Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners Board Workshop Budget Process Update for March 6th 2025 Let the records show all commissioners are present if you please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, one under God, and individual with liberty and justice for all. Okay, Mr. Flores, any comments before we move on to the first item? Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you. If I could just a couple of comments just to kind of set the tone for today's first workshop. We'll go over financial condition with you. We have some good, at least favorable news that we can weather some future storms or challenges that we know are coming down the line. I will talk about projected staffing levels based on the discussions we have had with you as a board level of services and those desired services that we want to serve the community. And then the last thing is just bringing back confirming some of your comments, revisions to the strategic focus area goals that we heard when we were at the family service center. So we can formalize those and get moving on those. So with that, I will turn it over to Francine, budget. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mrs. Elizabeth, you have the floor. Okay, good afternoon commissioners. Francine, let's be assistant budget director for the record. Welcome to your next budget workshop for the fiscal year 2627 process. For today's agenda, we'll be providing an overview of financial trends. We'll complete our policy review. We have preliminary projections to go over, and then we'll look at confirming your BCC strategic goals that we're discussing your retreat. As you know, we've been in the budget process for several months now. In the month of March, we are going to be meeting with each department to review their operations and programs, we'll confirm their request and prepare for their meetings with administration. Each department will be presenting their budgets to administration in the month of April. In May, we'll be hosting your BCC Strategic Focus Area workshops. That's during those workshops, we'll review operations, service levels, and cost by strategic focus area workshops. During those workshops we'll review operations, service levels and cost by strategic focus area and then we'll be providing you efforts to advance the BCC goals. In July we'll be bringing a tentative budget as well as asking you to set the tentative milled rates and then we'll be hosting MSBU public hearings if necessary. And then of course in September we'll be hosting a series of public hearings to adopt the 26th budget as well as set the final milled rates, the final MSBU rates and then approve the capital improvement program. This item on the agenda is to provide an overview of financial trends. Today we'll be looking at revenues, expenditures, we'll discuss property valuations, and then I'll provide employee stats. Commissioner, is this first pie chart is all funds and all sources. Commissioner Constance. What did you want to wait? Well, it's going to be these two slides. So I think it would be helpful to, when you say all funds, all sources, give us the full number so we understand the weight of these percentages in real dollars and the same thing for general fund. So I understand again, the real you know, the full amount. You don't have to, I guess you could break down the numbers for each one, but that might get kind of busy on the slide. But at least if you had an understanding of what the total amount when you say all funds and when you say general fund, what is that big number? Because this is not, you know, charges for services. This is not MSBUs in here. This is just, or is it? So charges for services here are utility rate payers and our ambulance fees. But if you look at assessments, that is all MSBUs. And then when we get to general fund, that will not be the case. Right. And so all funds is a monstrous number, and then general fund is one probably one tenth of that or something in that order, but having that big number, having those big numbers up really helps us get oriented. Because pie charts are, I mean, every time we get this, I have to just compliment you and a Gordon and your team, because I always ask for a little bit more visual representation but every time we do it it would be helpful to have just a little bit more information. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Okay, so looking at all funds, all sources of revenue for fiscal year 24, the slices of this pie have not changed dramatically since two years ago when we brought you this information. Of course, taxes makes up the largest portion of the pie. We have charges for services, as I mentioned, is our utility rate fees as well as our ambulance fees. We have assessments, which is our MSPU assessments. And then our intergovernment is our state-shared revenue and our gas tax, things of that nature. Looking at General Fund for Fiscal Year 24, this pie includes our Advenomorm taxes, which is the orange slice of the pie, charges for services now include just our ambulance fees, and then we have our license and permits. I do want to point out that we have seen an increase in interest revenue over the last several years and that is just due to market rates going up so we felt that interest was warranted its own slice of the pie this around. So I've included that here as well. Commissioner, this is our major revenues. As you know, we collect various types of revenues. Many more than what are listed here. These are our top 16. These combined make up 80% of our total revenue. I do want to point out interest earnings once again has jumped to the top of the list. So we're collecting about $47 million of interest on an annual basis right now. That was not always the case. So we'll keep that in mind as we move forward and interest rates may change. Federal grants commissioners 48 million that does include our reimbursements from Hurricane Ann that we received in fiscal year 24 so that makes up approximately 33 million dollars of that. Moving on to expenditures. For all fund expenditures for fiscal year 24, once again, no major changes to this pie from what you've seen in the past. All of these categories are self-explanatory. I would say physical environment for those that may be watching. That includes our landfill and our waterway MSB use, as well as our utilities. When we look at general fund expenditures for fiscal year 24, the largest portion of this pie is general government. We have public safety, which is AMS and emergency management, culture and recreation, as well as our transfers here. So the transfers pie, the slice of the pie includes how we support other funds, for example, MPO, transit, the health department, things that we transfer out of general fund to support those programs. This is a breakdown of our total adopted budget down to our net budget. So commissioners you know that each year we asked you to adopt a budget in fiscal year 25. We asked you to adopt a budget of 2.2 billion dollars. But if we peel back each of those layers to get down to the net budget it really provides a little bit more information on how we're structured and what we must budget. So if we take out our transfers, which include some of the information I just provided you for general funds, so the way that we transfer money from fund to fund in government accounting, if we take those out of the adopted budget, we're down to $2 billion. Then if we take out in the state of Florida we must budget our beginning balances and our reserves and we've discussed that we've never have an intent to spend that but we must include it in our budget. So once we peel that back we're down to 1.3 billion. And then what I've added here is the purple line represents what we actually spend. So in fiscal year 24, now these are unaudited financials. But we spent $811 million. So there's still a significant