county administrator and Amendment 3 website

4:16:18Very good. Alright, County Administrator.

4:16:21Uh two really, really quick things. Yes, shout out to the fire rescue team as well as members of our public services team. Uh uh just a great EM. Everyone came together on that on that fire, including one new member of our team. I I think John Gross is here. John, would you stand up? Where are you at? There he is. John is our uh new fire marshal and he got thrown literally into the fire with one of the largest uh fires that we had here in the county. So welcome. I just wanted to introduce him.

4:16:47Have you been here all afternoon? Alright, well you get a clap for just staying and hanging out all day.

4:16:54Uh the second thing that I have is at the last meeting uh the board instructed us to come back with um information related to amendment three. Uh I have Amy Farrell here. She can give you a three-minute overview of a draft website that we have come up with to educate the public on amendment three. Amy.

4:17:14Alright, so there's a couple, I'll call it um major muscle movements. On the draft website as it stands right now. So one piece of the story that we noticed when we were looking at when and where education was happening was um Why the impact, the potential loss of revenue might be an impact. When you look at total budget, we've got a $2.2 billion budget. So the first thing we did was to frame it in what we're calling restricted versus unrestricted funds. So we have a lot of different funding sources that come in, but there's laws

4:17:44and rules tied to how we can spend them. So the first thing we did was break out: okay, 61% of our budget has has a lot of rules around it and those things that are funded by property taxes, by and large, it is not lawful or legal for us to use 61% of our budget to fund those things. So when we're talking about the tax reform, we're really talking about 39% of our overall budget that would be impacted. Then we drop down to show you using visual graphics what that impact looks like. per

4:18:15major levy. So the first one we're looking at is our general operating levy. Then we move into our fire rescue levy and then we move into that road paving levee. Then we send them back to our main budget page if they want other information on our current fiscal year 26 adopted budget or any previous budgets. Fiscal year 27 is forthcoming. Then we drop into two sections, one that are frequently asked questions, and then the second one are links to other resources for additional

4:18:45information.

4:18:47Questions. Can you flip those again just a little bit slower? Oh,

4:18:51I went real fast. He said three minutes.

4:18:53I said

4:18:53I can beat you.

4:18:55So you have beating on there? Go ahead. Fire rescue?

4:18:59Mm-hmm.

4:19:00Susan Safety. Alright, now what about parks, libraries, senior services, et cetera?

4:19:06So that would all fall under citizen safety and services. And so we call out what some of those things are in the narrative around the graphics.

4:19:16So I think it's important though because people are gonna need to need to know they're hit the hardest when we have cuts. We had the O se o oh eight, oh nine big budget cuts when the property values crashed. Parks and libraries get hit like twenty nine percent. And we know that's where it's gonna come first. We heard a gentleman talking about we don't have enough park space out there today, hear it all the time, all over the county. I think you need to bring that out to show what that budget is and how much we're spending. Because people need to see what we have. I

4:19:46I think that's part of the cut that's gonna be coming somewhere.

4:19:50So as part of that four hundred and twenty eight million that that I'm looking at there, uh either a drop down or or a table or something that can add what makes that number up.

4:20:01Yeah, you gotta I

4:20:02mean how much

4:20:03do we spend on

4:20:04senior services? That's a drill down, that's easy.

4:20:09How many officers do we have, Kathy? How many veterans offices do we have? Seven? Yes.

4:20:15Um senior services. How many people are waiting for meals on wheels? How many people may get lost? I mean, th these are like the things heart and felt that you you guys fight for that you know people need to know.

4:20:29That's good. Any other feedback?

4:20:34But that looks awesome.

4:20:35Okay, well we'll take that feedback and uh thanks. I'll send the kudos back

4:20:39to

4:20:39media. Uh get that live as soon as we make those changes. Thank you.

4:20:43Yep. I mean you don't have to wait for that, you can still do it and then just change them later. So I'm sure that's up there, but uh

4:20:49Awesome. Alright. I have.

4:20:51Okay.

4:20:51Alright, thank you.

4:20:54Hey Amy, in In the can y'all pull that back up, please.

4:21:02So in the diagram, the photo, does it shows uh what the amendment shows as uh uh what the legislature defines as uh necessary and not I think it's important that folks see, okay, here's what the state deems as necessary because parks and libraries aren't deemed as necessary in in in the funding, right? Or what

4:21:32whatever their terminology So

4:21:34the mand like our mandated services?

4:21:36No, the the property tax amendment defines like hey you can What you can and can't fool

4:21:42with. It doesn't, it doesn't. That's the part that's um interesting, I'll call it, because in the bill there's actually a directive in there, if it's voted on and approved, that the legislator would come back and further define how we're allowed to spend that money. It's kind of vague right now. So it's not clear and the legislator says we will come back and define it should this pass.

