And when we do the math, that would yield an additional almost eighteen point four million

24:08dollars for the board to spend on important new initiatives. So that would be money available to the board and any increases that constitutional officers may ask for. And we scope to the 16%. If they were to increase 16%, that would yield an additional $25 million for the board. So if we look at our other revenue sources, our half-cent sales tax revenue is our largest revenue other than property tax revenue in the general fund. As you can see here, month over month

24:38increases is about five percent. We expect that to continue, and we are expecting a five to six percent increase in half cent sales tax revenues in twenty twenty-four. Penny for Pasco, which the county uses for environmental Environmentally sensitive lands, transportation, public safety, and economic development. Again, this is increased of five point uh five five point two percent over last year, and we're expecting that to continue in the five to six percent uh increase in

25:082024. You can see those humps, those little blips that happen every so often. The reason for that is the state collects our uh internet sales tax. tax and then they distribute that to us on a quarterly basis.

25:21Here we have communication service tax. This is a 35 cent uh fee on your on your phone bill every month, and we use that to fund the 911 Center. As you can see, there's been a drastic reduction in that revenue between 2009 and today. Although in 2022 and estimate again in 2023, those communication service taxes are increasing at a about two percent per year. So we're projecting out in twenty twenty four that that will be again another two percent increase.

25:52Keep in mind that in twenty two thousand nine we received almost six million dollars in this communication service tax revenue. So we're making up that difference between the six million and the four million. We're making that up with general fund revenues.

26:07Local option fuel taxes. As you know, first local option fuel tax is used to repair existing roads. Second local option gas tax is used to add capacity to existing roads or to build new roads. As you can see they are increasing at about 2% per year, and as more and more electric vehicles come online, we're expecting that as well to sort of flatten out in the OL years. So as you saw, we're expecting increase in our tax bill assessed values, which

26:37will result in an increase in property taxes, or we're seeing an increase in revenues in our half-cent sales tax and so on, but at the same time we have additional revenues that we have to consider going into the into the 2024 budget. So we have the jail expansion. So that's expected to be completed next summer of 2024. And we're expecting that we will need upwards of 200 additional corrections officers to be able to safely manage that expanded space. We're looking at a new fire station, a new library, we're

27:07looking at uh taking over RAD Sports, the Wiregrass Sports Complex, and you can see all the other areas here that will be coming down the pike as additional expenditures for the 2024 bill. Yeah.

27:23So we are, as you can see, in 2023, new construction was at an all-time high, was even higher than in 2008. We are expecting that to reduce to kind of the average. We are not expecting this to stay at this very high level forever. And we're certainly not expecting it to drop off like it did during the recession. So don't anybody go out there and panic and say Your house today. We are expecting it to go down to about the average, so staying at this level doesn't isn't

27:54really all that uh relevant for the for the north near term or the long term. And so in general, the stimulus funding, we've got the stimulus funding, we don't see any more stimulus funding on the horizon. We are entering the twenty-four budget year optimistic, but we want to stay want to stay. Agile in case there is a recession or something that comes up that we need to respond to. We are expecting a significant increase in taxable assess values, but we must ensure that that spending is spent in a sustainable

28:24way so that when those taxable assess values do come down, we're not then left with these high expenditures that we can't maintain in the future. And so, because of that, we're recommending that we balance. New recurring expenditures with a significant piece of this new money going to capital spending, which are one-time spending. So if there is a downturn, if there is something that comes up, we can always pull back that one-time spending and not spend that. But it does allow us to address a lot of the capital

28:55spending that we haven't been able to meet in our parks, libraries, and so on. facilities. And so with that Here's our budget calendar. The tax collector, I'm sorry, the property appraiser will be giving us a preliminary taxable assessed values on June 1st and the final by July 1st. We will be back here on May 16th for a commission budget workshop. We will update you on the revenues, where we are with the revenues at that time. We will talk about business plan initiatives, which are new spending, which our department

29:25directors have recognized. And we will also be asking you for kind of your ideas of where you'd like to see them spending in 2024. And with that, that's all I have for you today. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

29:41Commissioner Weightman, thank you. I appreciate the update. I've shared this with staff, Mr. Krabala, and I think we'll have a discussion later later today with some of your team. As we go into this new funding season, I I think it's important that this board remember this new school tax. It's been coming online up to one mil. We're going to be implementing, potentially implementing the road paving MSTU. It's another one. Mm-hmm. The dredging MSBU,

30:11which the citizens want, but that's still that's number three. And then the potential and the conversation, you know, it's been going around about a potential fire MSTU, so that's another one. And then if there's conversation around, you know, the average normal increase of property tax increase of another three percent. So I just want to go on record to say, hey, we've got a handful of different, you know. taxing abilities that could be coming down all at all at once and I just think it'd

30:42be mindful in in the rollout and the timing and the setting of the rate depending on the direction that this board decides to go. So I just think it's important that we understand kind of the bigger picture that you were talking about here.

