April 8, 2004

The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, met in special/workshop session on April 8, 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, Susan Carlson, and Jackie Colon, County Manager Tom Jenkins, and Assistant County Attorney Shannon Wilson.

REPORT, RE: NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK

Commissioner Pritchard stated this is public health week; this is the ninth year that the Brevard County Health Department has participated in National Public Health Week, which is the first week in April; and this year the theme is a continuation of “Step Up, Florida.” He recommended everyone plan to increase their planned exercise; and if they are not exercising, plan to start. He stated ironically there is a big notice about exercising in the elevator of his building; he was told a good place to start was with people who took the elevator rather than walk one flight of stairs; he was guilty of taking the elevator; however, now he is using the stairs. He distributed a brochure from the Brevard County Health Department.

PRESENTATIONS, RE: BUDGETS

Central Services

Steve Stultz, Central Services Director, stated the Central Services Office consists of three primary programs: Purchasing Services conducting the procurement of commodities and services; Asset Management, which maintains a record of the County’s assets; and Fleet Services, which provides repair and maintenance services as well as fuel for the County’s operations. He stated the mission of Central Services is to acquire and maintain cost effective and quality goods and services to support County government operations; and while the mission may not appear to have a direct effect on the citizens, the services that are provided to the County departments and offices enable them to economically and effectively achieve the goals and objectives included in their individual strategic plans. He stated in carrying out its mission, the Central Services Office has established goals to insure and promote the best interest of the County through competitive procurement of materials, supplies, equipment and services at the lowest cost consistent with the established quality standards of the County; and with the establishment of the centralized contract database, they can insure proper accountability and development of contracts for commodities and services by all agencies under the jurisdiction of the Board and centralize control of those contracts and agreements entered into or authorized by the Board to minimize risk exposure. He advised Asset Management operations provide accurate accounting and reporting of all County-owned real and tangible property; and practices are performed in accordance with Uniform Accounting System of the State of Florida, generally accepted accounting principles, and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 34. Mr. Stultz stated Fleet Services operations maintain the County’s fleet of automobiles and small trucks; they perform maintenance and repair services with quality automotive and equipment parts to insure maximum operational efficiency and safety of assigned County vehicles at the most economical cost to Fleet Services customers. He stated additionally they also insure that fuel is provided in convenient and accessible locations at an economical price. He stated Purchasing and Asset Management programs are mandated under various Florida Statutes; Purchasing is mandated under Chapters 125.74 and 274, F.S.; and the accountability of County assets are required by the rules of the Auditor General. He stated all Central Services programs are further mandated locally by Section 2-73 of Brevard County Code, which directs that Central Services Office is responsible for the functions of purchasing, property control, and central fleet; and the FY 2003-2004 adopted budget for Central Services totals $3,548,133 for all programs combined. He stated Fleet Services comprises 81% of the total budget with Purchasing and Asset Management comprising 10% and 9% respectively. He stated Purchasing and Asset Management are funded through General Fund transfers; the cost of the three programs is distributed to the user agencies through the County’s annual cost allocation plan. He stated funding specific to the Clerk for the Special Master is provided in part from Contractor Licensing fees, with the remainder from the General Fund. He stated Fleet Services is funded predominantly through charges for services; approximately 61% of its revenues are realized from fuel sales and 37% from parts and labor charged for vehicle and equipment repair and maintenance activities; and it also received a small percentage of the proceeds from the County’s annual surplus vehicle and equipment auction. He stated that portion of the revenue is for the Fleet Services staff efforts in organizing and prepping the vehicles and equipment prior to the auction and also for providing assistance during the action. He stated 92% of the projected expenditures for Purchasing Services consists of compensation and benefit charges; the remaining 8% consists of operating expenses for Purchasing, Clerk to the Special Master, and Contract Administration activities. He stated compensation and benefits amount to 85% of the Asset Management program’s approved budget for FY 2003-04; and included are approved capital expenditures for replacement of bar code readers, which are used daily by Property Control agents. He stated the Fleet Services major operating expenditures consist of fuel and repair parts and supplies; and of the $2,197,164 estimated for operating expenditures, fuel costs amount to $1.58 million, parts and supplies $465,000, and outside repairs at $5,000. He stated for FY 2002-2003, there were 154 formal competitive solicitations resulting in an estimated cost avoidance exceeding $11 million; and that figure is based on comparison of the high bid received for each solicitation compared to the awarded amount. He noted the figures include 36 requests for quotations, 92 invitations to bid, and 26 requests for proposals were solicited. He stated in the same time period Purchasing issued 4,786 Purchase Orders with a net order value in excess of $117 million; and only eight protests were filed of the 154 formal solicitations conducted. He stated of the eight, three were resolved within the dispute resolution process before requiring any presentation to the Board; and considering the intensity of the competitiveness of public procurement, the number of disputes is a very good measuring stick to gauge the quality and effectiveness of the bidding documents and the evaluation and award process. He stated the Purchasing program also maintains the purchasing module within the County’s SAP system and provides support assistance to the departments in their daily and formal procurement activities. Mr. Stultz stated Purchasing is also the distribution point for new and replacement purchasing cards and is responsible for the development of the administrative order establishing procedures for purchasing card use; and it also provides logistic support and resources during emergency operations at a station at the EOC. He stated Contracts Administration monitors critical dates and insurance requirements for over 3,000 contracts; and the Clerk to the Special Master provides clerical and administrative support for the County’s contracted Special Masters and acts as a liaison between the parties. He stated Asset Management performance measures include the meeting of mandated requirements for the accountability of the County’s assets, which is spread throughout the 72-mile long County and 300-plus locations. He