Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners. Focus area workshop for May 8th, 2025. Let the record show there are three commissioners present, Commissioner Trux and Commissioner Deutsch are not here at the moment. If we'll please stand for the Pledge of of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. On the nation, under God, the invisible, the liberty and the rest of the world. Let the Record Show Commissioner Doich has just entered the chamber. Item number one, financial trends for public services. Flores, do you have any comments before we go to Francine? Sure, just a quick one. I'll say I'm always honored to sit up here but I do miss sitting in the back of the room sometimes. To get started just a lot of work has been done at least with the departments and fiscal to get to this workshop at this point in the budget. So I know in two weeks we've got a couple more workshops this month is important for us for me, definitely to frame the budget a little bit more so you'll get a lot of information today. So with that I'll turn it over to Francine. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon commissioners. Francine, Lizby, Assistant Budget Director for Record. Welcome to your second strategic focus area workshop for the fiscal year 26 and 27 budget process. Today, we're going to focus on public services. Our mission for public services is to maintain a safe and healthy community by delivering essential services from skilled, professional, and dedicated public servants. Before we get started on today's presentation agenda, I do wanna note that attached to the agenda online, we have provided our performance-based budgeting documents, included in those documents is financial information for each department. In addition, we have staffing information, as well as a definition or description on their core functions for each division. Included, and just so you know that that is where we're currently at in the budget process. So this is not gonna be the final product. We will republish these later in the budget process. This is a accumulation of where we are at, we've been working through the budget process for the last several months to date. We've received initial requests from the departments. The budget director has met with each department to make determinations and agree upon decisions. And then we just recently finished up our admin meetings. So each budget was presented to administration by the directors and we've presented key decision points or issues for administration's determination. In addition, that packet also includes each department's levels of service as well as their updated goals for this cycle. Okay, so for today's agenda, we're going to look at financial trends, goals and initiatives, and then highlights for public services. For financial trends, we'll just start off by providing a list of the departments that we will be reviewing today as part of the financial information. As you could see, we have several of our larger departments. We are including public safety, solid waste for public works, all of the utility, community services, and additional departments such as budget administrative services, communications, human services, and our judicial. Here, commissioners, this is our fiscal year 24 expenditures by focus area. As you could see, the majority of our resources were dedicated to public services at approximately 64% for fiscal year 24. Commissioners, we've added this graph based off of a request from our economic and community development workshop where we are now providing the 24 expenditures by focus area but also by department. So that gives you an idea of each slice of that pie, what is made up of that. So going across the bottom, you'll see each department listed and then the focus area they fall within. For fiscal year 24 revenue sources for public services the majority of this pie is for charges for services which makes up 58%. This is our utility rate revenue that's received. Permit fees and assessments at close to 16% is our fire MSBU assessments, and then we have an additional 16% for BCC general revenues. And that's better explained using this slide here. So here we're showing you revenue and expenditures for public services by department. So as you see on this graph, the green bars represent the revenue, red is expenditures. For those general fund departments that do not collect revenue to offset their entire expenditures, that's where those BCC general revenues offset that. So community services, human services, our judicials, pest management, and then public safety. This portion is for our EMS services, which we're gonna review in more detail later in the presentation. Our next graph provides historical trends by total expenditures by department. I do want to note the increase in fiscal year 24 compared to 23 looking into that for the utility we saw an increase in cost of goods sold and salary and wages for the utility. The remaining bars on this graph stayed relatively flat. commissioners this graph is our FTEs by departments as you can see as we presented for each strategic focus area we did see an uptick in 24 and 25 and that was associated with the organization's bold goal to right size the organization based off levels of service so as part of last last budget cycle, we did bring recommendations for additional staffing, and those are reflected in those 24 and 25 bars. Okay, moving on to county comparables. As you know, commissioners, no two counties operate exactly the same. However, we know it's important to keep a pulse and compare ourselves to other neighboring counties and comparables. We do this by pulling information out of our annual comprehensive financial reports. So what you're seeing here is what was published for 2023 for public safety. So when we look at dollar spent per capita, you could see that, and I do want to preface that as we go through these, we did not see any major or significant changes on how we compare to others. So, but you could see here where we, where we fall when comparing ourselves to others for public safety. Same thing for FTEs commissioners for public safety per thousand population. No major significant changes compared to on this graph. Human services, dollar spent per capita compared to others. And then FTEs for human services. Culture and recreation. This is once again the dollar spent per capita very much in line with the others and then the FTEs per thousand. Water and sewer, FTEs for the water and sewer. And then finally, we have solid waste. So just a reminder, we do use the Bureau of Economic and Business Research population data to calculate the information that you saw in those comparable slides as well. So unless you have any questions about the financial trends related to public services, I'll move on to the strategic plan. Commissioner Deutsch. On the population figured, does that mean you utilized a brand new 224,000 population figure we had from the consultant? Because I think that's going to be real important for us as we look through the future, particularly with public safety, because we're growing faster than anyone ever thought. So what figure did you actually use? What's the number you use for our population? The 204,126. Okay. But we all know we're 20,000 beyond that. And I think that's something that we're gonna have to consider as I say particularly with public safety. Thank you. Okay, moving on to our strategic plan. Commissioner, this is the structure of our strategic plan. Today we're gonna focus on the public services and the bold goals that have been set for the organization as part of this budget cycle. Those bold goals are to optimize the organization based on levels of service, ensure data-driven decision making in the delivery of services to a changing community, strengthen the resiliency and recovery capacity of the community, and then manage and communicate the complexities of the provision of public services. So for the first two today, I'm going to to them. I do wanna address them together. I think they closely correlate with one another and really tell the story of where we're at in this process and where we've come from. So as you may remember, several budget cycles ago, we introduced to the organization the needs to capture levels of service and we were asked to collect information on quantitative and qualitative measures for each department. In an effort to do that we put together an example here of a template that we used and we've been collecting this data since then for several budget cycles now. This is just an example of what that looks like for transit. Once we've established those levels of service and then started those measurements and collecting that data, we expanded the goal which was to optimize the organization based on those levels of service. So to do that, we had to start collecting data. And the way that we did this is each department or several of our departments had studies completed to help them assess their needs for the future. We then used those studies to put together cost analysis and staffing needs and we brought to you a plan for some of the departments as part of the last budget cycle for new positions. Here I'm listing several of those studies that have been completed for the departments. This is not an all-inclusive list. There are others. I just wanted to draw attention to the types of studies that we've completed or plan to complete and as part of our data collection. Since then, community development had introduced Metro Forecasting and our population forecasting and we realized very quickly that this is something a tool that the entire organization could utilize. So once we received the population growth estimates from Metro Forecasting, we knew that we wanted to use this as our base point to start gathering additional information from departments. What we did is last summer we implemented or created this template here where we met with each department and we asked them to complete the information by compiling all of the information from the studies they've received in addition to the capital needs that they've already identified on the CNA, but then also staffing requirements or staffing needs associated with each one of those issues, but also additional growth in the community in the future. Once the departments worked on that for several months, we, in fiscal services, started putting together cost estimates for what those needs, to meet those needs. And then as you know, in March, I presented a long range operational plan, including a staffing plan. As I mentioned then, these are just the initial findings of the needs that have been identified for staffing. This is not our final list. We're still working on vetting this information and prioritizing the staffing needs. You have a question on that. I noticed on the slide the blue, which is infrastructure, I guess staff-related needs, starts to go down, but I look at the infrastructure like in our capital needs, which seem to be going the other way. It seems like it's inverted to me. It depends on the type of infrastructure and where those projects, and we're gonna focus on the CNA projects in our next workshop. But for example, when you're seeing the larger blue bars on this, a lot of that is associated with the staffing of additional fire stations. So we need to of course staff fire stations 24 hours a day and with three shifts and things like that. So that's where you see