The order of the Lachua County special meeting budget meeting for May 6, 2025, at 10.02 a.m. and our first item is the approval of the agenda. Got a motion and second approval of the agenda. Those in favor of the motion go by the sign of I. I have those opposed. Same time, motion carries. The constitutions are in the House, Mr. Chair. Yes, we all are. Okay. Okay, our first item is the budget development for the Jewish Dishoel and Constitutional Officers for the physical year. And I think we'll turn that over. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning. Moeversha Telly, your budget manager. This is the time of year where the Constitutionals have submitted their budgets on May 1st to us, and we quickly turn those around so that we could get them to you. We have requested that they come. A lot of them are continuation budgets, but they can update us on the activities that they have and give you some perspective on what's happening in their areas. So if we could start with court administration first. Good morning. Good morning. Morning commissioners. Good morning. I'm Michael Reeves, chalkboard administrator here on behalf of Chief Judge Mosley. And I want to start by thanking you for your continued support of the courts. I will be brief. I know y'all have a very busy day ahead of you. So we are one of the continuation budgets that we mentioned. So we are not seeking any new funding this year, just a continuation of our FY 2425 budget. but I do want to thank you for everything that you've done for us previously and your continued support of the courts. So I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them. Have any questions? No? Well, thank you. Thank you all so much. You're going to be a hard-ecker follow. He sets the bar high. We're so generous and so supportive last year. So I just want to thank you all again. Thank you. Michael. Next we have Guardian at Lightup. The Kathleen. Okay. Hers was a continuation budget as well. Okay. The third is the Public Defenders Office. Good morning everyone. Good morning. Well, yes, it's a hard act to follow when you're asking for more money. So let me start by also thanking you all for your support over these many years. Dan and I were just reflecting on the fact that the building that we're in now is coming up on 10 years. And it's been a wonderful change for us and just an enhancement beyond any dream that we ever had and also it's almost paid off. Very soon we'll be done with the debt service on that on that building so I thank you so much and I thank the people of the Lachua County for supporting us. This year we are asking for an increase in our our IT budget Normally, we're a continuation budget kind of agency, but with the rising costs of the software that we require to be able to run our case management system and to try to acquire some AI-based technology to help our attorneys more efficiently process digital evidence. We're here asking for an increase. We use a case management system, which is just that manages every single one of our cases that's made by a company called CIP. The cost for CIP is increasing by about 88% is that right Dan? 88% for our next year. So it's been pretty steady and now increase of 88%. They are putting out a 3.0 product that has more features that are better, but we don't really have much choice, but to continue with them. We have negotiated with them for a four-year fixed rate, so we won't be coming back year after year, saying, well, now it's more and now it's more. So we have done that. But most of the increase you see here is related to CIP and our electronic case management system. There's also an increase we're asking for to acquire another software program that is called Axon, which basically can it's an AI-based program where we can take all of the videos, all the body cams, all the surveillance videos, all the things that have just dramatically increased in the number per case. And this program can, first of all, quickly run through it and create a transcript. It can help us edit them. It can help us draw clips out. Basically, it makes the attorneys work more efficient. And in the end, it will help us save money in other areas of our budget, like depot transcription. And I'm really even personnel, because right now, somebody has to sit there and watch every single second of every single video in real time whereas with this program we'll be able to accomplish that much faster. So we are asking for an increase for that. Part of the increase you see is about $38,000 budget requests so that we can bill out to the five other counties in the eight circuit to pay their share of these increased costs. But traditionally what we've done is Elatio County pays it and then the other counties pay you back because they're just so much smaller and they're physically constrained. But so we are asking for a pretty hefty increase, you know, from 22 to 24. We were pretty steady on the general fund budget. And now we're up there asking for about $100,000 increase in our budget, which I know is rough, but that should be a stable number for at least the next four years so that is our request and I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. All right. All right. Well thank you very much. The next year's support. All right. Mr. Chair Kathleen McGriff has come in from Guardian Ad Lightom. So we'll hop back. Go forward. I just want to thank all the commissioners for this year and purchasing the Georgia Strust building and allowing us to share space with them. It is beautiful. Absolutely love it. We love the location, the space, free parking, which we all enjoy. A nice place to walk, so thank you for allowing us to move there. Really no complaints. Y'all do a wonderful job. We appreciate all what you help with our kids and you know in the circuit so that's about it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next is the state's attorney. Coming up with me is my new executive director. I don't know that all of you know her, so I want to take an opportunity to introduce her. This is Rebecca Schenthalzer. Rebecca has been with my office for 22 years. 22 years? I don't know. 15 years? I'm tired of being the executive director. She was the juvenile division chief for many years. And she is now going to be head of budget. So I'll start by saying thank you very much for what you guys have done for us. We really appreciate your support and you've shown us over the years. This year we are a continuation budget. However, not unlike what Ms. Scott was saying, those same increases from CIP, we run CIP as well. We are having those same increases as well. Then the reason we're a continuation budget is because of some money, I think that was left over from the computer replacement fund has been moved around. And so we've done some things to cover those costs for this year. Next year, I suspect we will not be a continuation budget. We'll be in the position that Ms. Scott is in this year, I think is what you're going to see. In addition, we also have this year deployed software that's similar to the software that Ms. Scott is requesting funding for. We've already deployed that using computer replacement fund software. It's different. It accomplishes a similar task, but we've done that within the financial constraints of what we have available to us in this budget. But next year, I suspect that it will be significantly different coming forward because of the costs associated with both of those programs moving forward. But as similar to Ms. Scott said, that we expect those costs to remain stable after next year's budget cycle. And if you want to hear more about the wise and wear forers of all that software, if you have the time, I'm happy to sit here and tell you all about it. But it may be too far into the weeds. Yes, ma'am. One question about the software. I guess I'm