March 11, 2004

The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, met in special budget workshop session on March 11, 2004, at 1:00 p.m. in the Government Center Florida Room, Building C, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera, Florida. Present were: Chair Nancy Higgs, Commissioners Truman Scarborough, Ron Pritchard, and Susan Carlson, County Manager Tom Jenkins, and Assistant County Attorney Shannon Wilson. Absent were: Commissioner Jackie Colon due to illness, and *County Attorney Scott Knox.

REPORT, RE: LAKE HELL ‘N BLAZES

Commissioner Carlson advised there was a request from Leroy Wright that the Board communicate with the Corps of Engineers through the Congressional Delegation; she asked Mr. Wright to put some words together to help with the background details; and his understanding was the Board authorized the Chair to address a letter to the Congressional Delegation asking them to strongly oppose what is going on with the issue of Lake Hell ‘N Blazes. She stated she drafted a letter for the Chair’s signature in that regard, and wants to make sure the Board was clear that Congressmen Feeney and Weldon and Senators Graham and Nelson be asked to strongly oppose what is going on with Lake Hell ‘N Blazes and the C-1 Diversion Project.

The consensus of the Board was to send the letter to the Congressional Delegation requesting opposition to what is going on with the Lake Hell ‘N Blazes and C-1 Diversion Project.

REPORT, RE: PROGRAM SERVICE PRIORITIZATION MATRIX

Commissioner Pritchard advised at the last meeting County Manager Tom Jenkins was asked to develop a program service prioritization matrix with dollar amounts; and inquired when will that be done; with Mr. Jenkins responding he will get it to the Commissioners in the next day or so. Commissioner Pritchard stated that will be great because he has held off doing anything with it until he can get the numbers to do it right.

REPORT, RE: BUDGET ITEMS

Travel

Commissioner Pritchard advised the County Manager significantly reduced travel budgets in the 2004 budget; and inquired if there are plans to repeat that in the 2005 budget. He suggested travel not be funded by General Fund and User fee only if required for licensing and mandated programs, and to restrict out-of-state travel.

REPORT, RE: BUDGET ITEMS (CONTINUED)

Miscellaneous

Commissioner Pritchard stated there are a lot of numbers throughout the entire budget package listed as miscellaneous; as the Board goes through the budget, he is going to ask what the miscellaneous charges or revenue streams are; and maybe a little more specificity under that category might be helpful.

Newsletters

Commissioner Pritchard stated there are numerous newsletters from many departments; Commissioner Carlson or Chair Higgs commented on one of the newsletters going online and would save $3,000; there are probably a lot of other newsletters, information sheets, brochures, etc. that can be put online; and Commissioners could have something attractive to hand out that would be an overview of the County and anything else would be online. He noted it could probably save thousands of dollars by doing that.

Commissioner Carlson stated there are opportunities to get private support to create magazine-type items that talk to public relations and services provided; she gave some documents to Mr. Jenkins; the County produces some really nice ones, but they are not everything she was thinking of and are general public-type pieces. She stated they do not need to be in the Commission Offices and could be out on the web; but not everybody has access to the web; so the Board needs to consider that.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the County tends to have a problem producing a lot of information and a lot of it sits on a shelf somewhere because there really is not a demand from the public. He stated there may be a few people requesting a certain amount of information; but the general public is not requesting the volumes that the County tends to produce; and a few trees may be saved by going online. He stated the County does a lot of things only because it did it in the past; and advised of his disappointment in the FACT book produced by Florida TODAY now because it is filled with advertisements and very little helpful information. He suggested the County stop wasting money on things that are not useful.

Asset Management/Property Control

Commissioner Pritchard stated one of the things he was alerted to was an increase in losses in Asset Management/Property Control last year; and he is sure Mr. Jenkins is installing better controls and plan for loss and theft, etc., so there is not the same problem this year with inventory that ends up missing. He stated those are thoughts he wanted to bring out and in the budget process can look at ways to tighten up.

Vehicles

Commissioner Scarborough stated it may not work with every automobile, but just because a car turns a certain number of miles or a certain number of years does not mean it needs to be replaced; and advised of his experience with upgrading his old computer for $35.00. He stated if the Board is going into a budget crunch, it needs to make sure it is not buying things it can live without just because a table is older or computers need to be new rather than buying a new chip. He stated that needs to be administered across-the-board like travel and publications.

Wage Freezes

Commissioner Scarborough stated there are rumors circulating about the possible need for wage freezes; it may adversely affect the County if it gets into additional health insurance costs that can have a negative impact; so it would be prudent for the County Manager not to fill positions that become vacant unless he makes sure they are critical positions. He stated he would prefer to have current employees filling in being properly compensated and not have a negative impact on their paychecks as opposed to filling a position that is not absolutely critical. He stated that is the direction Mr. Jenkins is already heading in, but it would be nice for the Board to say that is prudent.

Commissioner Carlson stated the bad side of that is it may burn out good people even with wage increases; and because they cannot deal with all the load and pressure, they end up leaving and the Board is back to square one.

Commissioner Scarborough stated that is why the question becomes is the position critical; if it is critical, he agrees it should be filled; but many times they have a feeling that because the position is out there, they can fill it. He stated as the Board gets into budget crunches, it needs to be sure those positions are needed. He stated the County has one of the most diverse operations; someone doing computer work cannot work a backhoe, so they cannot transfer those quality of work skills; therefore it becomes extremely difficult on the County Manager to deal with those issues. He stated it is important that the Board indicate to Mr. Jenkins that it is looking to him to use some degree of analysis now to see if a position becomes open to ensure some prudence is exercised of how and where vacancies are filled.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the County should not be a training ground for other employers; it brings people in, spends a lot of money training them, and they have high job marketability because of what the County did, then they are gone to another county or city because they are offered higher salaries. He stated the Board needs to look at how much it is losing by the continuous training process and what it could gain by having higher salaries.

Commissioner Scarborough stated that is contrary to the cost-cutting concept; Mr. Jenkins has run the attrition numbers to see where the County needs to go; it needs to keep critical employees beyond the cost of insurance; and the Board needs to be upfront and candid about where it is and with some of the instructions.

Chair Higgs stated the Board has no instructions in regard to next year’s budget; and rumors are simply rumors, and no decision has been made by the Board.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the Board indicated it would proceed with the jail expansion; it wants reserve numbers to come back; those numbers will not add to the amount the County has to spend on employee wages or help with their insurance costs and many other programs; so it is perhaps talking about program cuts and impact on employees. He stated last year the Board did not have capacity to make changes it could have consensus on; if it comes out open and candid early enough, it can give instructions to Mr. Jenkins; and it may be able to come out with something that makes sense without impacting employees and keeping programs intact while trying to accomplish other objectives.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: AGRICULTURE AND EXTENSION SERVICES

Director of Agriculture and Extension Services Jim Fletcher advised their budget is made up of two separate agencies, Brevard County Extension Services and Brevard Soil Conservation Service; it is $876,000, which represents about half percent of the General Fund revenue for this fiscal year; and on a per capita basis, because their programs reach from the cradle to the grave, it is about $1.75 per resident to have his Department in the community. He stated Brevard County Extension is authorized by Florida Statutes 1004.37; its mission is to develop programs based on local needs and situations; and critically important is to develop those programs with support of scientific and technical information. He stated they realize the Board of County Commissioners has done strategic planning and they try to mirror that at the State level; their goals are to offer lifelong learning, recreation, and community involvement; and the Extension Office’s objective is to increase public access to environmental and economic education. He noted on the local and State level they developed a plan of work to implement those educational programs that meet constituents’ needs by developing broad-base support within the community; and they have advisory committees that provide input to them and they develop those programs based on that input. Mr. Fletcher advised the Brevard County Extension Services is made up of five different areas: Agriculture, Horticulture, Marine Science, Family Consumer Sciences, and 4-H. He stated under the Agriculture Program, they work with agriculture constituents; and a lot of it involves applied research and demonstrations with producers in the area and providing them the most up-to-date technology possible so they can ensure they remain profitable in the industry. He stated one of three agents is certified in Agriculture Bio-terrorism, which is a critical component since 2001; they do a lot of work in precision agriculture; they use GIS and GPS technologies to work with producers on fertility and pesticide, and yield issues; and they are the agency that does all the pesticide applicator training and testing in the County, not only for agriculture producers, but all the people who do lawns for homeowners, etc. He stated they also do training for government officials who apply pesticides. He stated under public policies education, they bring diverse groups together to discuss problems, do legislative watching, agriculture tours, and work with land use and growth groups. He stated the Agriculture Program assisted over 8,700 clients last fiscal year.

Mr. Fletcher advised the Horticulture Program developed the master gardener program; with a large population they get a lot of questions; and there is no way one horticulture agent can address all the needs and questions that arise. He stated the master gardener training program trains volunteers to provide answers to problems as they arise in the community; and they have offices in Cocoa and Palm Bay, and ten clinics throughout the County where residents can bring their horticulture issues and get answers. Mr. Fletcher noted they do a lot of different types of programs, and he is only highlighting a few of them; they do a lot of work with xeriscape design and making people understand what xeriscaping is; it is a selection of plants that require less water and less maintenance; and they do soil and water testing and work with homeowners to assess salt problems, pH problems, fertility problems, etc. He stated they started a new program this year on wildlife habitat modifications, developing butterfly gardens, types of plants needed to attract butterflies, etc.; and they are working on best management practices in an effort to work with homeowners to understand the effects of their fertilizers and pesticides on the environment. Mr. Fletcher advised the horticulture agent assisted 3,000 clients with that program last year; the numbers are deceiving because they have master gardeners who provide assistance as well; and when those numbers are added together, 16,000 clients in Brevard County are helped, so the master gardeners are a tremendous support base.

Mr. Fletcher advised Marine Science is an important program; Brevard County has 350 miles of coastline, including all the rivers and the ocean; and they do programs to protect and popularize the coastal environment. He stated they look at invasive exotic species, do programs in commercial seafood safety and training, and have a marina boatyard program, which the Board initiated where they work with marinas, boatyards, and boaters to make sure they use environmentally-sound practices. He stated the program assisted over 4,000 clients last year.

Mr. Fletcher advised the Family and Consumer Sciences Program works with families, help first time home buyers get into homes, advise of energy conservation, financial management, elderly population food nutrition to ensure they understand the health implications, and is responsible for food safety training for hoteliers and restaurateurs who have to be certified at the State level. He stated they have a large support base of volunteers who are family consumer educators; and staff works with them and they go out into the community and do the community projects. He stated they are starting a new program on child seat safety inspections; an agent is working with young parents teaching them how to properly put in a safety seat and how to put their child in that seat. He stated once they go through that certification they get discounted child safety seats. He noted the program assisted over 1,000 clients last year.

Mr. Fletcher advised the 4-H Program is the youth development program; they work with youth to make them productive leaders for the future; they have four volunteers; and they could not be successful without their volunteer base. He stated they operate clubs throughout the County; they have 50 project areas, which children can participate in; some are listed as Marine Science, Archery, Horses, Public Speaking, etc.; and they work with adults and teach them to work with the children. He stated they have a team leadership training program, and realize the youth will go off, but they want them to come back and be leaders in the community. He stated they do a lot of hands-on enrichment programs where they go into schools after hours and work with children; they do embryology projects to teach children how a chicken develops; and they actually take an egg all the way through the process. He stated their successful program is the Tropicana Public Speaking, where they have children give presentations to groups of people and have a contest at the local level; and then they can compete in the District and also the State. He stated the program reached over 3,200 clients last year.

Mr. Fletcher advised the budget breakdown for $785,000 is for 3.3 FTE’s in Agriculture, 2 FTE’s in Horticulture, 1 FTE for Marine Science, and 2.8 FTE’s for 4-H and Family Consumer Sciences. He stated Operations has 2 FTE’s, a maintenance person and a receptionist; roughly 78% of their budget is for personnel; and they have taken cuts over the years, but operations at $194,000 cannot be cut. He stated if there are cuts to be made, they would have to cut programs; the operations is the nuts and bolts of the Department; they have done efficiency studies and continue to do efficiency studies to look at different kinds of methods to reduce costs; and they looked at the possibility of closing the Palm Bay office. He stated they have a partnership with Brevard Community College at $13,000 to keep the facility open; and with the amount of people in Palm Bay and Melbourne area, it is not feasible to consider closing that office. He stated they are looking at going online with registrations and publications, and consolidating newsletters to reduce costs; and they are looking into putting their publications on CD’s to give to people instead of all the paper. He stated they have one large bulletin room they cleared out to make it into a third classroom because of the numerous classes they offer; and there are other different efficiency efforts they can do internally, even though they have done a lot of them so far. He stated performance measurements for 2003 include 640 classes with 13,000 people participating; they provided over 21,000 people with assistance; they distributed over 74,000 materials; and most important is their 570 volunteers who gave over 118,000 hours of service. He stated to value the volunteer service at $16 an hour, it would be over $2 million that the County received from them that is not in the budget; and that is a substantial amount. He noted the volunteers make a difference to all their programs.

Mr. Fletcher advised Soil Conservation is provided for in Florida Statutes 482.05; a five-member elected board provides leadership in natural resource management; they conduct programs to protect the natural resources by promoting best management practices (BMP’s); and they look at water quality and quantity programs in the County. He stated they do a lot of environmental conservation programs with youth and adults, specifically soil conservation components; they do resource management, planning with land use that is developing stewardship plans for land users looking at what types of implementation practices they can utilize; they look at BMP’s for water conservation and quality; and they work with homeowners for soil investigations and with the St. Johns River Water Management District in determining wetlands for the agricultural lands in the area. Mr. Fletcher advised they have a component education service that provides soil science and natural resources conservation education classes for youth and adults; they conduct public speaking contests for sixth to twelfth graders; and they are involved with an envirothon program in which they work and train youth who compete at District and State levels on environmental issues such as soil science. He stated the Soil Conservation budget is short and sweet at $91,000; they have 2 FTE’s, a program assistant and secretary; and their operation budget is about $8,400. He stated they served over 212 clients working on 75,000 acres of land; they worked with 210 individual citizens and provided about an hour and a half of support to each of those citizens; and they worked with 53 classes and 855 students providing conservation education programs. Mr. Fletcher advised by having his office in the County, the Board has the University of Florida, a land grant institution that provides the County with a catfish specialist and model solutions.