a lot of those infrastructure positions come into play. Now of course we have infrastructure needs across all departments, but not the same ratio of adding positions for a road project as a new fire station. Thank you. So as part of the information that was provided in March, I just wanna draw attention to the positions associated directly with the departments that we're including today as part of public services. So those new positions here for each of the departments that I've already mentioned were included in that information for March. And then finally commissioners, I just wanted to point out an additional initiative we're working on to move forward the bold goal for data driven decisions. Physical services is working on a county fee policy and we plan to bring you a policy for approval later in the budget process. But just to get started, we have set a draft of what the purpose of the policy would be, which is to ensure county service fees reflect true costs, support fiscal sustainability, and align with affordability and policy goals. The scope would apply to all department user fees, not otherwise established by schedule, statute, ordinance, or resolution. And then we've identified key policy elements as well. So maybe we take into consideration an annual indexing or how frequent we would want to complete this external study. We know internally we'll review annually, but we are suggesting potentially looking at a fee analysis every four years as part of that aligns with the budget process. And then of course we always strive to be transparent but we'll include in this how we publish this information publicly. And then finally we've identified roles and responsibilities for the stakeholders involved. So as I mentioned, this is just another initiative we're working on. We're going to build it in the fiscal year 26 budget request for fiscal services, but just wanted to bring it to your attention. Any questions on your first two bull goals? Okay. We're good. I'm gonna invite Patrick out. Poor girl. Okay. We're good. Naga. Invite Patrick out. Good afternoon commissioners. Patrick Fuller, emergency management for the record. The next presentation involves the ongoing effort for bold goal regarding resiliency. I think it's not lost to anyone here that we for the past five years at least have been very active and many of the conversations in this room have been laced with discussions about disaster and the recovery in response to that. Because of that, I think we've all identified a near universal recognition that we find ourselves in a constant state of either response or recovery from recent disasters in our community, lacing much of the work that we do on a day-to-day basis. Because of that, we endeavour to align our efforts throughout the organization to embrace the response and recovery role while continuously enhancing our organizational and community resiliency through innovation, education, investment, and. We understand that the landscape of disasters is likely to change in the near future. What we're looking to do now really is to align those efforts so that we best position ourselves for an ever-changing environment, whether that's through identifying best practices throughout the country, or educating ourselves in an organization to be able to better deal with the both recovery and resiliency to disasters. With that we have established five goals. First and foremost continue to foster that culture of preparedness that embraces resiliency in all things that we do both this county business and how our dealings with our community. Secondly, goal number two, enhance the overall resiliency of our organization and community through a coordinated recovery process. Three, create standards and processes that streamline our recovery and meet the requirements of external agencies. As I mentioned, those requirements on a good day were open to interpretation and policy changes and we are very likely to see changes in the near future and our ability to remain agile and adapt to changes is going to be critical. Number four, utilize and expand the collective knowledge and resources of the organization to overcome obstacles. We have the unfortunate experience of being pretty well versed in disasters and disaster response and recovery. There's a lot of institutional knowledge that's been gained here and we do on a daily basis. Being able to leverage that as a group and a coordinated effort is going to help us moving forward. And number five, create solutions and leverage those best practices that eliminate or reduce the impacts of future disasters through mitigation activities. I'll go into more detail on our local mitigation strategy, but that has been an ongoing effort since the late 90s. We've maintained a local mitigation strategy that's been approved by the FEMA or the Florida Division of Emergency Management as an enhanced mitigation state. So the way we endeavor to tackle this and we've begun this process is grouping our efforts into these functional groups here. When we're talking about the community, this is something that has been ongoing and though I acknowledge that will never be perfect in disaster response and recovery. A lot of work has been done over the last several disasters to see to the needs of our community. This is an ongoing effort. The human resiliency and recovery is those things that we do to help with the immediate recovery of our residents, those individuals and households. This is a partnership with emergency management, human services, our community organizations, active in disasters, as well as many other organizations in the community and departments within our county. But this is ongoing, ever improving. We'll continue those efforts and find best practices throughout the country and region. The second one of that is explicitly dealing with our community, is our continued partnership with both our economic development department and our tourism department for the economic and business resiliency and recovery of our community. There are programs out there that our local business community can take advantage of we're working hand in hand with the chambers and our economic development folks and tourism to ensure that they have access to those Tools as well as building tools for them to be able to have continuity of operations on the individual business level When we look at our internal organization, we've grouped those into these three sections here These are closely resembled the recovery support functions that are detailed in the National Recovery Framework from FEMA, but they're suited to fit us here in Charlotte County. First off is our financial resiliency and recovery. This is that cost recouperation of those damages that we've experienced from past disasters. Again, that landscape may change in the future, but we've in time to to remain agile and be able to adapt to changing environment. Next is the environmental and historical resiliency and recovery. This is our water quality, our beaches, our cultural landmarks and what not that are in the county. think we're brand and moody, our natural resources folks, water quality folks. This group here will not only see to the inch looking towards the recovery of these assets, but also how can we build back and become more resilient in the future. These groups will meet on a regular basis and come together and I'll show you some of the tasks in the next slide. But the last one I want to address is the infrastructure, resiliency and recovery group. This is by far the largest and probably most costly group. And it's associated with those departments that had infrastructure that is either damaged from previous disasters or has some need to mitigate for future disasters. Those are those departments like Public Works, Utilities, Community Services. And I'll go into some of the tasks in the next slide of what these groups will be looking to tackle. So this is a small subsection of what we hope the individual focus groups will be tackling on a regular basis and the meeting schedule will be pretty ambitious. We're going to be meeting on a very regular basis and this already begun in earnest. But part of the positions you've already approved for this current year and then future positions will be individuals identified to represent their individual departments. Both of the subject matter expertise for the subject matter expertise. It also be that point person for individual departments. Some of the things they'll be tackling are the damage assessment coordination for their individual department. Right now, if you look at the continuum of damage assessment, it starts with the windshield assessment of field crews kind of reporting back into the EOC areas of concern, broad strokes of what happened, then you go to an individual damage assessment that paints the picture for FEMA. It associates dollar total numbers to our category C through G damages. And that lets us know if we are near the threshold for public assistance declaration. Once that individual damage assessment informs us of that and also tells us the areas are concerned to greater detail. We are then able to do a joint preliminary damage assessment, request that of the FEMA and the state, and they will determine if they recommend to the FEMA region four in the White House if we are declared. After that, it gets into the detailed damage assessment. I just paint that picture to indicate this is a complicated process. Knowing fully what our damages are, it takes time. It takes a lot of effort and it's not just one fell swoop where we know. Those resiliency and recovery liaisons, coordinators, managers, whatever we want to deem them within the departments, they'll be responsible for their departmental activities when it comes to damage assessment. Additionally, these folks would be remaining in the EOC as when the emergency operation center transitions to a longer term recovery. As it currently stands, the emergency operation center focuses their efforts on coordination of information, resources, and actions for the response phase, and then the very initial recovery phase. The plan going forward would be to keep that EOC open, have it as the central hub of recovery activities for a undetermined amount of time until it makes no sense for to keep people there so that we are doing things jointly, making joint decisions, and we're utilizing synergy to, to affect our recovery. Coordinate the recovery activities post disaster on behalf of the department. Again, that point person, they will be the participants, the representatives of their departments at the very least for the local mitigation strategy working group. And as I had mentioned, that's an ongoing effort. We meet twice a year. We identify projects. I'll go into a little more detail on that. But this is really where we build in the resiliency moving forward so that we are impacted to a lesser degree or eliminating certain risk by activities we take investments we make within our community. We'll be identifying recovery and resiliency related training. As I said, as an overall organization, it just makes sense that we become the subject matter experts and all things recovery and resiliency. There's a lot of things changing. There's a lot of training that's offered by FEMA, by the Florida Division of Merge Management, as well as some other agencies. Bringing that training here, getting everybody to a same base level of knowledge so that