gap from the 1.3 million, which is our net amended budget, compared to what we're spending $811 million. And the reason for that is the way that our budget is structured. So we're made up of more capital than we operating currently in our budget. And the way that we have to budget for our capital is we have to front load that budget. So before we can go out to bid on any project, regardless if it's going to be a project that expands several years, We have to budget those dollars in the first year knowing that we will have to then re-budget as the project progresses. So that's that big gap between what we're spending versus what our net budget represents. Yes, so that would be about 500 million? Yeah, and any given year that could change but absolutely currently. Okay thank you. We're going to go on and later on in the presentation to show you some other variances to the budget compared to actual and and that'll explain some other variances there as well. Commissioner Johnson. Yeah and again for the slides with the pie charts for all expend all funds expenditures and general funds expenditures put same thing, put just the full amount so that we can just easily do the percentages. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. OK, moving on to property valuations. Comissures, this graph tells the history of our assessed valuations since 1985. We all know the story of the spike in 27 and 28 and how quickly that came down. Over the last several years we've seen a gradual increase until recently and we really have experienced higher assessed valuations than in the past. So with that being said, I do want to point out that when you look at from 23 to 25, those bars are slightly skewed because we had hurricane E and damages that were coming off and then coming back on in a very quick matter of time. So for example, in 24, that bar would be higher if we didn't experience Hurricane Ian in pulling properties off of the tax roll and then in 25 they all came back on or the majority of them so that caused that bar to jump higher. Mr. Constance. Yeah thank you Mr. Chair. So I mean, if you look back though, it kind of goes in order with what happened back after Charlie, because if you look after Charlie, it didn't go up that much for the first year or two, and then it spiked, and that's exactly what's happening after Ian again. So these are the post hurricane effects. You have a disastrous thing occur. Property, it just happens that the real estate cycles are hitting just about when the hurricanes are hitting every 20 years. And so we're seeing prices that were headed up. There's a little bit of a, you know, attenuation and then the rebuilding and then the new houses and then the refurbished houses, all those values shooting up post-event. And I think that's what we're experiencing again. Absolutely and we're going to talk shortly about Helene and Melton and the impacts of those as well. Thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you. And yet, go along with that. We also had big spikes of new development then and now with our growth at 33%. So we've had a double combination whammy when it comes to hurricanes and growth and they've been kind of simultaneous. I totally agree with Mr. Chair, but this growth, what's happening now, significantly dwarfs anything that happened post-Charlie, and then there was a major recession that hit which kind of dumped everything out. We've had many years of just real good prosperity in the development sector. And I think that's, you know, that's why this is really going to shoot up. And I mean, I don't know where this is going to start to level off because, you know, it's not even here. We've talked about, you know, growth around the O'Calla area. I mean, just name a place in Florida. It's exploding. It's happening everywhere in the state. So yeah, we're not unusual. No, and we may be seeing a little bit of level for two years before it spikes again because of all the rebuilding that's gonna have to take place after Helena Milton. Very good. Thank you, but you're sure. Yeah, thank you. Go ahead. So, commissioners, I do want to point out because of the healthy assessed valuation increases that we've seen, you all have taken the opportunity over the last two budget cycles to lower the milledrate two times. So that is something that you all took the opportunity to do when the time was right. So if we looked at our revenues and how they would follow the same trend line, but not as steep when we barged changes because of the lowered military recently. Okay, so we presented a slide in the past. This is what we bring to you as part of the July presentation. When we try, we use this slide to explain the revenue increase that we're expecting once we get valuations. So last year, we were anticipating before the milled deduction of $45 million increase to revenue. And the categories that contributed to that was homestead properties. So we know that our homestead properties are capped out at 3%. So those properties contributed $3.3 million to the increase in the revenue. Then we had new construction, which was close to $7.3 million. Now included in that is Sunseeker coming on. So if we keep that in mind, $2.7 million of that revenue went directly to the CRA. Then we have non-residential, which is not capped at $8.2 million. And then the other category is the real estate market. So as we see properties that may have been homesteaded or capped each year for an increase in their taxable value, once they go on the market and are sold at a higher price, they are then their taxable value is adjusted. So as we see those come on at a higher price that contributed $18.5 million to that revenue. And then as I mentioned, we had Hurricane E and come back on the tax role. So we had the majority of properties that were taken off the tax role the previous year, come back on and that was close to $8 million. You have a question for you about the Sunseeker. The total project I put on the tax roles, I understand they went before the special magistrate. Do you have the final number of their total tax bill? Is that- Tax bill or taxable value? Taxable value. 303 million. Okay. I say that with confidence because I did talk to Paul Polk about it. Okay. So was that less than Paul's office had first a sentence? I'm not sure about that. Or was that a result of the special magic show? I would have to find that out. OK, I just want to make sure we're reflecting the correct number. That's my point. That sounds like you're talking about it. And I did go online to verify that number too. OK, thank you. OK, so all of this to be said that we don't expect to see the same evaluations of what we've seen the last two years. So if we just use these categories to talk about what we're projecting for the future to help us prepare as part of this budget cycle, I could say that for the homestead category, I do anticipate that we'll see close to these dollars because I think they'll be capped about 2.9% this year so probably close to that. But when we look at new construction, as I mentioned, we're not gonna have Sunseeker come back on, but then also what we like to use is our residential permits as an indicator. So if you look in 2022, we know it takes about two years from a time of residential permit as poll to when those properties get on the tax roll on average. So we were experiencing that increase in new construction because of that 2022 bar. This year we're going to be looking at that 2023 bar. So slightly lower and we just have to prepare for that as well. Then when we talk about the other category which made up the majority of that increase, we like to look at the dollar volume of sales. So I will say when you compare 2023 to 2024, very similar in the dollar volume of sales. So I do think that we're going to see properties that were on the tax roll at a lower value that are going to come back on at a much higher