30:57Yeah. Mr. Bradford. Thank you Mr. Chair. Uh I concur with uh Commissioner Weightman all the different uh assets and all the different uh needs that we have, the additional uh constraints and pressures that we're gonna have on the budget. Um he says it much more eloquently than I do. Uh but it is a choice. Some of these are a choice. That's us up here making those choices.

31:27And uh that's what we were elected to do and I'm sure collectively as a board we will make the right choices. Thank you.

31:35Commissioner Oakley. Well as you look at the new year coming on and looking at the budget. Um I at first thought the uh values of home were going to come down a little bit, but then I understand it's it's at best pretty flat from same thing we had last year basically. But um along with that you have more than more expenses with inflation, so things have to be done that you can't Keep kicking can down the road and you have to take choices in doing those things.

32:08the fire MSU and also the uh our parks and things of that nature and And also the canals. The canals have been sitting there for years and years and no one's done anything about it. And now we've gone to set up an MSU to take care of those issues, not just for now, but from now on, to continue that along in maintenance. Personally I think they should have been done a long time ago and it would have already been in our budget. So that's something we should have taken care of. But

32:38you can't um you can't cut back mellage and you can't stop one day you're gonna have uh value start turning the other way and those extra m tax monies that you get in from citizens on their value of their property going up. will be used now, but as it turns south and goes goes down you're gonna be trimming that budget quite a bit to be able to you know provide for those different projects you want to do. So uh there's

33:08a day coming that uh that won't always be values like we've had in the last last few years, but it can change and go the other way just as well. And if you change your millage rates you change uh the ability to ever get that back. And you don't need to lose that that revenue to keep your county going. We're gonna be a premier county. We've we've got a lot of things happening in our county to be premier, but it costs money to be premier. So but we're on the right track. We've got a lot of fire stations coming on board that we

33:38didn't have before. And and and several of these things, the um citizens of Pasco County stood up and voted for her. And that's why they're on our budget right now for those bond issues that we put out. I think it was an eighteen so Those those some of those fire stations are just now we did the groundbreaking on fire station three yesterday over in Hudson and Jack's area and um gonna be a great addition. It's gonna cut down those things that citizens have been asking

34:08for. When they reach out and say we need help, we can't get service from our fire departments 'cause it takes thirty minutes to get here. Well that one yesterday was an infield in between stations that gonna cut that down to five and ten minutes. So we're doing the right thing for our citizens and I think they appreciate it and I know they appreciate it on those five bond issues that we had back in eighteen because they voted it in themselves without us having to vote it in. We would have, this board would have done that back then.

34:39But we were so proud of our citizens they stand up and and realize they want these things and we have to have some way to pay for it. That's how those bond issues got on there. I think things are going in the right order and we'll we'll pay special attention to those signs coming uh during this budget cycle to make sure we do the right thing. Commissioner Starkey.

35:01Yeah so I um actually asked staff to prepare some charts for you all especially for our new commissioners who may not know the history of um our millage rates and and things that happened to us in the past. So I don't know if you're able to put that up. Um but uh there was a time uh under the Gallagher regime and when things and the last big boom went out When our millage rate was really high and um and I this

35:32starts at 2004, I'd be kind of interested to see what it was even before 2004, but um our millage rate was at eight point six. and um value started increasing Um And and so the county commission rolled back the military. And and back in two thousand and four Um, you know, we didn't have a lot of businesses. It was mostly Damn. our government was funded by residential property values. And and things have changed, but um

36:02we're doing a lot better now. Uh we're still not where we want to be, I think, but you'll see um You'll see that the County Commission rolled the millage rate back from eight point six four to five point four. Is that coming up? And and I and I get that that they were being responsible stewards of the taxpayers' money, but they there were a few things that we didn't do then that we do now and that's forecasting capital needs. Like a new um uh

36:34new buildings, you know, growth, uh preparing for growth. uh even in with our own county government and our constitutional officers needs and they didn't put any money aside. And then but our our government was very responsive here. Uh but others around the state did not rule back their millage and people got angry and um they put the fort the Save Our Homes and the three percent cap And Pasco County got caught at that five point four.