we can all enter into every disaster event, whether that's a tropical event during hurricane season or some other disaster, at the same base level of knowledge and the same vocabulary. Identifying best practices, strategies, and refining workflows and working collaboratively to address common or interrelated issues, essentially synergizing. Working together, there's a lot of places in this country that have endeavored to come up with creative solutions. Some of them are nature-based, some of them are just creative solutions that then may work here, they may not. Florida is especially vulnerable to disasters. We get more presidential declarations than any other state in the union, followed by California and Texas being prepared, being the experts in that regard is vitally important, and it's just incumbent upon what we do. Establishing a project reporting standardization to provide situational awareness and maintain transparency. This is so that not only are internal stakeholders but our external stakeholders know where we are both in the recovery continuum but also what we are doing to reduce or eliminate those vulnerabilities going forward by incorporating resiliency efforts. Having that as both the public facing and internal reporting methods so that each and every person in this organization knows what we're doing where we're at. And then continually working to refine the process, just like all things we do within the county, we want that process improvement to be instituted, institutionalized within our organization so that we understand that just because we set ourselves upon a path Today we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, understand that just because we set ourselves upon a path today, we recognize there may be adjustments that need to be made in the military, they may refer to the acronym Udalupe, Observe Orient Decide Act. That's a very simplified version of a continuous process improvement. So we certainly are going going to embrace that another process improvement idioms. So getting into more detail with the local mitigation strategy workgroup again we have maintained a local mitigation strategy here in Charlotte County which makes us eligible for certain mitigation funding from the federal government since I believe 98 or 99. That is of review and revision every five years. And that plan identifies our vulnerabilities, our risks, establishes what our priorities are for eliminating or reducing those risks. It uses data that's collected throughout the years, both from historical events, but also studies that have been commissioned to determine what those vulnerabilities are, what is changing in our environment to make us more or less vulnerable. But we also as a collaborative work session, I'm sorry, a collaborative platform for us to work together to determine what those projects are that will best benefit our community. Now the list that comes along, the project list that is associated with our local mitigation strategy is truly funding neutral. Just for it to be added to that list does not mean it has to be eligible for any certain specific funding source. It just has to have a mitigation nexus. We maintain that list, we continually work with our partners, not just within our county organization, but the entirety of the community to ensure that if there's opportunities to have less vulnerability to disasters, we're incorporating those, identifying them. Again, reviewing those best practices, and of course, always looking to our most vulnerable populations to ensure that we are doing what we can to educate them. But also provide provisions of resiliency into our community so that our most vulnerable will become less so to disasters going forward. So what is emergency management role in this process? We have, like in all things we do in emergency management, we own very little and the way of resources. We serve as a coordination communication, both to our internal and external customers. We work to leverage that internal and external expertise of both our departments and our partners, identify training, keeping the effort on the tracks and moving in a singular direction with that collaborative strategy development, and interpret and communicate national, regional, and statewide best practices and standards. That speaks to the ever changing environment that I alluded to earlier. I think we're very likely to see some changes at the federal level that we're probably all tracking to a certain degree. Interpreting those changes, how they fit with us, what we do here locally and how we need to adapt to those changes is something that emergency management is certainly taking on. So with that, I believe that's my last slide. I'm open to any questions. Any questions from Mr. Fuller? So is there going to be creamy or chunky peanut butter? Have we learned anything from the last hurricane? I think we now have some of the nut allergy. Okay. So we're going to just avoid peanut butter all together. Okay, all right, next up, we have managing, communicate the complexities of the provision of public services. And this is the first time I think Mr. Gleason is presented to the board that I can remember. In a while. Okay. Well, you're up, sir. Yeah, Brian Gleason communications director, and I was just going to say that's the first time that string of words has crossed my mouth in front of the board so thank you for the Board of Conference. As you said in Francine said the new bold goal that includes public in public services that includes the communication department is managing, communicating the complexities of the provision of public services. In the past our bold goals were in the efficient and effective government where still they, but they added some more work for us to do in the coming years. So I just want to cover a little bit of what the strategy is and how we measure our success. Thank you. So when I joined, I made it clear that the thing that we're going to keep coming back to over and over again is we want to reach people how they want to be reached. I came from the newspaper business, that's my background, but the world has changed. And now about half of the people get their news from social media or the internet, the traditional media, TV, radio, newspapers is still a big demographic here because of our age of our population and that'll probably be the same for another 10 years or so. But if you ever see a person less than 30 with a newspaper in the hands, let me know. So that's going to be changing as we go forward. So we want to use the traditional media, TV, radio, newspaper. We want to use social media. We just added a streaming site because when we were out in the community doing our outreach, we heard from people over and over about their core cutting and they couldn't view CCTV and watch your meetings on TV and they didn't know what really was to do it on a computer. So we added a streaming app over the last year and I have some stats on that for you. And also the internet. The website is probably the most used tool that we have for communicating things about the county. It has everything about the county because of our public records laws and our transparency, culture here. Most everything can be found on the website. The challenge we have is getting people to be able to find that. And so we just recently completed a change to our search engine so that we could make it so that searches that people type into our search bar deliver the things that we believe that people want to see. There's an example I use called tags. There's pet tags and there's car tags. With the Google search, if you type in tags, you got about 500 answers and you had to scroll down a couple of pages to get what you wanted. With the new search function, it goes right to those two things. It goes to animal control and it goes to the tax collector. So that's one example of what we're trying to do to make our website more accessible to the millions of people who go to that every day. Also one of the things we were charged with in our role as a communications department was to work on the internal communication of the organization. Right now because we have a hybrid model for communication, we have five departments that have public relations managers and they also have other people that have communications roles in doing monthly reports, doing newsletters, doing internal communication on video devices and things like that. So what we tried to do, the rest of the departments, we're their public relations manager in the communication department. So what we try to do is we have quarterly meetings of all the comms people to get to know what's working, what projects they're working on, anything new that they've started using and see if that can be used for other people. We just had an example of that that we're going to be looking at with our newsletter and possibly using a new online program that gives us more feedback and more analytics so that we know what kind of content people are consuming on our newsletter because we put a lot of time and effort into gathering that and recognizing our fellow employees. So the internal communication manager will work with departments, already has had meetings with all of the departments, talking about best practices, challenges, things that they've learned. Think of feedback that they're getting from their employees on what kind of communication they wanna get from the county and how they're gonna get it. Some people prefer email, some people wanna get it on the connect at work, some people wanna get it by text. You'll hear more about that in the coming months as we have a team that's working on a project that will change how we handle text internally in Charlotte County. So that's a big job. We got a good person in that role that she's been with the County for longer than I have. And we work very well together and know each other very well. So I'm looking forward to that relationship and the work that we can do to build internal communication in the County. As you know, we also handle most of the event planning for things like ribbon cuttings, ground breaking, and things like that. So they had a great turnout at Babcock earlier this week. The fact community is very engaged in everything they do. We took a tour out there a couple of weeks ago and they said they have Fruit Truck Friday. Like we have Fruit truck Friday and they have a thousand people go out there every Friday night. So that showed you that it was a huge crowd out there earlier this week for that ribbon cutting and they really enjoyed the tour and I heard a lot of good feedback. So that's the event planning. We're coming up on another event for Station 2 out on the airport road. I'm going to try and squeeze that in before July. We don't do ribbon cuttings and ground breaking in July and August for obvious reasons, but I'm going to probably get it hopefully before the end of June. Strategic communication, one of the first things we did when I came into the county was work on a strategic communications they, so that my bosses knew what to expect that I would be working on when my goals were gonna be in addition to the things that I was charged with dealing. We completed that strategic communications plan in around 2000, renewed it in 2023, had a series of work items, action items to complete. And we've gone through that almost completely. We've got one more to go. We're going to do an internal communications strategic plan with the new Internal Cons manager and then update ours as well. So we'll do it on the same cycle that you guys do with your strategic focus areas. So that's coming up. So I want to show you a few of the numbers because we want to reach people how they want to be reached. The only way to really know if you're doing that is to use the analytics that are available. So let me just move you forward here. So our county website, I was talking about earlier, some of the items I want to point out, I'm not going to go through all these numbers, but the top right one, 5.6 million total visits to our website in 2024. 