value. However, we did add this slide because this is new information. This is from 2024. And as you can see over the last four months, the inventory in the market has jumped significantly. So I think that we're seeing a real estate market where inventory is high. We're changing to a buyer's market. I think that's going to impact the market value of the homes that are being sold as well. It could potentially impact new construction and the quantity of new construction that happens in the community. It is. Currently it is. And then finally we have to take into consideration the impacts of Hurricane Helene and Milton. I did have a conversation with our property or prisoner Paul Polk. He did say that his team has finalized their, they completed their final review. He was not able to provide me new updated numbers, but I should have them shortly. This information was based off of their preliminary review. So they're anticipating approximately $650 million taken off the tax roll, which would calculate to an advellorm loss of close to $4 million. He also mentioned that the Hurricane Helene and Milton properties different than Hurricane Ian. Most of those properties were destroyed, so we probably will not see them come back on the tax roll as quickly as we did for Ian. And that could also be driving our inventory up because a lot of those properties he's seeing as being sold as is, so as those can be flooding the market as well right now. In a different sense. Yeah, but the difference is that nobody's coming down to move into a rectome or basically an empty lot. So you're right that might be a little bit misleading that there's much more inventory but think of it as raw land. We have plenty of that. It's just not on the market because there's so much of it. You know, it's just got to knock on the door and say, hey, I want to buy your lot. But yeah, I think what's going to be interesting with that number is to see um, were you in the queue? No, he said no going. Not going to do over an empty lot. He's going to be interesting with Helene and Milton. How many of those homes are actually uninhabitable and what percentage are just fixing them up. They're going to move back in. You may only see 30% of that taxable value not come back the way it used to be and maybe 70% will be phased in over the next two years. We don't know that at this point. So we might not, while it's a significant loss this year, we may see some of that recaptured in the next two years is what I'm thinking. We just don't know the number. I have Commissioner Trux and then Constance. So your right is going to take, it's probably going to take more than two years in many cases, but not at all. And when they do come back, they're going to be significantly more valuable on the tax rules than what was currently there because most of those old cottages that are gone, they were taxed very low. They're 50% rule values if you will, were low. So many, many, many of them cannot rebuild without violating FEMA's 50% rule. Good point. Mr. Constance. He's a mine reader. Because that was going to be my question, sort of. So it's one thing if it's an investment property or second home or vacation home on Englewood Beach, they're paying whatever the value is, they're not homesteaded. But there are some where they are homesteaded. Do you get to keep your homestead if you've been pushed out of your house? So that's a question. You know, I mean if you're no longer living at that residence, but you own that property at what point? Because I guess as long as you don't homestead someplace else, but it's a legal question. I just want to find out, how is that addressed? And maybe we need an opinion from Mr. Polk about, so what period of time? they're going to reestablish residents someplace. And then if they move to another place, well now that's no longer homesteaded, so then the next tax year, it may be an empty lot, but it's on the water and it's not going to be taxed at half a million anymore. It's going to be taxed at a million and a half based on like sales in the area. So just that's going to change that calculus as well. There may be some protections. Commissioner Truex. I was just gonna say they're gonna be vacant lots before they're rebuilt and then whether or not they homestead will be depending on the use, right? So. Right, but I mean, some point that that vacant lot gets valued and then taxed at that new value because it's no longer being lived as the homestead property. So... Yeah, I understand what you're saying. You know, what is the legal... It's a legal dilemma for the homeowner. Right. You know, I can't imagine that the property prazer with a natural event. There's got to be some pathway for these people to maintain their homestead value while they're living renting somewhere else. Or you're lose it but to get penalized right but to Commissioner Trux's point it kind of it gets moot because you know they have to rebuild completely and when they rebuild completely gets reassessed and that's the new homesteaded value you can't get away from it so that's a huge increase in the tax base that way. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Rancid, you have the floor. Okay, and then finally, we'll take into consideration that in November, the homestead inflationary adjustment was approved. We're anticipating 3%, most likely going to be 2.9% once again. And that calculation is approximately $300,000 of advalor and loss. So what that means is that $25,000 exemption this year is going to be worth $25,700 as part of your tax, property tax bill. So after going through all of those components, we do believe that we're going to see a lower assessed value that we've experienced from the last two years. When we look at projections today, we were conservative. We built in 10% for the next two years and then dropped that down to 6.5%. And we'll talk through that as we go through those projection slides. Okay. moving on to employees. Commissioners, this is our employee FTE counts each year as of 10, 1, 2024. If you look at fiscal year 2024, that bar, as you know, as part of our strategic plan, we added a bold goal last budget cycle to optimize the organization based off levels of service. So as a part of the budget process, we did bring you and requested new positions for approval. And those were rebuilt into that 24 blue line bar. And then we have our vacant positions in the green, sorry, in the orange bar. I do want to note that when those positions came to you for approval, we built them in in 2024, but several of those positions were not authorized by the administrator to be filled until 2025. So they can potentially continue to be vacant right now. When I pulled our vacant positions, we have 20% of our positions that are currently vacant on hold for several different reasons. So an example of why we might have something on hold that we're not trying to recruit currently would be maybe we're waiting for equipment to come in. That's the case with some of our public works positions. So we don't want to have the staff hired before the equipment arrives. Or if we're still working out agreements with the MOU, with different MOUs for public works for De Creek and West County, they may not be filling those positions. And then we have departments such as community services that have libraries that are offline, rec centers that that are offline due to hurricanes, so we're holding positions there as well. On this next slide, commissioners, we are comparing our employee count to the population. So here you can see employees per 1,000 population. We did see an uptick in 2024, and once again that was due to that rice sizing of the organization. When we compare ourselves to other counties or surrounding counties you could see still very much in line compared to the counties represented here. Any questions before we move on to policy review? Okay. So per charter we review our