37:05um valuation or taxable millage rate or millage rate. Uh and and we Killed our Our Libraries and our parks because our budget got hammered. And we are still recovering from that, I would tell you today. Um and it's one of the reasons why when we say w we are so low in comparison to other counties is because we went all the way down to five point four and then our ability

37:35to to uh raise that raise our budget. was h hampered. So So we are now at seven point six and we we have not raised taxes since twenty sixteen. We have been flat and doing doing the same nodes rate ever since then. But we are growing like crazy. And um I want to show you another chart that I had them made that shows us compared to our neighbors. And I hear this all the

38:05time. That's why people move to our county. is because we are we are um an inexpensive place to live compared to others in the area. So um could I have one of you guys explain this better than me? Um so this is the value of one mill comparatively to the other ca other areas around us?

38:23Absolutely. So you can see these different counties in our area, the blue would be the millage that for the general fund and then the orange or whatever that color is would be the other millages. So for us it would be the Fire M SDU and the general obligation bonds. Some of the others, such as uh Hillsboro and Penellas, they have an EMS millage, but there's different millages that they have. And so you can see how our millage stacks up to the others. The comparison that's interesting here is that that red line shows the

38:53value of one mill. So in In Pasco County, for example, one mill is equal to about, looks there to be about $30 million, whereas in Hillsboro, it's equal to $140 million. And the reason for that gap is because properties in Hillsboro are valued at a much higher rate than they are in Pasco. So we have to have a higher millage rate to generate the same amount of money as they do in these other jurisdictions.

39:19Yeah. And so other things that um as we discuss our budget going forward um to think about is is what comes out of our general fund. And I wrote it in a highlight so it's hard for me to read it. I was gonna try.

39:37It's our libraries. Our um parks. the monies, uh some of the monies that we use to combat homelessness Um the jail. Rescue. So we have a fire MSTU, but rescue comes out of the general fund. That's our ambulances, right? Um the sheriff. Uh the constitutional officers come out of our general fund. Our TIF is somewhat

40:08reliant reliant on our general fund. So that's you know helping fund transportation improvements around the county. And well I can't read I can't. Oh the CRAs. So the cities use that money, you know, to do their improvements within within their city. So you know I think we need to be be careful. Um because I I'm gonna guess that most of our constitutionals are gonna need some more money this year.

40:38And so uh I just wanted to lay that out there for for our for all of us.

40:45Thank you Mr Snarky um And I'll say we it's I was here in O four when it star when it started when your chart starts there and at the the emotion at the time was for everybody to cut the taxes wherever you can, stay fiscally conservative, that's what we're trying to do every step of the way. It was tough to foresee that when the downturn would happen that all of a sudden we'd be kept from the state and and and the restraints that were on there and all of a sudden we couldn't respond back to where our citizen would probably have said, look, go ahead and and raise it up

41:15and and put yourself in a position to uh plan for the future. And I'll say from that point This the previous boards looked at it to say, okay, let's go start building up our reserves and we got them up to sixteen point seven percent. And if you think about the logic to that, if We have a Hurricane Ian that comes here. One of those comes in, you better have reserves in place. And I think financially we're we're in great shape for that at this point. But at this time I think it's time to also be cautious that if there is another downturn, I mean Florida's

41:46gonna be straight, peop people strong people are still wanting to come to Florida in big droves. But if there's a big collapse up in the northeast All those people that are bringing down and paying money and cash for these places they're buying right now, because it's not the people financing they're buying right now. It's people have cash. And if things drop up there, and that that that's going to affect us big time. Uh I will say Consuela's here with with tourism. And tourism has done a good job working on the local market, the Florida market, to make sure they come. So if

42:16people can't afford to travel far away, they still may come in. and tourism could still be going on, establishing themselves. The ranch project is something that's good, the hockey ranks are good, Sun West is great, so you get reasons for people to come here and take the day trips to keep spending money. When you look at the cost of food, meals, I mean look at what it costs you to go to eat now. Look at what it costs you go buy your grocery bill now. You see those increases? They're not five percent. Ten, fifteen percent, whatever the number really is. Um I mean even it states here at nine point six

