Initiatives considered in major funds

32:02All right, so what are some of the initiatives that are being considered in our major funds? So that first one, building inspections and permitting fund Of that 391,000 you see there, the biggest chunk is for Acela user um interface enhancements, roughly three hundred thousand of that is to make Acela more user-friendly for Um people who are using that software external to our county.

32:30And if I could, a little I want to talk about that just for a second. So maybe from building services. So I I know a cell is expensive. I know we're trying to improve it. They're trying to work with us to do that. I know we're also looking using different AI tools. Um talk it to others at the FAC conference. Uh they look at between balance and AI to go. And AI s looks like it's getting stronger and stronger, uh more economical as as time goes on. Compared to what that a seller user face is, are we better going that way or putting more money into

33:00AI or are we doing a balance of both?

33:03Uh Commissioner Oakley David Allen, um Assistant County Administrator of Development Service. We're doing a combination of both, um, looking at both enhancing and improving a SELA. Um I think one of the challenges that we have with that system is that it's a very expensive system and and for us to kind of walk away and flip the switch, if you will, to go to a different system would be Probably a order of millions of dollars. Um the other piece of it though is the AI component and we're looking at implementing the AI from several different strategies. One is to enhance

33:34and improve customer experience and make it easier for them to navigate through our system. And then secondly also to assist with the staffing reviews in particularly what what we'd consider more standard Types of reviews of say checking um setbacks on properties and those types of things. And I think the combination of those as well as other AI initiatives will help drive and reduce our overall operating costs for particularly from a staffing standpoint. I

34:04saw JP Murphy coming up to the microphone here. Who's our our building construction services director um who I'd like to have him add uh or cover anything that I may have missed on that one.

34:16Yeah, so just to to start, I think AI is certainly a component that we will be looking at evaluating how it works in the over overall permitting system, not only on the horizontal side, the building side, but as well as the the um excuse me, as well as the uh the horizontal side for planning, but the vertical side for building. Both of us are partnering and applying for a HUD grant for about $300 to a million and a half dollars right now. We're putting that package together to evaluate uh the use of AI in permitting.

34:47There are a couple different use cases that we are certainly evaluating. Some of them uh where we see our customers having the most frustration is on uh getting status updates, getting through plans, plans examination on the front end. We believe one critical piece is having what we call a plan pre-check, making sure the documents have all the information they need. That information is correct and is ready to go before they get into what we could call a compliance. That's one critical

35:17thing that AI is doing well right now. Where the intelligence uh and the the world of AI is learning is how to do plan review, actually how to look at a set of plans and evaluate things like means of egress, store sizes, and all of the the four hundred and twenty five things that a plans reviewer would look at. AI is just not quite there yet, and that's one of the things uh Wants us to help to look at. And so we're putting an application forward for that. And we also believe that there's a good use case for some agentic modeling on

35:48the simple stuff that just is transactional. So we can reduce some of the transaction times by evaluating that system as well.

35:56Yeah, one of the presentations I saw it was a Salesforce group that was up there and they showed a dialogue. with the gentleman talking into with the computer and go, Oh Todd Todd was there. uh going back and forth with a dialogue and actually coaching people, getting regular questions and bringing them along the way on how to get their pothole fixed or whatever it was all the way through and made sure at the end are you satisfied with what you got. So That technology, I I I I went through it on something else. I was doing just my own personal way on

36:27something else. So the technology is coming and coming. I just want to make sure we're in position to take advantage of it, not only just with building permitting, but the rest of the county as well.

36:35Yeah, and since you brought up Mr. Bailey, um we have been working together. We've sat through uh four different vendor presentations and have gone pretty da far down the road. We're looking at some test systems to do The HUD opportunity came up and it's kind of a dovetail opportunity for us to take that next step with a couple of those vendors. Yeah,

36:51well Todd Todd's a great asset. It was it was Todd, you did a great job up there at the uh at FAC presenting. He was one of the two people he had up on stage and they were like grilling questions, did a great presentation and really kinda open eye eyes of a lot of people about where the future's going. So Appreciate it.

