Okay, we'll call to order the February 27th, 2025 budget finance and taxation committee to order. Let's do a roll call, please. Here it is. Here. Hannah, what's here? Big Sanders. Here. Gabbard. Here. Here. Okay, we've got an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. I'll be approval. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Ocean carries. We've got minutes from the February 13th, 2025 meeting. I'll entertain a motion for approval. I'll approve. All in favor. I, any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. We're going to jump right into our new business for today. We've got two items on today's agenda versus the Office of Supplier Diversity Annual Update for the small business enterprise program and the minority women owned, excuse me, minority women owned businesses program and we're joined by the whole team Stephanie Admir, Corey, welcome. Thank you. We'll turn it over to you. Okay, so we are excited to share what we've been doing and just kind of a little update we'll start with kind of going over our mission and our vision. Our mission is to create opportunities for small and diverse suppliers, fostering competitive and inclusive economy within the city of St. Pete and the Tampa Bay region. We aim to enhance the participation of small minority women owned and other underrepresented businesses in government contracts and procurement processes, ensuring fair and equitable business opportunities for all. And our vision is to be a leader in supply diversity, empowering small and diverse businesses and contributing to vibrant, inclusive economy, where all businesses have the opportunity to thrive. This is just an overview of some of the items and goals and objectives we have from our strategic plan. I'm a fan of share of most of you and we had our one-on-ones a few months ago. But those are to build awareness and engagement, develop baseline metrics and reporting tools, increase small and diverse supplier participation, enhance capacity building and technical assistance, strengthen accountability and transparency and expand economic impact and community development. And this is just kind of Diving a little bit deeper into that strategic plan for our implementation plan Which kind of breaks down some of the Heathings that we want to accomplish and how we're going to get there And so one of the things that we're doing is completing the disparity study recommendations Which included things like starting debriefing sessions, which has already been completed, improved procurement, system training, and that's both internally and externally. One of the things that we do here is under this bracket will be our biweekly certification labs is where we kind of take the opportunity to work one on one with businesses in a group setting, versus both virtually and in person, helping them through the certification process. They can bring their laptops, bring all their documents, and we'll help them complete the application to get certified. Expand, matchmaking opportunities for small and diverse businesses. One of the things we did under that bracket was our contracts and contacts bus tour, which we plan on bringing back this year, as well, increase outreach, training, and support for small and diverse businesses, established and maintained vendor readiness programs, which speaks kind of to the larger plan, but specifically here, just maintaining things like a bonding program or just things that specifically kind of speak to the underlying issues as to why some of our small and minority women on businesses are not actively engaged in participation in larger contracts. also improved data collection for analysis decision making and transparency. So we want to make sure that all of our decisions are backed by data. Facilitate engagement of existing communication channels to enhance partnerships. And establishing and maintaining a mentor protégé program. That's one of the things that we are actively actively looking into and I think it will benefit the city and our vendors as well. This is just an overview of our key programs currently as far as business enterprise certifications. Our office is responsible for that sort of buying process and we we currently have the Small Business Enterprise Program, which I think that may have come up this morning as far as some of the criteria there. And so just wanna reiterate it, and this is kind of just like the baseline criteria. So for the SBE program, businesses do have to have 50 full-time permanent employees or less have an annual sales of 5 million or less for goods and services or 8 million or less for goods and services. So that's the maximum they could make. There's no base line as far as an entry level. So we don't say you have to make at least $100,000 or something like that. Annually, they cannot make more than those amounts in order to be certified under the SBE program. And then we do cover five counties with that program. So Penelence Hillsboro, Pascale, Manatee and Pope counties. And we do work with entities, those different entities and those other counties and organizations and those other counties to promote our program and also bring in more participation from those, not just Penelope County and St. Pete, that is definitely our main focus, but we want to make sure we're spreading the wealth and getting engagement from everyone within our radius. Then again, we have our MBE and WBE programs, both similar in that they're limited to Pinellas County as far as where the business can be located. And then for MBE is 51% owned by a minority or minorities. And then for WBE, 51% owned by a woman or woman. These are just some key components of what supplier diversity does. That is a question that comes up a lot. People think supplier diversity thinks certification, but we do a lot more than that. We do have a contract compliance section, so we have a group of staff who monitor city contracts to make sure that the intent of our program is being carried out and also they assist with being an embusman so helping resolve issues if there's ever any disputes that arise arise on the project they help the vendors resolve disputes between each other as well as between vendors and the city. A certification, of course, we've gone over that. We are certifying office for these programs, supplier development. You know, we're getting more into the training and the resources component, what we do to improve the skills and build that capacity that our vendors need to be contract ready and then outreach and events things like our supplier diversity day and our build state p which we'll talk about a little bit more. This just covers some highlights of what we kind of covered are accomplished over the past year and fiscal year 24. And so we did see 346 unique businesses actively certified with the city across both of our programs. We did host the city's first construction expo called Bill St. Pete. did have about 400 attendees a little bit over that and 70 vendors. A 10 and that was after the tropical storm or hurricane Debbie and we still were able to get all that participation because we actually had more vendors who signed up to attend but some of them had to counsel understandably. But Lavender are excited for us to do that again. It was very, I think, rewarding for the vendors in the city as well. And then 14 out of 93 contracts that were awarded in fiscal year 24 were awarded to SBEs. That's about 15% of prime contracts. Not necessarily the spending, but 15% of the prime contracts were awarded to SBEs. This is just a glance of some of the spending information. So about $6.05 million of SBE spend for tier one and fiscal year 24, the 305 million for total adjustable spend, 2% of that was for SBE tier one and then 4.4% of that is SBE spend for tier one and two. And