debt and reserve policy on an annual basis. This slide provides the types of reserves that we have, cash carry forward reserves is the reserves that we hold for expenditures that are going to happen in the months of October and November of each fiscal year because we know that our largest revenue is our ad volume tax and we don't receive that until November, December, January time time frying. Contingency reserves is to help us mitigate any future or current risk. Fiscal stabilization is to address any immediate changes in cost to be able to maintain our levels of service and then most recently important is in case of a hurricane. For future capital reserves, though it is held for future projects and equipment, mostly in our capital funds and then we have restricted reserves. So those reserves are exactly that, they're restricted, they're allocated for a specific reason and they cannot be used, except for that purpose. In this case, we have, the utility has restricted reserves as well as the landfill. For our reserve policy, we've set targets. So, for our reserve for contingency and cash carry forward, Our current targets are set at a balance not less than 5% and not greater than 10% of the total budget. For fiscal stabilization, we have a target of a balance not less than 15% of the general fund. So commissioners, this is what I brought you in December for our general fund reserves. And today I have excellent news. So we are at the point in the budget process where we review our reserves. We're also at a point where we've completed our CARES Act program as well as our ARPA plan. As you know we saw close to $70 million come down from the federal government during the pandemic time and that was spread across several years and then we brought you all a plan to allocate those resources and that was spread over additional years. So now we are at the point where we can reconcile that we know those are closed so we feel comfortable bringing you this number of $147 million and then what I've done is I've compared that to the 25 budget and updated the targets here. Now in addition we know that the last five years we've experienced extraordinary circumstances. So unlikely that we're going to see those federal dollars come in like they once were. But then we're also we're impacted due to Hurricane Ian. So anytime we have a storm, the organization goes into recovery mode. We are trying to make sure that the streets are safe, all of our parks, our buildings, so and all of those expenses for emergency protective measures, as well as debris removal, get shifted to the hurricane fund because we are in hopes that we're going to be reimbursed by the federal and state government. So a lot of the expenditures that we forego, as part of our normal operations that we budget, are now going towards that that hurricane fund so because we have to shift gears on what we have to focus on. So once again, I think that those are the major contributors to this. I do have a breakdown by year of the last five years and it just goes to show that this is extraordinary. We don't expect this to happen again. We should definitely not anticipate it in the future and then I can provide you some more information on we're going to go over some fiscal year 24 variances and then talk about the future. But if you look here for 21 and 22, that's the federal dollars coming in. But then in 22, we started to feel the impacts of Hurricane Ian, of course. And that's continued. So we still have, as I mentioned, we still have facilities that are offline, programs that are not being done. And we can see that that is continued through 2024. In addition, we know that the supply chain has been an issue. So we are still, we have an equipment in Comberd that we're waiting to receive, that we're going to have to re-budget in the future, and we're working on that as well. Any questions? Okay, so when we look at our adveloorm reserves for fiscal year 24 and the largest variances between our budget versus our actual, and I think 24 is important to look at because we know the previous years were due to the pandemic and EM, but if we look at just 24, we can narrow it in. So we have revenue, once I mentioned to you all, we had a significantly lower budget for revenue, of interest revenue. For the general fund, last year, we brought in $4.6 million more than we anticipated. For constitutional, $10.5 million was returned from the Constitutionals. Now the majority of that was from the sheriff. And then this year we did receive a request of $2.5 million to rebuild their current helicopter. So that expenditure will be offset in the fiscal year 25 budget. However, you all did lower the military for the sheriff. So I don't anticipate that we're going to see that same return come back from them on an annual basis. For expenditures, our largest savings were in salaries and wages. We looked at those employee graphs. We saw the vacancies there. Definitely, the largest contributor to that, it would be that we also have those positions that are on hold, so we saw savings of $7.7 million. And then capital outlay is what I mentioned, things that are encumbered, but we're just waiting to receive. We still struggle with that. However, I will say I think that that is starting to get better. And then of course we need to talk about our potential exposure to hurricanes. As the hurricanes and how we handle them on the accounting front does impact the general fund balance that you're seeing. So I think it's important to remember that we have $95 million, a negative fund balance in the hurricane fund of $95 million right now. Commissioner Council. No thank you. So yeah question about each one of these. So the hurricaneian total cost is 190 million it looks like and we've been reimbursed 80 million so now we're up to 110 million that we need reimbursement for and 100 million is in FEMA's hands asking for reimbursement or We're at 90 as the end of fiscal year 24 we're at 95 million dollars. So we've got 94 million or so from between insurance and FEMA okay So is the majority of what's remaining FEMA or We're're still waiting on- 90-10 maybe. Yeah. And then the Hurricane Helene and Milton future protected cost. So that's current and future costs rolled up into one because we haven't really realized on paper what we've been spending. That's that's that's going to come but you're it's all rolled up into that $80 million we feel fairly confident that that's that's the right area there. The Hazard mitigation grant match is that state federal combination? This is just our portion of the match. So where's the other coming from? From the hazard mitigation is from FEMA. FEMA. Okay. And I will say just so you know this is only Ian and Idleia. We did receive communication that we are eligible for hazard mitigation grants for the other storms now. So Debbie, Helena, Milton. So that could be an additional $20 million of grant match that we would have to build into our future budgets. So this is this 40 possibly 60 is going to be what we're going to be responsible for but we'll get another 40 or 60 to match that. Okay that's it thank you so. Oh no it's more than that our match is is 25% yeah. Our match is 25% okay. Yes. Yes. Very good. Thank you. And I also I don't know if you mentioned that are we still have future projected cost just for Ian still so for all that's another 95 million dollars. Right for all the storms. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so this is the broad picture of our reserves. What I've done here is I've updated that advalorem number to reflect the balance that was provided today at $147 million. I've also updated the hurricane number, which is how we entered and did fiscal year 24 with a negative $95 million. So we're in very good shape. I know there's been concern about if we could weather another storm I mean we're only a few months away from the next hurricane season So I just want to reassure you all that we as a county have approximately six hundred and forty five million dollars of reserves So I do think that if we needed to Unfortunately have to prepare for another debris removal or emergency protective measures, we could do that. We don't want to test our reserves again. In addition, I will add that we are going to be updating all of this information. You'll see it all again in a few months during the tentative budget presentation. Okay, so moving on to our debt policy to summarize our debt policy states that we're going to aim to ensure that the county can take on debt under the best circumstances for approved projects while benefiting citizens. When we look at our 20 year debt position, we have seen that our long term debt is slowly coming down. So as you know, in fiscal year 20, we had the opportunity to refinance several of our debt. So we refinanced, and you can see that that line has become steeper as we drop down through 2024. When we break that down by category, the utility makes up the lower portion of the bars. Murdoch village is in red, the stadium in green, conservation Charlotte in purple, and then capital projects in the lighter blue. All of which are slowly decreasing. As you know, we were anticipating potentially having a new bond issuance for the utility, but you all shifted gears, and we're going to try and handle those plant expansions in a different way. And so, not anticipating that increase right now, I do want to point out that the Murdoch Village debt is going to come off in fiscal year 2027. The stadium debt is coming off in 2036, and then we have conservation shorelet coming off in fiscal year 27 as well. I just wanted to make a comment on the $645 million number for the total reserves. I just want people to understand because they may interpret that as what we're just sitting on this and over-taxing but those cover a whole host of different departments and facilities and it's a total compilation of everything and we do that because we have to maintain certain reserve levels for credit rating and other things of that nature plus it's good responsible budgeting knowing where we live and what we go through to have these types of reserves. But it's not that not that we're in excess. It's just... And a lot of those reserves, if you look at future capital, they haven't been identified. We know we need to use them for the CNA projects or whatever that might be in addition. So those are in that future capital. Yeah, it is a snapshot right now. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, so after reviewing our reserve and debt policy, we have no recommendations for revisions this year. So we'd like to say status quo on those two policies. Okay, moving on to preliminary projections. So as you know, commissioners, we've been alluding to the fact that the organization has been working on a long range operational and staffing plan. We started this process in the early summer months with the departments. We received our information from Metro Forecasting on future projected growth. So what we went back to the departments and and asked them is start identifying your needs based off of the population growth that is projected by Metro Forecasting and look at it in two different ways. Look at it as for service delivery and then infrastructure needs. So as you know, many of the departments have been working on different studies and they bring them to you in various timeframes. So you recently saw a study for public safety. They brought you an update to their strategic plan. So you saw a piece of their study. They've also time flies, but probably a year or so, two years ago, they did an industry standard study on call times. You saw that then. The utility has done a manpower audit for you to review and then most recently community services did a parks master study where you all provided direction on the levels of service and they brought you that information as well. But our goal here was to combine all that. So you have one tool to look at. So we can compile it all so we can see the impacts of it. Very similar to the CNA. So in the past, we didn't have a 20 year plan. We didn't have that tool. And we know how well that's worked. It's evolved every cycle. It improves. So that's what our end goal is, is to get to something like that where we've identified the needs, but then we work the plan. So we're going to introduce some of that information today. I do want to point out that when we talk about infrastructure, these are the operating costs associated with the projects on the CNA. So not the infrastructure costs, we're going talk about that during the May 22nd workshop when we look at that CNA and how we can fund those prioritized those projects, but these are the operating costs. So the staffing needing, needed and the additional operating cost as we bring those projects on. When we talk about service delivery, as I mentioned, that is really primarily levels of service. How do we maintain our levels of service as we see this population growth? So with that being said, let's go through some projections. So when we looked at the long range operational planning, these are the staffing needs combined. So infrastructure is in the blue portion of the bars and then we had service delivery. As you can see, these are very front loaded and a lot of that has to do with, we recently did studies, we, with the help of consultants, we've identified if we want to get to a certain level, continue to maintain a certain level, or the levels of service that you all have set, we would need to bring on these positions. We've realized that this is not feasible, these have not been vetted through administration yet. We still have a long road ahead of us in process, so we're going to be meeting with administration in April to vet these projects. But as you can see, the biggest need falls in fiscal year 26. And then that slowly tapers down throughout the 10 years. Here, commissioners, what I've done is I've broken that out by infrastructure needs, but also by department. So if you see public safety just happens to have the largest portion for fiscal year 26, that's that light blue. That's to prepare for those new stations coming on. So station 17, 18, 19, the two bad cock stations eventually. That's the light blue that is built into those first few years. In addition, the utility in 2026, they're the dark red. Those are positions to support the east port expansion. You will see utility information and we're going to build all of this into the model update that we'll be bringing you in May as part of your utility quarterly workshops. Then if we look at service delivery staffing needs for fiscal year 26, of course, that was the largest bar. And then the majority of that is the green portion of the bar, which is community services. And that is the direct effect of that parks master study and the recommendations that have been provided for through that study. Once again we understand we know that we're going to have to build these in, we can't bring these all to you in one year, we're going to go through the process with administration and that we'll likely have to slowly bring these on, stagger them, we have to look at projections and how it will impact us, and then we'll gradually bring these on. Here I'm providing information by cost for each category. So the blue bar represents the cost associated with the infrastructure needs that have been identified and the red bar for the service delivery. And then of course the green bar is if we combine them. So the first year, if we went through and brought all of these needs to you all, it'll be approximately a $25 million impact. And then of course that continues to grow each year through 2035. Okay, so what we've done is today we're going to bring you the impacts that these potential needs could have on two major funds. We're