Chair Higgs inquired if the budgetary number is the amount the County gives to the Agriculture and Extension Budget, and how much does it receive from the State; with Mr. Fletcher responding in-kind and direct funding is about $650,000.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired if first-time homebuyers program is also under Housing and Human Services and safety seats under Law Enforcement; with Mr. Fletcher responding they entered into an agreement with Housing and Human Services and is the agency providing training for their first-time homebuyers. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if there is duplication of what they are doing and what Mr. Fletcher’s office is doing; with Mr. Fletcher responding no, they have a formal agreement to provide training. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if there is duplication with food nutrition education; with Mr. Fletcher responding he is not sure what Housing and Human Services does in that area, but they have always done food and nutrition education; and their agency has been in place for a long time. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if water quality inspection is a duplication with what Natural Resources Management does; with Mr. Fletcher responding Dave Gallard with U.S. Department of Agriculture has been in the County about 18 years working with the Soil Conservation Board; it is unique in what it does; they do not enforce natural resources Codes, but work with management to try and get landowners to come together and fall in line with regulations. He stated one of the unique things is they work with farmers primarily and have the expertise to do that; they know what it takes to farm and the technical guidelines to apply to those things; and they help landowners meet the requirements of Natural Resources Management, not only on the local level, but on the national level as well. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if they have a different clientele; with Mr. Fletcher responding yes. Commissioner Pritchard stated Mr. Fletcher has 74,675 pieces of materials; and inquired how much could he save with the program he has just gone into; with Mr. Fletcher responding going electronically, a lot of the publications are delivered electronically, so they have reduced postage. He stated postage is provided by federal and State dollars; and they have been in transition most of last year doing most of their work electronically. Commissioner Pritchard recommended Mr. Fletcher submit a budget showing cost-saving measures and the dollars associated with them so the Board has a good overview of what he has done to save money.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: MOSQUITO CONTROL DEPARTMENT

Scott Linkenhoker advised he is Director of Mosquito Control and the Aquatic Weed Program. County Manager Tom Jenkins inquired if there is any difference between the handout and what is in the budget book; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding he provided a different handout so the Board can see the graphs better. He stated they are the same slides with the same contents, but easier to see as they are in color.

Mr. Linkenhoker advised the Mosquito Control Program is part of Florida Statutes Chapter 388; Administrative Code 5E-13 tells them how to practice what they do; and Brevard County Mosquito Control District was mandated by House Bill 1437 in 1937 and has been in existence since 1937. He stated its purpose is to provide authorization and funding capabilities to control the tremendous number of salt marsh mosquitoes that are in the County; the salt marsh mosquitoes are very aggressive and bite both day and night; and they emerge in exceptionally large numbers. He stated Brevard County is plagued with four species found in freshwater, which are prime vectors of St. Louis encephalitis, West Nile virus, and Eastern Equine encephalitis; Chapter 388 states the State of Florida declares that it is the public policy of the State to protect human health safety, foster the quality of life, promote economic development of the State, and facilitate the enjoyment of its natural attractions by reducing the number of nuisance disease-carrying anthropoids by creating approved mosquito control districts. He stated they are regulated by State and federal governments because of the mandates; and their main regulators are the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services through the Bureau of Entomology and Pest Control. Mr. Linkenhoker stated they have a contract with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services that they have to sign off on every year; they are also regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which performs inspections for compliance of their aircraft as part of their 137 certificate for agricultural operations and also the 133 A, B, and C external load operations to carry fire buckets. He stated Florida Statutes Chapter 47 is the Florida Pesticides Law, and Federal Public Law 92-516 is the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Agency Act that deals with pesticides they use. He stated part of their strategic plan is to improve customer awareness and service and to improve response to customer requests; they have done that by increasing the number of calls that can be reported after hours; and they have reduced response time to customers, increased customer education, and increased level of service to meet demands. He stated part of that was to improve aircraft support operations; they have done some of that by purchasing an additional helicopter, which has made them more efficient and can cover a lot of area quicker; and they improved aircraft maintenance by buying software and cleaning up operations. Mr. Linkenhoker stated part of the strategic plan is also to provide a new hangar and replacement aircraft as needed in the future, improve ground support operations, which they have done by increasing nighttime spray trucks from 10 in 2000 to at least 23 in any given night; and part of the CIP is to fund a new maintenance garage, hazardous chemical storage, and replacement of equipment for vehicles as they need them. He advised reduction of negative impact on the environment is also part of their strategic plan; that has to do with research and development programs; and they finished one program and are preparing to look at another research project. He stated another thing to do with the negative impact is to target and mosquito spray; and they did that by increasing the amount of mosquito traps they have throughout the County and targeting those areas with higher quantities of mosquitoes. He stated they also do pre-collections and post-collections to see how effective their spraying has been; they improved organizational effectiveness and established minimum training objectives for employees; and they also targeted classes toward individual needs.

Mr. Linkenhoker advised the Mosquito Control programs and services include the Aquatic Weed Program; the ground and aerial support is 79% or $4.6 million; management of mosquito control impoundments, which are marsh impounds is 15% of their budget or $873,000; support is down to three areas: surveillance and inspection, larviciding, and adulticiding; surveillance and inspection is a prerequisite to an effective and efficient environmentally-sound mosquito control program; and it defines the nature and extent of the problems to gauge daily operations, and to comply with State rules regarding justification for treatment of potential transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. He stated it is also part of their strategic plan to locate target areas for treatment. Mr. Linkenhoker stated larviciding is a process of killing mosquito larvae by applying a natural agent or commercial product designed to control larvae and puber in aquatic habitats; and adulticiding is a chemical treatment intended to kill a large percentage of the adult mosquito population. He stated that is what they do at night with spray trucks and aircraft; and it is the most visible practice exercised by the Mosquito Control Department. He advised customer awareness is part of their strategic plan; citizen education equals awareness; and they have improved their telephone service requests and did three videos in the last couple of years, one specifically on the West Nile virus. He stated they have pamphlets for the West Nile virus and what the homeowner can do to protect himself or herself in targeted areas; and they talk to homeowners associations and participate in the citizens academy. He stated they have a website where citizens can find out what areas are going to be sprayed that night; what they can do to prevent mosquitoes from biting them; some controls they can find around their house; and where the hot spots are, as well as the West Nile virus. Mr. Linkenhoker advised they have an impoundment land program; impoundment areas consist of earthen dikes that isolate high salt marshes; it is a technique used to control salt marsh mosquitoes and restore breeding habitats for fish and crustaceans; and that is done with minimum chemical uses. He stated the reason they have impoundment areas is to reduce the amount of pesticides they put in the environment; basically their technique is to establish high-water elevation for the impoundment areas to maintain water levels during mosquito season by pumping salt water into those impoundment areas; and during the off mosquito season, they open up the impoundment areas and let the natural fish and crustaceans breeding habitats continue inside the marshes. He stated the operational strategy to the impoundment areas ties it to the strategic plan by reducing the negative impact on the environment. Mr. Linkenhoker stated their basic revenues are from the special tax they receive Countywide, which is $4.4 million this year; they get some State funds, about 1%, or $43,882 for this year; and that is allocated by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He stated 49% of their expenditures are in compensations and benefits; operating expense is 38%; there is no capital outlay this year because of the financial strain the County is under; but they have 1.61%, which is called capital improvement program but is for the SWIM program, which is 100% refundable. He stated their debt service is about 5.32%; they have 7% reserves, which is very low; their restricted reserve is State funds at 2.9%; and their transfers are 2.88%. He stated they have 47 fulltime employees and one part-time or 27.5 inspectors, four pilots, six aircraft and vehicle mechanics; and 6.5 administrative staff, with one supervisor serving half time for the Aquatic Weed Program. Mr. Linkenhoker advised he included 2002 in the performance measures so the Board can see the difference in what they have been doing over the last few years; in 2003 they have gone from 2.1 million acres that they spray with larvicide and adulticide; as they do more it costs less; and that is why the cost per acre has dropped. He stated the storage and disposal of tires program was set up several years ago when tires were a nuisance throughout the County; that has not been a factor lately; it depends on how much they do; and that cost went up. Mr. Linkenhoker advised the Aquatic Weed Program is to control aquatic weeds in drainage systems and lakes; it helps prevent stormwater backups, which cause flooding of homes, streets, and businesses; and it clears lakes of vegetation, allowing boating, fishing, and recreational activities. He stated they do not do all the ditches, just the main drainage ditches; revenues for the program are from a general transfer of $362,000; they have a ten-year Contract with Florida Department of Environmental Protection referred to as a grant, but it is a reimbursable contract for services of approximately $34,845 this year; and that is a decrease of 58% over the previous year. He stated the performance measures for Aquatic Weed Control included more acreage in 2003; the cost goes down when they do that; and they were more efficient last year than in 2002. He stated they have 4.5 full-time permanent employees of four inspector technicians and half of a supervisor; some of their trends and issues are revenues are not sufficient to sustain existing levels of service; they had a millage roll back in 1996 and 1997, which impacted the Program; and they have no funds for capital replacement. He explained a slide showing actual taxes collected compared to operating expenses of salaries, benefits, and supplies being well above revenues collected, a big jump in expenditure increases in 2001 with the addition of five inspector sprayers the Board approved; and they also repair impoundments after hurricanes that is part of the expenses as well as major structural repair to one of the helicopters. Mr. Linkenhoker advised in fiscal year 2003, aircraft insurance increased 30%, fuel and chemical costs increased, elevating their operating budget by 12%; in 1996 to 1997, Mosquito Control taxes were reduced below the rolled back millage; beginning in 1997, expenditures exceeded incoming revenues; and the trend has continued. He stated the difference was made up from funds allocated for capital improvement projects, replacement equipment funds, or reserves and cash forward; and that is how they have been making ends meet. He stated after seven years of utilizing the reserves and cash forward, Mosquito Control is in need of increase in revenues; there is no capital in the budget this year; and the Department will just meet its financial commitment if no unexpected expenditures arise. He stated the cash forward depleted over the years because projects planned were completed; much needed capital replacement equipment was purchased along with subsidizing the operating budget; and they are back to what they had in 1992. Mr. Linkenhoker explained the overview of their total expenditures compared to total revenues including cash forward; stated the jump in 1994 is when the St. Louis encephalitis hit the County; they are starting to level out a little; and lower interest rates means less cash balance. He stated the increased costs are aircraft insurance rates and employee benefits; during FY 2002 it became evident that they were going to run out of money this year; of all the tax the County collects Countywide, less than 3 cents on a dollar is what is collected for Mosquito Control; and breaking that down per house worth $75,000 with homestead exemption of $25,000, that is $10.55 a year to operate Mosquito Control. He stated some of their trends and issues are the West Nile virus in 1999 that arrived in New York City; it was estimated to reach Florida in four years, but arrived a year and a half later; the Florida State Health Department medical alerts in 2002 and 2003 for West Nile in Brevard County were like the St. Louis encephalitis outbreaks in 1990 and 1997; and the West Nile virus is here to stay. He stated September 11 brought about an increase in insurance for aircraft; they have restrictions on flying; they have to do yearly registration of aircraft with Department of Agriculture, which they did not have to do before; and they have to notify a lot of agencies when they are flying missions, including FAA, the Sheriff’s Office, all emergency agencies, and anybody who is out there at night. Mr. Linkenhoker advised they have increased security on the compound and lock out of aircraft used in agricultural spraying; some of the hidden costs they have seen over the years include increase in fuel price; they used to pay 97 cents for jet fuel per gallon and now it is $1.39; and the increase in fuel cost will increase the cost of chemicals they use that are petroleum based. He stated growth is another hidden cost; for each new subdivision there are additional ditches and stormwater containment areas to inspect and treat; and they do more adulticiding at night because more citizens are requesting the service. He stated churches, schools, medical corporations, and all their facilities ask for special sprays but do not pay for mosquito control; County Departments do not pay, and they do special requests for them as well; and they treat publicly-owned lands because they may have mosquito breeding sites. He stated federal property is about 12% of the total square miles of the County; other exemptions are 23%; and the people who are paying the mosquito control tax equal 65%. Mr. Linkenhoker advised Aquatic Weed Program has limited resources and reduction in grant funds from Department of Environmental Protection; after initial inspection of sites, Department of Environmental Protection approves the amount of funds given to each program; and what happens is when they get better, the funding goes down because they are not going out and eradicating weeds and are just doing maintenance on them. He stated their budget priorities are revenues to support operating costs and capital equipment replacement needs to be funded in order to maximize using new technological equipment and facilities as indicated in their strategic plan. He stated there are no funds available for replacement equipment; the North facility was built in the mid-1960’s and needs to be expanded; and Valkaria needs a maintenance and chemical building. He explained a slide comparing Brevard County with other counties, the total dollars including capital; and noted Collier County has a $3.7 million carry forward. He stated Brevard County has 1,500 plus square miles, but a lot of that is water; in Collier County it is 342, in Lee County it is 1,000, and in Indian River County it is 352 square miles; and on Lee County’s website they explain how they saved the taxpayers money by not increasing their millage rate, but Brevard County has reduced its millage rate throughout the years. He stated Mosquito Control is unique; it is the only one in the State and probably the nation that supports fire rescue in controlling wild fires; and it is only one of two that have an FAA certificate for a 137 for agricultural operations, with Volusia County being the other. He stated they have a 133 certificate, which they must have to do fire control activities; some of the ways they can reduce cost is to not spray individual private driveways; they have been doing that for years; and by not doing it can probably save about $30,000. He noted private driveways that meet a certain criteria are sprayed along the normal routes that they spray at night; and they spray 568 individual driveways Countywide, with 220 in District 1, 170 in District 2, 85 in District 3, 6 in District 4, and 33 in District 5, but those are growing every year. He stated they can also reduce spraying from once a week to once every two weeks; and that service reduction would mean a cut in staff to where it was in 1999. Mr. Linkenhoker advised their Department policy is to protect human health, safety, and quality of life by being able to provide their best services to the citizens of Brevard County; they promote economic development and help in the enjoyment of its natural attractions by reducing the number of mosquitoes; but revenues will have to support the operation or expenditures reduced.

Commissioner Scarborough stated a lot of times in government it is not what they want to do, but what they have to do, and therein lies the problem; mosquito control is probably one of the most popular programs the County has; and if Commissioners want to increase phone calls, the best way to do it is to reduce mosquito control services because people will call about mosquitoes before anything else. Mr. Linkenhoker stated their level of service since 1999 has gotten a lot better, especially with the new inspectors and replacement of old equipment. He noted they have very few requests for service compared to previous times. Commissioner Scarborough stated the County has floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and mosquitoes; there are certain things it responds to; there can be something very abnormal occur such as the West Nile virus; and there was a time when they did not have evening school events because the fear got to such a level. He stated people like to walk and jog for health reasons and get home after dark; and no one can tell him whether this year may not be an anomaly where the Board will have to throw additional money at the program because the concerns of health and safety issues become so elevated. Mr. Linkenhoker stated the weather plays an important part on how much they spray and when they have to spray; and how much rain they get pertains to a lot of their services and how often they go out.

Chair Higgs inquired if the methodology by which the Board did the ad valorem tax for Mosquito Control is dictated by Florida Statutes that it be ad valorem tax or can it be a per parcel assessment; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding he does not know the answer to that and would have to go back to the House Bill that originally set up the District in 1937. County Attorney Scott Knox advised he does not know the General Law that provides for it by tax, but if the Special Act does anything different, he would have to go back and look at it. Chair Higgs stated the value of a home would not matter because they would still have mosquitoes; and an assessment per parcel as opposed to based on the value of a home, would be more equitable. She noted the mosquitoes are there either way. Mr. Linkenhoker stated that is something they can look at. Chair Higgs stated she would be interested in that as it might spread the cost in a different way. She stated she noted 3.8 employees per supervisor ratio; that is a high level of supervision; and inquired if Mr. Linkenhoker can look at that in assessing his costs this year.

Commissioner Pritchard stated there are free mosquito control services for schools, medical corporations, churches, hospitals, colleges, County Departments, etc.; they are also exempt from ad valorem taxes; but he assumes they pay other service fees attached to the tax bill; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding they pay for garbage. Mr. Jenkins noted they also pay for stormwater.