37:07Commissioner Weightman. Mr. Allen, so you admittedly bas you you basically said that you're held hostage by a cell. If you transitioned it will cost this county millions of dollars. Did I hear you correctly? Yeah. I think

37:27So if we're trapped and held hostage by cell uh If we're renewing contracts with them or whatever we're working on, they we we need to have if we decide to go a different direction if something better comes out, we can't we can't be held hostage by them. I don't know what what ability we have to They have uh if there was ever a transition between platforms, but We've got to figure out a way to work with Acela and that team. That if we

37:57were to go a different direction that The whole process just comes to a crashing halt and it's a complete start over. So that's redundancy I think is probably important on that aspect.

38:10No, it's a great great comment, um Commissioner Weightman. And I think I think that's the challenge with some of these applications and systems is that um you know organizationally we make a decision to move forward with a system that we feel is best at the time. And then certainly technology improves, systems change, and then after a certain point in time, there's typically kind of a reassessment, reevaluation, is this really the best approach for us to continue moving forward? And and a cell is not unique in that aspect because

38:40you'll see see that for other types of systems that are utilized with with um you know county government municipal operations and so um you know it's just that we're kind of at that point where we've invested initially and and before we make a decision to kind of flip the switch or or really re- evaluate other alternatives. Um I think we're we're for lack of a better term stuck with what we have, but that's not to s say that we're stuck with that forever moving forward. I think that there's always opportunities to

39:10reevaluate and reassess.

39:12Well when you're talking with them Just let 'em know you're aware.

39:17Commissioner Oakley. Yeah. I just wanna chime in on a cellar 'cause I've been here ten years and The whole ten years I think every time something's come up about a cell, it's not been a good sound. So They've had a hard time working it into the programs to fit for Pasco County. Uh I know I've had talks before. Um with administration at all basically on doing away with a seller or some way to change a seller

39:47to make it more user friendly and help projects get through the through the system. Quicker and better. Uh One thing that comes up. Um with the different projects that come before us is the fact that At the beginning of a project Someone asking a question about what should I do about zoning? or going this way or that way with their project. and getting the wrong answer from staff. And I'm not

40:17naming out any particular person, it doesn't matter. But they get the wrong answer and they work through uh issue over the years and find out when they get done what they were told they should do, it's wrong. And then what do you do? You're five years down the road and this person spent all this time and money to to make it right with what we've told 'em to do, but yet it doesn't happen. It it comes out wrong. And it and I'm not talking about a

40:48lot of projects. I'm just talking about there's those through few that fall through the cracks and they get the wrong answer from staff to go either for zoning or some other plan to get their project ready to uh build to match up to their parent property they had. So I think those things all need to be looked at. So

41:12Years ago, um, we had a company called Opal. When they got here and they w they were gonna be the savior to make permanent great. And after about six, seven years, yeah. Locella came. We went a different way. Um and when I when I look at companies like a Microsoft that kinda like really protects their stuff and that's how they grew so much. They let didn't let people interface. Like Apple um was separate for so many years, but all of a sudden the t the technology with Apple got better than everybody else and all of a sudden a big shift over personally

41:43that people went that way. So I I think if a cell is gonna be protection ever s uh protect what they've got so you have to use them, et cetera. Maybe it is time to keep that outside look to go see maybe there was something better that's out there. So even though we've had it, even though we've invested We don't want to throw good money after bad. Yeah. And if it's time to make a move, make a shift, then let's let's keep that open mind to go and dissect what's the best thing to do, how do we see the future going? 'Cause the future's changing and as they say, all the technology out

42:13there right now in three months time, it could be even dramatically better. That's how fast this thing's moving so Just to go dump some money in because of interface if it doesn't really work and we don't think it's gonna long term, let's be ready for that before it goes. That's where I think Todd Bayley's gonna be very effective with that.