just interested to know if you're both deploying AI-based software that's licensed based, if it would be cost-effective for us to use one service that would allow us to have a larger license agreement that would be able to be split between your two offices. Or you know what I mean? Saying like that. Well traditionally we license separately. I don't know if any circumstance Dan might know more so than me. Whether we have ever shared licensure on any software that we run. We are deploying different software. That may change in the future. We may switch to our software. We might switch to the software she's using. It's all relatively new. The difference, one of the things that's different for us is that we are dealing with, she's getting most of everything from us, a significant amount of what she gets from us. We're getting it from 22 different police agencies, plus the public, plus a whole bunch of other sources. So the software is somewhat different in that it is meant to be more varied in what it is capable of grabbing and who it's licensed with and that type of thing. If there's technical differences but Miss Scott and I have agreed that moving forward in the future we will look at that issue and see if we can do something together but I still don't know probably have to defer to Dan because I think he's probably more familiar with the actual licensing issue as to whether or not those could be licensed together to answer your question specifically. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Regional conflict council. They usually don't come, but there's a continuation budget of $20,000. Okay. Next is our tax collector. Okay. There he is. Morning. Morning sir. I broke my muscle. We don't expect any problems just in case. Good morning, good morning. Everyone's doing well. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I want to start before we get to the budget by recognizing your staff. So manager Libra men, her assistant managers, they consistently, not just every once in a while they consistently work very well with our staff. You know we share office spaces, the big building, a lot going on. We're never left in the dark. Their communications excellent, the demeanor, the working relationship. I've seen it different. Okay. This is a pleasure. The same goes for your county attorney and her staff. Tommy and his crew in the budget office. Everyone's at the top of their game and that's what makes our county special. I can be an independent officer But I still rely on the relationships of the others that we work with and Lattua County has something special And you just you need to be aware of it. You have some great people in good places doing good Thank you. So let's get to the budget. Okay. No major ass. Our budget's going down. I feel darts in the back of my head come on. What's he doing? So we need to repeat. At the budget's going down. Now we actually have a have a major decrease while reducing our operating expenses by over a half million dollars. And we'll get to that one later. We use the projected 6% increase in taxable values. And we'll adjust those as the PA moves closer to finalizing her role. We support the managers proposed 4% pay adjustment. It's so important that we keep our educated staff. They're good at what they do. We wanna keep up with inflation. We wanna keep these valued employees. So we greatly support that. We also use the 2% proposed increase in health premiums. But the biggest reduction is we're pleased to report that as of August we will pay off our loan for the newly constructed Northwest Service Center. We satisfied this loan five years early. We made additional principal payments over the last few years, and although our note was only 1.4%, it saved the taxpayers over $100,000 in interest. So we now will have those funds available, nearly a million dollars worth to return to the taxing authorities each year. So Tommy's back through the big smile on his face. It's not time. We've been waiting. So I would like to say that you and your staff cooperated in that. It's a building that our citizens will use for many years. It's a wonderful facility. It stays busy. It's one of our busiest service centers. The public likes it, but it was it was a combined effort from day one. You guys secured the loan. Great rate 1.4%. I don't know of anyone that wouldn't like a loan on a building at that. But again, it is paid off early and any unused revenues that we have will now go back to the county county and the other taxing authorities, so we're proud of that. And that's all I have, our overall, our budget with the increase for personal services of roughly four and a half percent, and that's just covering the proposed increases for staff, but net net will be down half a percent over last year. So please to to announce that, but most, most please to report that we we had a great year working with your staff once again. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, come on questions. It's not a question. It's a comment to your department as well, because I've used you all often in terms of trying to make sure we keep these little old ladies in their homes. And I appreciate your compassion and your ability to problem solve in a very creative way. And we're very fortunate to have you and your folks here, too. Thank you very much. And I failed to introduce my chief deputy, John Costable, most of you know him. He's a good guy. Yeah. Couldn't do it without him. And then our finance director, Marcy and Brown. So Tommy likes these guys. They send him money and Todd. But no, the property taxes are a big deal. Statewide, especially in our county, and we're all grappling with it. Our governor and state legislature are grappling with it right now. We don't know where it's going. Your collector's not in a policymaking position. I'm administrative and my duties, and we'll follow the law, but it's interesting to see where that and what's going to change with that law. And it'll have an impact on your budgets and ours, but we'll all survive it. We'll hopefully will come out the other side with something that benefits the tax payers and doesn't harm our tax authorities, but we'll just have to see where that goes. But thank you for those positive comments. The staff, they know it's not our property tax bill. It's not our driver's license, it's not our car tag. We are the retail center for those services. So our product is that customer service element and they nail it. They do a fantastic job and I couldn't do it without them. I appreciate you. And you all work very closely too with Aisha. And you know, do you have another staff that is, you'll talk about that. Another staff that's also been very helpful for people of my generation who are trying to understand how the taxes keep going up when our property value seems to be going down, I mean in terms of, you know, the age of our properties. And the citizens, they don't see that Michelle and her staff are different than mine.'re independent from her and IE she's independent from us. They see it as one. So as and and that's the front that we're putting forth to the citizens, but it's a complicated system and people can lose their homesteads very easily. And that's something that all three of us work toward ensuring that they don't sometimes we can't prevent it but we'll do everything in our power and I East should run it running a wonderful program right now that's trying to be proactive in those measures so but yeah it all boils back to good government working together and we have something special in this county and you don't see it everywhere goodness look at what's happening in Tallahassee right now that's that's a mess and we don't have that here and it doesn't that doesn't happen by chance it happens by hiring good folks and letting do their thing and they work together. They