then this is just a breakdown of that previous number that I gave as far as the certified firm So we had 332 SBE certified and then 41 MW MWBE certified in fiscal year 24 This is a comparison for fiscal year 23 and 24 of our spending. You will notice in March for 23 there is a large increase there that was for one of the projects for the Northeast Water Reclamation. deep injection weld project and that was a project that was awarded to an directly to a SB. the Northeast Water Reclamation Deep Injection Welp Project. And that was a project that was awarded to and directly to SBE as the prime contractor as well. So that was kind of good to see. And then this is just a comparison of both tier one and two. So our prime and our subcontracting spin over the course of the year. Here you will see your comparison as far as total city spin and our SBE spin. And this is the SBE spend percentage by year. So the past few years starting in 2021 to show the trend of our SBE spend. This slide just shows a breakdown of some of the demographics in our tier one spending. So you'll see some of that information regarding Pinellas County, the CRA, and then it goes into the minority women, Pinellas County minority, minority women, it's just an overview of what that looks like. And then this graph here shows the SB spending by type. So you have the services, P-Cart spending, construction, et cetera. This is just another kind of breakdown of the spending in Tier 1, again, and that participation in the SBEs. slide shows you the direct spend with tier one and tier two and then our total spend for SBE and then our percentage of spend for tier one and two and you can see a comparison between fiscal year 23 and 24. Again, just some more kind of data and information for you to see as far as the demographics, you know, breakdown within the different categories of spend for SBE within the city. And this kind of gives you a better idea as well over the different counties and like the radius where most of our spending happen. So it's good to see that most of that is in St. Pete. Of course, Tampa would probably be next and it comparable to what we would expect. on the code this year we were to come back with a recommendation for a new annual goal. And so based on our progress and what we have kind of seen in the market area, recommend a 10% goal across all of our programs for the next four years. And then we also recommend an aspirational goal of 15% just to kind of look forward and help us push a little bit more to increase that participation but also to invest more in our programming efforts to make sure that we have the availability and the readiness within our supply base to be able to meet these targets. Again, this is another breakdown of our certification statistics. So it kind of gives you an idea of what the makeup of those people who are certified looks like those demographics. So you see most of our SBEs are Caucasian, and we have African-American at 29%, Hispanic at 14%. And then MWBE, we see that most of those are African American and then the Caucasian portion of that would be Caucasian women under the WBE program. And then by counting, most of our SBE's do lie in Pinellas County with some participation in Pasco, Polk and Manatee and of course Hillsboro County as well. And then you see a breakdown of the SBEs by their category, large majority of our SBEs are service categorizing themselves as service vendors. And then we do have a good amount of construction vendors as well. So this gives us a better idea of where we kind of need to do some work on gaining more vendors, getting more vendors in our program for assistance and finding out what those issues are preventing them from certification. Here you see just a trend line of certification. So it kind of shows you from where our office was created. A little bit before that, but you see we have made lots of progress. It's definitely taken off. And I would say this is the highest number of certified firms. The CDS had problem in the past five years. So that's good to see. And then we are making steady progress with the MWP program as well, being as brand new. We were, we do anticipate, we've always anticipated it. It would kind of be a slower start, but we are making good progress and building up that program so we can get more participation on that end. As far as supplier engagement goes, this is one of the areas where we are, we will be increasing more in our engagement to ensure that we're reaching out to our vendors, meeting their needs and giving them opportunity to work with the city. So some of the things that we are doing are we're beginning to plan and host meet the prime events, which will be like smaller group setting events where vendors can meet directly with those prime contractors that the city works with. So they can learn more about upcoming projects and prepare for those projects and learn how to get directly into the pipeline with those vendors who have large-scale projects coming up with the city and even outside of the city. Engaging with other agencies so that we can collaborate with them more we go to a lot of events as you will see on one of the next few slides. And then also doing more to communicate openly with our partners and our vendors. So we do plan on having a more morning huddle sessions where we can kind of talk about topics within the areas of our vendors, different trades, but also what's coming up so they can kind of get a briefing on what to expect in the next months and weeks as we continue to have those. And then overall just making sure that we are reaching out to disengage business owners because we do go to so many events we do notice the, you know, we see a lot of the repeat participants at a lot of events, and those are mostly the same people who do, we do see their participation in the contracts with the city. And so we are looking into ways that we can reach that market of people who may not have the opportunity to go to events or may not have the opportunity to even know about our office, how do we reach those people and get them involved? This again just kind of breaks down a little bit more of the information that we've kind of going over, but I think one of the key things here is that the increase in our certifications, our certified firms, it's a 41% increase overall since the office was created. And so that really speaks to people's interest in the certification, but also the work that we're doing to get more certifications, but also increase their ability to participate in procurement processes with the city. This is an overview of some of our signature programs and And so we do, of course, have our shelter market, which we actively work on making sure we have more shelter market opportunities where we look for those opportunities where we have enough availability within the given scope of work to pull those opportunities out for SBE only participation. Of course the bid discounts contract bundling is something that we're getting more into and then the forecast we've been acting working on creating that city spending guide for our small businesses, so collecting information from all our city departments to produce a spending forecast so that businesses have an idea of what types of projects are coming up when, you know, estimate of when they should be arriving on the market so that they can prepare and be ready to participate in those as they come down. So we're actively working on that and should have something ready to produce the next few months. Some more signature programs. I talked about certification lab, which we do offer twice a month. The first one is usually a virtual one where people can participate online. We answer questions. We go through a short presentation of what it means to be certified. But then we do someone