Chair Higgs stated Solid Waste and some of the other things are done as assessments per parcel; and that might be the way to think about mosquito control because everybody benefits from the service. Mr. Linkenhoker stated he would have to look at the House Bill to see if they can do that. Commissioner Pritchard stated it is obviously a huge benefit to the community; and inquired if there are culverts under the driveways they service; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding no, that is usually private homes that have driveways 100 feet or longer; and there are a lot of those around. He stated they do 568 and there are probably more in the County; they only do those that are on their routes and do not drive five miles to do a driveway. Commissioner Pritchard stated he has a culvert under his driveway and called Mosquito Control because when he was pressure cleaning and happened to blast under the driveway, he had a coat of mosquitoes. He stated Mosquito Control staff came out and took care of the problem under his driveway; and he assumes the additional cost of doing that is much more than spraying a neighborhood. Mr. Linkenhoker stated inspectors are assigned areas in the County and he was probably not far away; and when they get calls like that, they send them right out to take care of the problem. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if there is a way to provide the same service but not on an individual basis. He noted the reason the inspector came to his house was because he called and had a problem with mosquitoes breeding in that culvert. Mr. Linkenhoker stated the inspector cannot be every where because they only have 20 for the entire County. He stated generally when people call, most of the time they are breeding mosquitoes in plants and pots, etc.; and that is where providing education saves money in the long run by telling people they can do different things, clean out their gutters, and move water around five to seven days so mosquitoes do not breed in the pots. He noted it is a benefit to the County to be able to educate the public and benefit to the people who stop the breeding of mosquitoes around their house. Commissioner Pritchard stated Mr. Linkenhoker advised his reserve is down to .07%; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes, it is about $40,000. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the Department survived over the past few years by eating into the reserve; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes. Commissioner Pritchard stated they are at the point where they cannot do that any longer; and the choices are increasing revenues or stopping certain services. Mr. Jenkins inquired if the Department is paying for the helicopter by commercial paper; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes. Mr. Jenkins inquired when will it be paid off; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding in two or three years. Mr. Jenkins inquired how much is the payment per year; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding about $300,000 plus interest. Mr. Jenkins stated it is important to remember that Mr. Linkenhoker added five field workers and a new helicopter in the last couple of years so there is a reason for the decline in reserves. He inquired what would be the consequences if the County did not do the weed control, as it has received complaints from people about spraying chemicals in the water; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding one of the persons that complained spent $300 a year on the canal to clean it; Road and Bridge went back and it cost it $7,900 to do the same thing his Department was doing over a period of years; so aquatic weed is ten to fifteen times less costly. Assistant County Manager Stephen Peffer inquired if it was because they had to do it mechanically; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes, they had to do it with dump trucks and a scraper, which gets real expensive; and that is why the Aquatic Weed Program is so effective in a lot of the counties and why they are still out there. He noted he believes Road and Bridge will confirm that. Commissioner Pritchard stated the prices per service compared to Collier and other counties are significantly less, so Brevard County is doing much better; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes, in some ways, but technology-wise they are behind the eight ball. He stated they made a lot of improvements over the last three or four years so they are not that far behind; Lee County is designed for more of an aircraft-type program; it has a lot of aircraft which costs big dollars; and Brevard County keeps its aircraft to a minimum for what they need and not try to overdo that because those are large expenses. Mr. Linkenhoker stated anything bought for an airplane compared to a car or truck is ten times more costly; and that is the reason Lee County’s budget is so high because they have to take care of the aircraft needs. He stated their needs are going to change because Lee County and other coastal communities are suffering from growth just like Brevard County; on the West Coast it is moving eastward; and from Brevard County it is moving westward.

Chair Higgs stated there might be a need for a mosquito control capital impact fee, as it will need equipment based on growth. Mr. Linkenhoker advised they looked at that several years ago and determined every five developments of a hundred homes or more puts a big demand on Mosquito Control for another inspector. Chair Higgs requested the County Manager provide an analysis of a proposed impact fee for mosquito control that can be set aside as new developments come on line to buy new equipment.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired how many varieties of mosquitoes are there and how many varieties are in Brevard County; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding there are 74 different varieties of mosquitoes and 43 varieties are in Brevard County. Commissioner Scarborough stated they have different tendencies and that is why the County can say to avoid certain things like encephalitis they have different types of practices because they know the practices of the mosquitoes. Mr. Linkenhoker stated the salt marsh mosquito usually does not carry bad diseases, but it is out all day and all night so it is very aggressive. He stated the freshwater mosquitoes are the ones they need to concentrate on as far as keeping their numbers low because they are the ones that carry the West Nile and St. Louis encephalitis as well as the Eastern Equine.

Commissioner Carlson stated staff did a good job campaigning a couple of years ago when the West Nile virus was out and said to make sure there is no shallow water standing around their homes; a lot of people commented to her that they understood that and were doing it; so whatever staff did to get the word out must have been very effective; and inquired if Mr. Linkenhoker found that to be the case; with Mr. Linkenhoker responding yes. Mr. Linkenhoker stated the West Nile virus, like any encephalitis, usually affects someone with a low immune system; so they targeted nursing homes and hospitals with their brochures and they went quickly. Commissioner Carlson advised her experience with St. Louis Equine Encephalitis as a teenager and being one of three persons who had the disease in 1977. Mr. Linkenhoker stated in 2002 there was only one person with West Nile virus; and in 2003 one was put in the hospital, so Brevard County is fortunate as Statewide a lot of people were ill.

Jack Callinan, Chairman of the Citizens Budget Review Committee, inquired how much additional revenue would be realized if people who are getting the service for free would pay for it. Mr. Linkenhoker stated he has not looked at that; it is 23% compared to 65%; and part of it would be enough, as they would need between $800,000 to $1 million extra to make it through next year. He stated they have not prepared the budget yet, but to do the CIP and gather funds to replace equipment, they may need $5 more per house.

Commissioner Pritchard requested Mr. Linkenhoker give the Board a report on the dollar value of the currently exempt entities.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT

Solid Waste Management Director Euripides Rodriguez advised the Solid Waste Department, as part of its strategic plan, must insure minimum of 20 years of disposal capacity for the solid waste generated in the County; and the Department has worked diligently to assure the citizens of Brevard County that their solid waste needs will be taken care of for at least 20 years. He stated the Central Disposal Facility located west of the City of Cocoa is a Class I landfill that can accept construction and demolition debris, furniture, and other items such as household garbage; the facility has ten years of permitted capacity and an expansion area for an additional 16 years of capacity; and the Sarno Road Landfill located in the City of Melbourne is a Class III facility, which only takes construction and demolition debris, furniture, and other like items. He stated the Sarno facility has a permitted air space for the next 11 years and additional capacity for at least 16 years of expansion area. He stated to extend the life of the landfill they reuse or recycle materials that come into the landfill, such as concrete, white goods, tires, and yard waste. Mr. Rodriguez advised the Department is divided into two major programs with separate MSBU’s; the Disposal Program is the largest one followed by the Collection Program; and the Disposal Program is to protect public health by providing and administering a cost-effective and environmentally-sound solid waste disposal system for the County’s customers. He stated the objectives of those programs are to dispose of solid waste received at the landfills in an environmentally-sound and cost-effective manner; and they also process waste not landfilled in an environmentally-sound and cost-effective manner. He stated one of the ways they process the waste is by mulching the yard waste that comes into the facilities; the mulch is sent to Wheelabrator for conversion into electricity; and it is also used to provide landfill cover at the end of the day for the operations, thereby saving some of the dirt that they would have to purchase. He stated mulch is also given to homeowners at no charge. He stated tires are also sent to Wheelabrator for conversion to electricity, and metals are sold for recycling; and to contain the cost of garbage collection they transport solid waste received at the two transfer stations to the Central Disposal Facility outside of the City of Cocoa. He stated the Disposal Program’s main sources of revenue are the assessment which provides $19.8 million, followed by impact fee interest earnings of $1.4 million; recycling provides about $150,000; and grants provide $104,000; however, throughout the years, grants have been steadily declining, not only on the disposal side, but also on the collection side; and an example is the tire grant that was $250,000 and is now $55,000. Mr. Rodriguez advised the services they provide are listed; and the columns include the description of the services, the costs, the full-time equivalent (FTE) or employees, and the mandates. He stated the majority of the operating money goes to landfilling, which is $12.3 million; and the majority of employees, 101.8 of 152.8 are in that operation. He stated they transfer solid waste collected from the transfer stations at Sarno and in Titusville to the Central Disposal Facility; and they have been experiencing increases throughout the years of 17% at Sarno and 16% at Titusville over a five-year period.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired if some of the solid waste is received direct at the Central Disposal Facility; with Mr. Rodriguez responding yes. Commissioner Scarborough inquired how much, percentage-wise is transferred and how much is direct; with Mr. Rodriguez responding about 60% is direct, but he would have to check on that later to be sure.

Mr. Rodriguez advised how much they landfill includes what comes from the transfer stations as well as what comes in directly; it has increased 14% over a five-year period; the majority of the increase has come at the CDF; Sarno has not increased as much; but he would caution the Board on that point because they just got the figures for 2003 that showed tonnage at Sarno at 272,000; so there has been a dramatic increase.

Commissioner Carlson inquired how does staff account for 70,000 tons more; with Mr. Rodriguez responding the vast majority has been from yard waste, which is a problem; and it will continue to be a problem budget-wise and in handling it. He stated they have 30 days to turn it over; the last time they went out for an RFP for a private facility to take care of part of the yard waste, one of the facilities in the south end of the County chose not to participate; so they are basically handling all the yard waste themselves instead of privately. He noted it is a little less expensive that way. He stated throughout the years household hazardous waste has increased quite dramatically; last year it has been leveling off because they have been effective in getting a lot of the chemicals out of garages and taken care of; but in future years it will increase a little because they have added electronic scrap to the Household Hazardous Waste Program. He stated hopefully by next year they will be opening a new facility at Sarno; but the total increase is 124%; yard waste tonnage is broken down into three different components: (1) Sarno Landfill, (2) Central Disposal Facility, and (3) Mockingbird Facility; Mockingbird has experienced an increase of 18%, CDF by 16%, and Sarno by 45% during the same time period; and that represents an overall increase of 62%. He stated the majority of the program is privately contracted out; they do not do the mulching; somebody comes with a tub grinder and mulch; and if it is taken over to Wheelabrator, they do the transporting. He stated there are two employees per facility that handle yard waste as it comes in. Mr. Rodriguez advised the Collection Program’s goal is to provide the residents of the unincorporated area of the County a high-quality cost-effective collection service contracted to private companies; their objective is to provide curbside collection consisting of twice a week pickups; and they also provide yard waste collection service of unlimited amounts once a week. He stated recycling collection service is one time a week; there is a separate collection service for pickup of tires and white goods; they have recently increased the number of different types of plastics they handle for recycling from 2 to 7; they are proud to announce that they finally will be collecting steel cans in North Brevard as of April 1, 2004; and what that will mean is the entire County will be in the same program and recycling the same types of materials. He stated the majority of the collection income source is from assessments; miscellaneous is 143%; majority of miscellaneous is interest earnings; and the sale of recyclable materials is $85,000, which represents 50% of what is sold. He stated the Contract established that the County would get 50% and the hauler would get 50%; out of the hauler’s 50%, they must pay for the bins and delivery of the bins to citizens; the program cost is $11.2 million; and the services provided are curbside pickup and monitoring and administering transfers, operating reserves, and reserves for future disasters. He stated the lion’s share is the curbside collection; the reserves for operating is sufficient to pay two months worth of services before money from assessments start coming in on a yearly basis; and there are no employees under the program. He stated any clerical or administrative help the program needs is provided by employees from the Disposal Program. Mr. Rodriguez advised the homes they service in the unincorporated area have been steadily increasing; and it is basically a 10% increase of homes being built minus those lost through annexations. He stated the issues affecting the Disposal Program are population growth because it increases the use of the existing air space and requires additional transportation from the transfer stations; increases also occurred in the use of household hazardous waste facilities; and it increased the yard waste and land clearing tonnage they have to handle. Mr. Rodriguez advised environmental regulations also have an impact on their programs; stormwater management, groundwater, and landfill gas collection and controls are highly regulated; and they try to follow the best management practices. He stated it is his belief that Brevard County has one of the best if not the best systems existing in the State today. He stated rising fuel costs are a consideration and require continuous education; required education is something the State has been steadily increasing; everybody that operates a landfill has to be certified; there has to be at least one certified transfer station operator and certified spotters; and the financial impact is not as much as the hours they have to put in for doing the continuous education. He stated the issues affecting the Collection Program is population growth, regulatory changes, required changes in service by haulers, and increase in customer service calls; and a minor issue is the fluctuation in the price of recyclable materials. Mr. Rodriguez stated there are opportunities for efficiencies; one is to reuse landfill gas for energy, which they are currently working on; tires they recycle cost over $80 a ton to dispose of; next year they will have an opportunity, instead of sending the stream coming from Cocoa to Wheelabrator, to use them as a base for landfill gas horizontal wells; it has been used in other places successfully; and the cost of shredding tires will be lower and they will avoid buying other materials to wrap the pipes around, so it should involve some cost savings in the future. He noted it would be a one-time savings per horizontal well. He advised they will also review vacant supervisory positions as they become available to see if they can increase the scope of responsibility for supervisors. He stated their tonnage has been increasing, but they have not increased their manpower that much and will need additional manpower; they can absorb the additional cost for manpower without increasing their fees for the following year, as part of it can come from possibly supervisory positions converted to frontline employees. Mr. Rodriguez advised another possibility is the overtime because of holidays and Saturdays; garbage has to be taken care of until it is buried; and they are going to compare some of their overtime with “what if” scenarios, for example if they added an employee, would it cut down on overtime, thereby increasing employee count but not the budget. Mr. Rodriguez advised they are also going to explore the possibility of using more up-to-date software to track permits and for operating; there is new software that actually monitors what happens in landfills; and it would increase their efficiency and make sure they are doing correct compaction. He stated they will see how it works at the landfill in Florida that had it done; it increases the life of the landfill, but they only had it about a year; so staff wants to see what happens with that system. Mr. Rodriguez stated as for duplications and redundancies, the Solid Waste Department provides a unique service not provided by any other entity in the County; the only other competition they might have is the Class III facility that exists next to the County’s facility on Sarno Road; and other than that, they are unique in the services they provide for Brevard County.

Commissioner Pritchard stated Dick Rabon came to a meeting with the Holopaw facility offer; with Mr. Rodriguez responding it was Hammock Oak and the name has changed since then. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if staff is going to look into the cost of using their service; with Mr. Rodriguez responding they are doing that; they were directed by the Board to look at three different things at that time; and they have draft reports on two of the directions and will be bringing it all back to the Board as one package. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the reports will be back to the Board in the next couple of months; with Mr. Rodriguez responding yes. Commissioner Pritchard inquired about the cost of transferring waste from Sarno to the CDF by private enterprise; with Mr. Rodriguez responding they looked into that and solicited two quotes; they have a response for $9.00 per ton plus fuel charge and additional time for holidays and Saturdays; and the other was for $7.52 with the same conditions. He stated the County’s cost is slightly less than $6.00 a ton including holidays and Saturdays. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the County is more cost efficient than the private sector; with Mr. Rodriguez responding at this time, yes it is.