work well together. Michelle did not pay me to say that. I should did, but Michelle did. She blushed too. We enjoy it. I just want to say thanks for the customer service approach that you take. It shows through and I get comments, positive comments, rare, you get positive comments about the fact that there's office. But we get that with people feeling like they can make an appointment and they can get the service. They need quickly, they get their questions answered. So I just wanted to thank you for that approach and the consistency with which you treat all of the clients that come in the same way as well. I also wanted to ask you, I know you've been doing the kiosks, you know, and I was wondering how those are going if you're seeing uptake in those and if they're improving service. So Johns are a point person on that and he had a feeling you might bring that. So yeah, we take a look at the, excuse me. Yeah. We looked at those stats and it's, we started in October October, the end of October. So it was basically November through now and it's slowly getting up tick right now. We're doing about 300 a month, which isn't, you know, we're looking to do about a thousand a month as we're going. So we're still in that ramp up stage that we're going through right now. So we haven't seen the results that we want, but we do anticipate being there. The company we're working with, the vendor who's supplying the kiosk, they're pleased with the numbers because they've done this with about, I think, 20 other counties already. So they know how long it takes to get educated to the consumers, but we're doing a lot of marketing with our tag renewals and everything. So we do expect to hit that number probably by this time next year, but right now it's a slow ramp up right now. I don't know if my colleagues agree, but I mean, I know we have a lot of communication outlets as well, so if there's a way we can help get the word out with Mark to spread the word to our thousands of subscribers, sure we'd be happy to we'd be happy to help spread the word. And right now we have the kiosk in two publics is the one in Jonesville, not the new one in New Vairy, but the one in Jonesville, one of our busiest publics in the county. And then the other is 39th and 13th Street, which isn't far from our service center, but the company that we partnered with, they need 800 transactions a month to make the machine work. It's about $3,600 a month. So they picked those two publics as we needed something on the west side of the interstate. So they like the Jonesville publics. But believe believe it or not the one on 39th and 13th is outperforming the one in Jonesville but we think that it's due to placement within the store that the machines are a little more visible so we're gonna keep it on the bottom. I think you're actually a victim of your own success. I mean people love to come come in, get it handled quickly and know what's done with a person. And your customer service is so good that I'd walk right by, I ask you ask, because I, and so I, we get that. We get that a lot. We're making a push. We just redesigned our renewal notices for the tag registrations. There is really very limited reasons for someone to have to come in in person. And we'd like to see even more of those go to online transactions. But we get the same report when we asked the customers why they came in. You know, you can do this through the mail. You can do it online. Oh, no, I love coming here. It's great. And right now we have over 56% of our walk-in traffic. I shouldn't advertise this because we don't want anymore. It's the most inefficient way for us to deliver the services face to face. But 50% of those customers have come in at the counter in under five minutes. And 80% or is it 87? It's like 10, almost 99. Almost 90% are at the counter in under five minutes, and 80% or is it 87% and almost 99% almost 90% are at the counter less than 15 minutes. So for a DMB, that's on heard up. So as you said, it's hard for us to say, look, go somewhere else when they can come to a beautiful downtown or one of the other centers have have an enjoyable customer service experience, and be able to interact with what they consider your local government, and have a positive interaction, and they leave with a smile on their face. It's a big deal, but we enjoy it. We really enjoy it. It works for us. We're the right size. I have some of my colleagues who have the state that have hour, two hour long waits. We don't have that here. And I do want to report, we are one of the leaders in the nation for the real IDs. We're at almost 99% of our citizens have the real ID designation. That's why you haven't heard about lot about it on our news or anything in our network. It's not an issue here. We were way ahead, you know, the gold star up in the top corner of your driver license. You'll have to have it as of next week to get on a airplane, but federal building. We're already there. We have been there for a couple of years. On the top right. Does it go when you get a new driver's license? Is that so? It does. And beginning about 10 years ago when you, it's actually the year I got elected, you came in and renew your license. We turned you away unless you had your driver, your birth certificate, or passport, but once once you did that You were real ID compliant. You didn't have to provide it again, but it was I remember my first year in office. I had 70 year olds looking at me and say sunny. I've been in this office for 50 years. No one's ever asked me for my birth certificate. I's not me. I'm here. I'm here. So yeah, but we were able to get there. Got mine. I know these fine folks want to get up here and talk to you about their budget. But we're available anytime you want to talk to us. Yeah, just one more thing. convenience fee on the do cats good 450 is Tag number are on their renewal notice there'll be a pin number Either one of those should work and they should be able to get you to the implementation. I wanted to echo your public, your computer, your password service. I had an issue with renewing my driver's license. I had to tag on my car because I bought a new car and they didn't do what they were supposed to do. The dealership and I went in there and they handled it at the front desk or they tried to. They ended up not being able to fix it, but my name and the computer I brought a book with me. I went to sit down and they called my number before I could even sit in my butt in the chair. And I got back there and they were so helpful and so really kind and nice. They didn't know me from Adam and I appreciated that and I just wanted to say thank you. I cannot remember the young girl's name I swear I was going to remember it to be able to tell you but she sits at desk number one. We will pass that along and you know that is what's so important. You can be a multi- millionaire. You can be a brain surgeon for the shans or a homeless citizen in our community. But the only one person that can get your ID is you. So we see every single customer in our county and every type of individual and we preach to our staff that you never know who's standing in front of you. Maybe a local judge, maybe a commissioner, maybe our state rep. it could be anyone. And they're all treated, it can be a homeless person, but they're all treated the same. They're all treated with respect and dignity. And that's the final product. Yeah, and it was, and it did eventually get resolved with help from the dealership and from the state, but thank you. But yeah, dust number one, please tell her. Thank you. And it was in this downtown location. Yeah, downtown. I will be sure to pass you on. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sorry. Yes. That was great. It's going to be clapping. Don't worry, Tommy. We'll spend it. And thank you for meeting our time limit, no? To get you in and out. Next we have the property appraiser. He's a pain to follow, isn't he? Another six or eight. Heady. He's a... I love them though. Thank you John. That's hard to follow so I don't know what I'm going to do now because I'm not asking. I don't have a decrease. I have an increase of 4%. Thank you all. Thank you Mr. Chair and all the commissioners for all that you do. And I can't thank you enough for your support, for all the initiatives that we've done to a lot of new things and to have your support. And with appropriate in the state planning summit and our title alert we have to share a office and say the attorney's office and John and it's all of us is the clerk of the court and just to see us working together I appreciate all of you so much. Thank you. The increase that I have is we are having a new initiative. We are spending our services to Newberry so we're asking for two entry-level positions to open a satellite office in Newberry with the growth ofberry, and we just wanted to expand our services with all of the new homes that are coming up. So you better serve that side of our county. Yeah, my only question is, why Newberry and not like a lateralized friends? We're already in a lateral. Oh, that's why. Okay. Well, that makes good reason. I thought your justification was excellent. By the way, if it's not serious, thank you. Any questions for this? I'm out of question just to thank you. I feel like I reach out to your office a lot. You know, I get a lot of calls from Ag or other people with questions about their appraisals, questions about their exemptions and your staff has been so professional and helpful in helping me understand it so that I can better explain it to my constituents and also working with our extension office and others to get the word out. So thank you and a huge thank you for the perbey in the states and I think our collaboration there with the law school and all the things that we're doing is making a real impact in our community to help people understand the rights and opportunities that they have and the ways in which they can protect their family's land that's been in their family for generations. So I just really appreciate your focus on that, because it's not something that I see a lot of happening around the state, and I think it's just a leadership. So thank you. Talk about yourself. Thank you. We're not the only one in the state of Florida that is doing that. That's why I don't see it around the state. And I couldn't do it without you all of you as well. So I get a lot of credit, but I have a shaman staff and the support of you all that make this act and we couldn't do it ourselves. So I mean, we're small little peace and a pie so thank you we know we don't make it easy when we add fire assessments and other assessments and you guys get blamed for it I we do but Thank you more for that. You know, it's helping us do a do things better here too. I made the joke to Anna the other day. I was like, I'm gonna put you put you a desk up here. I roll you right up there. Oh, you got That much. Oh, she just wants to be able to point there when somebody comes first and then comes first. It's very followed. That's good though. I want to thank you to for being able to take care of the old folks that I send her way to your staff. Everybody talks about how kind and understanding these people are when they go in their desperate. And a lot of the folks that I know that I've been talking to are reached a point of desperation before I send them away. And so I really appreciate that the triage work that you all do there in terms of making sure that they are understanding what's happening. And any resource that you all can come up up any ideas that you can think of that we can help you with You know to help folks stay in their homes, especially the elderly, you know to stay where they are any creative ideas anything that's new inspiring and Creative that we can do to keep people in their homes Thank you for saying that because that's the reason why we're to, because we have to have the support of the board and the other constitutional officers in our council. We can brainstorm, we're smart people. You know, we can think out of the box. And so, you know, let us help you do that. Thank you. Well, I just wanna thank you for the regional growth overview. I think that it's said a lot to me that in terms of why you actually need the office in Newberry, but it also brings to my attention all of the growth that is happening west and nothing is happening in east. It really upsets me the most because that's one of the areas we've been trying to concentrate on but it seems like still as developers aren't seeing that area being viable to build more houses and apartments and stuff like that to help the east side of Gainesville but are in the county so I just want to thank you for that overview because it speaks a whole lot that what's going on is new berry and in a lot of And you'll see if we use data to we take a data driven approach to When we do come up with some of these initiatives and majority of them the errors are on the east side so we need to clear title. Okay. Another question is that is the growth that we're seeing in the Western part is what's helping to drive up the property taxes too. So the people on the east who are not seeing that growth may not see the same rate of property increase. Unless you're clear here. of course. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So thank you for doing that. Thank you. Great staff. Thank you. Keep it up. Out, so. And I just want to quickly to your point about East Side. I think, I hope that our constitutional officers are getting connected to our Forward Focus initiative. It's, you know, right now it's kind of been a lot of outreach to the neighborhoods, to the communities, to the outlying areas to have dialogue and conversations about their vision for growth and for economic development in the eastern side of our county. But I know that the work that we'll do as a result of a lot of that planning exercise will impact all of you. So if you aren't plugged into that yet, it's called Forward Focus. And our staff are doing a lot of listening sessions and there may be some gems for you all as well in terms of support or services or things like that that could be utilized on the east side. So I don't know if they already been connected, but it made me think that that growth and development is happening as just slower in that portion of our county because I think the focus has been last, but now we're really kind of pushing the need to create strategic plans and focuses in those areas. So just point that out to all the constitutionals. I think it's gonna bring both opportunities and challenges as we get more information and begin to invest more in the Eastern part of our county. Yeah, I'll reach out to you after you see what more information about Fort Focus. Yeah, it's an Eastern Bar, the whole county. Okay. From Waldo down to Past, all right. It's kind of a 301 corridor, looking at a 301 corridor, recognizing that, that you know as people are making investments in ports and who knows what's happening now with everything but like these investments in our ports these investments in some of our highway networks are going to create more traffic and more development and more push on the Eastern part of our county and the historic lack of investment in that part of our county as well so how do we sort of take all those things think about them and then create a strategic plan that allows us to invest wisely in that area. Yeah. And also to understand the data so that we can apply for grants and other opportunities that might make themselves available. Yeah, absolutely. Even though that's less likely these days, but having the data puts us in a better place to be able to make a better decision. We're saying the same thing about capturing the stories. And following some of these applicants, what I'm calling them, from beginning to end, the capturing of stories will also open the doors for grants as well. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thanks, A.J. Come on. Next is the clerk of courts. Oh, it's the Lord in the room. Lord in the room. OK, see when you get this thing back on track. A little quicker, it's pretty easy. We're just asking for you know, trying to match what the county's doing with their employees for the county fund of positions of the clerk's office with the 4% COLA, the insurance increases, project as well as the FRS increases. You will notice there's a couple of notes in here. If you need more information, you'll have to defer to Todd and Tommy on this. Basically, with our insurance program, basically the money's coming from the county to the clerk's office, the clerk's office then paying it back to the county. In doing that, there's basically three different employees of the clerk's office touching this money. And so trying to basically just put it all on paper to try to eliminate some of that and so now it's just going to be item lines on the budget as opposed to actual money moving around. So see how that I think it should work out pretty well. So that's really about it other than you know still asking for the assistance and trying to keep my court funded employees insured because that's where we drastically need additional funding and so just asking if we were able to maintain the excess revenues that we receive on recording fees we can utilize that to help pay for the insurance for our employees and so with that if you any questions otherwise thank you thank you for your service. Next is supervisor of election. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Chair. Good morning commissioners. First thing thing I'll address is obviously I'm not supervisor Barton. So she wishes that she should be she could be here, but she had a loss in her family and so she's out having to attend to that. So you guys get to have me today. I will try and live up to to that process. With me I have Robin Keran in, who's our financial assistant, who helps kind of put these budgets together for us. So good news, there's not a lot that has changed in this budget. We're absorbing a lot of changes in costs that are occurring. As we've seen with most election cycles, we haven't seen election administration get any cheaper Going from now going forward, each legislative cycle we see new requirements, new processes. Thankfully this cycle, we don't see a lot. There was a lot proposed, but not a lot has passed, except for a new petition bill, that will change some of what we have to do, but those impacts are yet to be seen. One of the things I want to bring our attention to is that one of our vendors has told us that they will no longer be doing our website. And so we will have some costs associated with that. At this time, we're looking to try and just absorb those costs and not ask for additional funding for those. What we made at some time in the future have to come back as we further evaluate what that looks like and bring it back to you guys. Because that will be a large change for us. This vendor has done our website for a, and all the websites for all 67 counties or at least a good chunk of them. I think there were three that were exceptions to that during this timeline. And so all the SOEs are looking to migrate off and that's before December 31st of this year. So we hope to be able to absorb that, but if there is something we'll bring it back to you guys. As always, this one does not include recounts. If we have a recount, we may also come back, but we were able to do an absorb, they'll reap the cost of that recount from before without being able to bring it back to you guys. Two main items on this one that I'll kind of illustrated in our books today is the looking forward trying to increase our ability to fit check-in stations in the somewhere polling places. We haven't been able to at least as of yet find more polling places or bigger polling places and those are just what's available is out there. So one of our initiatives is trying to make better use of that space and be able to have more folks be able to come in more efficiently and one of these processes is to make little stations that are deployable. And so that's probably the largest change in our budget this year. And then just the other small one is in order to continue to support County Warehouse purchase. We want to be able to have some pallet racks and supplies that will be used to help store the ever increasing amounts of paper that were required to hold. And so with that, we're here to answer any questions for you. I just have a comment from somebody who's worked very closely with your group. Over the years, I'd have to say it's an exciting place to be during elections. And there's nothing coming up this year, right? It's all... No, we have been... We have been in full elections still occurring, author and coming up, for example. We do have some additional and there's still some unknowns as to how some of that will come out as far as special elections or other things that might get called. Would they be using us, you all? We anticipate if there are special elections that we would be involved in that process, we don't know the details as if they had if there are any that would be called. Because you weren't involved, I think, when in the, was it the newberry election that you all, that they handled themselves or springs? So both newberry and elatchewon, we involved. We help support all the men and spoil elections. They are the supervisor of elections for those elections, but they use the equipment that the board has. They use our voter registration database, our check-in capabilities, all of our equipment that we do help support those elections. So we definitely are out there. We're helping them do that process, although they are in charge of it. We're in a supporting role for those elections. You look at us from the tight ship. It's a very exciting place to be. You guys get in there as you have the opportunity to be there because it's great to be in the room where it happens. Yeah, we do appreciate that. Obviously, staff really makes a lot of that happen, echoing a lot of what the other Constitutionals have said. Like, you know, we get to set up here and we get to talk about it. But the staff really make that happen. And they're really passionate about our mission, about kind of bringing those services to the public. And they do a lot of long hours. I know you got to join us for our recount and be around and see how many hours over just a few days that we put in to make these things a reality. It feels very, I don't want to say medicinal, that's not what it's, but it's a tightly run ship as all I can say and everybody is so focused on making sure that everything it's done exactly right, you know, that I don't anybody who would doubt our system needs to come watch you all operate. Absolutely. We invite the public in, we invite all the members. Join our open meetings, come and see us. That's usually the best way that we can answer many of the questions is have you come see the process and that usually instills a lot of trust and Because they can kind of see everything that we do and it's it's a long Arduous process, but I think we I think our staff handles it pretty very patient and kind too. I've seen you do it. Thank you, ma'am Thank you, Mr. Chair Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you And the final is the Sheriff's Office. Let's see. There are other officials. Okay. Take one more chair for you. Excuse me. You're good. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, first I want to thank the chair, commissioners, and everybody. This is my first, of course, this is my first budget. You know, and it want to thank the chair, commissioners, and everybody. This is my first, of course, this is my first budget. You know, and it's a good one. You know, I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to be the sheriff. And I look forward to working with you guys. So I just want to start by saying that, you know, February 25th, we met with the county manager and staff to discuss the pay increase plan. This budget includes a 4.52% increase for non-ranking deputy sheriffs, resulting in the beginning pay going from $55,000, $14 to $57,000. Our goal is to reach a beginning rate of $60,000 and $5,000 year, $26,000, $2,000 in $5,000 year, $27,000, $28. This is an effort to be competitive with other agency, just for your information, the Gainesville Police Department went to 60,000. And this is made in huge difference in their recruiting and onboarding and getting new officers. For all other positions, we discussed the 4% increase to the base rate of pay. We've also included a 6.5 FT for four time positions for FTEs. And they are law enforcement FTEs. We want to add two mental health correspondent deputies. It would increase our correspondence group to four dedicated mental health correspondent. If you know anything about what's going on in the world today and I climb it, we will respond to more mental health calls. I mean, this group has been amazing for our agency and we really want to increase it. You know, when I was on the campaign thread, that's one of the things that I really talked about. I really want that to be a robust group amongst other things. I want us to be, have a whole squad of that because we're really responding to a lot of those calls. We want to add one community service to deputy. Community gave me the vital component of any law enforcement agency and it remains the top of this administration. We currently have one but we want two. In community relations it's huge. I think that we lost a lot with COVID and we need to regain that to get back in the community. So I really want to add another one of those guys. One crime analyst for over a decade, the agency has had only one crime analyst. The addition of a third will ensure we can meet the rise in demand of actionable intelligence and maintain the highest level of service and safety to our community. I want to add a digital evidence specialist. As we continue to evolve, it has become evident that the high volume of data cannot be managed by only one person. We're asking the board to fund one addition of digital specialists to assistant hand of the ever increasing workload. CCC's budget FTEs, one building maintenance specialist with daily operations, daily operations covering multiple locations including administration building, combined communications center, fleet, various substations, and newly established property and its building. There's an increase for consistent and thorough genitalial services. Convert a part-time audio production specialist to full-time as the volume and complexity of these requests continue to grow, transitioning the part-time position to full-time is essential to maintain the efficiency, meeting statutory deadlines and supporting transparency and accountability within our agency. Court security FTEs, one part-time fleet maintenance administrative specialists. Our fleet operations have significantly grown over the past 20 years. We're asking the board to fund one part time administrative specialists under the security court security budget to assist with increased workload. If you notice, if you haven't noticed the Florida retirement system, employee rates are mandated by the Florida legislator, included in this budget, regular risk weights went from 13.64% to 14.03%. Special risk went from 32.79% to 35.19%. It is important to note that over 60% of our positions fall under financial risk. Health insurance, of course, you know, as mandated by the county, a 4% increase has been mandated. Floor to risk, floor to share risk management fund. Fiske year 25, 26 is being impacted by House Bill 301. And our insurance pool has informed us to include a 20% increase in rates. In mental health, mental health and food contracts at the jail, inmate medical health and food contracts represent 70% of the jail's total operating expenses. Fiskier 2526 represents our first two renewables periods for well-pathed for medical and health services that cause us to increase by over 6%. Although the meal calls have remained flat, we have to increase by over 3% due to the rise in populations in County. Here, going to three hots and it's going to remain flat. Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, it's going to remain flat. Vehicle replacement. The law enforcement certified budget and just certified budget also includes the routine requests for replacement of our regular fleet vehicles that exceeded their useful life for FISCIA 2526 rotation schedule resulted in asking for less money than in prior years. Other increases include you know the cost for hard-won software agreements. Real-time crime center, a real-time crime center just kind of give you an idea about that. A real-time crime center is a centralized technology driven unit within the agency that provides real-time information and analytics to support enforcement operations and investigations. This forward thinking initiative would enhance our ability to monitor and respond to incidents as they unfold. Utilizing technology data integration and real-time intelligence to support operations and improve public safety outcomes. As we vacate the EOC part of CCC, this is something that we're really looking at as a real-time crime. And it really gives an edge on real time things that's happening out on the streets. For instance, you can actually view an officer's body camera from the real time crimes. We talked about speed and sports and school zones. This initiative would involve use of technology and enforcement strategies to monitor addressing speed violation. The initiative would be one that is implemented in stages, implemented in a manageable number of schools zones at first, and increasing this number over time. Capital improvement projects, while this certified budget does not include a request for funding amounts required to complete these projects of most important and significance of our immediate facility needs and they include you know the development of the newly acquired property through the south of the combined communication system Want to talk about using that to to cover our oversized vehicles as for a special for our team, bond teams, and stuff, things like that. I just talked about the EOC, but we want to do the evidence expansion. We have outgrown that current location. And the need for a large and secure evidence footprint has become increasingly critical to ensuring that we properly store, rack and handle, grow, and volume of physical evidence. And finally, it's significant portion of this, as you can see, it's significant portion of this budget request is dedicated to employees, wages and related benefits. That part is really important to me because we have to be competitive with surrounding agencies to ensure that we're employing, keeping up with, you know, good talent. If you see the other agencies and other things is going on, that the officers are constantly going to places where they can get paid more money. So I really want to concentrate with this budget on wages and not only that retention, you know, because we want to keep good people. Thank you for your time. And we look forward to working with the commission, kind of managing staff throughout this budget process. Thank you so much. Any questions? Yes, ma'am., sir. In terms of adding these new positions here, do you feel like that you'll