42:31No pressure, Todd. No pressure. No pressure. And and those of you who don't know, Todd was very, very involved as we're making transitions years ago in helping with IT with with permitting. So it's not something he's just stepped into. He's been he's been there.

42:47Todd, I'm gonna relieve some pressure for you. You're welcome. Chairman, we have an answer to your question on the retirement rates. Okay. So the the big muscle movements on retirement rates, there were three um classes of retirement that increased your special risk drop and elected officials, then your regular risk and your senior management, those went down. The specific amount that special risk increased was 2.4% over last year.

43:11Yeah, just look at us.

43:14All right, so let's move on to the Taurus Development Tax Fund. And now I want to remind you that on the previous slide, when we looked at the change in major funds, the overall fund, operating fund here, what the team is planning to spend, went down $46,000. That's inclusive of an almost $19,000 worth of BPIs where the team's looking at bringing in some digital marketing in-house, offsetting that with a reduction to their cost. contract and so this is just a great example of how the teams worked really, really hard to sift through What do

43:44we need to do? to Commissioner Weightman's earlier question, what can we do without? And where is it smart to pivot and take maybe some control of the work being done in-house versus an external consultant. So just kind of wanted to highlight that from the team. Good job, Adam and team. Um our fire and rescue MSTU, so really the two things happening here is we're building station four, so we're gonna have to put some people in there so we can operate it. And then we've got an additional fire truck at station 24, and so we've got to staff that as well.

44:15And then we move to stormwater management. So you'll see here it's two pieces of needed equipment, a VAC truck and then a grade all excavator, and then teams to operate that equipment. And then when we move to the Solid Waste System Fund, uh the big chunk of their initiatives really is the phase two of their Solid Waste Master Plan.

44:38If you would t talk to that a little bit, maybe Kevin could talk to that, because I think that's that's a great little thing you got there, that ash mining program. I mean that's that's something that we spend it we've spent a ton of money with ash as it's burned to go pile it up together. Now we first started doing we didn't have um the metals to become out, ferris and non ferrous. Now we've got like the best things going. So as Mike said yesterday, there's gold in the hills. Uh but that is something that's this is an investment

45:08we're gonna make that long term could actually shrink those cells and they're super expensive. And not gonna get any less expensive. So there's a great opportunity now with the latest technology, not only using it for asphalt base, but now for uh cement, which is like the biggest one going. So if you would Kevin, talk about what you see the future going for that for to be something that's gonna help us down

45:28the road. Good morning. Thank you. Uh Kevin Peliska is Solid Waste uh Director. And yes, uh we are making great strides in a little bit of a different direction than what has been done in before before with ash reuse. In the past, it was mainly focused towards road base or aggregate. Uh we believe we've found a potential long-term home that may be a a a better fit long term just from a a liability standpoint and really a partnership where we believe This can act

45:58truly as a commodity and have value, and we're being paid for it. We're making great strides with CMEX, where a certain portion of the bottom ash has the chemical and physical properties that they like that would be used in the raw mix going into the cement manufacturing. So actually making cement, not concrete. It's the flour in the cake recipe. So we're getting ready for the phase two trial. Um we're gonna run two weeks full production scale at

46:28CMEX in the upcoming month or so. Uh and if that is favorable, um, you know, we're our plan is to go into a third party production mode, as you mentioned, have a third party on our monofil getting all of the the residual metals out that have value. Producing an aggregate that would be an off take for CMEX. And the bottom line is we start reducing what's going into the monofil. I can't be I can't say we're gonna go completely negative, but what

46:58we're modeling right now is we would significantly delay the need to put a new cell in. and just the value, the time value of that money is significant. You know, adding a new 10 acre cell right now is between 15 and 20 million dollars. So if we can delay that five, seven years, it has great value. And then again, what happens with our recycling credits, our recycling per uh percentage and where we go in the state program. So I think it all goes towards, you know, our goal, the the

47:28strategic goal that the board has of protecting natural resources, right? And this is solid waste way of how we can potentially do that. Sorry for the long winded answer I got on a roll

47:39there. No no it's was it's an exciting topic because literally years ago those things were four million, they went to eight million, now we're up to fifteen. I mean that's a huge jump and it's not gonna get any less. Yeah. Like all this other thing. So what you're doing is phenomenal and if we can put it right to use it's great, and it might even save us money on some of the things we're gonna go do for our project. So I thought it was worthy of bringing up so thank you.