Chair Higgs stated there is a lot of controversy in regard to the Sarno space the Board purchased; and inquired what are the plans for future development and is there a timetable; with Mr. Rodriguez responding yes, one of the issues the Board directed him to do is go and task the engineers to look at it; that is one of the ones he has a draft on already; they have reviewed all the development costs on it; and they talked to Department of Environmental Protection to make sure they covered all the bases. He stated they are coming up with good solid numbers as far as development of that property and a timeline to develop it. Chair Higgs inquired when will the Board see it again; with Mr. Rodriguez responding he is planning on bringing it to the Board all as one group in the next few months because all the information is tied in to proceeding with the five-year work plan for the Department. Chair Higgs inquired if Mr. Jenkins plans to schedule a workshop or will it come back on the regular agenda; with Mr. Jenkins responding he will schedule a workshop.

The meeting recessed at 2:35 p.m., and reconvened at 2:47 p.m.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Virginia Barker, Interim Director of Natural Resources Management, stated when the astronauts took off from the Cape and rocketed into space, they looked back at the earth, took pictures, and brought them back; for the first time people realized with much greater clarity than ever before, that the natural resources are not limitless; and that led to huge changes of how they do business in the United States. She stated the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Magnus and Fisheries Act were federal actions to try and protect natural resources, but there was a whole ricochet of impacts at the State level and down to the local level in terms of how to implement those actions; and a lot of authority was given to local governments for home rule to decide how best to maintain their natural resources. She stated Brevard County is special for several reasons; although every place in the United States needs to figure out how to take care of their natural resources, Brevard County has an added diversity that not many places have; and because of its location, at the southern end where temperate America lies and the northern boundary of where the tropics begin, Brevard County is on a convergent zone, so it has plants and animals that are seen north and south of the County, and a much greater diversity than seen in most other places around the country. She stated that is especially illustrated with the Indian River Lagoon where, because there is a mix of northern and southern species, they have the most diverse estuary in the country with over 4,000 species. Ms. Barker stated in addition to the transition between temperate and subtropical, if compared to other areas on that transition zone like Orlando that has marshes, lakes, and a lot of fill, Brevard County being a coastal area, has a much larger diversity of habitat types. She stated the Atlantic Ocean has a churning surf that turns out world class surfer after world class surfer; moving inland to the beaches, they spend millions of dollars to maintain and protect them because the beaches bring in tourist dollars and tax values that are important to the economy; and the Coastal Barrier Island has a very unique ecosystem and special regulations to protect that coastal environment. She stated the South Beaches have the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, home to three different species of nesting sea turtles and one of the most important nesting beaches in the world; further inland is the lagoon, the most diverse estuary in the country; and there are high scrub areas with sandy soils that take up the rainfall and filter it back into the aquifers to provide safe drinking water for now and in the future. She stated the County has Surface Water Protection Ordinance and Ordinances to protect the wetlands and floodplains; it has prairies and large agricultural lands all the way to the St. Johns River; so it is a very special place that crease a stewardship potential for elected officials that most other commissions do not have to deal with. Ms. Barker stated the way their office is set up to deal with many of those environmental issues, is in three sections: (1) Environmental Management, (2) Environmental Review, where all the permit review for natural resources is done; and (3) Environmental Mediation and Compliance. She stated a portion of their budget comes from the General Fund, about $563,000 this year; that makes up less than one-third of one percent of the County’s General Fund revenue; and the total budget for their office is $2.7 million, divided into thirds for the three sections. She stated in addition to the General Fund revenue, they also bring in intergovernmental grants, licenses and permit fees, transfer from other Departments and charges for services; the balance forward is deceptive because it is a reflection that the Remediation and Compliance Program is mostly operational on State contracts; but the State’s fiscal year is July instead of October, so they look like they are carrying extra money forward but it is the money that is funding that program through the State’s fiscal year.

Ms. Barker advised the Remediation and Compliance Section has eight staff members who monitor the safety of all facilities that generate or store hazardous materials and oversee the cleanup of contaminated sites; the programs are mandated by the State; they fulfill two strategic plan departmental goals; and the Section is fully supported by either contracted services from Department of Environmental Protection or user fees. She stated a new trend in that Section is that they are doing such a good job, they have been asked by the State to take over the cleanup program for Indian River County; and that expansion will be fully funded by the State. She stated the Section is responsible for three basic programs: (1) inspections of all hazardous waste generators; (2) inspections of all pollutant storage facilities; and (3) clean up of all petroleum contaminated facilities; its budget is just over $1 million; and the majority of that income comes from two State Contracts, and over $130,000 from the hazardous waste small quantity generator program user fees. She stated 64% of that budget is spent on salaries; 4% goes to capital; and the rest goes to operating, but 13% of the operating budget goes to indirect charges that support the County Attorney’s Office, facilities rent, and storage; so the State- funded program also supports other County Departments. She stated they continue to see a lot of growth in Brevard County; and with that there are more businesses and more people storing and generating hazardous waste.

Ms. Barker advised the Environmental Review Section is a permit review section; it has eight staff members to insure that development complies with all Ordinances; and the programs are mandated by the State and Comprehensive Plan, and fulfill one strategic departmental goal. She stated it is supported by a combination of user fees, licenses and charges for services, and no General funds; the Ordinances include everything from wetlands, land clearing, land alteration, floodplains, coastal construction, and aquifer recharge; and their customers are many. She stated their goal is to protect the resources everyone enjoys, so their real customer is every resident or visitor to Brevard County. She stated the budget is $620,000 for the year; over half is collected through user fees; and the remainder is collected through charges for services. She stated over 75% of the budget goes toward salaries; $1,000 is the capital budget; and the remainder is the operating budget, separated into indirect charges that support other County functions for Facilities and the County Attorney’s services. She stated population growth is increasing customer demand for services, especially in building permit activity, where they have had a 25% increase over the last five years; and they are now looking at over 12,000 permits a year. She stated new single-family homes increased by 58% over the last five years; the spike in 2002 preceded changes in the Building Code; and the trend continues through all five years of increases in new homes. She stated the hard numbers are about 2,200 permits a year; new subdivision and site plans have seen a small increase this year; but they are under 150 compared to the increasing numbers of permits they review and have very little impact on the workload in the Department. She stated one of the biggest trends is an enormous increase in Code Enforcement cases; and it is extremely important that they try to figure out why they are seeing such a large increase and work to address that through education programs to prevent unintended violations and to modify any bits of the Code that encourage international violations. She stated construction boom means there are more service demands, more building and development reviews, more use of marginal lands as the most suitable lands have already been developed, and more Code Enforcement complaints as people live closer together and are trying to do more with less.

Ms. Barker advised the Environmental Management Section has seven staff members who prepare environmental management plans for long-term conservation of the natural resources and provide scientific information to the Board and public; and those programs are mandated by a collage of the Comprehensive Plan directed specifically by the Board and/or prioritized by the County’s Strategic Plan. She stated the Section is supported by a combination of grants, transfers, charges for services, and General Fund revenue; they do a large number of different things; six programs are State mandated through the Comprehensive Plan and are also part of the departmental strategic plan; so Comprehensive Plan implementation, beach and dune restoration, GIS service through interactive mapping on the website, endangered species protection, habitat conservation, environmental education, and volunteer coordination are all programs through the Comprehensive Plan and supported through the Strategic Plan. She stated in addition, they have a Government Lands Management Program that was directed by the Board; they have contracted with the Water Resources Department to monitor the South/Central Regional Wastewater Utility System in Viera; and they helped to design that program and have been working with Water Resources in a synergistic way to provide the monitoring services at a lower cost than what they could have gotten from the outside. She stated they apply for environmental grants that do not require cash match and that they have adequate staff to administer and meet the goals and intent of the Board; and the challenge in the Management Section is that existing staff levels are not sufficient to fully implement the Coastal and Conservation Elements of the Comprehensive Plan within the State timeframes.

Ms. Barker advised there are nine policies within the Conservation Element that state they shall do the following things by 2002; they have either not completed those things or have not begun those things; and it is because they do not have adequate staff to get to them. She stated it is only by the amazing hard work and dedication of the people in the Section that they have been able to do as much as they have; and since it is the Section that receives the General Fund transfer, she wants to go through the programs in more detail. She stated the Beach program is mostly covered through a transfer from the Tourist Development Council; the Office pays one-sixth of the cost of one GIS geographic systems analyst; the South/Central Regional Wastewater Utility Plant monitoring cost is covered by a transfer from Water Resources; and the General Fund covers one wildlife biologist, one person who deals with plants and habitat issues, and another one that deals with grants and volunteer education. She stated their volunteer program in the last year had 75 volunteers who logged over 2,600 hours; that is more than the equivalent of one fulltime person; and they also have a special projects coordinator and a supervisor. She stated in addition to the Comprehensive Plan implementation that is a major segment of what that Section deals with, they have a number of special Board requests; and she will run through the big ones that have come to them in the last six months. She stated they were asked to coordinate with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on releasing dock permits; coordinate with Florida Inland Navigation District to get manatee signage repair and posted the way they were supposed to be posted; they did research on regional offsite mitigation areas; and they did 23 public workshops on the subject of crucial habitat. She stated they provided studies on air quality programs; a study on the negative harmful effects of seawalls; more recently they are involved in a new study on ocean water quality monitoring; and in the last several months they have been doing bald eagle monitoring for a certain subdivision and logged over 122 hours there, more than three solid weeks of one staff person’s time on that site. Ms. Barker advised the total budget for the Management Section is just under $750,000; over half a million of that comes from the General Fund transfer; $75,000 comes from the TDC transfer; $48,000 is from Water Resources Department transfer; and $63,000 is from grants. She stated over three-quarters of the Management Section’s budget go directly to salaries; and one percent goes to capital, one percent to indirect, and 22 percent to operating and management costs. Ms. Barker stated she has not seen anyone do this before, but it is something she is aware of being where she is; if they graph out the contribution to the Natural Resources Office from the General Fund of just over half a million and look at how much those dollars are leveraged with fees, licenses, and other charges, those two columns together bring their total budget to $2.7 million; but what the Board never sees is what happens because of the presence of the Natural Resources Office. She stated it represents mostly the cleanup of petroleum spills that are fully funded by the State because of the presence of the Remediation and Compliance Program; about $5 million a year in cleanup of the natural resources is done because of other dollars that are here; but in this year there is only a quarter of a million dollars, which represents federal dollars being spent in the County to protect the beaches. She stated in the last four years, the federal dollars she brought in were $24 million, and the State match was $10 million; so for a relatively small contribution to the program, the County gets very large benefits. She stated population growth increases the pressure on the natural resources; the loss of those natural resources can decrease the quality of life; and decreased quality of life may negatively impact the economy. She stated it is inevitable that Brevard County will continue to grow; the challenge is to determine how it wants to grow and how it wants to look and feel as a result of that growth; and inquired will it grow up to be the best that it can be by capitalizing on what makes Brevard County an exquisite place to live and visit.

Commissioner Carlson stated on the new handout under Environmental Review, Mr. Jenkins has $821,000 and Ms. Barker’s commentary had $620,000; and inquired what is the number and where is the discrepancy; with Ms. Barker responding that is the cash reserves; the presentation shows the net revenues; and the one the Board has a printout on is an earlier version apparently showing the total. Ms. Barker stated the cash reserves were a product of the immediate construction boom in 2002 that preceded the change in the Building Code when they collected a lot more fees and did not staff up; people worked extra hours to deal with the boom; and those additional dollars are being rolled forward to cover capital costs. She stated they have not raised fees to cover capital needs of vehicles, computers, and whatever, and are using the extra user fees collected in 2002. Commissioner Carlson inquired if that accounts for the $200,000 discrepancy; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Mr. Jenkins stated the higher number is the number in the budget document.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the shades on the charts in the budget book are black; and inquired if Ms. Barker could run color copies and send them to the Commissioners so they can go back and review the data; with Ms. Barker responding affirmatively.

Commissioner Carlson stated Ms. Barker said they could not make the dates in the Comprehensive Plan because of lack of employees, etc.; there has been a huge change in the number of employees and they are looking for replacements; and inquired how are they doing on it and when, if they get staffing up to speed, is it going to assist in any way and how did she come to define whether or not she cannot make the dates. Ms. Barker stated the nine dates for the nine policies in the Comprehensive Plan that she mentioned were due to be completed in 2002, so they are problems that predate the recent staffing problems. Commissioner Carlson inquired what is the analysis of how many people they need to get those done and what would Ms. Barker suggest in terms of moving those dates out since they are two years behind; with Ms. Barker responding the analysis that Conrad White did last year she has not had a chance to look at this year; but it said to reach those goals they would need 26.9 man-years.

Chair Higgs instructed Ms. Barker to send each Commissioner a copy of the analysis that was done last year, but not redo it, so they can refresh their memories on what those policies are that they are not completing.

Commissioner Pritchard stated on one slide, the Environmental Review Section had user fees of $391,000 and charges for services at $264,000; and inquired what is the difference between user fees and charges for services; with Budget Director Dennis Rogero responding some times the difference is subtle; when they do an activity it is charged per hour per task, whereas a user fee is a flat fee paid for a particular service not necessarily being performed on an hourly basis. He stated they perform some functions that whether they spend ten hours or five hours on those, they get the fees for those particular functions. Assistant County Manager Stephen Peffer advised it might also relate to the fact that for some of the work they do, they do not collect the fees; they provide the service as part of the one-stop process where the fee is collected by another agency, but some charges come back to Natural Resources for the service they provide. He stated there are other permit fees they collect directly because they issue the permit; so that might account for some of the difference. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if some of the charges for services are charged to other County Departments; with Sherry Williams responding yes, Housing and Human Services asked them on several occasions to conduct a quick property review of property they may be considering purchasing and to check whether there are wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, list of species, etc.; and that is what they call property review and charge $46 for that to anybody who requests that service, whether County Department or individual homeowner. Mr. Peffer stated there are fees for land alteration and land clearing permits that go directly to the Office; other services that are done as part of development review are subdivision reviews, site plan reviews, one-stop permit reviews; and they are not the direct recipient of those fees, but receive a portion of the fees for the services. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Natural Resources is moving toward becoming self-sufficient in terms of charging fees; with Ms. Barker responding yes and no, the Environmental Permitting Section moved last year to being completely self-sufficient based on those fees; but the Management Section, because it provides direct services at the request of the Board, has no good user fee structure for accomplishing that. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the Management Section has fees for in-house services it provides; with Ms. Barker responding yes, where they produce maps for the public, they charge the cost for producing the maps. Mr. Peffer advised they have a Contract with Water Resources to support its monitoring requirements at the wastewater treatment plant; and that would be another case where they get revenue for services provided. He stated the Comprehensive Plan implementation of things, habitat and other programs have no direct revenue source from a direct recipient, but it is the general public that receives benefit from those services; and that is why there is some General Fund support for the Management Section. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if there is a breakdown or pie chart that would show the amount of revenue generated by the Natural Resources Management Section. He stated he has it for the Environmental Review Section, but wants to get an idea of how the budget is generated by user fees and how much are inter-department charges; and he would like to see that for future reference. Ms. Barker stated Slide 8 on page 4 shows that information. Mr. Jenkins stated that is the total for the whole office. Ms. Barker inquired if Commissioner Pritchard only wants the Management Section; with Commissioner Pritchard responding yes. Ms. Barker stated she would do that. Commissioner Pritchard stated he would like to get an idea of how much revenue comes in from charging other departments as well as fees paid by the public.