be able to fill those positions pretty easily? I'm not sure how you, you know, what? Where the vacancies are. Are you still dealing with a lot of vacancies? We are. But I think with, since we've come on board, I think we're moving more steadily but we still do have vacancies. And as we do feel vacancies, somebody's other spots, we will fill up. Gotcha, go ahead. And the quick question about the policing of the school zones, do you work with the other other municipality so that the police and that municipality are working with their schools and the outlying areas because I know it's the 235 quarter that I'm concerned about between LaCross and Elacroix. And you know that road there is a private school out there. It's a state road and we're going to be working with DOT on that too, but it's not marked for schools well enough, and there's a lot of truck traffic going through there. So I didn't know if that you would be working with, say, the Allatua Police there, that they would help monitor that route, or is it too far outside the city limits? That's too far outside. That would be you all. Yeah. Okay. But for the schools that are within those municipalities, the responsibility would be to that local. To the police department. Okay. So that you all would be working with those folks to make sure our county vision is there too. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, sir. you. You're good. You're good. Matt, comment. So, on the... Come up to the mic. Thank you. As far as, thank you, thank you. Appreciate it. As far as what he was talking about, responding to your question, when it comes to staffing, law enforcement, we have seen a pretty incredible increase in our staffing there. We're getting, we're wanting to be, we're getting closer and closer, additionally with corrections. I believe we've hired about 20. We've increased our staff by about 20 certified employees since Sheriff Scott took office. So we're seeing some growth there. When these FTEs keep in mind that only two of them were sworn. The rest of them were support staff and our support staff. We're not having a hard time hiring them as much as we are the sworn and certified. And additionally, one of the things that I want to comment comment on the sheriff is already funding three co-responders currently within his budget. They've been reallocated from patrol deputies positions. We're just trying to put one of those back and then we want to grow that unit by one if that makes sense. So we've been funding these three within the budget. We're just trying to get, basically, we're asking you to fund one, we're already funding, and then we'd like to have the funding for an additional fourth. Thank you. Thank you. You should have previously. Well, thank you. I you answered some of my questions, but I guess I just first want to say thank you. I, you know, since it's been only a short time that you've been in office, but I can already see the difference in the focus of community and the focus on sort of an approach, I guess I'll say, to the way in which you're handling our services in the community, and I really appreciate it. So thank you. I'm excited about the mental. I was going to ask this in expansion of two teams. We were saying it's an expansion of one team, but that's great. We get the data when we go to PSCC and the impact that these mental health responders are having is fantastic. I don't think it can be understated enough. So I really, really appreciate that. And the community service deputy, I think that's gonna make a big impact as well, being able to build relationships with the community so we can proactively address things rather than having to be reactive. So thank you for that focus. I- able to build relationships with the community so we can proactively address things rather than having to be reactive. So thank you for that focus. I also, I guess I, quick question, I guess we, the three hots and still flat costs is interesting and exciting. I know we're going to be working on ways in which we can partner with our local farmers with the food hub and get, hopefully, we can get some fresh three hots and support our local growers too. So there may be some cost there, but we have funding built into that pilot. So hopefully we can collaborate with you on that. Quick question about the mental health. Have you seen the impact of the central receiving facility? What has been your experience with that central Facility and how it's working to support your deputies and I spoke with the manager over there she came and she and another one of our partners came and spoke with me about it's working very well. It's just that we need to get more information to the deputies and offices that they're there. You know and also yeah but other than that it's, but other than that, it's working. It's working very well. Okay, great. Yeah, it's an option. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but the numbers are growing. And I appreciate the efforts that you guys are putting into that. Our co-resmonter teams are very aware of the resources there. They kind of stay on top of everything and get that information out of the deputy. So as new resources unpack and unveil from central receiving facility, they're getting it too. That's why they're so important. They just do a tremendous job for us. Well, I also want to say thank you and a push for the reentry for your all's collaboration with our reentry program and for beginning to think proactively about ways we can reduce our jail population by in a lot in all kinds of ways, you know, collaborating with our court services, collaborating with the alternative court systems, collaborating on reentry, starting at booking all the way through, really thinking creatively about how we can lower the jail population and find better ways to rehabilitate and return people into our community in productive ways. Please keep us in the loop on things we can do to support you in that regard. And my last thing is a question or two questions. One is about the speed enforcement cameras. I wondered if you all have met with GPD. I know that they are also moving forward with speed enforcement cameras within the city limits and I've wondered if we are hopefully collaborating with the same technology and maybe collaborating on camera footage review or things like that that would make it more efficient for us to do this and also so it's seamless for the citizens they don't get two different companies sending them two different you know mail or emails or we'll We currently have a meeting set right? Yeah, yes, yes, ma'am. We do discuss with them our staff discussing with their staff the different vendors and whatnot. We're still obviously involved with your staff trying to massage the interlocal agreement so that we can navigate those waters when it comes to a vendor and who we're gonna go with and so yeah yes ma'am the short answer is we're still still trying to work through the interlocal and and navigate those waters of how this is gonna be managed and and we collaborate with not only the city of Gainesville but I think the City of Alachua is looking at it as well. So we're looking around and then trying to look outside our agency, our county, into the rest of the state. What's working, what's not working, and how that's going. Okay. Well, I just encourage everyone to collaborate and try to use one system if we can. It would be ideal, I think, for our residents to not have multiple systems operating in the same county, sending different types of information to people when they get a ticket or when they, you know, when there's a warning or citation, I just think it could get really confusing. So hopefully we can all collaborate. I know it does that sounds easier than it sometimes is, but I just hope we can try. The last thing I wanted to ask about the evidence