going to look at General Fund and the Fire Fund today. As I mentioned, the utility will come in May when you review the rate study and model that we'll be bringing you. So if we just look at General Fund, this was what we provided during the first public hearing in September, this was our projection of general fund. Since then, we've updated the information and we've updated that fund balance. We've put in fiscal year 24 actuals. We've made some minimal projection modifications. We've done the 10% for the next two years and value evaluation increases, and then six and a half percent after that. And so this is that new graph. You could see we're still in very good shape for the general fund, very stable here with the fund balance. We know that you all aim to keep those two, the blue bar and the red bar as close as possible and we will continue to work that plan. Now what we've done for this graph is we've added the infrastructure only cost. So the cost associated with CNA projects that includes sales tax projects as well as those hazard mitigation projects. And so here you can see the operating costs associated with those infrastructure projects. Once again, those two lines, the blue and the red lines stay very close to one another until we get to about 20 fiscal year 30 and then we start to see that separate and then of course that's when we start to see the fun balance start to decline. Mr. Dory. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make sure we clarify that. It looks to me again. These are the operational costs associated with capital improvements. Yes. If they can place, right? Not the capital costs, but the operational costs associated with those. They may not have already taken place, but what are included in the CNA? Which we're going to look at. On May 22nd. Fundamentally, I guess, community services would be one of the big drivers on that green line going like this. And then also, so fire stations, the way we're set up is that we have the fire MSU, but then we do EMS out of general funds. Right. So major contributing factor as well. Thanks to think about. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Okay. And then once we add in the service delivery, we, of course, this graph, commissioners, we know we're never, we'll never get to this and we would never recommend this, you would never let this happen. So we're going to of course continue to work this plan and this is just the original identification of needs. I also want to note that we have been conservative with what we've built in for future revenue. So if we, as you all mentioned, if we see the growth that Metro forecasting is projecting, we would have to adjust that revenue as well. So very likely that if that happens and we needed all these things that we've identified by going through this exercise, then that blue revenue line would also be increasing. And those are all things that will continue to look at every two years as we bring this to you and update this information. Okay, so then the Fire Fund back in March of 2024, we provided you a long range projection. As you remember, we went through a rate analysis where we brought you a plan. We implemented a 15% rate increase in 24, 12% in 25, and then 6% anticipated. Of course, that'll come back to you on an annual basis. And this was the projection based of those anticipated increases. Since then commissioners what we've done here is we've updated for fiscal year 24 actuals but then what we have also done is built in the union negotiations impacts. So we've built in those positions that were needed to cover the Kelly days that were included in the new contract. And then on top of that, we've built in those positions that were needed to cover the Kelly days that were included in the new contract. So and then on top of that we've built in the infrastructure only. So good news here. This is very close to what we anticipated because we had that infrastructure information when we were looking at those rate comparisons and studies. So we knew that we would get close to a pretty low fund balance in later years. However, we see that we bounce back quite quickly in that fund balance. I have a question. I see the chief is sitting here regarding the Kelly days. That was going to require us to hire some additional FTE's I I think, to make those numbers work. Have we hit those numbers to make that work? Those positions were just approved. They were approved as part of the negotiation when we brought you the final proposal, but then also we just brought you a budget adjustment. So I think chief is going to discuss that he has not recruited them yet. Since I just got him the budget in the last meeting. My understanding we're going to phase a man based on the program. Correct, sir. So Jason Fairford, Public State Director, full record. So, yes, so having those positions having just been approved, no, we have not pursued those positions, but they are part of that planning into the coming sessions. We just got through onboarding to kind of help from our deficits that we're already in, but yes, we'll be moving forward with those. Yeah, what was the goal also to reduce the overtime with those FTEs? So we're still operating under the old model right now. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So this picture of course changes once we add the service delivery component of what the public safety has identified. So we still have work to be done here. We'll be working with the department as well as with administration to look at how we can make this work in the future. So any questions on the projections provided today? No questions. Okay. So the last item on the agenda is just a recap discussion that was had during the BCC strategic plan workshop. As you know, this is our strategic plan structure that we use. We have four strategic focus areas, public services, infrastructure, economic and community development, and then efficient and effective government. For economic and community development, your previous bold goals are listed here. We had to add 200 new affordable housing units over the next five years, increase college internships to 20 students for fiscal year 24, 25, and then implement one Charlotte One Water Management Plan before the end of 2024. Good news. We feel confident that that second bold goal has been completed. So we asked you all, we brought you all revised goals and we've taken that off the list. We've kept affordable housing on the list of 200 units over the next five years. Slightly modified that implement one Charlotte, one water recommendations now. And then to, we've added two additional goals which is to increase opportunities for industrial development in Charlotte County and then to drive Charlotte County's transformation into a leading destination for skilled professionals featuring thriving jobs, workforce housing and vibrant opportunities. So no no changes to what we brought you as part of the retreat. For infrastructure, we had previously had two goals, which the first one around this Capitol needs assessment and then to define and maintain the balance between Capitol and operating budgets. What we've done here is we've continued the capital needs assessment through 2031. We did not touch the define and maintain balance between capital and operating budgets, but we did move the defined levels of maintenance by 2027 from public services and felt like it was a better fit here in infrastructure. And then we added the new goal to develop and implement local transportation plan. For public services, these were your previous goal goals here. As part of the retreat, we bought you to continue to keep the optimize the organization based on levels of service. But then we added to ensure data driven decisions making data driven decision making in the delivery of services to a changing community. And so those goals were discussed during your retreat since