47:58Thank you, Kevin. And if I might add, this is just an e extraordinary example of Kevin and his team really living and role modeling our core value of innovation. It's kind of exciting to see.

48:11Can I bring up one more thing too? I see on the stormwater management fund, uh you got a VAC truck and a great old excavator. Now years ago They put some rules in place and it goes back to the the state mandates as far as what they make us do. This may be something to look at. We've got a team that's phenomenal. Uh anybody who's seen them in action, what they do out there is amazing. We had them at Gulf Highlands. We had like a f flooding problem out there, we had an overgrowth problem, and they come out there and just watching those guys get in there, take the

48:41dirt out, move it away, was just amazing. And and knowing they can do all these things. When we get these stormwater projects, do we have to go out for bid on these projects? Are there like dollar caps on that or can we do things in house when we choose?

48:56So I think the team always balances what we can do in-house with our own with our own forces. There's always a a risk and a and a best use of our resources equation that goes in. I mean typically any time we procure something, we do have to follow state law and procure things in in accordance with whatever that is, whether that's a an engineering project, whether that's a construction project, whether that's a vendor who's gonna come in and replace culverts. Those those always do have to be bid. There are certain things that we can self-perform. Uh if someone here from Public Works could uh maybe talk to that, uh I see Jason

49:26Mickel coming up as to specifically what you do in-house versus what you contract out, Jason. Good

49:32morning everybody. Jason Mickel, Public Works Director. Good morning, Commissioner. Yeah, we there there are things we can do um in-house. Keep in mind um we do have so many staff who um perform these duties for us. If we put them on large projects, which some they are capable of doing, um it can pull those resources into one area um that we're not able to get some of that routine work done. Um we we do balance that as Mike said. Um there are projects that our guys could work on.

50:03They are well versed in concrete work, so head walls structures, they can do that, certainly. But but we do have um we do have them on their everyday maintenance type of work. Ditch cleaning, storm drain cleaning, mowing, all the all the operational stuff that keeps all that water flowing through our system. And that's what some of the equipment you see here is going to help us continue to do is keep keep all that water moving, help us inspect our pipes, help us vac out some of those pipes, help

50:33us identify problems where we can make changes. That's the critical work that our teams typically do. But, Commissioner, as you know, we do sometimes have them do some of the bigger projects. But we do have in it a whole list of vendors that we work with out in the community. Right now, Now we have 14 and engineering firms that we work with for conceptual plans and design work, and then we work with our development community as well to go out and um bid out those projects, as you mentioned.

51:00So so bottom line, if we have a I'll just say call it a million dollar project, do we have to go out to bid on it? Can we do it internal? Is it our choice a hundred percent all the way through? Are there any any limitations from the state? Maybe it's a better call for purchasing, but I'm not sure. I'm just trying to think about the limitation of what we can do for projects on

51:16our own. From a from a procurement standpoint, if we decide that we're going to go out um and solicit a d um a vendor to do that work, yes, we go to bid.

51:26But I think I think Jason, the commissioner's question is, is are we mandated to do that? I mean if we had a ten million dollar project and we had the resources to do it, we could theoretically do that job. Now whether that's smart or not, that's another that's another question.

51:39No, we can we can self perform if we're qualified and capable of self performing we can. There are no mandates of what we do or what we don't have to put out for bid.

51:46All right, well anyway, you've done a phenomenal job, your whole team, for years now, so thank you. We used to always be on the news for this, that, or the other thing, but now it's like very, very seldom and it's because of your great work you're doing, so thank you.

51:57You told us we're doing too good of a job.

52:00Never too good. Keep going. Go higher and higher.

52:03Thanks.