42:46percent. Um I do want to say a couple of things as far as the jail coming on. That's gonna be a big expense. And right now the allocation used to be I don't know what the ac the allocation used to be for the jail, but now we're only allocating ten percent of the Sheriff's previous budget to that. That number there is now gonna go from another thousand beds coming in. That's a big, big expense coming up. Now I do want to say that. With the Sheriff's Office in the past six years we have given him uh as we saw a a picture of the growth money that was coming in

43:16here. Um And I want to say as far as the ranking goes per capita, I had Bob kind of run the numbers. Population rank we're eleventh in funding the Sheriff. Cost per capita rank, we're only sixteenth. We're not that far out of the rings. So I think we're in pretty good shape as far as continue along to support the sheriff as we want to, but If this budget from the the jail goes up that much higher to numbers and I think Bob you're seeing numbers that may be kinda little scary how your costs are gonna go for

43:46things you gotta go buy right now that you gotta be a little conservative here where we're gonna go. Um I think we all heard and and and I know s uh Commissioner Bradford and Weightman just being on the campaign trail, you heard a lot about the fire service team and what's going on. And I will tell you it's so great to have all these ribbon cuttings, grand openings with all the great things we're doing to protect our firefighters, to serve Uh so they can serve our people better. I think we're doing some great things there. Um the ambulance is coming on play, so we're doing a lot of good things. Um some other changes coming up and and

44:16you you've seen it with Swift Mud. Uh Swift Mud has changed. They don't want to do these local projects anymore for for stormwater. We've got some projects right now. Matter of fact on the agenda, I don't think we had five items for Seed Pines. Phase three is still not funded yet. We've got to figure out how to take care of that. I'm gonna be saying I think we should take a close look at that at Stormara MSTU. Go look at what Swift Mud cut back. And we can deal with our own internally and let's go figure out what the difference would be to our citizens and maybe we need to increase it. to kind of get it to where we can keep our projects

44:46going on. Uh it it's so much better when you go to Jasmine Lakes and Timber Oaks that aren't flooding out all the time down in Trinity, the improvements were made down there. People don't want to get flooded out. We want to make sure we can protect these people. All the go bonds that went through. That was our citizens telling us they want more services. And I think com people coming from the Northeast. They don't want just a a slim line county government. They want someone who's going to provide services like they're used to. They voted on it. They told us they wanted to do it. The paving assessment MSTU, I think, is going to be a phenomenal thing. Um

45:18And I think Just We can always keep it to the higher level. If you're gonna cut later on, later on's the time to cut. But let's go through the process. Um and just kind of keep the millage where it's at and keep on rolling. Mr. Stark.

45:32And I read today and I've been hearing this that the legislature is looking at going uh with the Save Our Homes cap from three percent to two percent. Um so that's something else that we need to think of. Um you know I I think we're we're all uh conservative thinkers up here and um Uh, and it's you know, only once in my life did I really vote to raise a tax and that was when we were losing our deputies to Hillsborough County and City of Tampa. And it and you know, sometimes

46:04you just have to really analyze the numbers and it was cheaper for us to raise the millage and pay for increased salaries than to train deputies for three years and ship them off to another municipality. So, you know, we just had to bite the bullet and do it. Um But You know, I I'm sure you guys get hammered by the people who are citizens who need more playing fields. And that is general revenue money and we're

46:34still years away, years away from catching up on where we's we should be with playing fields compared to our population growth.

46:43Mr. Chairman Mariano. I just want to add something to what you said about the uh The jail, the new portion of the jail for a thousand beds. W I think we're only gonna get somewhere around six hundred beds out of the money that we put aside for that bond issue. because of the inflation was so high at the time we couldn't finish that out to to a thousand beds. So we're still short of beds in the future that we're gonna have to prepare to take on and take you know, build that out to have a thousand

47:13beds, so Just and our population is growing and and that geopopulation will grow the same way.