1.4 million unique users. Now a lot of that was because we had two hurricanes in the tropical storm. If you notice over on the left side, the most visited page of the most visited day was October 7th. That was Hurricane Milton. Almost 400,000 people went to our website that day to get information about evacuations, resources, recovery, and it stayed up at a pretty high level throughout the rest of the year. So a lot of these numbers that we have broke records for our website didn't break the website like Ian did, but almost. And so we had a lot of record views, a lot of places to go evacuation zones, evacuation routes, flood insurance maps, the disaster planning, you can tell, these are all the things that people go into our website for and they were able to find them because they showed up in the analytics as pages that people were clicking on and downloading stuff from. So another aspect of our operation is this communication in the CCTV. We have set three records in a row, I mean, three years in a row by taking advantage of an embracing one of your bold goals, which was to increase the use of interns in Charlotte County. Since we started having an intern, the person who couched you in and then changes the camera focus in the control room, we've broken records for the number of original videos that have been produced by CCTV the last three years in a row and now we have doubled the amount from four years ago to over,'s see 70 record, 70 original videos including an Emmy award-winning video from Tom Lloyd for the artist showcase video last year. So that's just one thing we also, as I mentioned earlier, we added the streaming services. You can get on Roku, it's information on how to do that on the website. CCTV is one of the menu items at the very top of the page. So it'll walk you through how you how you can do that. Basically you're going to go to your Roku and you're going to search for Charlotte County and our icon is going to show up and you just click that and install it. And that will live stream Charlotte County TV 24 hours a day. So the over the air live stream views total five hours and 27 minutes. Thank you. And we've added 77 board meetings and 8,482 original videos. We also, let me just go back here. We also took advantage. One of the action items on the list was to make better use of our constant contact distribution list. We used it to send out our monthly reports to people and so we decided if we're going to pay for the service we should be using it for more than just one document that we're going to send out a month. So we added in our weekly update that comes out in the midweek. And so we hit a record last year with, um, we sent out 565,000 emails and has an open rate, a click rate of 52%, which is way above the industry average. So that's one of those data points that tells you that when we send it out, people are seeing it and so we'll continue to do that. It takes a little time to do that. If you get that in your inbox, you'll know how many different events. It's a lot of calendar stuff. It's a lot of, there's some columns in there. There's road information, closures, things like that. If you've been paying attention in the last couple of weeks, Chad Raid, the PRM in public works has been shutting down every road in this county, if it seems like. So, but that's the kind of thing we gotta get out in front of people so that we don't see the normal traffic that we want us to, that we see when we're to be doing work or some other agencies can be doing work. We also launched a new app, the Charlotte County FL app. We went to a new customer because the old server, the old account was with a contract that was not going to service the old public stuff app anymore. So before it went dark on us, we had to switch over to a new one and we've already seen that we've got 1600 service requests. So that's to that goes directly to people using that app and we're reaching them with that app rather than Them calling someone which is a it's a big feature when when the call that call volume gets to a certain place The departments that have quick CRMs They know that when it hits a certain number of wait times that they need more bodies and so a show the the app Just look at it the last six months 1600 people people use the app to report a problem, a pothole, a stray dog, whatever they want to report. And there's a bunch of different categories. We also use it internally as part of our asset management plan to track the work tickets through facilities. So that's been a good product for us. Still got some hiccups to work out, but it's worked out well. All right, so social media. This is the other way, as I mentioned earlier, social media is where a lot of people get all the news. They only watch TV if there's a big event and they want to see it live, sporting events, things like that. That's why sports contracts are so high because sports are one of the few TV shows that actually draw people in live. Most people stream or some of the way. Social media, I'm going to only show you a couple of these but I'll just show you the kind of explosion that we're seeing again because the last year was a little eventful. Our engagement across all of our platforms. We've got Facebook, we've got Instagram, we've got Nextdoor, we've got Pinterest, we've got LinkedIn, not everybody uses all of them, but we want to reach people, how they want to be reached And some people are, you know, they love the Instagram. They like X, the former Twitter. Facebook is the most popular of them all. And that's where we put probably the most of our resources, especially in making videos. So our engagement across all platforms in last year was 3.4 million, which is a 66% increase from the previous year. Again, we understand that that's largely hurricane related. People go into the page to see pictures of things that they didn't want to be a disaster tourist, so they go to our page and see how bad stuff wasn't various places. So we expect to see that drop off if we get a little bit less activity this season coming up. And then the video views, this really tells you video is king on social media and that's why we put so much time and resources into it. Nine, more than nine million video views and that was up by 131% over the previous year. So we're working hard. We have a plan in place to put more resources into video with another body working on social media and another person working with the video production for CCTV and our YouTube page and social media. So we've got some changes coming up and we're looking forward to meeting the challenge that comes with trying to reach people how they want to be reached every day Thank you all ready for any questions if you have any Yeah, I just had one comment. I I appreciate the social media information because some of the most Egregious misinformation I've seen is people that just post stuff on these social media platforms and there's really no way to combat it unless we have a presence to offer an alternative review of the issue. I've had people come up to me and tell me the most bizarre things about the county. I'm like can you tell me where you got that information? Like social media. I'm like first mistake. You know unless it's from our website, you know if you don't have a trusted source that you can verify, there's just so much opinion and innuendo out there. And unfortunately to your point, practically everybody gets their information young and old now through social media platforms. Like you mentioned next door, Facebook, and just the amount of misinformation. I mean, I think they're great platforms to communicate with people, but the downside is, you know, again, the misinformation that's out there and people really need to double-check everything they're reading. Right, and that's one of our charges from the administration is to engage in those with putting actual factual information in there. It's hard to chase that because there are so many, especially on a platform like Nextdoor, which I'm a member of my neighborhood Nextdoor, which we've got some grumpy people in my neighborhood apparently because I just kind of scroll through and I'm like, okay, okay, they didn't say anything about the county but then when they do, I have to go in there because of the way next to a works, the county account can't comment on one that's not that's just a neighborhood one. So it's a little little weird with next door, but we get a lot we reach a lot of people on that on that platform. So it comes with the territory. One of the strategies that I like to emphasize with with the social media administrators is if the bad if the news is bad, don't make any new news and don't create a platform for people to gather around and throw stones. So sometimes you just got to lay low on social media, especially if there's a specific thing that's happening because they believe me, they will find you. No, no, that's a good point. You have to be careful on how you engage because there are people that aren't necessarily looking for the correct information. They're looking to your point to throw stones and give them a platform of misinformation, not a platform of information. And I know a lot of my responses when I respond to emails, I'll cut and paste the links to our website. Some people don't like navigating, I try to make it convenient. And I just say, look, here it is, look for yourself. Right. It's kind of the easiest way to do it. I think we do that too much social media. I think we'll post, I think some links and things for information on different platforms. So that's a good thing. And if you see anything that you want us to chase down, then we will. We're there. We got people. We get eyes on it every day. Emily is. I wouldn't be able to do my job if I did that. Emily is. She's going to take a break for the next couple of weeks as she travels from social media, because I don't want to hear about it for a little while. Any other questions for Brian? OK. All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next we have Carrie Walsh. Human Services. Good afternoon commissioners. Carrie Walsh, thrilled to be here with you today and to talk a little bit about human services. In our world, public services is people and partnerships for us and the specifically I want to share some of the highlights about the Family Services Center because it is what we consider kind of a living network that has compassion, strategy, and offers hope. So I would like to start by telling you a story specifically about a veteran who came into the Family services center just to get assistance with food stamps. He had been living in a converted trailer with no electricity and no water for at least a decade. He came into the center. He was immediately connected with our veteran services team who began to assist to do acclaims and a