on one coaching to help them complete their application. And then we do have an in-person one where you can bring your laptop, bring your documents and we'll have staff available to sit down one on one with them to answer any questions and get them through their certification, which is the first step in, you know, working with with us. Then we're working on our next steps workshop. So this will be for people who are recently certified, but they have their certification and they want to know, well now what I do, how do I start getting into open-go of the procurement platform? How do I get more involved? So we are putting together a workshop for those people to give them more guidance on that, give them some more like an overview of the actual procurement system, but also going more into their vendor profiles in V2G where they complete their certification application and making sure they have a full profile there for us to view with their vendor capabilities, which is very important for us to have as we are trying to set goals, our shelter projects for our businesses. The other thing that we've started doing our industry days, and this is, anytime we see an opportunity, a procurement opportunity that's coming up, where we know and we see that there is market availability for business small minority businesses participate. We'll take that as long as we have enough planning time we will create like a now-reach campaign for it and host a session where we will invite the procurement analyst who's working on the project. If we can get someone maybe from the user department to come we invite them out. And this is before the project is posted out so that people can get an idea of, you know, the one of the ones we had most successful with was our landscaping project. People got an opportunity to ask questions about the typosilistitation, what that process looks like, some of the requirements that might be on it. And it was very helpful to see, and the feedback was very helpful because some of them had never participated in a contract before with the city. They were not familiar, some of them even said, you know, they were not comfortable even with, you know, doing it. So they got a chance to ask those questions to the people who are doing the word. And a lot of them ended up actually participating and being awarded on that project, which I think was a multi award. So we were able to get a lot of participation with that. Just doing that upfront work to demystify some of the opportunities that may be out there as I think one of the core areas of our office. The next thing is our networking and professional development events. So creating more opportunities for our supply based connect with potential clients and partners. And that's just like the contracts and contacts bus tour which was a multi Agency kind of effort we partner with PSTA we visited St.P. Clearwater Airport. We went to Pinellas County. We took our benders on a PSTA bus and went around to these different agencies for them to meet directly with the procurement officers there and directly with the, to hear directly what the upcoming opportunities were, but also ask questions about what they need to know in order to be prepared to do work with not just our agency but those other agencies. And even when they came back to our facilities here, we invited out our engineering, our water resources, and other departments within the city who were able to give them kind of projections of really great upcoming projects for them. Cater specifically to the vendors that we invited. So it was a really good opportunity for them to see actionable opportunities that they would be qualified to do. And the feedback there again was everyone was very excited. They left with not just information from the agencies, but there was a lot of exchanging of information between the business, so that business to business exchanges as well was very important. And then the technical assistance aspect of our office as well providing direct technical assistance to help businesses complete certification but also really with procurement processes as well. So what I'll get to in the next slide is some of the upcoming opportunities that we're creating. This is just an overview of some of the events that we've either created or attended over the last fiscal year. We are very busy. We do try to make sure that we're out in the community locally as well as in other counties to make sure that we are getting OSD out to the public and out to the people who need to participate with us, who we want to participate with us. And we are seeing a return on that. I think that's why we are seeing such a vast increase in the certifications versus previous years. So this is a new opportunity that we are going to embark on for this year Last year we did have to count social biodiversity day of course because of the two hurricanes So we want it we want to kind of bring something a little bit earlier in the year Because we are still getting calls of people asking when is supply of, whenever we're going to have Bill St. Pete. So this year we want to try to do something a little different. More of a summit is going to be over two days. The dates will be May 13th and 14th. And the first day is going to be strictly education. So more professional. We do have a whole lineup of keynote speakers, demonstrators, people who can offer like hands-on, interactive, upcoming technology, seminars that people can do to get information about their specific fields, but also things that are going to be more broad for anyone. So a combination, we want to make sure we have a good split as well between for content for service providers as well as people in the construction industry to try to reach all of our cover all of our bases. And then the second day on May 14th is going to be our expo. We're going to move it outside this year and it's going to be our length stadium. So we plan on having the expo outside doing something a little bit different. Hopefully we get some demonstrations out there as well. But so far the feedback has been great and we're looking for it to having another successful this is just some of our upcoming programs. So the first one is our Green Infrastructure Program, which is going to be called Crest, the Coastal Resiliency and Environmental Sustainability Training Program. And that is a program that was made possible, the idea that we had, and we apply for the National League of Cities Economic mobility grant, which is $20,000 to help us get this program started. This first iteration of it will be focused on training people in the construction industry and landscaping in the area of green infrastructure through the program certification through the Center for Watershed Protection. And so what that would do is at the end of it, people would be certified. We have a trainer coming in from a program in New Orleans who's going to train our participants so they can receive their certification from the Center for Watershed Protection. But there's also a hands-on component. So we've partnered with our sustainability department to get a hands-on project for them to complete their training. So we're excited about that and we're excited about where this program can go because some of the other than some of the next few phases include where we can add components for workforce development, we can add other components and include other certifications in that as well that cater to not just construction, but services and get more people in line with, I think, where the city wants to go as far as sustainability and resiliency. The other program is already set bid program. That's a competitive vendor program really trying to build up our vendors moving you from, I guess, to say like a sub contractor position to more of a prime contractor