47:20Yeah. And and I think the people they they look at, you know, part of the go bonds with parks and libraries, literally we had to cut it thirty percent back when the economy dropped. Thirty percent. Uh we put park fees in place with Commissioner Starkey didn't want to hear me argue about those fees anymore. For a long time. But we we mean I understand what the board was doing, but I didn't like 'em, still wouldn't have done it again. But anyway, that's the type of battle that was going on because you didn't have the funding. You had to take care of your core services first, the safety first and then everything else you could go do, and that's where it fell. I don't want to put us in that situation again. And I think our people have clearly said, Look,

47:50we want you not only to get services back to where they were, but they're willing to back it up with the funding to go forward with it. So it's an opportunity where It's a different game from what it was, I'll say, eighteen years ago. People want the services. I think they like what the board's doing. And I think we should continue on providing services that they're asking us for. We're not just raising taxes, we're giving them the services they want. Yeah.

48:13Okay.

48:15Well we have ways to go still on the budget. Yes we have. I will say um we used to do this a lot later in the year. Um and uh when I went through the advanced uh commissioner classes with FAC We had the opportunity to go through the budgeting process with Leon County. And um it was such an eye opening process because we we would be fighting about things in September, you know. I don't remember. Yeah,

48:45it was very contentious. And I mean the summer was stressful. And so um this was and Michelle Baker was our county administrator at the time and we um put and I you weren't here I don't think then. No. And so we we had um some conference calls with the team in Leon County. in um our staff and Michelle worked with Leon County staff and we adopted their budget process. So we we now start much earlier than um Then

49:16we used to. And I mean, it's nothing like what it used to be in September and August when we were all still fighting over everything in the budget. And I I always tell other counties, you should look and see what Leanne County did and you know we adopted that so we start so much earlier in it. So much better for all

49:33of

49:33us.

49:33Well it's a large it's a large budget to go through. Yeah. Some of our departments, their budgets and their departments are larger than budgets for some cities around. So but but they're a very large process to put all that together and starting early is nothing wrong with starting early and yeah getting it done.

49:50Yeah. And you know we we do need we always tweak it near the end because we don't know where that final number's gonna be when we get those numbers um you know towards the end and we we know what we pretty have a pretty good idea what w we can add and And it's like a little gift at the end kind of for some departments, not everybody. But I I really like the way we do it and I'm appreciate appreciative of our staff. Starting so early.

50:22And I wanna say just one thing I meant to touch on as far as the budget goes. Keep in mind we just did a pace study, went through, looked at our employees, because if you don't have good employees, you don't get things done anyway. So we've gone through that and we've raised the pay. I mean we had stormwater utility people who were making not m not a lot of money and now they're being compensated for the for the job they do. And I tell you when you can take your internal people and grow them and let them go, that money gets spent right back in your economy anyway. So it's all it's all gonna be right here. Absolutely. Thank you. Bob

50:53your team's doing a great job. Thank you.

50:54More code officers, more code officers, more code.

50:59So so I I would I would like to publicly thank Bob and

51:04can I get on that one? Yes, yes, yes.

51:09So I would I would like to publicly thank Mr. Chair if I could Bob Bob and his team for a phenomenal job. Yes, as you point out, Commissioner Starkey, uh this this team has been working on the budget since December. All right. So these these things have been going forward and uh I think we appreciate the opportunity to have the revenue forecast discussion with all of you to kind of get your thoughts and input as we we take all that into account as we build the budget, build a responsible budget that provides the services that our citizens want and do it in an affordable way.

51:39You know, that that's not lost on us. And so we'll continue. I think I'll get to see some of the first rounds of these budgets in April, and then we'll be coming back. To the board in May with a little more detailed discussion on what those expense items look like. Yes, there's a lot of demand for a lot of different things, and so we'll we'll be looking to the board too for some guidance on how to finalize and craft that into something that's going to work for our citizens. I would also like to add, too, that Bob and his team were looking forward to and trying to leverage grants and other outside funding sources too to leverage

52:09our taxpayers' dollars. That's something that uh we we really need to focus strongly on and that we intend to in the coming years to bring home more more of our taxpayer dollars that get spent in other places to bring them back to Pasco County to leverage that. So Okay,

52:23Commissioner Starkey?

52:23Well Commissioner had his hand up before

52:25um Since you brought it up, Ms. Tardy, about code enforcement. I find it and I guess this question is Mr Steinstein or it's just a question to see, but it seems like code enforcement sometimes is their hands are tied because they can't go on the property to Verify if someone's doing the right thing for a conditional use, whatever. Can't You can't actually check it, can't go on the property or make any checks like that. Why is that? Is there something

52:56in the law or ordinance we need to change or?