then based off conversation that was had. our recommendation is to add two additional goals to public services. The first is to strengthen the resiliency and recovery capacity of the community. So we do have a similar goal under efficient effective government, but that focuses more on the organization. This is looking at it from the community aspect. And then we also had a lot of conversation about communication during your retreat and how we handle making sure that we get accurate information out to the community. So this last goal is to manage and communicate the complexities of the provision of public services. Finally, for efficient effective government, administrations had these four goals in the past. What we brought as part of the BCC retreat was to continue with the insurer culture as a great place to work, insurer culture of continuous improvement, increased line of sight. And then for the third or fourth goal, we added a small component which is strengthen the resiliency and recovery capacity of the organization. And then since then, we added manage and communicate the complexities of a changing organization. Any comments or feedback on those changes to the bold goals? Mr. Constance. Yeah, thank you. I like the changes. Can we go back to economic and community development, revised goals? had some fun with the source here. What is a thriving job? Featuring thriving jobs. I just wanna put words in there, just to put words in there. So is what we wanted to say, high paying jobs? I mean, let's say what we want to say. Thriving is just a very general word. I mean, a leading destination for skilled professionals featuring challenging work. I don't understand what a thriving job is. And I don't really understand what a vibrant opportunity is. Is this your work, Emily? Are you coming up to defend your words? What's going on here? I just want to understand, these things are going to be memorialized into goals and I want to make sure that I'm understanding, I don't want generalities, I want specifics. 20 internships a year is a specific and I want to talk about that next, but go ahead. No, I actually coming up to defend it's not it's not our work I was actually coming up to help Francine out more than anything for the record I am like Louis deputy County administrative this this goal came specifically for economic development so I don't know that we are prepared to speak for what the intention was behind it. So I don't know that I don't know that I'm ready to put my like rubber stamp on this today. I want to I think I want this word Smith a little bit better with real specifics. So you know leading destination for skilled professional professionals featuring you know high high tech jobs in the airframe power plant. Something that's very specific to this area. Workforce housing I get and then vibrant opportunities. Again, I really need them to be specific about tax incentives or incentive zones or something that's specific not just vibrant opportunities. We can relay the feedback back to economic development and ask that they perhaps discuss with each of you and bring us back a revision. Yeah, I think that's fair. The next thing I wanted to just question was the, I think it must be above it. Maybe it's the slide above it. So, yeah, increased college internships to 20 students. Well, how many do we have now? And this is all economic development. No, no, we have far exceeded the internship program. And so it is not on our new goal because it has become ingrained in our operation and it's part of just our regular. So the implement that was and the next one is the implement one Charlotte one water management before the end of the year then I guess we've done that so the point is that we want to do any new recommendations build upon that that kind of thing. Correct. Okay, so yeah, I'm trying to see where... So with our vision mission values, you know, our one water, our blue water strategy, is that part of this? That's the one Charlotte one water. Okay, so then I think I want to look into adding sort of a green space goal, because I think that's got to be part of this. You know, we've talked about it. I think it's just the way we did the blue water thing over a decade ago and it caught fire and everybody's on board to understand that it's not just the water we drink, but the water ways and then how we're addressing just all issues water because we're realizing that's gold. So is green space and when we're talking about not paving every square inch of Charlotte County and certainly with regard to resiliency because that helps water drain and if we don't to disrupt too much of the natural corridors for water to flow. But I just, I want to see that on here. We've talked about it for a couple of cycles now. And since we're changing it up, I think there's a place for that. I don't know what you're thinking about. So I would suggest that maybe the five of you discussed amongst yourself what that looks like. That was kind of what the Certific Planning Workshop was for so we could kind of hash out what the specific goal would be. So if we wanna add something at this point, let's talk about and define what that really looks like. Is that acquisition of property? Is that how we develop properties that are already in County inventory? What is the vision around that? Well, I mean, I'm going to give you a specific. It's, you know, we're looking at possibly purchasing the Port Charlotte, you know, former Port Charlotte golf course. I mean, that's, that fits right in. And that's something that we're already doing, I think, but I think it's something that we need to be highlighting as a goal if that's what we're actually working on. So. That's a good suggestion. So Francine, because she's brilliant, just suggested that we maybe incorporate that under the public services ensuring that a driven decision making and the delivery of services, maybe we can make that one of the subcategories under that goal, where we're really focused on bringing you really good, informed decisions to make around how we acquire property. Okay. I mean, you know, on the one hand I'm seeing us talk about, you know, I'm talking about green space and on the other hand we're talking about making more industrialized areas for the county. And those, I mean, they can go hand in hand but right now that seems kind of diametrically opposed. So I guess my question is what do we want to be? Do we want to be like a highly or go toward an industrialized manufacturing, lots of traffic, lots of stuff going on, or do we wanna try to maintain a little bit of our former old floor of the culture? Because we're right on the precipice now, and I'm just trying to figure out, what's the definition, what do we wanna be guys? Because I'm hearing a lot of feedback from folks that we're gonna to start to, I think our next session is going to talk about the roadways and the infrastructure and the traffic and a lot of the people that have lived here for generations and even for a couple of decades are really not happy with what they're seeing. So I'm trying to put that all in perspective. So if I may just bring you back to the vision because that's really the when I talk to groups that really is exactly what you're talking about. Our vision is to preserve and enrich the quality of life for those who live, work and play in our paradise and it's really about maintaining that balance between the built environment and the natural resources that we have here in Charlotte County. And so without getting very philosophical, yes we are seeing a lot of growth and a lot of development and a hyper focus on growth right now, but that development is occurring in areas where it was planned to go. And so I think if it comes back to the vision, that's what we keep hanging our hat on. It is not to be an industrialized concrete jungle in Charlie County. It's really to strike that balance between development