Chair Higgs advised page 15 lists $48,261 as charges for services; and inquired if Commissioner Pritchard wants a subdivision of that; with Commissioner Pritchard responding yes. Ms. Barker stated the majority of that revenue is what Water Resources pays Natural Resources to manage the treatment plant.

Commissioner Pritchard stated on the building permit activity, it shows 12,000 permits per year; and inquired if the inspectors that review the permitting are part of her budget; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if they could be taken from her budget and put into the Building Department’s budget and would the County get more out of the permit review inspectors if they were incorporated in another department and have more of a function; with Ms. Barker responding they sit downstairs in one-stop permitting with everybody else; they are funded through permit fees collected just like the other people in the one-stop permitting process; so she does not see that it would make any difference where they count them as to how efficient that would be. Ms. Williams stated the Building Department provides administrative support and by locating the inspectors there, they get the benefit of having that administrative support for permit intake, filing system, etc. Commissioner Pritchard stated if there are enough trained inspectors that should one be unavailable, another inspector would be able to fill in; with Ms. Barker responding yes, as last year they made a very strong case that they needed more people in order to push the permits through at the pace the Board wanted; and the Board allowed them to increase their fee structure in such a way that they could hire an additional person to help with that process. She stated they have not yet seen the benefit of having that extra person there, but they hope he will be trained and running quickly. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the second person is not fully trained; with Ms. Barker responding that person is new and just started working. Commissioner Pritchard inquired how long does it take for them to come up to speed; with Ms. Barker responding it depends on the person and hopefully they picked a smart one. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Code Enforcement violations are self-generated, reported, and anonymous; with Ms. Barker responding they are not self-generated; they are all from complaints phoned into their office or people who come in and report them; and some are anonymous. Mr. Jenkins advised Ms. Barker recently suggested that it might be beneficial to transfer that person to the Code Enforcement Office and taking that person out of Natural Resources. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Ms. Barker knows what percent of her calls are anonymous; with Ms. Barker responding no. Ms. Williams stated off the top of her head, she would say they are very few and probably about 20%.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the County has a policy about accepting anonymous phone calls for Code Enforcement; with Mr. Jenkins responding there is a policy that they are to accept anonymous calls; and the percentage of anonymous calls to Code Enforcement are much higher than 20%, but he does not recall the number. Ms. Williams stated it may be due to the type of complaints they get; it may not be complaints about overgrown yards, and would be more along the lines of land clearing of large tracts of land, wetland filling, etc.

Commissioner Pritchard stated someone would tend to call Natural Resources instead of Code Enforcement on an issue they consider to be environmental; and he is wondering if there is any duplication and if the same person calls Code Enforcement and there are two people going out to check the complaint. Ms. Barker stated a lot of the time they do have access where there is an overgrowth charge or a land clearing complaint; and it is hard to differentiate how much they are supposed to clear so they do not get in trouble for overgrowth, or how much they are not to clear so they do not get in trouble for land clearing. She stated their enforcement officer works with the Code Enforcement officers to make sure those problems do not occur; and by moving that position to Code Enforcement, they will all be in the room together and decrease any potential for duplicative effort. Commissioner Pritchard stated in the Environmental Management Section there are seven people who prepare the management plans; and inquired if they do other functions besides the plans; with Ms. Barker responding the pie chart on page 14 shows what they do; the Beach Program also does dune protection, storm damage response, and hurricane response; the wildlife position deals with endangered species; the habitat person deals with non-native noxious invasive plants; the special projects coordinator covers air quality, manages the person who oversees the South-Central Wastewater Utility Program, and deals with Comprehensive Plan status reports and revisions; and the volunteer grants education person takes care of grants for mono-filament, recycling recovery program, removal of invasive exotics, etc. She stated they have gotten three or four grants to remove invasive exotics at Kings Park and several hundred thousand dollars worth of work was done there; and they also have a watershed action volunteer program that is cost shared with the St. Johns River Water Management District. She stated hopefully that gives the Board a flavor of the kinds of projects those people carry out. Commissioner Pritchard stated there is a bit of overlap on responsibilities; and even though one or two might work on one environmental management plan, another one or two could work on it and then they could all come together and do a third and everybody ebbs and flows. Ms. Barker stated with the recent eagle monitoring, there was no one person who could be out there the number of hours and days the Board needed, so everybody has flexed to do several occasions out there; and that group works closely together to use the best knowledge of each of the persons and collectively work on things when that is the best way to get things done. Commissioner Pritchard stated Ms. Barker mentioned they are two years behind on nine policies in the Conservation Element; and inquired should the policies be reviewed, and is there any redundancy, repetitiveness, or any reason to look at the policies and make changes. Ms. Barker stated those policies are reviewed on a regular basis along with the Comprehensive Plan and the last time that review came before the Board those were the dates given. She stated a lot of those dates have changed; they should have been done even earlier; and they did not get them done, so the Board changed the dates to 2002 and now they have missed that deadline as well. Mr. Peffer advised that is the EAR Report. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if there is a reason to review it again and have another EAR Report; with Ms. Barker responding there will be another EAR Report.

Commissioner Carlson stated when she first got on the Board in 1999, the Board reviewed the entire Comprehensive Plan and those were some of the dates they pushed out because staff never achieved those dates; and now they are at the point where they were before, where they have not achieved those dates; so reviewing them is a good idea to see how they are going to accomplish them. She stated she does not know if changing them is going to do anything, but reviewing the dates and finding out what is realistic is a good idea. Ms. Barker stated she will send the Board a report on what those policies are.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he hates to have a policy to do something then every couple of years extend it because they have not gotten to it; that is what he meant by review; if it is something that is viable and staff can get to it, that is great; and if not, why does the County have it if all it is going to do is move the dates. He stated another issue is office rental from Facilities; MIRA just got hit for $6,000 to rent space; staff is robbing Peter to pay Paul; it is all County money; and inquired if there is a reason they have identified 19,792 square feet of office rental from Facilities for Natural Resources Management. Mr. Jenkins advised the Facilities Department is primarily funded through the General Fund; they have a wide-range of special revenue funds such as MIRA, State grants for clean up, etc.; and they take advantage of every opportunity to have those special revenue funds or enterprise funds pay their fair share so that the General Fund is not paying it. He stated it is a revenue opportunity for the General Fund to recover some of the costs to maintain and operate buildings. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if it is necessary for Natural Resources and other Departments located at Viera to pay rent; with Mr. Jenkins responding he has to confer with the Budget Office whether they charge General Fund agencies for rent. Mr. Rogero stated it is factored in; and Facilities calculated the rental charge and square footage. Mr. Jenkins stated they charge every Department and the money goes into the General Fund.

Chair Higgs stated it reflects the real cost of each Department to the taxpayers rather than one lump. Mr. Jenkins stated it is cost accounting and shows the true total cost for each program; and if the General Fund was subsidizing their rent, then the Board would not have the full cost of a particular program. Ms. Barker stated her point was not to indicate that was not the right way to account for those costs, but to show how much of their operating costs go to those activities and how little is available for operating vehicles and paying for gas to do Code enforcement inspections and the like.

Commissioner Pritchard stated one of his concerns is MIRA having to pay $6,800 a year for the amount of area it has; and it might be able to find a smaller area in some other place and leave, and the same for Natural Resources. Ms. Barker stated when they asked if they could go somewhere else, they were told people like having them consolidated at the Government Center. Commissioner Pritchard stated they just brought TDC in; and what he is saying is if they start looking at per square-foot charges for how much room someone has, someone with a sharp pencil might say he can move somewhere else for $10 a square foot and the County is charging him $12. Ms. Barker stated there is a definite benefit to the customers of having all the services located in one facility. Commissioner Pritchard stated he does not disagree with that; it is better to have one-stop shop; however, what he is saying is if he sharpened his pencil he is going to start looking for other space that might cost less. Mr. Jenkins stated they want full cost accounting of the programs and they do not want the General Fund subsidizing the cost of operating MIRA. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if the square footage they have is based on reasonable square footage charges; with Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten responding under the number of square feet it is not just rent but also pest control and those things rolled up into the square footage charge. Mr. Jenkins stated those are justified; and inquired if Commissioner Pritchard wants to see the basis of the charges.

Chair Higgs stated staff has to do that in regard to federal programs where they allocate costs out; and they have to fully account for all of their costs. Commissioner Pritchard stated he is just saying there are landlords out there who do the same thing; they provide a total square-foot charge; and it may be less than what the County charges are. Chair Higgs stated the Board needs to know what it costs. Commissioner Carlson inquired if Commissioner Pritchard said the County is charging less; with Commissioner Pritchard responding no, it is charging more. Mr. Jenkins stated he is not sure the County is charging more, and will get a report to the Board. Commissioner Pritchard stated based on some numbers he got from people that he had a discussion with, the County appears to be a little higher. Chair Higgs stated that is the only way the Board will know if there is a full independent accounting of what those program costs are; so it is a business principal. Commissioner Pritchard stated since they are charging each other to do something, they can charge whatever they want and then the cost of government goes up and they start looking for more money to bring in to pay for a self-imposed charge; and inquired where is the competition.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the last bar is 2003; the County is almost in the first quarter of 2004; and inquired if the trend is continuing as to where new subdivisions and site plans are going and how staff is tracking single-family. He stated why he asked that question is because there was a slight drop off in single-family; this is an issue of revenue; in doing visioning, it is not where they are going to be this summer, but where they will be next summer, because if they have a fall off in new construction, it will be a revenue impact to the Board; and the Board needs to be aware of it as it sets objectives such as increasing cash reserves, etc. He stated lying at the heart of it is beyond what is happening now because they had not had a movement in interest rates; but everybody thinks interest rates are abnormally low at this time; things politically in Washington could have changes that could dramatically change; they might have a glut of houses and departments could dry up; and the County would be terminating people it just hired months before. He stated he does not want to seem to be gloom and doom, but the Board needs to run the worst case scenarios along with the best case scenarios; and there is a trend there that concerns him. Mr. Jenkins stated right now staff is scrambling to keep up with the permits, which are still up 30%. Commissioner Scarborough stated he is not looking at permits. Mr. Jenkins stated they are projecting, because of all the annexations that are occurring in Titusville of over 1,000 acres and Palm Bay of over 1,500 acres, there is going to be a decline in permits; they have not seen that yet, but Commissioner Scarborough is correct in that those agencies are basically fee supported; so if the revenues for permits decline, then they will have to downsize to reflect that. Commissioner Scarborough stated he read in the Brevard Business Journal that Titusville has jumped from 350 to about 4,000 permits; but if there is an interest rate spike that closes down the industry, Titusville could have zero permits. He stated ironically the events of 9/11 created a building boom because it caused certain activities to stimulate the economy through federal reserve policies and a President who wants to do things to stimulate the economy; and which the economy has been stimulated is the Brevard County economy. He stated reversals are going to occur because there are some dangerous policies at the federal level with deficits, trade imbalances, etc.; that instability is going to impact Brevard County negatively with the reversal of trends; and if the County is already getting indications of reversal of trends outside of annexations and everything else, it needs to be prepared for a different type of economic discussion a year from now. He noted it may be much more difficult next year. Commissioner Carlson stated the newspaper said impact fees are scaring developers, so they are putting in permits right away; and there is going to be a huge increase. Commissioner Scarborough stated it is not impact fees; the impact fee sounds good right now; but if building dries up, there will be no impact fee because there will be nobody pulling permits; and inquired if there is a glut of units in the County, where is it going to be.

Commissioner Pritchard requested the Chair recognize Mr. Callinan.

Mr. Callinan advised when Ms. Barker returns with the list of the nine items, he hopes it identifies each one and specifies how much time each one is supposed to take. He suggested the Board select one item out of the nine, probably the easiest one to do, and put it on the other lists of Board requests, so staff might be able to squeeze it in; and at least the Board will have some progress.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: TRANSIT SERVICES DEPARTMENT