position, building their readiness and procurement. So that's going to be a nine-week program, covers things like the sourcing process. What is the war process? Look like contract management. We're going to go over legal and risk safety funding. Things like that. So it's going to be very in-depth for the procurement process overall. And I think people will walk away feeling capable of coming and working with the city, but also feeling capable of submitting their own solicitations. We also have planned an RFP hands-on training workshop and not as long as the ready-set bid program But that's gonna be something different where people can learn and draft and kind of a case study type environment And be able to present what they've come up with in front of evaluators So they can get that feedback of how they did what you know things that they they can improve upon. So they, if they do end up participating, they see something that is in this specific category, they'll be ready to handle that as well. Then our technical assistance program that we're working on in collaboration with the greenhouse, this is going to be unique in that. So we already have our biweekly training with our vendors for our, what is it called? Our certification lab. Right, so we already have that where we work, one on one with our vendors to get them certified. is going to be for vendors who may have other issues that are preventing them from being certified. So it is going to be nine weeks, but that is because they may need a little bit more assistance. So one of the things that come up a lot is people don't apply because they may have issues with their taxes. Maybe they're not properly found. Maybe they're missing something in their business taxes. And so this program is gonna be designed to not just take them through the certification process, which will happen at some point within the program, but also to identify what those areas of need are and connect them with the resources they need. So that hopefully by the end of the program, they will be in a good standing to be able to actually have every all the their ducks in the row basically to be able to get certified. So the core basis of that program is assisting them with those outside needs that OSD does not handle like tax preparing or other other connections that the greenhouse may have, but are items that are needed for them to be certified. Then our blueprint series is just ties in with our forecast, but beyond the forecast we want to be able to kind of connect people one-on-one again with the information they need and to be prepared. And so we're looking forward to launching that as well. So once we have our city forecast produced, we'll be doing like many quarterly sessions to kind of go over the forecast where people can maybe ask a little more questions about some of the information on it, breaking it down by specific departments, so that way they can start to prepare in the coming months and by quarter on what is approaching as far as procurement goes. And then another active project that we're working on is our GIS mapping tool. And so that is going to showcase city projects, but also showcase our SBE's and MWBE participation on the project. So we're actively working on that. And hopefully in the next few months, we'll have it finalized to be able to launch it on our website. So people will be able to see what percentages we are meeting, but also showcase the work that our certified firms are doing across the city. And that is the conclusion of this. There are any questions. Too many members. By Sharon. Thanks. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Cory, for that comprehensive report on what's going on with the program. First, just to, I have a quick question before I get into more detail. Are we supposed to have a motion to go on the annual to give a recommendation today? I want to make sure that okay with that in mind everybody that's involved we have to recommend that number. And we do have a new City Council member here that may not have been here in the past and could you just kind of give an overview just just briefly of right now I think the goal is 14%. How that number came about has brief as you could so we can just to kind of level set so we can understand why we're here and why this recommendation is being brought forth. So that goal was set prior to my time here. It started as 10 and then continued to go up to 12 and now it's at 14. There was no data behind that. I think that was determined by City Council at time. And so we've been chasing that goal, but with all the data we have, we're able to recommend a goal that is attainable. And we think 10 percent and then obviously what Corey said to reach for 15. But that our goal is based on data. The previous one, I cannot tell you the details behind that, but it has continued to grow and now it sits at 14%. And that's what my recollection was. If there was a number thrown out there, and for y'all to achieve that number, without having any basis for a number that's given, and now you have more information as to the program and what you can actually do. Doesn't mean it can't go higher, but I think it gives you clear expectation as to why we're now at 10% because it is based on data that you have been accumulating. I'm curious in terms of so there are different signature programs in initiatives. Obviously, we did the sheltered market. Yeah, bid this sounds contract bundling. And obviously, this is to provide opportunities for SBEs. Do we have any data specific as to each of those programs as to how they've driven those numbers? We do not. I can tell you this is something that we've started. So we're sheltering a lot more solicitations because we have the availability. We're also unbundling a lot of our larger contracts to, for instance, one that we stock at the warehouse. They used to be one big contract. We unbundled that and we were able to award to five different vendors. So we don't, we're tracking data now in our system of open Gov but we'd historically have not had that data to show you but it has always been an issue where we didn't have the availability to shelter to on bundle and now with Cory's team and going out there to mention that landscaping we're doing that with painting we now have that availability where we can shelter it and we're receiving those bids and those solicitations. Yeah, for me, it's important. Obviously, kind of like how you got to the 10% number. For me, it's important if we do these initiatives, are they working? How are they driving those numbers up and down? And that way we can evaluate it. So at some point it would be nice to see, and I know that you have to collect data, but that was just my thought when I- But I think next report, we will be able to provide that because we've been on OpenGub since the February of 2023 and we have that data readily available. So we will be able to provide that in the next report. Okay, that's great. The GI's mapping tools great. It's funny, I was, I was, I had read through the report and while I was looking, I was like, it would be nice to know where all this is and then I get to the end. I'm like, oh, there's great. The GI's mapping tool is great. It's funny, I was, I was, I had read through the report and while I was looking, I was like, it would be nice to know where all this is and then I get to the end. I'm like, oh, there's a GIS mapping tool coming. That's fantastic. So I'm glad to see that's there because that's the type of thing where you can just add different layers of whatever may be important to you all and city council and others, right? To see the different data points and how they fit within the map, because obviously it's five counties, right? And two, you know, things could be in different places. The other thing I was curious about is, do we ever, and I may have asked this in the past, I don't remember, do we ever have a comparable data on these programs to other areas that may be similar. So for instance, you have SB spending by category and we're at 50% services, 17% goods. All these numbers that are in this area is there a way to compare that to another region that has similar characteristics to see? Is that typical? You know? Yes, I mean, we can definitely find a city that we can compare to, it's our size. Right. Has a program, we definitely provide that data. Okay, I was just wondering, because it's always nice to have benchmarks, we do it for different things at City Council and just to kind of know benchmark us, you know, with other areas that may be similar to us and how well we're doing. But I thank you for all the work. I'm obviously, I'd be happy I make a motion at some point, but I would love to hear from other City Council for committee members. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council member Gabber. Thank you. And thank you for the very thorough presentation. I didn't really have any questions until you got kind of to the end on the upcoming programs. So on slide 26, the Green Infrastructure Program kind of stood out to on the upcoming programs. So on slide 26, the Green Infrastructure Program kind of stood out to me. Somewhat familiar with that, but looking at, you know, what the National League of Cities has, I want to kind of understand a little bit about how this plays into what you all do and how that is going to then maybe be incorporated into our resiliency planning that we're doing, neighborhood resiliency, because a lot of what the Green Infrastructure plans can do is help to reduce flood damage, all sort of things that we are trying to do over here. And I don't want you guys working on something siloed and that not all coming together. So can you give me a little bit of information about what this is for your shop and how we can kind of thread the needle there? Absolutely. So the purpose of this program, and I think what we're trying to do is to identify areas where we see an increased need to make sure that we have businesses available who can take apart in the opportunity. So we're bringing in the training. They already are established business owners, but adding kind of upskilling them to give them additional training for instance, like you said, one of the things in this program is gonna be focused a lot on is-foot mitigation. So coming in and doing some of that remediation work are going to homes and seeing how they can put permeable papers and things like that, giving them that type of training to add a new skill to their business, but then also aligning with the city, I think, you know, just the past storms that we had, giving business owners that chance to align with the city for work that the city may need as well. So I think it's definitely aligned. I've talked a lot with Maven and sustainability and she's giving me a lot of insight and so it is something we definitely want to partner with them on and she's excited about the program as well. Well, I mean this to me, it's an area where I really think we should work collaboratively together. I mean we've talked about kind of the barriers even even before storms for individuals who want to elevate their properties because there are very few contractors who are actually skilled at that particular type of work. And that's across the state of Florida or the Southeast region. And so if we as the city of St. Petersburg can become a leader in helping our contractor community understand the nuances around elevation mitigation rebuilding in the floodplain. I mean that could be a game changer for our coastal neighborhoods. That right there is what I'm talking about when I talk about neighborhood resiliency. And so that stood out to me. I mean you should have you could have had it highlighted red flag, whatever, like that's what I see jumping off the page is nothing but opportunity to finally achieve those goals. So thank you for putting this in here. I know it's kind of a nuanced issue, but for me that is an incredibly exciting opportunity. So I would like to circle back, maybe even have like a one-on-one as you get more information about that program because I really see a lot of opportunity here to make a difference for people so thank you thank you so much it's something that we only received twenty thousand dollars but it's right that Corey wants to continue with sustainability so we've added it to our budget to continue this program because we see that need thank you thank you thank you all right thank you chair thank you Councilor McSaner. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilor Murphy, Senator. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was waiting on this presentation and I am so glad, thank you for it. A couple of notes that I had down for this particular presentation. The first question is thank you for, let me get to it, for the bid discounts program and initiative. One of the questions that I asked this morning when we were getting an update from the greenhouse was about the $100,000 annual revenue mark. So I must have missed the one on one last year because I didn't know that changed. So thank you for that. I'm appreciative of that. So these businesses that are 100,000 and less, all categories, correct? For the biddest counts? Yes, for the biddest count. That's not their amount. The $100,000 is the estimated contract amount. Okay, contract, okay. So I missed that. I'm going back to the $100,000 dance. Since I misunderstood that. One of my inks initially, when OSD was being established, was following the county's rules and guidelines. And I know that was one of their guidelines. Is it still ours? Yes, it was $50,000. And a couple years ago we raised that to $100,000. So how do we catch those other smaller businesses that are not that threshold that want to go through all of the opportunities that the greenhouse has to get closer to a step of being a a vendor that can through our procurement process. So, I guess let me start from the beginning. So to be a vendor in procurement, there is no database that they enter. So we are now on OpenGov, which any business that wants to do business with the city can go out and register an OpenGov. Most of the area is using open guff so they just have to subscribe to our page. Once they subscribe to our open guff page they see every solicitation from $10,000 in up that we publish. So there is no barrier for them to see those or to even apply. The $100,000 limit is one, the council threshold where we send approvals to council, but that's also our threshold for what is a formal solicitation. From 10,000 to 100,000 is a quote. So that is a slow or not slower process. It is a shorter process. At $100,000 is what we consider a formal solicitation, and that is an IFB, and imitation for bid or request for proposals, request for qualifications. Those are our bigger projects. So the $100,000 that Cory has on our presentation is if it's on a project under $100,000 I can provide a discount. So if you're an SBE, you get a advantage to over those bigger businesses. Okay, so now I'm trying to formulate my next question. It'll come to me. The nine weeks, we talked about that length as well. During those nine weeks, how much closer does the business get because you're partnering now with the greenhouse and is also offering another nine week program. Are they working together? Are you intertwined or? So it's two different programs. So the first program that we're working with the greenhouse on is the tap. So they did mention that in their presentation. That's the same program. So we were working collaboratively on that one and that one is for they're not currently certified but