benefit review for him to determine all the ways that they could assist him with the VA. He didn't have a phone. And so while they were undergoing that process with the VA with him, he would come in and check in on that process periodically. That took time. And in that process, they began to build trust with him. As a result of the relationship and the trust that was built, a few wonderful things happened, they were able to get him income. So he was awarded some benefits that he was entitled to that increased his income from $175 a month to $3,831 a month. Finally, in February of 2025, he came in to see the veterans in our veteran services division and said, I'm ready to be housed. So they reached out to our partner there, the Gulf Coast Partnership, who did a coordinated entry referral, immediately, St. Vincent de Paul Cares, who was also our partner at the Family Services Center, wrapped housing and a grant around him. And the result is that he was immediately, once he decided he was housed. So that one visit of him coming in, it sparked a chain reaction with these three agencies and that really speaks to the power of co-location and it's also speaks to the promise of integrated services. And there's more stories like that. There's a lot of stories. A lot of stories that it constituents call me was probably a year or two ago. They had problem with an electric bill. It was an elderly person and I referred them to the Family Services Center. They actually followed up with me to say not only did they get help, they found out they qualify for other assistance. They had no clue that they were able to qualify for it. She was very grateful for the assistance she got at the Family Services Center. That's awesome, that's the best news. Thank you for that. Yeah. So another highlight is a pilot program called Harmony in the Family. This program is a partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, Charlotte County, Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, and also the Florida Sheriff's Youth Ranch. So this is kind of a bold program that's intended to strengthen the relationship between parents and children to really build resilience, build communication, and really get to the heart of that connection and trust between them before any kind of a crisis or anything in the relationship happens. They're already seeing results. They've had two events. They've had 60 participants, and they're going to continue to build on that program and its successes. When we look at system improvements, I can't help but mention the COAD because our impact does extend beyond families. So the Charlotte County COAD has over 160 local, state, regional, national and international partners and they do prepare for and respond to or recover from disasters. So whether or not that's hurricane relief or long-term recovery, this really represents the fact that this place, the Family Services Center, it is what we consider a nerve center for action, and it serves as the base of operations for the co-add, for disaster recovery, and for resilience. And as I last highlight, we can't and don't want to ever forget our elders. So through quarterly social events, we bring a lot of laughter and connection to hundreds of older citizens and veterans in our community. What this does for us is it combats isolation and it also offers knowledge and support. And with these community partners, these events have really turned into lifelines for many of these participants. We'll continue to do this and this has grown and grown and grown. So we really look forward to this partnership that honestly I think we're going to get more partners in the mix here. We're also planning an event where hurricane supplies and education are going to be handed out as well. So this is just an excellent program. So kind of enclosing that the Family Services Center in this, in this campus, our greatest resource really is each other. Our success isn't just measured in the services that we deliver, but in the lives that we quietly transformed. But to your credit in accepting and building this center, this is what happens when a community coordinates, and this is what happens when public service becomes public impact. So we're grateful for the opportunity, and we hope that we can continue to bring you great highlights and events and engagement and programs for many years to come. And I would also recognize that the taxpayers and voters of Charlotte County gave us the family services center for the 1% sales tax. So it's another reflection of that vision that they had to support those types of projects and now we're seeing measurable outcomes, which is fabulous. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Any questions for Carrie? Okay next we have Mr. Scott. Good afternoon commissioners Tommy Scott Community Service Director. Administration wanted me to take an opportunity to bring forward some information you've seen before which is this comes out of our Parkson Recreation Master Plan that was approved at the end of last year. This is identifying the forecasted need for community parks and regional parks in our communities. We move forward through the years to really work on that growth that's coming, right? And Francine talked earlier about that growth and really that, and she showed a slide which was the Metro forecasting demographics. Dave Farmer was just here not too long ago and said we're setting records, commissioner, you mentioned that as well, that we know that we have a lot of people who have found us. So the need to kind of focus on this is kind of important. So really what I wanted to kind of talk about was this concept of, you know, we've identified areas on this map of the general areas where we're looking at. The concept that we're looking at is multi-fold and I just wanted to discuss that with you and kind of get some comments and feedback back on that is. If we look at this piece of property in Northwest Port Charlotte, this portion right here is highlighted is owned by county, Charlotte County. So it's 7.2 acres. In this area, we need a community park. 7.2 acres does not make the size amount for one of our parks and rec master plan defined parks. We need to be at least 15 more 20, 50 would be great. In urban areas it's a little more difficult. So we own the 7.2. What our thought is is to start looking at acquiring some of the undeveloped areas that are in and around some parcels that are by the county, so that way we potentially could piece together to get as close or to what that looks like. So this is one strategy that we're looking at. The other one is there are some areas of the county that have larger parcels that fit the area that we're looking for. This is an area down south of the river that has about 15 acres. Again, that kind of fits the demographic of what we're looking for from a size perspective. So really, the point of the conversation is we know that we have growth that is occurring in Charlotte County. We have through our Parks and Recumaster Plan identified the timing of when these parks would need to come online. So per our park, the Parks and Recumaster Plan, if I go back to this slide, FCA, which is kind of Northwest Port Charlotte, which is the future community A, the first one. Demographics show that the population will necessitate that park in 2030. Future Community Park B, which is kind of, it shows green, but that's just because blue and yellow make green. That is needed in also 2030. The other, the regional park that's in burnt store area that kind of smaller yellow bubble is needed in 2035. So I think I just want to one point out that we're staying on top of this. We've worked closely with Metro forecasting. We've, and they've gone through and identified parcels that are within all of these bubbles that we could configure to make the size and quantity that we need. I just wanted to make sure I'm communicating this to you and then just have some discussion moving forward. This is going to require some board action, right? So we would have to come back with resolutions, acquisition opportunities. We've discussed obviously some of those when we brought back the port Charlotte golf course. Again, not identified specifically on this map for growth, but it was an opportunity that was identified in our Parks and Recreation Master Plan. Just wanted to make sure we have this conversation that our goal would be to implement the partial recombatio plan is to bring forward these I plan just wanted to make sure we have this conversation that our goal would be to implement the Parts of McMaster Plan is to bring forward these opportunities because they're not making more land and we know that people are gobbling up property right now to build houses on our opportunities to acquire this land is probably sooner rather than later. Yeah I would just come in on the first strategy there where we already have a parcel the 7.2 acres and you want to build off it essentially I think an issue I can see with that strategy is that you've got dozens of other lots around with potentially separate owners I'm assuming some may own multiples. I don't know You know what's the plan to execute on notify? Because it's probably willing sellers. And if you have holdouts, you might do a whole lot of work and not be able to put the puzzle together. Because you can't get the missing pieces or like Murdoch Village, if you start a process and the others get wind of it, next thing you know, a lot that may have been worth $5 or $10,000, is now $30 or $40,000. you know so that kind of i i appreciate building off that but i probably want to see a strategy on how to attack all those individual lots. And we're working closely with real estate services as well. We've engaged with Mr. Kippa on this concept on trying to parcel, couple together parcels to make a larger piece that we could build a park out of. Some of those larger areas that are that 15 acres already that could meet our needs. So we've engaged with real estate services, there the county's expert when it comes to this sale and acquisition of property. So that is something we would look to for them to be able to bring forward as an acquisition strategy. Because my understanding maybe legal can weigh in on this, I think there's two ways to do this, a willing seller or eminent domain, if it serves a public purpose, but I don't know if we wanna go down that road. And please know, I'm not standing in the point of today to advocate for eminent. No, no, no. We are looking for a willing seller. It's for sure. I'm just what's a discussion right now. So that's what I'm throwing out there, and I don't know if I have an appetite for that either. But it's good to plan. I think the other concern I have is the uncertainty at the legislative level on future revenues. Obviously these are long term visionary things to acquire these parcels. It's going to take some time. And the revenue streams we have today, we may not have tomorrow to execute. It doesn't mean we don't plan, but I think going forward and actually, you know, as the board makes these decisions as they come back to actually start funding these things, you know, what is funding going to look like if, you know, you listen to what's going on right now. And I think we're all paying very close attention to the discussions in Tallahassee on, you know, how that might impact us here locally. So I would just throw that out there as something to be considered as we wait