4:22:06So we can I mean I can give it the old college try.

4:22:13Can I ask for questions? Yeah,

4:22:16So w we can pull some of that language in here. Um there is a a bit of there that's it's vague.

4:22:24'Cause I I was under the maybe I misunderstood that parks and and libraries which a lot of our constituency deem as as necessary and critical to the, you know, life and well being and quality of life that our our county provides uh and the state views that as It's not necessary.

4:22:47Those items weren't specifically called out. Yeah. So so we'll go through the language and we can put in there what's clear and I can add specific bill language. Um, right. So then it's plain, it's plain, it's what's in the bill. It's not Pasco County's interpretation of it. Um, and then the What's called out versus not called out w would also be apparent. Es

4:23:08Kids?

4:23:10No?

4:23:11Okay.

4:23:12He got his crick he got his pat pickleball and ran.

4:23:16I just asked that question.

4:23:20Well go ahead.

4:23:21I was just thinking like if if um Keith had a close to real number a guesstimate of what people would pay for um, little league and things like that, you know, for the parks.

4:23:36I can ask.

4:23:38I know he had a number, but I don't know if he's comfortable sharing that number.

4:23:41And maybe maybe the comparison we use from way back when, how much rates went up compared to what people used to pay before the property tax cuts of of n of twenty ten, maybe how much he had to cut them or raise those fees up might just be an indicator 'cause we're not saying we haven't voted what we're gonna do. But let people see to make the offset. You might even look at the library hours. We actually shut down one library. We cut hours back on everything else. Maybe that needs to be kind of shown the cuts they face if they pick the number

4:24:12Well then then I I don't know if we're walking a fine line between educating and then Okay. Let's do this. Let's take the feedback that Commissioner Weightman had provided in your first comment. Let's go live and then I'll we can end up.

4:24:28So

4:24:29my question is why do you stop at year two when the the amendment says it allows for full elimination?

4:24:36Because the it allows for it, but another action item that the legislator will have if this passes is to build in a timeline for the full elimination.

4:24:47But you could have a you could have a bubble that shows full elimination without a year.

4:24:51Yeah, I could. It felt me for lack of a better word. So we just went for the

4:24:58amendment. I mean but the amendment I mean, but I guess my point is that uh the full elimination is only on Homestead though.

4:25:05Yes.

4:25:06So you still could show how much l revenue we lose with a complete loss of homestead.

4:25:16I mean it's not the entire budget, but I mean you could show what that effect would be.

4:25:20W I mean we could. I mean the language does say full elimination,

4:25:24correct?

4:25:32I'm just saying you could show it, just not show it here.

4:25:35You just add a fourth a fourth link in your chain. Okay.

4:25:39No, I mean I think the voters deserve to know what the effect of full elimination is.

4:25:44I mean that's a good point.

4:25:45Mm-hmm. What about unfunded mandates?

4:25:49For a line. I think that's a tweak because that's a that's a term we've used kind of internally here with the board and with and with you guys. I mean it is certainly a topic that Amy and the committee that we have formed are are going to be looking at because unfunded mandates are just things that the state says thou shalt do as a local government, but we're not providing you any money for for those types of things.

4:26:11Uh

4:26:12that that could be additional education that we can provide. Uh let me look and see how we do that and and come back to you guys with that.

4:26:18Because when when you break break it down, if that property tech amendment goes through, we go to your three, four, five, cuts are even more dramatic. It that's probably not a bad thing to see. Here's what they're telling us we've got to pay for now, how are they gonna pay for it? Because we won't have the money. Um

4:26:38Is there anything in there that says to make budget before we can go back to the state to look for money that we have to go raise our millage on commercial

4:26:48I think that's just talk. I I I I haven't seen anything official. I mean there there have been I've heard secondhand that there have been conversations. I can't confirm that anyone has actually said that. Correct. On the amount that I'm aware of, no. Okay. No,

4:27:06but that's cut to five percent where now the cap is ten percent.

4:27:10The cap is ten percent. Yeah, but the commissioner's talking about like increasing millage to say ten mills before we seek any sort of additional dollars from Tallahassee. I think that's that was the hearsay.

4:27:20But that was part of what the I think the governor's plan or whatever.

4:27:26Say that again, Kabishaki.

4:27:28Uh that's what was circulated at FACT by some of the legislators who were there. that they would expect us to do everything at home to raise as much money before we asked them for money to help for local things.

4:27:44So so in essence they're accent a so in essence they're we want you to cut taxes but we want you to raise taxes before you come talk to us. That's in essence of what's being that's the message that's being sent. That's wild. Mm-hmm.

4:28:03That's what just what was that I had when I was there at that. Mm-hmm.

4:28:10Alright, well we got enough to get started with, so let's take this, run with it, and if we want to look at any of the tweaks, we can look at that. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job.

4:28:18I'm done, sir.