they should probably qualify but maybe they are having tax issues I was used that because it does come up a lot and so we would send them through this program in partnership with the greenhouse for them to get that one-on-one assistance for things that are a little bit outside of OSD but still connected to their main goal of being certified. The other program is something that we are doing solely. The OSD is doing solely is the Ready-Set bid. That nine-week program is completely separate and it's focused on the procurement process. And they're certified. So those are certified. And those are certified. They're in our database, however they might not have the capacity or they don't know how to submit a bid. So that's what that program will be, is to get them ready to submit in order to be awarded a contract. Okay. So with that response, what if they don't need nine weeks? We, they, I mean, we do offer, that's what some of the other workshops that we're developing are for as well. So maybe you don't want to go through this in-depth process, even though we do think it'll be valuable, but like the RFP 101 training, that's going to be a shorter workshop where you can come in, you do the hands-on training and you should be good to go. So it just is all about kind of like what they need and what their comfort level is. And... where you can come in, you do the hands-on training, and you should be good to go. So it's all about kind of like what they need and what their comfort level is, and what, as we continue to build out our program, we will offer more things for people to kind of choose from, but I think for something as big as kind of the procurement process, this one did kind of garner the need for a more in-depth training, because we're going to go over everything they need to know within a contract, within, like I said, we're going to go over bonding, we're going to go over some of the legal parts of it, bringing experts to talk about each of those issues, even safety, or some of the things that we have in there as well. So it may not, it's not going to be like a day long thing, it's probably like a few hours. They would come in each week and have some coursework as well that they have to do. So they do feel capable of leaving that program and ready to participate with the city. Okay. This morning we also got a lot of information in regards to our end LGBT community. There's none in here. We are working because we are making changes to our data reporting. We can try to pull in some more of that information, but it is something that we are continuing to track. I know we in the past we have typically reported on that, but it is something that we do. We can, you know, and I believe in the next few weeks, probably get something together and send out to you for that more specific information. Okay, and then my last, I don't know if it's a question or statement, I was looking at some of the events that you did outreach in, and I see quite a few events that I'm aware of, that target certain communities that are not in here. So if there's an event do we just pass that on to you for you to do the outreach for? Because I see some that would have been fantastic for us to make that that approach. So I do appreciate that. Thank you thank you thank you you clear that up. I would like to schedule a time to kind of walk through the process that a business would take as they just walk in the door, work in the door and just be a mock business and see what that looks like. So I'll sketch or something up for that. But thank you for this presentation. It was really helpful. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councillor Rarardi. Thank you, Chair. My question's a bit answer, Cory. I just wanted to take a moment to say congratulations. This is awesome, right? I'm new to this job. I'm learning and well aware of what the city must do. We police the streets to pick up garbage, we put out fires. We don't have to do this. And not only are we doing it, but it seems like we haven't been doing it that long, and we're pretty damn good pretty damn good at it now. So congratulations on your success. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to be very quick. I really like the Meet the Primes, the Ready Set bid. It seems to me that right now, because this is so young, tier two spending, is almost more important than tier one spending, because tier one primes aren't just like blocking in the door. I mean, unless a business relocates to St. Petersburg, I mean, that business is growing. They're probably gonna start being a sub. They'll work their way Then eventually they become a prime and so when I look at this report I'm hyper focused on tier two as long as we're growing to your two seems like eventually It'll grow up And so I think the meet the primes the ready set bids those those programs that take tier two and are trying to go from good to great, that is what's gonna help this program grow. So I really, in future updates, if we could separate them out, rather than combine them, because we get tier one and then we get the combination of tier one and tier two If we could separate them out. I know it's an extra slide But I would I would very much appreciate just seeing the difference because I really want to make sure that that continues to grow Very happy to hear about the business development summit. I'm glad that's scheduled I'm glad we have dates on the calendar. I was very sad to have skipped supplier adversity day. I know we had lots of things going on, but I'm very glad that we've got that coming up. Just quickly, how do people know, how are we letting people know about things like industry days and the business development summit and meet the primes? How are we letting people know about those things? So we do have a newsletter. So we have a newsletter that we sent out monthly to people who are registered with us, are subscribed to the newsletter. But then using that same platform that we send the newsletter out, we do like one-off blasts. So if we do have like a great procurement opportunity will create a specific, you know, email blasts for that to send out to people who we know are qualified for that. We'll send that out using that. We also on our vendor platform B2G, we have an outreach capability in that, so we are utilizing that as well. We can pull in not only our certified firm, but we can reach out to other municipalities who also use B2G, which are most municipalities in this area. We can pull in their certified firms from that platform and send out communications to them as well. So we copy that same newsletter format, we send it out through that channel. And then we also utilize marketing sometimes to put things on Facebook and Instagram and things like that for us. Could you add all council members to the newsletter, please? Thank you. Because what ends up happening is we get the media notification the day before it happens. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I'm glad we're letting people know. But I think, like, I mean, I'll just speak for media. I want to like I want to include that in my newsletter I want to include that invitation to small businesses that I know that you know, I've been trying to introduce more and so I You're not gonna overwhelm us. We get enough email. So it's just adding adding to it But I mean, I want to know well in advance rather than a median notification that we get with You know the seven other median notifications we get the day. That would be super helpful. Okay, thank you so much. Thanks for asking the question about the 10%. Very much appreciate this update. Thanks for the one-on-one. You know some of my concerns about SBE. We'll continue to talk about that. We won't go down that rabbit hole today, but very thankful for all the work. Love this. I love to see this continue to grow and certainly have my support and however to make that happen. And one event that we're introducing this March, because March is the procurement month and Cory's team has gathered a women in procurement for our women-owned businesses at Sunkin Garden, so you should all receive an invite to that as well. Thank you. Yeah. You made the motion? Please, I was just getting the energy. Finishing sentence. Thank you. Motion to accept the recommendation of a combined program, well, if 10% for the next four years as required by CityPode. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you so much, Dean. Thank you for the update. Okay, we're gonna move into our second item for the day that's playing in development services management evaluation, the annual progress update. Join my Liz Abernathy. Good afternoon, Liz. Nice to see everybody today. Find my presentation here. It's not right, but sorry. We don't need accessibly. Thank you. So I'm here today to report back on the management study that was prepared for our department in 2023 at the request of City Council and we presented that last January of 2024. I'm joined today by our manager of our construction services and permitting team, Don Tire, building a fish and also building official, our deputy building official Angie. It's here in Corey, Molleshka, our zoning official are so there's three divisions in our department the construction services and permitting our development review services under Corey and our urban planning and historic preservation under Derek Killborn. He is here in spirit but out this week. So if there's any questions related to his team, I'll do my best to answer them. So the report that was prepared last year started out by providing the goals for the report. I did in your backup give you a copy of that report as well as a tracking table that I started to keep track of the recommendations and where we are on status. So we'll go over those today. Some of the goals of the report included evaluating efficiencies, effectiveness of operation, looking at workload, performance goals, assessing our organizational structure, analyzing technology needs and customer service approaches. There were a number of key strengths that were identified by the consultant, Matrix Consulting Group. They were very helpful to work with and thorough in their review of our department. They did note our proactive approach to reviewing and updating our land use regulations and ordinances, our streamlined process and strong performance goals, the implementation of the new permitting system in 2025, which is led by Muslim and our Department of Technology team. Strong customer focus and key opportunities that were identified includes the new permitting system, the Tyler system, which is the implementation is underway now. Expanding staff training, reorganizing some of our teams, formalizing some procedures related to our floodplain management team, which we were able to accomplish before the storms this fall. So those were helpful suggestions that we implemented and equipping staff make decisions at the appropriate level of the organization. There were a number of key recommendations and again the tracking table. I provided kind of goes through each of the key recommendations what we've been, you know, where we are on implementation. Training, recruitment, succession planning, customer service, it's, you know, some of the basics of what we, services we provide, standardizing some of the performance reports, customer training, a lot of their recommendations will be addressed through that new software that we're getting Tyler so we're looking forward to that as we move into that. Again that table kind of goes through each of the key recommendations I'm not going to go through everything with you today because we do have another committee meeting coming up here. So I think I'll let you ask the questions from that table rather than going through all of that in detail. We also have our committee of the whole later today where the topic of our post-storm recovery, FEMA grants, the post-disaster emergency permit permits are going to be addressed with Hannah Rebholtz, our floodplain manager, but we're here to answer any questions ahead of that if you want to start to get into some of those details. And as many of you know, James sent out a memo earlier this week, I do have a planned retirement in the near future. And so there has been some reassessment of the department and dividing the three divisions into two separate departments in order to help with operational efficiencies moving forward. The team has grown to, I think, we're up to about 120 people so that it's kind of a lot for one department director to manage. So this is a way that will improve some of our service and performance. So with that, we're here to answer questions and any details you might have about what we do and what's been happening. And I think we all know that mentioned this earlier that a lot of, or some of these initiatives are somewhat put on hold due to the storm season. And that really has been the focus since October is trying to help people to get their permits and programs they need to get back in their homes. So that, so some of these initiatives have been essentially put on hold while we focus on that as well. Thank you. Many members, I share handouts. Thank you, Shere. Well, first of all, yes, we did receive the memo that you are retiring with heavy heart, completely understandable, well-deserved. But it is going to be a huge loss for us. And I know I everyone I talked to braves about you Liz in the community stakeholders it's not just within our building it's outside in in our city and it says a lot about you and how you run things so thank you for for your many years of service we're we'll be celebrating but I just want to start off I didn't bring any tissues this after. Well, we'll say more later. And I want to commend Corey who this also got an award, huh? I said, I'll see some tissues over there. We'll pass them down. The greatest thing we always have to have tissues around.. And Corey, who just also won an award and was recognized for his work, and again, that just shows how much good work you do, even with sometimes limited staff and the pressures that come your way from storms and everything else in our city, because it falls on the people that are there. And when I look at the study recommendations and I look at organization and staffing for instance, I talk about all your needs and it's just you all. And look, we just did an appropriation to increase the personnel to process permits, which would double the staff, the current staff. I mean, that's a big thing, and you're working through a backlog. So I'm saying all this because it just goes to show the commitment that you all have really to our city. And I know, I know it's been tough with an outdated computer system and all the other things that have been noted in the report. So with that said, let's just talk a little bit, and I want to talk about the staffing because I know some of the stuff has been put on hold because of the post storm recovery. That's noted in the report. What are we seeing in the future in terms of what's happening with that, with the staffing levels at the department? And I know you're on the way out, but you may. Sure, I'll speak first and that's one reason I think Don is up here so he can speak too. So in 2023 and I think carrying over a little bit in 2024, we did, Don and I, along with Angie and the team, work on re-assessing positions on his team, looking at salaries, working with the Union to reset some of the ranges to get those positions where they needed to be. So there was a lot of work done there, recruitment and filling positions has always been a challenge, remains a