to hear word on what's coming down from Tallahassee. I have commission adorning the queue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I think it's a great idea, though, at least focusing on what we need according to Metro by 2030. You know, and look at those areas, look at those regions that need a community park. I agree though, Mr. Chairman, that, you know, we have so much uncertainty in town, ASI right now on the revenue side that we do. But it'll be a month away, you know, we'll have some answers in a month. So to get the ball rolling, I would like to try to see what options we have too to reach out to these property owners. I mean, is it makes sense to possibly go into a contract with a real estate firm as opposed to our real estate department? They can do some door knocking and Discreetly find out where I don't know if that's possible Chinat. I mean, just wonder now as an idea We all know the story about how Disney acquired their properties, very quietly. So yeah, you're right, Mr. Chairman. You could. We just announced it. We announced it, but we, you know, this might not be the location, right? But the process, yeah, we got to get going on a process. But if in fact, we understand that we have a need in this region, we got to get going on it. that's all, and gets to start planning. But I'm not ready to pull the trigger on anything until we know the dollars and that we're getting the best price for this stuff, too. I think we'll understand the budget in a month after specials. We'll understand the budget after special session. However, there's a task force out there that's reporting back. It's not so much this session, I'm worried about, it's next session in 2026 is what's concerning me. It's still all bulls down to what will this cost? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, nothing stops the planning component of this. It's just the funding I'm keeping an eye on. Any other questions from Mr. Scott? Okay, thank you, sir. Thank you. Next we have emergency medical services, chief fair. Good afternoon commissioners. Jason Fere, I'll say director for the record. So a couple of years ago we came to you with a strategic plan which you were able to support and kind of laid out the plan for us moving forward our path. So I want to provide for you a little bit an update on that. So looking at the five-year totals and we look at those call increases. So, totals. and kind of laid out the plan for us moving forward or path. So I want to provide for you a little bit of an update on that. So looking at the five-year totals and we look at those call increases. So total call volume, we're looking at a 22.3% increase in that five-year span. Breakdown specifically to EMS is an 18.6% increase. So we're also looking to that trend to continue within the next year when we are looking at probably about a hundred 111 calls 110 calls average per year are per day right now we're looking at the average right now is running I'm sorry this was last year right now our average is running up there about towards 120 per day so improvements one of the items we isolated looking at the 90th percentile was turnout times so we've laid those out since that strategic plan to look at 2022 at that 242. That was what we brought to you then, looking at our times over 2025 so far. We're looking at two minutes and 11 seconds as the improvement of that time. So again, what we did to address this, we talked about education and awareness. We talked about station design. Those stations that had been laid out over the last couple that that have been opened. We put station designs in place that allow access to those apparatus much quicker. Also looking at continued policy increases. We worked with dispatch to kind of do a rapid dispatch and then how we communicate that information back to the crews. One of those is stational learning. That's a project that we were looking at. We were looking at grant dollars for that because it runs about $1.5 million to get into a program like that. We were looking at grants. Those grants have since been shut down. So at this point, we're like keeping that out there for a funding option. What have we implemented? So advanced life support engines. We had three that we brought to you that we wanted to round out our ALS engines or advanced life support engines. Chief, we have a question. Commissioner, I'd like to recognize. Yeah, Chief, would you mind going back to the last slide? Yes, sir. What would we have to do and what would it take us to get to a hundred seconds between the national average and this CFAI? what would we take, what would we have to do to get to that point? I think the item that's right in front of us right now is gonna give us the greatest gain is going to be that station learning. So getting the information to the crews is quickly as possible, where the information is there and they know who's going and when they're going and what they're going to quicker. I think that's the thing that's gonna give us that quickest response to close that time out. Okay, and you know, we've been doing a lot of talk about the new nine-button one operation. I know that you've had the opportunity to discuss this a couple times, at least with the sheriff. How will the establishment of that new facility, which is year, year and a half away ballpark, how will that affect those times? So those would probably have more of an effect on the call handling time. So from the time the call comes into the time is dispatched, right? Now the systems that are put in place and how they integrate with a station learning system, that's where we'll see the benefits. But I also want to keep in mind too, where we say that where the recommendation is that 90 seconds, I think's very telling when we say the national average is 120 seconds. That's why I sort of pick 100 90 is a very it's it's a under I think it's an unrealistic goal for We're trying to do it. It's a goal and it's an ideal. That's why I throw out a hundred that might be a little closer to reality at some point So what does it take? What do we have to do so you can you can do that hundred seconds? So that's why I think if we move in these directions again, we continue with policy revisions and look at that as we do it. We talked about station design and what that's going to do is we continue to remodel these stations and set them up again. We're going to see I'd look to see some incremental improvements there. We're always going to shoot for that standard or even better where we can. I just want to make sure we're being realistic too as far as what that expected. Is there a defined percentage that station design actually, you know, we're opening up some new stations. We've got another one coming up soon. We just opened one up officially yesterday. What does that design have as a direct effect on those numbers? Can you measure that? We have not measured that. I don't know that we're going to be able to, but I think we can certainly look to see what options there are to see if there is a way to measure it. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we came to you with that strategic plan we came to you with the Establishment bringing all of our engines up to advanced life support That's the highest level of care capable in that pre-hospital arena and since then we have brought engine 11 They came on February 14th last year engine seven that came on June 5th of last year the only one one now that we're still waiting on is engine three. And we're waiting on right now as we continue to monitor our staffing levels, our staffing numbers. And also looking at we have a collective parting agreement coming up that's going to change how we have basically operated over several years and are basically our staffing and the hours worked. So we want to make sure that's going to require a lot more personnel. So we want to make sure that we are in a right place before we pull those triggers that we would have to back off later So this is about being mindful. I think we are in a good place and we're going to continue to monitoring those numbers as we move forward. Yeah, I have a question for you. I remember the board approved, I think it was last year, Kelly days I think and giving you the resources of the funding to provide the FTEs to make that work, but it was a hiring up period. Where are we with that? Because I know that would, you know, obviously impact response times. I mean, are we properly staffed? Are we getting there? That's the numbers working through now. So we're sitting at about 22 right now low, open positions right now that's also including those positions that were provided. So we're continuing on that hiring process. We're looking, it takes about five to six months to get somebody totally up, trained, hired, onboarded, trained, and then released, meaning they can operate on their own. It's about five or six months. So we're continuing on that hiring process. We did have about three Hiring events per year. We're now moving to four hiring events per year So that then they're in training for eight weeks before they get released to the field So basically it's gonna be that eight weeks. They got a couple weeks to do interviews get all the background checks done the train the Physical's done the equipment and then here they are running again for another eight weeks. It's not a budgeting issue, it's an employee issue. Right, and it's not isolated to Charlotte County, this is a nationwide challenge right now, so but I think when you look at Charlotte County's numbers and our ability to bring people on, I think we are doing very well compared to where we are nationally. Okay, Commissioner, do I show you another comment? Just real quick. Are we tracking retention? Yes, we are. Okay. Can you give us any information on those numbers? In other words, are our retention numbers improving over what they have been in the past? Because I think that's a key as we look to the future of the department. Those are numbers I have to bring back to you. Okay, I'm gonna be kind enough to get those to all of us. I think we brought the OPM to you. Thank you, Jane. Thank you, you can keep going. So the other thing we brought to you in regard to for implementation was looking at what we call peak load rescues. So these were the ambulances that we were bringing on for those 10 hour shifts during those peak times of service. So we had medic one that we brought on in April 14th of last year and then medic two that we brought on in September 25th of last year. When we came to you we were looking for three. So the third one implements was the plan was to put it in this next year would be when that came on board. So that had the intent behind that was to look at that unit hour utilization, then that is defined as the amount of time in that work period that that unit is engaged on a call. So from the time they're dispatched to a call, till the time they get back to the station or from the time they go back in service. So we did see some improvements in there, but as I show you later in the numbers, they're starting to go up again and I will speak to why that happens. Those units were also kind of helping from that system reliability, making sure we maintain that system reliability by having those additional units during those peak times and call concurrency. And that's where you have one call go out and another one go out within that same district. units have the ability to move around. There's