Jim Liesenfelt, Director of Space Coast Area Transit, advised his Department’s budget is divided into four different programs; the first is Bus Operations, which has fixed bus routes service carrying folks back and forth, and contracted bus routes to carry clients to the Brevard Achievement Center, Easter Seals, etc. He stated it operates like school bus routes, where they pick up the same group of clients in the morning, take them to their workshops, etc. and bring them back in the afternoon; and both of those services operate 30 and 40-foot buses. He stated the Paratransit Program is the federal term for door-to-door transportation; they offer a number of different services under that program; and under the Transportation Disadvantaged Program, they go to someone’s house, pick the person up, take him or her to the doctor, and bring the person back home; and that is designed on a reservation basis. He stated some of their clients are too frail and elderly to ride a bus alone, need assistance at the doctor’s office or food shopping, and the Volunteers in Motion Program uses a County van, picks up those persons, takes them to their doctors’ appointments, stays with them, and brings them back home. He stated they operate a dispatch and reservation center for callers to get bus information and to make reservations; and under the Americans with Disabilities Act, they are required to provide complimentary paratransit services to a certain number of people who qualify. He advised the third program area is commuter assistance; it is a program used to show people alternative methods for driving their own vehicles; and the two areas are to provide alternative transportation and show people how to carpool, vanpool, and arrange alternative work schedules and flexible work times. He stated they operate the vanpool program out of this area. Mr. Liesenfelt advised the last program is Transit Capital; it is for capital purchases such as vehicles and facilities; and they also use those funds to maintain vehicles, purchase equipment, and some personnel costs for administering the program under the capital grants. He stated not specifically in their budget, they have other important services; they are the emergency support function under the Emergency Management Plan; they provide evacuations for special needs folks, and supplies and different types of emergency transportation services; and the State has designated Brevard County as community transportation coordinator, which means it is responsible for providing coordination between different federal and State programs that provide transportation dollars. He stated they provide a number of park and ride services for community events; the next is Seafest at Port Canaveral; next month they will be at Melbourne Art Festival to move patrons back and forth from remote areas to the event; and they monitor the vehicles for hire or taxicab Ordinance. Mr. Liesenfelt stated they are no longer an eight-to-five operation; the first bus pulls out at 4:00 a.m. and the last bus gets in about 3:00 a.m.; they now have buses on the road 23 hours a day on week days and on weekends they operate from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., but Sundays are a little more limited. He stated in the last six to seven years, they went from 12 to 15 hours a day to 23 hours a day; and they had to provide infrastructures to make sure their drivers have the support all the way to 3:00 a.m.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised their total budget for FY 2004 is about $12.5 million; they divided that between operating and capital; and operating is $5.25 million and capital about $7.5 million. He stated he did something different than what is in the budget book; he took the preventive maintenance program and put it into the operating revenue so they can reflect how much dollars they spend on a day-to-day basis to put buses on the road; and their total operating, with capital, is a shade over $7 million. He stated their two major fund providers are the State of Florida and the federal government; they receive about five or six different grants or programs that equal about $2.5 million a year from the State; and the federal government funds about $2 million or 29%. He stated of that $2 million, $1.7 million is for capital and the rest for operating; and their local funds are from local option gas tax; and they received about $33,000 from the Cities of Melbourne and Palm Bay to help fund their bus routes. He stated they have a balance forward; and their fares amount to about $300,000, most of which are for door-to-door and fixed-route transportation. He stated regarding operating expenses, he included everything over $200,000, as they have a number of line items and did not want to make it more complicated. He stated 87% goes to running the buses, maintenance, fuel, bus drivers, and their support staff; the next big item is insurance, which takes about 3% of their budget; and 10% includes everything from utilities, indirect costs, training, different charges for telephones, the 800 MHz radios, etc. He stated as of February 2004, they have 86 fulltime equivalents; 92% of employees are frontline staff or staff that produce actual trips; 73% are vehicle operators; and 7% are operations supervisors, that provide support staff, handle emergencies, and keep an eye on bus drivers. He stated customer service is 12%, which are the reservationist and dispatchers that handle phone calls; and the financial staff and administration include himself and a couple of secretaries, as well as a planner. He stated most of their money is spent on staff that produce actual trips on the roads.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised in 1998 they produced just under 800,000 trips a year; last fiscal year, they produced over 1.3 million trips; and it is divided among four areas. He stated the fixed routes have grown in the last two years by about 30% a year; this fiscal year they are up another 30%; Paratransit is the door-to-door transportation service; purchased paratransit contracts are what they buy through Coastal to do Medicaid service; and they do some School Board transportation during the summer. He stated the vanpools are leased to various agencies; in 2000-01 there was a big jump in purchase versus vanpools; at that time the federal government instructed them that they should put the human service vans as part of their purchase paratransit; so they have quite a bit of growth in their human service vanpools along with their fixed routes.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised the next issue is performance measures; they had a lot of discussion because people look at a transit vehicle or door-to-door vehicle and see empty seats; the biggest constraint in scheduling door-to-door trips is not the number of seats, it is the time to load folks and the geographic distance; and across the nation, the way they measure productivity is trips per revenue hour. He stated the nations average is around 2.0; anyone above 2.5 would be happy; the chart shows transit systems from Department of Transportation District 5 and three west coast transit systems to compare Brevard County; and Brevard County has the most productive paratransit system and average 3.93. He stated even their contractors are more productive than anybody else in District 4 and along the west coast; so they get a lot of trips out of their service and do as much as they can to continue that. He stated another performance measure for the fixed routes is the same thing, trips per revenue hours; for the last four years the revenue stayed about the same as growth in those years is mostly additional service on the road; and in the last two years they have not added that many hours, but have people boarding the same service more often than they did before. He stated the 2004 number is for the first four months of their fiscal year; in February they broke through to the 16 trips per hour range; comparisons are Escambia and Volusia Counties, and the Lakeland area with trips of about 17 per hour; Brevard County is a new system and spread out; but it is now starting to become an average with the larger systems that have been operating fixed routes for about 30 years. He stated the last performance measure is cost per passenger trip; the gold bar is the cost for the total system; in 2000 it was $7.94 per trip; in 2003 it was $6.97 per trip; the fixed route jumped from 2000 and 2001 showing the extra service they put on it; but since then the numbers dropped from $5.96 to about $5.50 per trip; so it shows they are not only increasing service, but putting more people on the roads and costing less per trip.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised the vanpool is a way to take commuters back and forth to work; the biggest benefit is the lease with human services agencies; the agencies have to be 501(c) agencies serving folks with transportation disadvantaged needs; and as of the beginning of the year, they had 29 agencies leasing 59 vans. He stated to replace those vans would cost an average of $360,000 a year, so they keep them about four to six years, depending on how many miles they have. He stated staff provides some overhead to VPSI with office space so they can coordinate the program; those 59 vans provide almost 280,000 trips a year; and assuming $10 a trip, if the County provided those trips seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it would cost almost $2.8 million for what is costing $360,000 plus some overhead. He stated the vanpool agencies actually provide service that saves the County almost $2.5 million a year; and besides the cost, it also gives those agencies the freedom to provide trips that the County could never get to. He stated other cost-saving efficiencies they do is contract a lot of their service; maintenance and fleet management is handled by Ryder Transportation, so they do not get into purchasing parts; and that saves having to hire about 10 to 12 employees. He stated Ryder handles all the training, which saves a lot of management time; they contract with VPSI, Inc. for the vanpool management; and the wonderful thing about that is the insurance cost. He stated the commuter vans have a million dollars of insurance and the human service agencies have $2 million of insurance; and that helps his office quite a bit. Mr. Liesenfelt advised they contract with Space Coast Advertising for marketing and advertising, as they have the expertise in that field; up until last month, they contracted out Medicaid non-emergency system transportation to Coastal, which is more health-related and have the expertise regarding Medicaid services; and the last cost efficiency is billing more of the operating costs to their capital grants. He stated their maintenance is 100% capital; part of the salaries for him and the planner is charged to capital; so instead of using all local funds for salaries, part of it is federally-funded.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised they have four main goals in their strategic plan; the first goal was to increase bus service; and they have three different objectives and met one of them, which was to increase paratransit service. He stated last year they had 12 paratransit vehicles on the road every day; they have increased that to 15 or 16 a day; they received additional funding from the State and were able to meet that; and they would like to put more service on the road on evenings and weekends, but do not have the funding for that this year and have not met that objective yet. He stated they are working on implementing a rider responsibility system, and reduce the no-shows by 15%. He stated when they show up at a home and the transportation disadvantaged person is not there, it takes a trip away from somebody else; they have to use fuel and mileage, and they have to pay a driver; so there is a small cost to the County. He noted they have been working on that in the last year. He stated when they add new service, they pick up new passengers; they try to teach them how to use the service and be responsible; and they are still in the process of reducing that by 15%. He stated they approved a fare collection program to go out and be more forceful with folks to make sure they pay up on time and that they are collecting better fares on their fixed routes. Mr. Liesenfelt advised their third goal was to increase ridership on their fixed routes, which they have done; they put more information at bus stops; a lot of the stops have an extra sign post, which contains the schedule and time table; not too many agencies across the country does it; but it comes in handy and gives folks the comfort of knowing where the bus is and when it will come by the stop. He stated they are working to increase service amenities, which are signs, shelters, benches, etc.; and that is an ongoing issue. He stated they want to formalize their vehicle certification program and build a promotion schedule; an issue with the bus drivers is they are hired as bus drivers and the only other step up is operations supervisor and eventually transit director; so there is not a whole lot of movement because there is not a lot of turnover in those positions above them. He noted unless they want to go to another County Department they will be bus drivers for a while; so staff is trying to come up with a way to establish a promotion plan. He noted they had to put that on hold this year because they did not have additional funding for it; and they have improved the training program and involve the bus drivers a lot more in their service development. He stated before they go to the public with ideas on bus routes, they meet with each bus driver to discuss what works and does not work and to get their ideas. He stated he divided the transit issues because of different services; the fixed routes passenger requests are always for more frequent service, and evening and weekend services; and the survey shows evening and weekend service is the number 2 request. He stated they are starting to have delays on their online performances; traffic is affecting them like everybody else; an interesting phenomenon is about 7% to 10% actually use bikes to get to the bus stops; and they put them on the bike racks. He stated they are also getting more wheelchairs and walkers; and each of those take time to load; so they are trying to shorten the time period to 30-minute schedules but a couple of bikes and wheelchairs makes it harder to meet that time.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he was leaving a store the other day and at the bus stop on SR 520 at Office Depot, a man who had a disability had a bicycle; the bus driver got out of the bus and courteously helped the man load his bicycle; the man got on the bus and off they went; and he wanted to pay Mr. Liesenfelt a compliment because he has seen it happen before. He stated the drivers he has seen are exemplary.

Mr. Liesenfelt thanked Commissioner Pritchard and noted he will let them know. He stated a couple of years ago Department of Transportation looked at different customer surveys and ranked the Brevard County drivers as the most courteous or best in the State; so he is proud of them. He stated they are having problems with on-street supervision; a few years ago a driver at work on an eight-hour shift carried 60 people; now they are carrying 200 to 300 a day; most of the additional money they get in, they provide for bus drivers and not so much for on-street supervision; so there is some strain to make sure they have the infrastructure to meet the drivers’ needs. He stated they added three routes to the paratransit program, and they are already full; it is like latent demand; widening Minton Road would loosen up traffic for a while, but five years later it is congested again; and it is not scientific, but they discovered the same thing. He stated the three paratransit routes have a lot of new riders that never rode the buses before; now they are getting more requests; paratransit has its own issues; and the more they put out the more they ride. He stated they are now denying dialysis service; those patients usually need to go to the dialysis center three times a week for three or four hours a day; SCAT provides operation for their shifts from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and had two centers last year ask them to carry people until 9:00 p.m.; and they did not have the drivers or vehicles to do that so they told them no. He stated earlier this week he got notice that there is a new dialysis center on Stack Boulevard in Melbourne; right now they do not have space to carry those dialysis patients; they have not formally asked SCAT for service, but called for information; dialysis service is the #1 thing they do on paratransit; and now they are starting to deny them trips, so it is becoming an issue. Mr. Liesenfelt stated another problem they have on paratransit is the main streaming; more and more disabled people are out in the workforce or going to school; and once they commit to those trips, they are taking someone to work, they cannot call them a year later and say sorry the schedule is too tight and they are dropping those persons so they have to find transportation or quit their jobs. He stated they are careful in providing those trips and are getting more and more demand for those. He stated last month he asked the Board to no longer coordinate Medicaid non-emergency transportation; he did not provide information on it because it changes daily; but as of Monday, the Florida Medicaid Office is negotiating with the TD Commission to administer the program so it will still be a fixed price contract, which was the issue they had. He stated the TD Commission will provide $1 million of service, but if it costs $1.2 million, the County would have to make up the $200,000; it is still in a state of flux; but it is still going to be a trend and issue as Medicaid will still be around.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised they are gathering together money to replace the South Terminal; they have riverfront property on U.S. 1 but the building is too old and too small; and they need to replace that so they are putting together federal funds to replace it. He stated they are building a small transfer station at their facility in Cocoa; they have three bus routes that come in there and they do a number of transfers throughout the day; so they are building a formal bus shelter/bus pull-off so they can get the buses off the street while passengers are transferring. He stated there are always issues with building, maintaining, and permitting shelters; some of the cities prefer advertising and some do not; and they have been talking to the City of Cocoa Beach, which is interested in bus shelters without advertising. He stated if the City will maintain the shelters, his Department will purchase them with capital funds.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated their newest trend and issues are every three years they have to go through review by the federal government; they currently provide charter trips; under federal law, they are not allowed to provide charter trips if there is a private company that is willing and able to do it; this year they have a company that is willing and able; so as of September 30, 2004, they can no longer provide charter trips. He stated they asked the federal government to extend it to September 30 so they do not cut off people used to SCAT providing trips every year. He stated Issue #2 is increasing cost for the vanpools; a couple of years ago the vanpool provider carried $5 million of insurance for the vanpools; and it is down to $2 million because nobody would issue insurance for the vans at that amount. He stated there are a number of private providers that own their own vans and the insurance issues are squeezing them; and some of the other private providers across the country have had insurance costs that doubled each of the last two years. He stated development affects transit service, especially new medical facilities; the way they serve that is to restructure their routes; and if HealthFirst builds its hospital in Viera, it will completely restructure everything they do. He stated Brevard Crossing Mall, if built, will cause restructuring of their routes in Central Brevard; so development affects transit services with times and places where people want to go. He advised another issue is that the limited local match is not keeping up with their federal and State grants; the last five years the local option gas tax was about $845,000; State funding has gone up consistently; and federal funding jumps a little based on their earmarks and funding formula. He stated on both federal and State levels they earn grants by their performance or lobbying; and they are at the point where they can no longer match some of the new service development grants. He stated grants to fund the trolley buses along SR 520 have no local match to draw the money and provide additional service; and not having enough local match to draw more State and federal grants has become an issue. He stated last year Brevard County Transit was named the best transit system in the nation for its size; they had an awards banquet and took a picture of themselves; and he wanted the Board to see those people who are out there driving the buses and people inside doing the payroll and other tasks.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the dialysis issue bothers him; it is not discretionary; people have to have dialysis; and inquired what is the solution for those persons the County is not helping; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding they would have to find it somewhere else. Commissioner Scarborough inquired where else; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding they are trying to coordinate with the people involved; a couple of centers that were taking folks from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. have been working with them; there are folks who can drive themselves or have family or friends take them; and they take the ones that have dialysis with no other means of transportation. He stated if the new dialysis center takes clients from an existing center, that would not affect them as much as new clients; but without them, those clients would have to find another ride by private provider, neighbors, or family members. He stated when they make a reservation, they look to see if they have a bus available, if they qualify, etc.; when it comes to dialysis, they are automatically given their trips; and there are some scheduling issues, but they are the number one customers. He stated they are running out of space to put those most dependent on the service; so there is not another way if they do not have transportation.

Chair Higgs inquired if any of the medical centers provide transportation as part of their services; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding none that he knows of in the County. He stated of the six centers, three are not-for-profit, and three are for-profit; and none of them provide transportation. Chair Higgs stated there is no reason why they could not provide it; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding it is expensive, but that is one way they could work it out.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if there is a way to partner with some of the centers to provide the service leveraging federal dollars better; and is there that kind of flexibility in the grants from the federal government; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding that might be something they have to do; and they might come back with a proposal on that if they pay 100%, staff might be able to use that to match grants. He stated the issue is the federal and State grants are reimbursement grants; they fund the operating deficits; they take the operating expenses, subtract their fares, and fund whatever portion is left; so if they have a dialysis center that paid the County for transportation, if the State ruled it was fare box revenue, they could not use it to match grants. He stated hopefully they could say it is local funds and be able to draw more grants, which may be a way to do it. Commissioner Carlson inquired if Mr. Liesenfelt analyzed any increase in the local option gas tax and how it would compare with additional dollars he could draw down; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding the weekend and evening service would cost $300,000 to $400,000 a year; for the first three years, the State would fund half of it, so they would need $200,000 for those three years; and if they could generate another $600,000 in local option gas tax revenue, which would be a quarter of a penny, they could do it for the next five or ten years. Commissioner Carlson inquired if at some point they will see a reduction in dollars coming in; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding yes, the biggest part is the State has what it calls supplanting; the decision was it would only give $500,000 this year in local option gas tax; the State would look at that as reducing local funding and would actually take $300,000 away from them; so they need to stay steady. He stated there is a point where if the State funding keeps going up, they cannot match the new funds; and they have not reached it yet, but they are getting there.