expansion is, do we have room in our warehouse and is there have been, has that been considered the idea or is there special requirements with regards to how the evidence is stored? They have a lot of requirements on how the evidence is stored and would not be used to the warehouse, but they are working right now. You guys are expanding because you're moving some operations that's worth release. Okay. And we're funding some of that. And they're also sharing that funding. So, and you can probably explain a little more, but that's allowing you to expand. That allows them to expand. Well, and the sheriff mentioned, basically at the bottom that letter, he talks about things that we're dealing with, not necessarily asking for funding right now. we're working with county staff to basically work within the current budget to make that happen. That space is already identified. We're using some of our staff to empty that space out and move over to the worker lease building. But we're just kind of being very transparent with how we're moving, so. But yeah, yes ma'am. All right, well thank you very much. We appreciate you. So the space is there. We just have to- This has to get everything out of it. Yeah, it's there. Okay, thank you. Question, come here. Yeah, thank you Miss Chair. So Chair, thank you for the thorough budget. I really appreciate your staff, Patty, and everyone on your staff work with our staff. I know it's a lot of that first year. You know, when I look at this budget, I look at kind of our assessed value as a January 1st of 2025. We're probably a really good spot from an outdoor perspective. From what I'm seeing in the market, January 1st of 2026 is not going to be as good a spot. As January 1st of 2027 could actually be a decrease depending on what the new growth is. And so I really appreciate the three-year kind of look forward to making sure that we can kind of, if we can agree and plan that you guys can plan forward and we can be as competitive as we can afford. So I think that's really, really positive. And they're not huge increases, but they're necessary increases. They're 4.5, 4.3, 3.3. But it gives your staff an ability to plan in our staff. And I really appreciate that. I think with the enhancements of the two mental health responder deputies, if there's a place to enhance that would be the place. So thanks for recognizing that. I look at that as, like Commissioner Prisya said, proactive. If we can keep folks from entering the system, it's actually these folks probably are paying for themselves in many, many ways. And so thanks for seeing them in our community and moving forward. My big thing that I keep thinking about over the next three to five years for you all is the same thing we're dealing with with capital facilities. Not just to jail, but all of your facilities. I know there was a previous move that kind of created a whole new facility. And I'm glad to hear we're kind of off of that. And we're going to use what we have and optimize it. And I get it, you know, in times of good, but we're looking forward in the next two to three years. As probably some of the most difficult financial position that a county has been in and over at least over a decade. And so I'm having your staff and you as a partner with all of the Constitutionals, you know, I think our Constitutionals are the envy of the state the way you all work together, the way you all work with the county staff and And just when it comes to budget but really from serving the public. It's really evident and then today's a perfect example of that. I wanted to say my comments, I probably should have said about the beginning of the meeting when they were all in the room but it's okay. I appreciate you all very, very much and thank you for the presentation. Thank you also. And a quick question. Did I understand you correctly when you said we have three mental health co-responders now and you're adding a fourth when you're just asking us to pick up the cost of the third one? But when I looked at the budget, you've got training expenses in here for two mental health co-responders. So are you asking us to retroactively pay for work that's already been done? Because it's, it's just the training that goes into them as, as they move forward. Because it says new deputy sheriff training. 22 weeks. It would go into the replacement of the deputy that's already in that position So what what what in the patterning is the the training would go to the deputy that would go back to patrol Does that make sense? By now they're using that I got you just there was just it was the whole list of like the whole of an employee that you said you already had. So I was just curious out. Right. So what will happen is is that allow us to put that staffing back where it was stolen from which was patrol operations. And so we have to create that line item for that position. That big sense. Yes ma'am. Okay. All right. Thank you. If I can, I want to brag on the sheriff just a little bit. Kind of, I guess my job. He's hosting a response to suicidal subjects class, eight hour class right now for this region. He's an eight hour class, and it's been put on for three days consecutively. Our staff, the majority of our staff is attending, but also we greeted them this morning and we saw staff from a lot of police department, other agencies from around the area. And it's not just law enforcement, our communications center employees and other support staff that deal with these types of calls are Involved in the class as well. It's a phenomenal class to inspect the instructors Thank you. I mean that is the number one option under Report it, you know gun related crimes are actually suicide and so I really really appreciate the focus there I I keep saying it but it really is amazing to see the shift. I've been through three sheriffs in my five years in office and I can feel the difference with your presence of a commitment to our community, a commitment to seeing people live positive lives of making it about service to our community, making people's lives better, about making people's life safer, and about helping those who are the most vulnerable and often at the worst time in their lives to figure out a better path. So I just really really appreciate it. Well it's just a testament of allowing people to do their job. You know this is like I tell the whole group of my team is not about me, me. It's not about me. It's us and we, you know, and people maximizing their talents and allowing them to be innovative. It's a team effort. It's not about Chad Scott. It's about us as a team. As you can see, we are a team. If I can't answer answer the answer. Well, I just want to add my two cents. I want to thank you for the budget and thank you for all you're doing. But I think that one of the things that really impressed me was the ice thing when you invited all commissioners out to talk about the ice situation in our community. That really meant a lot to us, at least to me, to know that you guys have been proactive in terms of that might have been a thing in the community is going on, but at least we knew about what was actually going on and how it was transpiring and what was happening in the community. So I just want to thank you for that because I thought that was really, really great because that's the national type of issue right now. And I just thought it was great that you guys brought us in to talk about it. So I just want to thank you. It's about keeping all people safe. Great. All right. Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you. And thank you all. Okay. Thank you. You're a real staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That ends the special budget meeting for today. Okay. Are there any public comments? Public comments. Are there any commissioner comments? Hearing none we are adjourned.