that needs to occur for a thriving economy, at the right in community, and preservation of our natural resources. And all I'm saying is, and I appreciate, because that's perfect. But if that's part of our vision, then it also should be part of our goals, and it should be specifically stated. And I'll just stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Michigan Joy. You know, the commission has comment on words is very relevant. I'm trying to think back. And I think I lost it in the flood. But about 40 years ago, the New York Times began section published a list of three columns of 25 words each, and it was called Fed Release. And the first comment would be like, increase managerial flexibility, overall dexterial integrity. And what would happen though, because we actually use them in writing grants and believe it or not, the grants that use those words had a greater chance of getting funded. And the reality is, as Chris noted, when you define them, it really didn't have a meeting before it's how it was great in the grants and it worked. It actually worked. Those are the ones that got funded more. Believe it or not. You should direct. You want anything? You sure? Yeah, okay, no problem Okay, no problem sir. I just want to make sure you had opportunity Yeah, I would say yeah, Commissioner Consonz. I don't disagree I've heard a lot about you know the same comments from the folks out there who've been here for a long time You know, I think where the board can make a difference in those things is if we revisit our ordinances and codes regarding how people can develop their property. They have property rights. We have hundreds of thousands of platted lots and the infill is starting to occur. So how do we manage that? Those property rights with trying to create an environment where we're not paving everything. Maybe it requires different buffering, different open space requirements, where you still get to do what you want to do, but we revisit some of those things. Setback screening, all of those technical things that Apple and Haskell go through. And maybe it means he can still do his project, but it's going to be aer project. So I mean, those are discussions I think that the board can have. And we also have the comp plan, which is kind of our road map to grow. We just went through a revision cycle on that, and I think it's every seven years. I mean, that's another opportunity to look at those future land use maps and where do we want to change the comp plan? you know to some of the comments that you were making. I think the other thing is we're also charged with the health safety welfare of the community. I look at as the economic health. So when we talk about industrial property or commercial property, we need the next generation of workforce to have a job. And you know this with technology the workforce is changing On on what's out there and I certainly would want to look at opportunities for a new technical Industrial property or technical commercial properties that come to the county to create I know there's a you know I guess the comment what is what was that Thriving job. Thriving, maybe it means a living wage job. I think that's the same thing as a thriving job that you can exist. So maybe that's the kind of language that was the intent of that slide. So I don't know, those are some things broader issues we can discuss as a board because we are the policymakers. So if we don't like the policy we have now, we change the policy. Commissioner Ndordi, you're in the queue. Yeah, I just wanted to weigh in on this a little bit. Yeah, I'm okay with sending some of this word smithing back to economic development just to clarify what their intent was on the words. Yeah, they could be misinterpreted if not clarified. So yeah, I support that. As far as the overall goals here, I'm comfortable with it. The Emily did a good job of the balance. It's got to be a balance. I think we're on that all the time though. We really are right now. And we do, as Metro's report showed us, we are out of balance, so actually with multi-family, with commercial and industrial, right? Grossly out of balance. So we can work on that, but we can't lose sight of the fact we have to maintain the character of our community. So I think we're all on the same page, Commissioner Constance, but I don't know how we get that in here. I think we're okay with it. I'm going to bring it up. I think we had a conversation in our last land use meeting. was a project that was really I think I use the term okay with it. Go on, I'll bring it up. I think if I... We had a conversation in our last land use meeting. It was a project that was really, I think I used the term shoe warning, a lot of density into a place and there wasn't concurrency. We are looking at those things on a case-by-case basis. Again, that's where we can make a difference. I'm sorry, Emily. If I may suggest an amendment, which I think will meet your objectives or at least what the discussion is. So on the third bullet, increase opportunities for industrial development in Charlotte County while maintaining our green environment or our natural resources or with a focus on green space or natural resources. Or open space. Open space. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Tell me. Because that hits it right where it needs to hit and we're maintaining that with the counters right there. I like the balance. Yeah. And then that gives us a vehicle for creating strategies for how we talk about that going forward. Yeah, I was going to say, if that becomes the goal, then do we have a workshop and look at our land development code? What can we legally do? To look at that where fits that that goal? You know what can be adjusted? You know, pursuing to the statutes and you know where where can't we? You know what can do within that framework? So that would be an interesting workshop to have. Well, and it'll also touch on what you've seen in our master parks plan in terms of where we need to target acquisitions for the future so that we have those recreational spaces reserved as we grow. So I think it could achieve multiple things for us. Okay, any other questions on this agenda item? Okay, so that completes that workshop. We had a 230 scheduled and if I get this right, I can keep going. Our video production won't come out there and tell me I'm doing this wrong. But you have to... But you have to close this workshop open. Okay. And you have comments. Okay. So we have to do comments on each one. Okay. So we will move to comments for our 2 p.m. workshop. Mr. Flores, anything? Just thank you to the team and budget Francine and Gordon for pulling that all together and commissioners for your comments and feedbacks. We can move forward, bring some things some things back to you. Thank you. I do have a comment that's why I reminded you. I have an answer to your, the question that you raised and it's right off of the Property appraisers webpage says homeowners continue to receive the homestead exemption as well as save our homes cap as long as they don't claim homestead exemption elsewhere on a different lot until they are while they rebuild and repair their damage property. And there's a statutory reference. Okay, but does it go on to talk about once they've rebuilt? Does that get really settled? on his the front page of his web. It depends on how many, the percentage of the new building that's built. So it's all posted online. Very good. Thank you. It's different if it's a repair versus a rebuild. Right. Right. Gotcha. Thank you. Commissioner DeWayt, any comments? Commissioner Truex? I have no comments. Mr. Constance. Nothing, Mr. Dory. Just good workshop. Good news on the reserves. Thank you. Yep, absolutely. Okay. any comments? Mr. Drex? I have no comments. Mr. Constance. Nothing sir. Just good workshop. Good news on the reserves. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Okay.