Mr. Jenkins stated the County is taking its gas tax money from its share and municipalities are not contributing to the transit service. Mr. Liesenfelt stated Palm Bay and Melbourne provide about $30,000, and he assumes they take it out of their share of the local option gas tax.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired what do the trips for dialysis patients cost the County; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding an average paratransit trip is between $15 and $20. Commissioner Pritchard inquired how many trips per day do they make; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding their big days are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with about 1,500 trips. Commissioner Pritchard stated three times 1,500 is roughly $45,000. Mr. Liesenfelt advised they spent about $500,000 a year on dialysis service. Commissioner Pritchard stated he is not advocating stopping that service, but questions why the facility that is charging a lot of money for dialysis cannot provide the transportation. He stated he can take his car to the dealership, they give him a ride home, then they come back and pick him up for about $200 for a brake job or whatever; and inquired why those facilities do not provide a service to their customers other than it is more cost effective to have the County do it. Mr. Liesenfelt stated he cannot speak for them. Commissioner Carlson stated the customer needs the service and does not have the option of going to another dealership. Commissioner Pritchard stated the dialysis center is there to earn an income; if their customers started going to a facility that provided transportation, pretty soon they are all going to do it; and the trick is to get one of them to start. Mr. Liesenfelt stated they have taken baby steps and only coordinated a few years ago for one dialysis center for the same vehicles; they provided 12 trips to support their scheduling; now they can provide 20 trips; but the centers do not do it because they get free transportation now. He stated Brevard County is not the only ones with that issue; it is a Statewide issue; and when transportation disadvantaged funds came in 1991, the State did not provide any money, but now they get $1 million a year. He stated they were not doing those dialysis trips; they came out of the woodwork; so he is not sure how those folks were getting there in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Medicare pays for it; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding it does not have a transportation element; there was a proposal on the Medicare bill that went through Congress a couple months ago, to provide transportation; but it never made it anywhere.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if staff has done a breakdown of those who are not going to have dialysis routes available to them and how many are in the cities and how many in the County; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding no, they have not gotten down to the clients and are just at the point where dialysis centers say they want service to 9:00 p.m., and staff told them no. Commissioner Carlson inquired how do they get parity between the cities and County in terms of the cost to provide the service and how the customer is affected; and if the cities are willing to pay a pro rata share of the cost, could the County provide the service; with Mr. Liesenfelt responding there are dialysis centers on Merritt Island, in North Brevard, and in Suntree; but the overwhelming majority, probably 75% of the clients live in the cities. Commissioner Carlson stated it sounds like the Board could do something about that. Mr. Jenkins stated the other option is the 9th penny gas tax, which would not be shared.

Chair Higgs stated she saw a survey that said there was some support in the community for an additional gas tax, but she is not overwhelmed by that evidence. Commissioner Carlson stated if the Board went to the next cent and asked the cities to take their share and put it in transportation issues, maybe that would be an incentive for them to buy into it.

BUDGET PRESENTATION, RE: PUBLIC SAFETY DEPARTMENT

Public Safety Director Jack Parker advised the mission of the Public Safety Department is to protect the property, health, and safety of residents and visitors, reduce demands on the criminal justice system, and investigate suspicious or unusual deaths that occur in the County. He stated Public Safety consists of four major components, programs, or service areas: (1) Fire Rescue, (2) Criminal Justice Services, (3) Community Safety Services, and (4) Medical Examiner’s Services. He stated it is a large Department with 544 fulltime employees, 68 part-time employees, and 140 seasonal employees in the lifeguard division for a total of 561 FTE’s, not including the seasonal employees. He stated Fire Rescue takes up the largest share with 480 people; there are nine in the Medical Examiner’s Office, 47 in Criminal Justice Services, 64 in School Crossing Guards, and 140 ocean lifeguards. He stated the Public Safety budget is $56.98 million, the majority of which is spent by Fire Chief Bill Farmer at $51 million, followed by $4 million in Criminal Justice Services, and roughly $1 million each in Community Safety Services and Medical Examiner’s Office. He stated the biggest revenue source is MSTU fire tax at $23 million, followed by EMS assessment at $11.5 million, and ambulance billing at $12.5 million. He stated they have probation charges of about $1.3 million and the balance forward is about $3.3 million.

Mr. Parker advised Fire Rescue is the major component of Public Safety; of that program are fire engines, rescue responses, fire prevention, communications/dispatch center, special response team, and fire rescue volunteers; fire engine responses are mandated by State as are 911 ambulance responses; and fire rescue volunteers are not mandated by the State, but if there is a volunteer program, the County is mandated to operate it in a certain fashion. He stated they have Hazardous Materials Team that they call a special response team or SRT; it is locally mandated by Ordinance; and they have a Fire Prevention Unit and Communications/Dispatch Center mandated by the State. He stated the First Responder Program is not mandated by the State; and they have advanced life support fire engines. He stated Brevard County Fire Rescue serves all of the unincorporated areas of the County and include incorporated areas of West Melbourne, Melbourne Village, and Palm Shores; they operate 20 fire engines 365 days a year, 24 hours a day; and they have upgraded all the engines to three persons advanced life support (ALS). He stated they did that with the support of the Board and citizens when in 1998 there was overwhelming support for the firefighters referendum, which allowed them to go from two-person basic life support (BLS) engines to three person ALS engines. He stated in addition to putting a firefighter on there, they wanted to put a firefighter paramedic on the engines; a lot of agencies throughout the State still operate with firefighters who are EMT certified; the more progressive agencies are moving toward ALS with their fire engines; and that is allowing one person at a minimum per engine per shift to be dual certified as a firefighter and a paramedic and have the equipment and supplies necessary to render that high level of care; and he is proud to say Brevard County Fire Rescue is fully ALS.

Mr. Parker advised they also have rescue units known as 911 ambulances; they refer to them as rescue units because they do more than just transport people; they are generally dual certified as firefighters who can help at fire scenes, extrications of victims from crashes, and a wide variety of things other than transport; and they provide Countywide 911 emergency ambulance transportation, which includes the cities. He stated the County is the primary and exclusive provider of that service; it has 25 ambulances each staffed with two paramedics; and the great majority are firefighter-paramedics. He stated they expect to have a busy year with approximately 35,500 people expected to be transported to area hospitals. He stated the ambulance system is funded by two major components, user fees and annual EMS assessments; they are proud of their response time; five years ago the response times were two minutes more than they are now; and thanks to the Board for providing the additional resources they needed over the last five years, they were able to bring those response times down in spite of growth. He stated the average response time for a fire engine is now 5.15 minutes, and the average response time of a 911 ambulance is 6.07 minutes.

Mr. Parker advised they also have a Fire Prevention Unit; it consists of plans review and field inspections; they do recurring field inspections at existing businesses every three years; and inspectors review plans for new construction and projects that are being significantly renovated. He stated the inspectors insure all plans and facilities are in compliance with all applicable Fire Codes; and that is their responsibility.

Mr. Parker stated the Communications/Dispatch Center is located in the EOC in Rockledge; and they dispatch for all Brevard County Fire Rescue and for Fire Rescue Departments of Cape Canaveral and Rockledge, as well as West Melbourne, Melbourne Village, and Palm Shores because they provide all the services to those three municipalities. He stated the Dispatch Center anticipates to answer approximately 63,000 emergency calls and 440,000 administrative calls this year; there are 21 dispatchers; and each dispatcher is expected to handle more than 3,000 emergency calls this year. He stated one of the reasons they get so many administrative calls is because they operate 24 hours a day when most services in the County close at 5:00 p.m.; and they give direction to resources that people need.

Mr. Parker stated they have a Special Response Team also known as the Hazardous Materials Team; it consists of 21 members who are trained to respond to various calls requiring special expertise; and they respond to hazardous materials events, building collapses, heavy rescue extrication, and chemical and biological terrorism threats. He stated the team is assigned to Station 47 in Viera; the SRT vehicle is staffed with two people; and there are three shifts. He noted Chief Farmer thought it would be wise to dual certify and cross-train the people who are at the station so they can support the SRT team in case of bigger events; and as a result, all the people on the engines and on the rescue unit in that station have been cross-trained so in major events they all go out together and know how the situation works. He stated they all know about the situations they are walking into, so it has been a very effective program.

Mr. Parker advised they have 12 volunteer fire departments that have Contracts with Brevard County; they are recognized by the State as independent agencies and contract with the County to supplement or provide service for the County; and each agency receives a monthly stipend for doing that, depending on their level of service. He stated Brevard County Fire Rescue has a volunteer coordinator that is truly a volunteer who puts in about 40 or 50 hours a week and is unpaid; he was previously a volunteer fire chief; and staff attributes a lot of the success of the volunteer program to that individual. He stated there are approximately 250 volunteer firefighters in Brevard County at this time. He stated the First Responder Program was authorized by the Board in 1998 to achieve and maintain a high level first responder emergency medical care; it was not only Brevard County but all the cities that provide first response emergency medical care; and the expenses are funded through the EMS response revenues. He stated a city with an ALS engine, a paramedic, and ability to provide service at a high level, is given $28,805 a year for running that engine 12 months to provide the service; if they have an advanced BLS engine, which is an engine that has proven it is more than EMT’s and have equipment, supplies, and perform at a high level as EMT’s, they get $16,709 for each engine; every time they respond to an EMS call, they get $4.75 for supplies they use such as collars, bandages, dressings, etc.; and they also help offset some of the costs they incur for medical direction. He noted for ALS agencies, they give them $2.84 a call; and for BLS agencies they give them $1.68 per call.

Mr. Parker advised the four major areas of Criminal Justice Services are: (1) Misdemeanor Probation, (2) Jail Pretrial Release, (3) Alternative Community Service, and (4) Alternative Dispute Resolution, which was known as mediation. He stated Misdemeanor Probation is mandated by the State; Pretrial Release is mandated by local administrative order; Alternative Community Service is mandated by the State; and Alternative Dispute Resolution is mandated by the State. He stated under the Misdemeanor Probation Program, they are responsible to supervise persons who have been placed on probation by a judge; the typical length of probation is six to twelve months; and it is their job to ensure they comply with the terms of probation; and if not, to report it to the courts. He stated each officer has a very high caseload; in community control, which is very high felons from the State and something they do not handle, the average caseload is about 20; in typical felony probation, the caseload may be between 60 and 80; and for misdemeanor probation, it fluctuates around the 300 mark. He stated about 12,300 probationers will be supervised during this fiscal year at one time or another; the program is relatively successful when compared to other misdemeanor probation programs; and generally about half of the people in other programs re-offend or violate their probation within the first six months and go back to jail and have their probation revoked. He stated they are doing better than most with two-thirds that successfully complete the program; and their officers take a lot of pride in what they do and enjoy talking with the people and trying to get them on the right track. He stated they are also responsible for Jail Pretrial Release, which has a group of about nine people that interview and release low-risk nonviolent offenders to help manage the jail population. He stated it is not only to help manage the jail population, but about ten or fifteen years ago, it was not uncommon for someone to be arrested on a relatively minimal offense, spend three or four months in jail, finally get before a judge, and be sentenced to three or four days. He stated it was unfair to the individual and also bad for society because the person would lose his job and in some cases his family in the process; so they try to recognize those people who are no risk to the community or who would not re-offend or take flight. He stated it gives those persons the opportunity to come back to court; it does not mean they will not be punished and will not get jail time; but it means they are out working and hopefully being good family members in the meantime. He stated they will release approximately 2,300 persons this year; the office provides criminal history and background information to the judges; it is a subjective performance measure in that they cannot measure the impact it has; however, they know if they did not provide the critical information to judges during initial proceedings, it would have a profound effect on the jail population. He noted judges return persons to employment because they have confidence from the Pretrial Release officers that are in the courtrooms that give them information about their backgrounds; and they do direct release of enough inmates that they believe they are affecting the inmate population by about 132 inmates a day. He noted if the Board eliminated the Pretrial Release Program, the jail population would surge by at least 132 inmates; that is an estimate based on the fact that every inmate they release would most likely serve an average of three weeks in the County jail; and when looking at the actual cost savings, that is about $1.7 million using the jail’s figures on how much it costs per day to house one inmate.

Mr. Parker stated they are also responsible for Alternative Community Service; in many cases, when an offender pleads guilty or is found guilty, a judge would sentence that individual to a certain number of hours of community service; it is their job to take those persons and put them with not-for-profit or government agencies where they can use their skills and pay their debt to society, clean up the community, file paperwork, and save money; it is their job to make that happen; and they currently have more than 50 agencies they work with on a daily basis and get people to them. He stated they also ensure the offenders comply with the judges’ orders and complete the necessary amount of hours in a satisfactory manner; and they report that back to the judges.

Mr. Parker stated they are proud of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, which is sort of unknown as far as the grand scheme of things; they have a fantastic program manager named Dolly Lyons who is the only paid person in the program; and her job is to coordinate the activities of 20 certified volunteer mediators. He stated the mediators, because they want to serve their community, do this for no compensation, no mileage, etc.; they help the courts by taking cases that would otherwise end up in court; and the program is coordinated by one staff member. He stated mediators will hear more than 700 cases this year; 61% of the cases will be successfully resolved and will keep those persons out of the court system; and it stops the County from having to build courtrooms, hire another judge and bailiffs, and everything else that goes with the court system; so it is a lot of bang for the buck.

Mr. Parker advised the Medical Examiner’s Office’s primary responsibilities are death, and death scene investigations; they will investigate more than 1,800 deaths that occur in Brevard County during this fiscal year; and the Medical Examiner performs autopsies, and will probably perform more than 700 autopsies this year. He stated the Signal 7 transportation is contracted with a private vendor monitored by the Medical Examiner’s personnel; the contract requires the vendor to remove and transport bodies to appropriate locations; and the operation of the Medical Examiner’s Office is mandated by Florida Statutes, Chapter 406.

Mr. Parker advised the Community Safety Services consist of two main programs, school crossing guards, mandated by the State, and ocean lifeguards, which is not mandated. He stated there are 56 schools served by the Brevard County crossing guards; an estimated 560,000 children’s crossings occur each year; there are 63 part-time guards and one fulltime program manager; and the average number of hours a crossing guard works each week is ten. He stated they are a special group of people because they respond to their work place twice a day for an hour at a time because of their love for children and keeping children safe; so he is very proud of them. He stated ocean lifeguards is a large program with 140 seasonal employees and two fulltime employees, a chief and assistant chief; and because the program is seasonal, it starts on weekends generally in March and becomes full time through the summer months, then tails back to weekends in September and October. He stated the lifeguards provide seasonal protection from 12 towers; the beach cities share the cost related to operating towers in the cities; and seven of the 12 towers are in cities and five are on County beaches. He stated the average age of a lifeguard is 17; they are proud there have been no drownings in the protected areas of the beaches in the past six years; and considering the miles of coastline Brevard County has, that is a tremendous accomplishment. He stated the lifeguards performed over 500 rescues due to rip currents, swimmer fatigue, etc. during the last year; they actually pull people from the water who may not have been able to come out on their own; and the ocean lifeguards provide all the beach protection in Brevard County with the exception of Jetty Park and Sebastian Inlet North.

Mr. Parker advised as to strategic planning, they want to replace the modular facility in Scottsmoor with a permanent structure; that has been on their CIP and is due in 2004-05; and Chief Farmer and he are working on a way to do that with the least possible impact. He stated the year after they would like to replace the modular facility in Valkaria with a permanent fire station structure. He stated three years ago the Board approved a five-year ambulance plan; they were to add one ambulance to the system for five years; and they have added three and will be adding one more next fiscal year and one the year after that with the Board’s approval. He stated it is important to promote County and municipal partnerships to improve services by entering into additional mutual aid agreements; and they had a lot of success in that area and can have more. He stated it is basically situations where a County fire station may be close to a corporate area and can provide service to the area better than the city can; in return, the city may have fire engines that are closer to unincorporated areas and can provide good service to the County so they want to work together to have a reciprocal relationship and contract where they provide service to the cities and the cities provide services to the County; and with the closest units responding citizens are served at a much higher level. He stated in the past it was difficult because there were different levels of services between cities and the County; but that is no longer the case; they all have a very high level of service throughout the County. He stated they would like to review the possibility of expanding their engine and repair facility on SR 520; it probably has been the biggest success; it is a quiet success, but something everybody in Fire Rescue is happy about; and when he does his field visits to fire stations, one of the first things they say is how wonderful it is to drop an engine off and get it back a day later even though it had significant problems. He stated in the past they would have to send it to Ocala or other places to be fixed; they would be without the engine for three to five weeks and sometimes longer; so they are proud of the facility and it has gotten so much attention in the fire rescue arena that cities have taken an interest in it and asking Chief Farmer and he if they were interested in expanding it to provide their services as well. He noted it is a way they can improve service for fire rescue throughout the whole County and possibly create a revenue stream for the County; and that is something he and Chief Farmer are looking at now.