not sitting right in a station, so it's about where you have one call go out and another one go out within that same district. These units have the ability to move around. There's not sitting right in a station. So it's about where they're available and they can move where needed. So the implementation of 10 hour rescues what we saw in that first year with a medic one was 884 calls. And you can see where they are year to date as of last month. So far this year for that quarter. for that quarter. And then Medic 2, again brought on in September, they saw 443 calls in that quarter. And then Mediq 2, again brought on in September, they saw 443 calls in that year. And again, that was a half a year. And you can see where they are already year to date as well. So they've had a very good positive impact as far as helping to take the load off. But this is where we start talking about our unit, our utilization. So Rescue 32 is a rescue that runs out of Punagorda. You saw we're at 26% then you saw 23 and then 28 and I think we're... But this is where we start talking about our unit, our utilization. So Rescue 32 is a rescue that runs out of Punagorda. You saw we're at 26% then you saw 23 and then 28. And I think we're starting to see those numbers rise again for that unit. What I want to bring to your attention is we also lost a hospital in the south part of the county. So now in that unit is transporting their transporting either south or their transporting up into Port Charlotte too. So that's going to add that time because we said the time was from the time they get the call to the time they're available again. So by creasing their trans... either south or they're transporting up into Port Charlotte too. So that's going to add that time because we said the time was from the time they get the call to the time they're available again. So by increasing their transport times we're increasing their unit hour utilization. Are you having people request to go to Sarasota? Do we do that? We do take them to Sarasota, yes. Yeah, okay. That's built into these numbers. Yes, sir. Okay. But you can see like rescue one which would be like right there, Port Shout out proper, You've seen the decrease in those numbers and again that's where one we've had the benefit of having those units, those Medicare units right there too. So, believe that concludes ours. Any questions? Commissioner Constance, you're right. Well, but I also your point, yes, called volume as well, also going up. Thank you. Any other questions? I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. I think we have a lot of questions. positive reflection on how you've been able to pivot and respond to increased demands and you're meeting them and exceeding them. So I think that's good news. Yes sir, great news. And into your point, yes, called line as well, also going up. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Next, we have nonprofits and court funding. Both of those will be presented by Mrs. Lisby. Before we get to that, commissioners, I do, I did include a slide on emergency on emergency medical services financial information Just thought this was a good opportunity to provide a financial picture for you of the last From 2011 forward of the financial status for the department As you can see in 2011 What we're graphing here is the revenues and expenditures for the department as well as the avalorum contribution So you could see in 2011, what we're graphing here is the revenues and expenditures for the department as well as the ad valorem contribution. So you could see in 2011 the ad valorem contribution for emergency medical service operations was approximately $5 million. Over the last 15 years we've seen that number grow. What we're projecting for fiscal year 25 is an ad valorem contribution of a little bit over between 10 and $11 million. Any questions? Mr. Conses, you're right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not so much a question, but a comment. I mean, it seems like the last two years now, we're tracking the way it should be, which is we'd like our advalorant contribution to be pretty flat, and that revenues should be the source of paying for the expenditures. So I mean, whether you're doing a better job at collections or we're correcting the fees that are getting assessed or whatever, but I mean, that looks better than when the blue line is above the green line. Yeah, so we do use an external collections company to collect our transport fees and that's what you're seeing when you're looking at those revenue lines. However there are things that are out of our control. For example, a portion of the revenue that we collected is collect is from our PEMT program, which is our Public Emergency Medical Transport Program. And what that does is it helps subsidize when we transport a patient with Medicaid. So we know that the cost of transport could be a certain dollar amount. We're only going to receive a certain amount. That program does help subsidize that, but we're never to get that true cost back. Cost recovery. Okay, thank you. So yeah, on the expenditure line, the red line, that's growing. Yes. And that includes uncollectables as like an expense. Yes, so we do do a write-off process with accounts receivables for emergency medical services. I do want to point out you're seeing the expenditures grow similar to how we we focused last budget cycle on the fire MSBU and coming up with a rate plan to sustain the growth in the community, to sustain the needs that have been identified as part of that standard of cover. And now a study that was done as well as the strategic plan that Chief just mentioned. So we know that there have been things that have been identified, needs that have been identified. So I do think that you're gonna continue to see the expenditures grow for emergency medical services. You have to remember every time we build something into the fire side, the fire MSPU, we also have a large portion that's gonna go to general fund as an expenditure as well. So the transport fees were never intended to fully pay for the service. Is that been the policy that it subsidized through the ad warm contribution? That's a great question. I think that goes back to why we need a county fee policy to really have something that it provides a comprehensive look at that as well. Because just just from looking at this graph it looks like if we were to rely on the transport fees we'd have to double them. There are already a couple, what are they? $203,000? More than that. Yeah, overall, I'll say, you know, the advalorem tax is paid to have the system at the ready, the rescues, the rigs ready to go. When they roll and they transport a patient, that's where we try to recoup some of the costs through the user fees. But what you just said commissioner, if we increase the fees, I think still the make-up of our payers, we would probably have a little bit more write-offs that go along with that. So we would never really be recouping 100% of the fees. I think that's across a lot of the EMS services, especially in Florida. So this reflects the cost to have the infrastructure on standby essentially and then the fee is when the truck is rolling. Correct. With the assets. Correct. Jason Faire, Public State Director for the record. So we look at it from two perspectives. So one, when we look at the county portion, it's kind of make sure that that service is available and then ready and then there's a pay for usage of the services the charge as a fee that goes out. It was probably going back about four or five years ago. We did some adjustments to our fees. We increased our fees. We did that as comparables to those around us as well. So when we looked at our service fees, you know, what we brought to the board was based on what was going on around us. was comparable, not necessarily looking to make sure we're covering the full expense of the service. Because since 2020, it looks like based on the graph, our expenditures went up about $6 million. Am I reading that right? Just in that span? Is that right? Yes. And that could be due to several different factors. So any time what I have included here is capital expenditures. We do cover any new apparatuses that are purchased, rescues, things like that, out of general revenues as well. Okay, so that's reflected in there too, which could be big numbers. Interesting. I mean, we want to write size the fees fees but I know our constituents already are who have to pay. You know it's it's a lot of money you know and nobody wants to raise fees but you know how do we get to the right size you know so that'll be an interesting conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Duwich. Have we seen any measurable impact in the recent increase in fees we had a couple of years ago? Because I would think that that should make some difference. Obviously, we can't control the price of a new piece of equipment or fire engine or truck. We can't control that. But have those fees and we recently talked about them in the last few days as you know. But have they had a softening effect on the overall budget, the fact that we're getting those fees? I think that there's several factors. If you look at 2020, compared to 2024, you do see our revenue line has substantially grown. I think that that's due to the collection company that we're using. We've seen positive impacts. But we increase those seeds a few years ago. Excuse me. I'm specifically talking about what affected that increase have and a couple of other things related to that. We have a more non-collectables now because we threw the, you know, a couple hundred extra bucks in for a call, you know, share that with us because we made that decision just a couple of years ago. So I think there's a number of things that play into this. So one of them was just looted is that we're looking at that call volume increase. So that's having an impact here. The other thing too, which Emily shared, which Emily reminded me of too, is that keeping in mind that the service that we provide is throughout Charlotte County, but it's also to those who don't live in Charlotte County and that are paying into this. So that's also where that whole service fee, they're paying for the service fee, they're not paying for that service to be available through their taxes. So, in regard to your question specifically, we have not, for us to come up with that number, it'd be pacing out what our old fees were based on what they are now, what's that gap? Or the additional incremental difference. Right, so we have not done that. So that's something we can do to see what kind of impact that would be. What I can't speak for is Digitech. So we've had great success with or the additional incremental difference. Right, so we have not done that. So that's something we can do to see what kind of impact that would be. What I can speak for is Digitech. So we've had great success with Digitech. And I know that the correspondence that we have with them back and forth, I think we just received something from them recently with the Troubles Report, which spoke to for an area such as our demographics that we really have a really good collection within our area based on our demographics as compared to others. And that's from Digitech through their service. So we've seen very successful. that we really have a really good collection, you know, within our area based on our demographics, as compared to others, and that's from Digitech through their service. So we've seen very successful collection rates through them, and I think that contributes here to what you're seeing. The reality that I tried to share this with you, that we get the phone calls because people say, see, I pay for that service, and they don't, you know, and so that's where we get those complaints and, you know, and that obviously than you and I talk about them. But right in. Because a lot of people aren't aware of those because they feel, gee, I take care of that and my normal tax bill. Yeah, exactly. Wilson. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Any more questions? Moving on to the nonprofit funding commissioners, we like to bring nonprofit funding updates to you as part of each budget cycle. So the graph we're seeing here is a history on our county, a to nonprofits and the health department. So you can see the not for profit funding is in representing green. We have Charlotte Behavioral Health in blue, and then we have public health. You could see what was actually provided to the not for profits over the last several years, but then also we've included the requested budget for 26 and 27. The next slide just provides a little bit more detail on that information. So what we've provided is the funding level for fiscal year 25 and then the new request for 26 and 27. We do have some representation in the audience if you have any questions on those. You know what's unfortunate is we can't see the net benefit to the community from participating in these programs with the nonprofits. You know the return on investment to the taxpayers. We talked about it when Family Services Center came back to the board a number of years ago on for every dollar tax dollar. put into that facility, there would be a net benefit because of the impact that nonprofits have through their volunteer network and us not having to pay FTEs. Also, how many people do we keep out of jail? How many people do we keep off the streets? I mean, all of those things, how do you monetize that and show this is the net result of this investment in the community. But glad to be doing it. I think it's working great. Any other comments on this item before we move to judicial funding? Okay. Okay. So judicial funding, once again, as part of the budget cycle, we just like to provide you updated information. You could see here,'ve graphed from 2018 to including the budget request for 26th and 27th for court administration, public defender, state attorney's office, and then the yellow line represents the general fund contribution. So we do collect fine and forfeiture fees, however there is a general fund contribution to provide these services. I do wanna point out there is a increase in the budget requests for fiscal year 26, and I've pointed those out here. The public defender is asking for one new position to support a veteran's treatment court, and then the court administration is requesting an upgrade to their security system at the Justice Center and we also have representation in the audience for those as well. If you have any questions. Any questions on that item? No? Okay. Okay. So that concludes the presentation for today unless you have any other questions. Any final on the presentation Commissioner concept it not really a question, but You know going back to the nonprofit funding. I guess you're you know, it'd be good if you had You know evidence of tangible benefit, but I mean I'm gonna use the two million that we're spending on short behavioral health care and I see Vicki's in the audience. But you know, that whole sector has fallen on their shoulders. And so with not much more funding from us and a lot of really good advocacy at the state level, they really expand their footprint and they are where everybody winds up now. I mean, there's not a lot of bandwidth in the community to deal with it. They are the repository at this point. And I don't see anything on the horizon. So I'm not hearing negative community outcry that we're not handling the problem. When you couple that with the Irish program, I think we've been extremely extremely effective and it's one of those things where I don't even know if it's worth expressing it at the state level or the national level of FAC or NACO, but I think these are really great programs that we should highlight because we're getting it, I think we're getting it right. And I'd like others to know that so they can take that same blueprint. Yeah, and I talked about the Family Services Center. We had a Marion County Commissioner come down and tore the facility and loved it. It's quite the model. And I think Carrie touched on, you look at outcomes with clients. She talked about a vet that was basically living off the grid. Essentially, we got him into the family services center now. He's housed and living a better quality alive. I mean, there's a measurable right there, you know, because what could have happened if he didn't seek to help? Who knows? You know, there's so many of those stories out there. But we do measure clients that come through the facility and so there is a measurable there. Anyway, any other comments on the site? Okay, thank you for that. Okay, now we're gonna move to comments, Mr. Flores. Nothing, nothing to add anymore, thank you. There's no one. I don't have anything, thank you. Okay, Commissioner Dordy. All the only comment is I really appreciate the presentations today. You know, this public services are adjusting in our community. I mean, you really, I think at a slide that was Patrick brought up about the frequency intensity of disasters that we're experiencing over the last few years. And it's really changing the organization. You know, quite a few people who have if they haven't lived here, let's say fewer than 10 years, they have no clue. They thought we had that structure in place internally. When we had had a disaster, we talked a little bit about a parks and rec yesterday, we ran it to the beach, Park and Advisory Board. We have a disaster staff and our group departments would absorb the work needed to repair and recover within their normal operational activities. When you have the frequency of events we have had in the last three years, you can't do that. That's why we've got those additional project managers on board now. So, but folks have criticized during these recent events about, well, who is this? And who do we talk to here? Well, good grief. It's the organization is adapting right now. We're in transition right now. And I appreciate all the presentations on this, because I hope we can point to it in the future. As people criticize how we're recovering, how we're doing things, go to this presentation, you'll see what we're doing. But a job, guys. Appreciate it. I appreciate that comment when I got elected in 2016. I mean, I was removed by so many years from Hurricane Charlie. I wasn't thinking hurricanes. And what happens, we get hit with a pandemic, followed up by a series of hurricanes, boom, boom, and Monroe. So the community has been hit hard since 2020 with, you know, these events. And, you know, what people need to understand is we're using our existing workforce. We talk about it all the time. Not only they're performing their normal duties, they're also performing hurricane recovery duties. And by the way, they have issues just like the rest of us with their homes, their properties that are damaged. they've got to take care of their personal stuff too. Commissioner Constance brought up with the award that Mr. Scott lost his home. Lost his home. And here he was doing his job. So yeah, I mean, it's a new world now, and I agree, every time we look at these projects like the beach complex, we're looking through it through the prism of resiliency, How do we build back and make it better than it was in more resilient? For the storms now that I expect to come, you know, it hurts me now. We're going into hurricane season. I never used to think about it in the past until these last several years. Now it's like I'm expecting a hurricane and prepare for it. That's just in my mindset now. can't help it, maybe, just because I'm a commissioner. But I'm already out, stocking up on water in my garage. I've got four extra cases in. I'm heading to publics after this. Yeah, it starts stocking now. Commissioner Consons, any comments? Yes, thank you. Great presentations today. But I agree. I think maybe the perception of folks that we have a lot of people working for the county and they just kind of sit on their hands and wait for things to happen. And no, they have jobs and they have a full pallet of things they're supposed to do every day and then these disasters hit. And you got to look at it in 16, but you've got about Irma. That was your dry run when Irma hit. We dodged the bullet, so you thought, oh, we're OK. But this is becoming all too familiar, all too common. And folks are not understanding that there are processes and it's government, so it takes time. It's not the private sector. It's not somebody's house where they go, well, I'm waiting for the check from the insurance company. I'm going to go ahead and fix this item at my house. We don't exactly work that way. We have to make sure that we're following protocols and policies. Otherwise, we're going to get ourselves in trouble. And they don't see the huge bill unpaid from FEMA, you know, the things that are looming financially in the background that are always in the backs of our heads, so we don't, why aren't you guys just spending the money? Well, we don't know if we have it. And that's kind of the problem. The other item I just wanted to address, because we had talked about it in pre-agenda, there's a, I'm gonna pull the item about the scheduling change. So I, I, the May 20th, I think it's the transportation, is the transportation? Yeah, workshop, focus group. So I think if we can either do it Wednesday or me, maybe preferably we have a focus workshop Thursday afternoon, maybe just run this just run that right after it on Thursday if that works. So I'm just putting it out there for you to think about it. And Chris, your crew is in here, but we'll talk about it. I'll pull it on Tuesday. Yeah, I'm going to pull it. So just giving your preparation with your schedules if that works, staff is listening. Hopefully we can pivot and just go back to back for everybody. Those shouldn't take too much time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Joyce, any comments? President, great job. But I set it before and I want to question again because it's a drill. The figures we got and the figures we used, there's a 20,000 person difference. And that's going to affect us across the board. board and has had particularly with our service areas and public safety And I think we have to keep that in mind and you know I just started that doctoric program in demographics. I never finished it and I'm the guy that's always said our numbers were high That last report surprised me because I thought we were maybe 210 to 15 not to 24 and I think that's something that's going to be a challenge for all of us as we move ahead that those numbers are expeditiously moving ahead and according to the consultant and that also surprised me. He believes they're going to keep moving. That's something that's going to be a challenge for every one of us. We can't lose sight of that, particularly when we look at public safety in our service areas. Thank you. Thank you. I have no comments?