challenge, particularly now after the storm season. And we had six private provider companies on contract before the storms, none of which were able to provide any additional support staff after the storm, till we found the one that we brought to you in early February. and those folks, the six additional plans examiners, will start training next week. We're just finalizing the processing today in our Oracle system so we can get them started in training next week. So that's kind of a bigger picture, but Don, if you want to add anything about... Well, I mean, recruitment is important for us, but with the work we did early on with HR and stuff in the unions, I think we're very competitive now, salary wise, and we pay licensing pay for additional licenses. But, you know, there is a supply demand issue right now for our industry. A lot of my staff are senior people. They've been with the city 20, 30 years. So in the next few years, we're going to have a huge transition with people retiring out. And we're already somewhat short staff. We have about 90 people on the construction service permitting side. We have probably about a dozen open positions right now. We just recently hired a couple inspectors who are starting next week, mechanical and electrical. We have a couple of building inspector jobs open and one of the cheap mechanical inspectors are tired. So we're always looking for good qualified people. And it's tough right now because we're competing not just with other jurisdictions, but also private provider companies, a private sector. Everyone's after the same group of qualified people. So it is tough right now. The two and Taylor company that we did find, those six people, they will help us immensely. Right now we're taking in more plans than we're reviewing each day for the Post-Isaster Emergency Permits. That will help us flip that scale a little bit and we should be able to start, you know, whittling down that back lawn. We're gonna kind of take a triage approach at it and look at the residential permits first and put five of those new private provider people on the residential permits, one on the commercial side. Once we do get that backlog into a reasonable kind of turnaround time, then we're going to look at the new development permits. Remember, we didn't stop new development right after the storm. In fact, we were still doing damage assessment, and I had to staff doing inspections for construction. So, you know, the new developments, new single-family homes, pools, solar permits, I mean, all that stuff continued, and we've shifted focus to prioritize the flood damage recovery, but those permits are backing up as well. We have some statutory requirements where we have to turn those around in a certain amount of time but those are pushing past 30 days now themselves for like a new house. That's business day set six weeks. But I do think there is some lightening to the tunnel with the private provider we have on board now that will help us with some of the backlog and then we can repurpose some of those to focus on where we need them and like you know doing the you know new single family or even on the commercial side. Yeah that's that's good to hear it's gonna help you. My understanding is I mean it's like you get in that backlog and the permits don't stop coming. Yeah right it's like you're chasing these numbers and they continue coming at you when you don't have the personnel and that's tough and that's where you've been. Yeah we've been on treadmill for the last three months and we're not getting any ground. So yeah it will be very beneficial to get the added out. Yeah and and just I mean for everyone that's hearing this in administration, city council, and other organizations out there, I mean, we have to find people that work in these departments and train them, whether it's we have programs with the universities or other organizations or start them off early or in the high school to get in. Because these are great jobs and great careers. And they need people. You all need people. So we have to find ways where we can get you the people that you need and there is so much talent in our city. They just have to find your way to your departments. So I'm putting out a call out there for those people out there who are interested in a job and hopefully we can get the training. In terms of the management training program, that's something that's ongoing, it seems, right? Yeah, and HR team has been working on some additional training for leadership and mentoring that will definitely help the departments in the future. Okay. Okay. Well, those are my questions for now. Thank you, Chair. Community members? I think I'll save mine for the next week. Okay. If I could, Chair. Yeah, absolutely. And I am looking forward over the next month to celebrating Liz's career. I was reminiscing today on some of the really important work she's done. But I'll say my comments as well with you. I just wanted to take a second though to thank City Council. I know that you, the committee and City Council selects these management studies. Sometimes it's a difficult choice. I think this was a really good choice by City Council. I think the management study was very helpful. This is a very forward facing department. It's interacting with the public a lot. Whenever you're issuing 30,000 permits a year, you're gonna have some discrepancies. And so it's good to take an overall look at the department. A lot of times, there's disconnects between the actual homeowner and the licensed professional. And so we try and communicate through that issue too. So I just wanted to thank you for giving us the opportunity to show that overall visitor team are doing real good work and we can always improve, but I think it was a very positive report. Thank you. I couldn't agree more. And, you know. The spreadsheet of recommendations, I think also to your point, Rob, a lot of these have been completed. Tyler takes care of underway. There are a few that are on hold because of post norm, but not very many. And so I just, I also think that speaks to seeing the feedback and moving on it quickly. I think, and being able to act on some of these quickly, I think also speaks very highly of the department. And so thank you for all the work, the update. Yeah, Council Member Frick Sanders. Go ahead and defend. No, go ahead, it's hard. Well, I didn't have anything to say until it played back in my head that you are about to retire. And I don't have a heavy heart because that's what you want it to do. And you deserve it because Lord knows you deserve it. And I'm looking forward to you now being able to breathe. We are here. We are going to miss you, but I am so happy for you that you actually have now the opportunity to just wake up without an alarm. Whenever you want to be able to move and deal with us like you've dealt with us the entire time that I've been here. So I have to say that today, but I'm also going to say it's your retirement. But thank you so much though Liz, because you've been very helpful to me and you are going to enjoy your retirement. I can promise you that. So take care. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Last thing I was going to say was just thank you for the dedication. Looking forward to seeing you over the next month, then I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to celebrate. Thanks to everybody on the team. I know it's been a very stressful few months. I know we continue to talk about that. We're going to talk about it in 17 minutes. So if there's nothing else for the good of the order, our next meeting is March 13th, 2025, where we will discuss, oh another fun topic, property insurance renewals. So if there's nothing else, BFNT is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. you and you you you you you