Mr. Parker advised regarding trends and issues, one thing they have to consider as the County grows in various stages, is that when the cities incorporate areas, if they do not take a large block that allows them to close a fire station, the ad valorem tax comes off their revenue source yet they are not in a position to close the station because they are still providing 60 to 70% of the service. He stated perhaps they can correct that problem through cooperative partnerships and working together with the cities, like in Cocoa, the County may continue to serve that area and Cocoa could look at the tax base it lost and provide some revenue to soften that blow. He stated he and Chief Farmer keep a sharp eye on that to insure it does not affect them to the point where it causes a need for an unforeseen tax increase. Mr. Parker stated challenges to volunteer fire departments is a major issue; the State has increased the responsibilities and standards for volunteer firefighters; as a result, the academy for firefighters, which is generally 500 hours, has been divided into two parts, firefighters I and firefighters II; and firefighters I is for 250 plus hours that deals primarily with the operational aspects of firefighting. He stated there is some academics, but it is a lot of hands-on firefighting; the State is now requiring volunteer firefighters to have the certification of firefighters I in order to enter dangerous environments to fight fires; the volunteer firefighters will tell you they believe it may be the beginning of the end for volunteer fire departments; and the reason is the volunteer firefighters are fulltime working professions who do not have the ability to go to the firefighters academy for seven or eight weeks. He stated it is not happening only in Brevard County but throughout the State; there are issues with it; and Chief Farmer and Chief Money are working very hard with the volunteer agencies to help them figure out ways to achieve the firefighters I certification and still continue to serve the County as they have. He stated probably because of growth, the Medical Examiner’s Office has seen an increasing rate of death investigations and autopsies; as a result, the Medical Examiner asked him to bring to the Board in the next few weeks a request to upgrade one of the part-time investigators to fulltime status; so he will honor that request and bring it to the Board. Mr. Parker advised criminal justice service is one of the biggest trends right now because of the impact of jail overcrowding; they make sure they are doing everything they can within reason to facilitate judges’ orders and get people released; but also keep in mind they do not want to overreact to the situation and release people to the point where the public is in danger. He stated that is something Shaunna Heffernan is looking at with her staff and working with the judges; and it is a trend for them to watch.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the criminal justice services is $3.9 million; and inquired if that should be the Sheriff’s domain and why is it under Public Safety; with Mr. Parker responding generally probation, which takes up a significant amount of the $3.9 million or about $2 million, is run by a County agency or the County contracts with an agency to run that service; and the Sheriff generally does not run the probation division because of a conflict of interest. Mr. Parker stated the pretrial release component, which is about $700,000 was run by the Sheriff’s Office at one time, but the Sheriff at that time thought it was a conflict of interest to be arresting people on one part and releasing them on the other, so he made a plea to the Board to take the pretrial release component as it would be completely neutral; and it was transferred to Public Safety and has been that way since. Commissioner Pritchard inquired about mediation; with Mr. Parker responding it is a $50,000 budget item and goes for one person who is the program coordinator. Mr. Jenkins stated that program impacts court cases. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if they should be in court services; with Mr. Parker responding there are some facets of what they do with mediation; with Article V coming in, that can make a case that should be tucked in with the court operations; and he and Court Administrator Mark VanBever had discussions about that. Mr. Parker stated it is about 40% of their workload; mediation was getting to the point where they were probably going to come to the Board in the next year or two and ask for an additional position to start to do some different things with it; and Mr. VanBever offered to provide a position through his side that would work in conjunction as a partner with his staff to maintain a very solid mediation program. He stated everyone wants them to maintain it because it is managed well and works well; and as long as they are not expending funds for what would be perceived as a court cost, he would be happy to continue to support that program. He stated they expect to completely work it out before actually bringing their formal budget proposal to the Board for the next fiscal year. Commissioner Pritchard inquired about the lifeguards and why they are not under Parks and Recreation; with Mr. Parker responding Parks and Recreation has pool lifeguards; at one time it had all the lifeguards; and several years back there was a tremendous relationship among fire rescue, first responders, ambulance service, and all support services needed for the lifeguards that it was thought to be a better fit with Public Safety. Mr. Jenkins stated there are also different standards between ocean and pool lifeguards. Commissioner Pritchard inquired how school crossing guards came in; with Mr. Parker responding school crossing guards is a valued part of the Sheriff’s Office, but because there were vacancies being filled by deputies, there was a decision that it would be best not to be in the Sheriff’s Office; and they wanted to transfer it to the County. He stated Stan Lender is the manager who runs one of the finest crossing guard services in the country; everybody is always calling and asking how they do that; and it is all attributed to Mr. Lender. Commissioner Pritchard stated the turnover rate in the fire department is an issue; the County brings them in, train them at a cost, and they go somewhere else, usually within the first couple of years; they need to find a way to stop that trend; and the reasons they are leaving is for higher salaries. He inquired what is the cost to the County of losing those people that they spent time and effort to train and is there an offset to increase salaries as motivation to keep them here. Mr. Parker stated he agrees and they had tremendous support from the Board on that topic; five years ago salaries for fire medics were about $26,000; it is now just shy of $35,000; by industry standards, they are in pretty good shape; but the problem is they are close to Reedy Creek, Orlando International Airport, and Orlando that pay in the low $40,000’s; unlike most professions that generally have to relocate their families, firefighters generally work one 24-hour period on and two off, so it is not that much of a hardship to drive 45 miles to work once every three days; and that is why they generally have a more difficult time maintaining personnel. He stated that is one of his and Chief Farmer’s biggest goal, to try and maintain their talent and get not only the starting salaries up, but the salaries of existing firefighters up at the same time. Commissioner Pritchard stated he understands a lieutenant makes $5,000 more than entrance level firefighters in Orange County or Orlando; with Mr. Parker responding he will be glad to get those numbers for the Board.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if there is any contractual agreement that can be made with the folks going through firefighters school that would require them to stay in the County for five years until the County can get its money back out of them if they cannot increase wages to meet the competition; with Mr. Parker responding he has the answer, but will let Chief Farmer answer that. Chief Farmer advised they enter into hiring agreements now saying they have to be with the County x number of years or pay back a pro-rata cost of the training program. Mr. Parker stated one of the things other agencies will do is offer hiring bonuses to pay off the remaining contract. Commissioner Carlson inquired if they could include a clause in the agreement of no hiring bonuses allowed. She stated page 7 talks about the dispatch center, the number of calls they get, etc.; it says 63,000 emergency calls; that equates to 3,000 a year; and if they do the match it is less than ten a day per dispatcher; but when they add in 440,000 administrative calls, it goes up to 70 calls a day per dispatcher; and inquired what are administrative calls about. Mr. Parker responded in many cases they do dispatching for various departments after hours; that helps to fund the program and they do not have to maintain a more expensive dispatch center; and if it gets to the point where it impairs their ability to dispatch calls, they will have conversations with the various directors that they can no longer provide those services. He stated a lot of the calls are from people who are looking for information; and they get all kinds of calls from citizens involving all kinds of issues. Commissioner Carlson inquired if they are not 911 calls; with Mr. Parker responding no, they are not emergency calls.

Chair Higgs inquired if the hazmat operation is funded by the MSTU; with Mr. Parker responding yes, there was discussion on the hazmat operation because it is fully funded by the MSTU, which is paid for by County citizens; it is Brevard County Fire Rescue asset; some of the discussions he and Chief Farmer had with the chiefs is the fact that because Brevard County has the hazmat team the cities are in a position of not having to have a team. Chair Higgs inquired if anyone else has a hazmat team; with Mr. Parker responding no. Chair Higgs inquired if Brevard County is the only hazmat responder in the incorporated and unincorporated areas; with Mr. Parker responding it has become that way. Mr. Parker stated there is a difference of opinion between the County and cities; they are trying to maintain excellent partnerships with the cities; he and Chief Farmer believe it is a special resource and the cities should pay their fair share; but the cities believe it is a mutual aid device. He stated the cities provide the County service in various ways and the County provides the cities services in various ways; so there is some discussion about that right now and they are interested to hear the Board’s views on that. Chair Higgs stated there are some cases in which the cities charge the County for calls; and inquired what are those cases; with Mr. Parker responding those are situations where they are not backing the County up but providing primary service. He stated for example, there are enclaves in Rockledge where the County crew would have to drive past the Rockledge fire station to answer a call; the City of Rockledge has been wonderful to the County and gave them a reasonable cost agreement to serve that area; and they will serve the enclave of unincorporated property for a fee. Chair Higgs inquired if there are brush fire calls and other calls that the County pays for and responds to in incorporated areas; with Mr. Parker responding that is the mutual aid; the cities help the County with brush fires and the County helps the cities with those fires in their jurisdictions; and if they have structure fires and need help, the County helps them and vice versa. Chair Higgs inquired if hazmat is a mutual aid, is there some mutual aid the County gets back from the cities; with Mr. Parker responding no, and that is the point. He stated if the cities and the County all had hazmat teams and were helping each other, then there would not be a dispute; it would be a mutual aid; but Brevard County has the only hazmat team. He stated in some cases the County may call for an aerial truck it does not have and need, so a city would provide that as a mutual aid request and would not charge the County for it; and that is their point that they have specialized equipment and the hazmat team is nothing more than that so it is mutual aid. Chair Higgs inquired how many calls a year does the hazmat team respond to in the cities; with Chief Farmer responding about 40, but he will get that information and send it to the Chair. Chair Higgs inquired how many calls does the County have where it needs special equipment or crews from the cities; with Chief Farmer responding less than 40. Chair Higgs requested Chief Farmer provide a breakdown of the calls. Chair Higgs inquired if West Melbourne, Melbourne Village, and Palm Shores pay the same MSTU; with Mr. Parker responding yes.

Mr. Jenkins advised concurrent with that, there are small beachside cities that have volunteer fire departments that the County responds to on a regular basis because they need additional resources; that is a common occurrence; so there are a lot of ramifications. He stated there have been many instances where Palm Bay and Melbourne back up the County particularly with wildfires; and that also is very common. Chair Higgs stated the hazmat team is an expensive program and is a specialized service. Mr. Jenkins stated mutual aid goes beyond mutual aid with some of the smaller beachside cities. Mr. Parker stated he does not think there is a real intent, but Mr. Jenkins is correct that they have small volunteer fire departments and they do not pay into the MSTU; their intent is the departments can quickly get together and get to the fire scene; they call the County for mutual aid, which means it is not the primary responder and they do not pay the County for that; however, occasionally the County shows up first; and a lot of times, before the volunteers get on the site, they have put an end to the fire situation. Chair Higgs stated Satellite Beach has a fulltime fire department; with Mr. Parker responding it has a fulltime professional fire service and so does Cocoa Beach. Mr. Jenkins inquired how many trucks do they have; with Mr. Parker responding Satellite Beach has one, Cocoa Beach has three, Indialantic has one, Melbourne Beach has one volunteer, Indian Harbour Beach has one volunteer, and Melbourne has seven trucks. Mr. Jenkins stated the County rolls quite often into those communities.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the Board found out it was providing free law enforcement service to Malabar and Palm Shores by the Sheriff’s Department for over 20 years, and they never paid the County. Commissioner Carlson stated Palm Shores is now paying, but Malabar decided not to. Commissioner Pritchard stated what the County is doing is good in the spirit of cooperation, but it is being used as a primary delivery service; it is at the expense of the County, so it needs to work out tighter relationships in terms of a dollar response. He stated I-95 off Palm Bay Road does not have an agreement with Palm Bay to respond, and the County is paying the engine companies $600 an hour. Mr. Parker stated here is a stretch of I-95 that is difficult for the County to get to in a timely fashion, and the crashes in those areas require immediate response. He stated Palm Bay has been good enough to run that service area for the County as the primary responder and the County will come in behind them; and they charge the County for that service. He stated when the County has problematic areas, cities could make the bill a tremendous amount more; and there are very few calls per year, but it is very difficult for the County to serve certain areas. He stated they met with a city and knew they would probably have a $10,000 to $12,000 expense at most; the city asked him how much it would cost to put a fire station there, and he said besides the operating expense it would cost about $600,000; so the city offered to provide the service for $550,000 a year. He stated that is what they have dealt with in the past; but they have come a long way where cities like Rockledge, Satellite Beach, Melbourne, and Palm Bay have all been reasonable with the County on most of those situations.

Chair Higgs requested Mr. Parker provide specifics in a memo to the Board regarding some of the issues with the smaller cities and enumerate those issues. She stated she asked Mr. Knox about the issue of Malabar today; and inquired when will the Board see that issue come back; with Mr. Knox responding probably next month.

Commissioner Scarborough complimented staff for the budget presentations. Commissioner Carlson complimented staff also. She stated the second rendition with the numbers on it, there are a lot of points that she is not sure if she misunderstand how staff is laying it out, but they have where general fund under fund type occurs and in some cases it says general fund/special revenue. She inquired if that is defining what part of the general fund; with Mr. Jenkins responding it is a different fund. Commissioner Carlson inquired if it is general fund; with Mr. Jenkins responding no, it is general fund or special fund or some other type of revenue source.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if Mr. Jenkins can break it out exactly how much comes from general fund alone instead of grouping it together. She stated she does not know how many she counted, but permitting and enforcement, the first item is general fund/licenses and permits; and inquired what part of the $1.2 million comes from the general fund; with Mr. Jenkins responding they can do it on a legal size sheet and add that information.

Commissioner Carlson inquired how is the Board supposed to rank the Department budgets; with Mr. Jenkins responding he would prefer by services, but if the Board wants to do it by department, it is better than nothing. He stated at minimal by programs, but he would prefer the Board rank them by services. Commissioner Carlson inquired if Mr. Jenkins wants the Board to rank each program from one to five; with Mr. Jenkins responding yes by services, but some are mandated and have to be done. Commissioner Carlson stated it ought to be based on things the Board does not have to worry about in terms of general fund because the ones that are mandated by the State it is required to pay for. Mr. Jenkins stated that is listed as State; the only issue is locally mandated; if the federal or State government mandates it, the Board has to do it; and if it is locally mandated, the Board has the power to change the local mandate. Commissioner Carlson stated in some cases it says State/local so how does the Board know what part is State mandated and what part is locally mandated; with Mr. Jenkins responding it comes to a point where there is not enough room to provide that level of detail; however, the information is in the book and Commissioners will have to go to the book to get it out.

Upon motion and vote, the meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.

ATTEST: ___________________________________
NANCY HIGGS, CHAIR
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA

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SCOTT ELLIS, CLERK

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