52:59Well it's more difficult uh Mr. Chairman Mari Commissioner Oakley it's more difficult when you're dealing with residential uses. Um

53:11But the legislature has also made it more difficult not taking anonymous complaints, that but anything that the that the code officers can view visually, they can enforce. Problem is if it's behind a fence, behind the wall, there you go. That's the issue. That's you know, you there we would have to get administrative warrants and then you'd have to have a probable cause. to get back in to do those inspections.

53:41Then it's too late.

53:45So let me follow that.

53:48That stumbling block is a good thing. So let me let me follow that Commissioner County Attorney. On a special exception, can we change the laws, the rules to like put in inspections?

54:01So so special exceptions are would like would be diff uh a different situations. Those things which we are enforcing general approvals that we've given, I think there are Well we'd have to deal with those on a case by case basis, but yes. But y the when somebody applies for a permit, they open themselves up for inspection. The continuance of a use that is a

54:31privilege would also, I believe, give us the same rights.

54:40If it's a permitted use of the right-of-way. Maybe, maybe not. I mean we'd we'd have to go over the particular uses that you're that you're having concern with and figure out what it is we're dealing with. Okay.

54:56Mr. Starkey?

54:57Well on on that same line and then I'm gonna

54:59say what

55:00I was gonna say before. Um I I actually was talking with one of our legislators yesterday at the fire station. And ribbon cutting that seems to me our hands are tied on some code enforcement action where we don't really want them to be, especially when we have people squatting uh on on land that they shouldn't be. And so um in talking with our legislator, uh He said bring

55:30me ideas and suggestions so uh we wanted to meet we plan to meet with our attorney's office and see if and our code enforcement people and staff and see if there's any ideas that maybe legislatively let us legislatively we can do. that help um take care of these problems because it's just not it's just not fair to the community when you know we have people living in places that they shouldn't and there's syringes and everything there and

56:00there's nothing we can do and they contaminate our wells and I mean it just we just need more tools and sometimes maybe some tweaks in the law will give us some more opportunity to make sure we're have a safe community. Did you want to comment on that same line? Because I'm going to turn to a different direction.

56:19You go right ahead.

56:20Uh well this'll only be a thirty second commercial. But um

56:24in crayon?

56:26Uh I just want to say again that um as we're talking about MSTUs, I have been asking and asking and advocating for a PARCS MSTU. And the reason why I feel strongly about it is because um we are so far behind Uh Bexley needs their little league field we complex. We actually have a Starkey Little League, um I don't rem District now and they have no field to play. So w so it is the first new little league since I moved here thirty something years

56:56ago. We always played out at uh um on Pine Hill, but now we have a whole new one and they have no fields. So uh I know we're talking about raising the impact fee Um but that is not money that you can bond and that's gonna take a while to build up so that we have capital money to go build some more parks. Um But an MSTU we can bond. And I'm not saying it should be a big number. I think it should be you know, twenty five dollars or something like that. But it it gets

57:27some money in the hopper quickly and we can bond it and go build some soccer fields and baseball fields because we are way behind. So I think that was more than 30 seconds.

57:37We got another resolution. Mr. Chairman Mariano Don't we have another at all?

57:43Uh but Mr. Bradford Mr. Bradford is a good question.

57:47I'd just thought you could make a comment. I'm I'm always gonna fight for my district like everybody else does and I I completely understand uh building a uh aquatic center uh on the west side for for our kids to learn how to swim 'cause drowning is the number one cause of death. Uh I understand uh I live in Bexley. Uh so I understand that issue there. In my particular district the the the parks are so old and

58:17then the one on Little Road, Bitchell Park, Well it's a nice part. It's a beautiful piece of property, but when it rains you need a canoe. So it's not really apart half the time. So um I I just share that with you to keep it on the radar screen and I uh and I appreciate you keeping that in mind.

58:37Thank you. That Mitchell Park is a big thing we've talked about for for a long time. Um and I think between the opportunities at Newport Corners, Magnolia Valley and there, there's a one of our budget requests this year is to actually go and fund that to go through to raise those those fields up. think all that together is and again I think I mentioned la maybe last month that we need to go study Magnolia Valley, Newfoundland Corners and find out what's the best next move to make. Right. Come on. Is that anything else in the budget? Okay.