stated with the impact of the GASB 34 requirements, the number of assets recorded and maintained is estimated to increase 25% over those for 2001-2002. He stated he also heard the Board discussion at the previous workshops concerning the inventory of tangible property and specifically missing, lost, or stolen property. He stated to address the Board’s questions regarding efforts to minimize the number of lost or stolen items, the Asset Management program strives to identify 100% of each custodian’s tangible property; and in an ongoing effort to achieve this goal, staff provides the department with in-depth training in the procedures for accountability of tangible property and also the capturing of capital construction project costs. He stated Administrative Order 8024 was also developed to provide in detail the responsibilities and procedures necessary to insure complete accountability of assets; and an asset manual was written to serve as a comprehensive guide for staff, addressing everything from asset acquisition to the inventory to disposition of assets. He advised the manual is available to all staff on the County’s shared drive. He stated to maximize the usefulness of the County’s assets, Asset Management also promotes and assists with the transfer of usable furniture and equipment between departments and offices; and departments are notified of any surplus property prior to the scheduled surplus sale. He stated in addition to their mandated services, Asset Management also provides non-mandated services consisting of Municipal Code Book distribution, framing of the Board resolutions, Board agenda distribution, and registration of vehicles and boats for the departments. He stated Fleet Services provides vehicle repair and maintenance services for Board agencies, all Charter Officers excluding the Sheriff’s Office, and contracted municipalities and not-for-profit organizations; vehicle repair and maintenance are provided for a fleet of approximately 71 automobiles, 362 pickups, and 314 vans or SUV’s; and approximately 1.08 million gallons of fuel are supplied to County vehicles and equipment and contracted agencies at a cost averaging 20% below retail pump prices. He stated those municipalities and agencies that Fleet Services provides services or fuel to under contract include the Indialantic, Malabar, and Melbourne Beach in addition to Coastal Health Systems, American Red Cross, ARC, the Alzheimer’s Association, Brevard Workforce, Childcare Association of Brevard, and Project Response; and in addition to vehicle maintenance, Fleet Services also performs an annual inspection and annual preventive maintenance service on over 80 emergency generators that are located throughout the County. He stated staffing for Central Services consists of 25 full-time employees distributed within the three programs; and five staff members are dedicated solely to purchasing activities, including a data control specialist who provides clerical support, maintains the contract files, and performs random monthly contract reviews. He stated the Clerk to the Special Master is also located in the Purchasing Services office, and acts as an administrative liaison between the County departments, respondents, the special masters, and the County Attorney’s office for the special master hearing process. He stated six staff members are assigned to Asset Management; and 11 employees are assigned to Fleet Services. He stated with the exception of one mechanic performing routine vehicle service at a location in Titusville, vehicle service and maintenance activities are performed at a centralized maintenance facility on North Wickham Road. Mr. Stultz stated with regard to trends and issues, while implementation of SAP has automated and streamlined the process of purchase requisitions, the number of formal bids, quotes, and proposals issued annually consume an ever increasing amount of the Purchasing staff’s available man-hours; and coordination and development of solicitation documents and addenda with user agencies, document distribution, and coordination and attendance at pre-bid meetings, openings, and selection committee meetings, as well as the overall evaluation and award process consume a major portion of staff’s time. He stated site visits in conjunction with pre-bid meetings for projects such as Parks and Recreation referendum construction projects require that a Purchasing Agent attend; and that often takes the agent out of the office for hours at a time. He stated departments and offices still continuously look to the Purchasing staff for support and direction to insure they are complying with procurement laws and procedures throughout the procurement process; this shift as a regulatory function is occurring throughout governmental organizations as indicated by a recent survey conducted by the National Institution of Governmental Purchasing; and the survey indicates that the public purchasing function is currently perceived as a regulatory function, which is a continuing shift from a clerical perception to regulatory. He advised the Governmental Accounting Standards Board statement requirements and internal audit recommendations are recent factors that have increased responsibilities of Asset Management staff requiring additional knowledge and experience in accounting principles and stretching current staff levels; but the planned upgrade of the SAP system should improve the current processes for posting and reconciling assets. He stated another trend affecting Central Services programs as well as all departments and offices is the escalating cost of gasoline, diesel fuel, and other petroleum-based products; the short-term energy outlook from March 2004, issued by the Department of Energy, predicts that the likelihood of diminishing prices during the driving season is weak; and a high possibility for additional gasoline price increases this spring remains, peaking at approximately $1.83 per gallon. He stated for 2004 as a whole regular gasoline prices are expected to average 1.67; the April outlook was posted this morning, and there has been no change other than the use of the phrase that prices are volatile; and they estimate that for the driving season, which is April through September, the average price for regular unleaded gasoline will probably be approximately $1.76 a gallon. He noted on a more local level, the American Automobile Association website indicates the Florida average as of April 5 was $1.793 for regular gas and $1.787 for diesel fuel; and as of this morning, it is still $1.79 and $1.78. He stated in addition to the impact of operating the County vehicles and equipment, it is also anticipated that similar to past experiences in rising fuel costs, vendors will pass along the costs in the price of commodities and services that they provide as their transportation and operational costs increase; and one of the first impacts normally seen due to rising petroleum prices is often realized in commodities such as asphalt and roofing materials. He stated their priorities and goals in Central Services are an ongoing effort, and will continue to provide commodities and services that meet the County’s needs at the lowest cost, but at the level of quality required. He stated 100% accountability of County-owned assets has always been the goal of Asset Management and will continue to be so; and this includes investigation and documentation of lost and stolen property. He stated in discussion at previous workshops, the Board expressed a desire to insure that vehicles are utilized to their maximum useful lives and are not scheduled for replacement solely based on their age; currently over 40% of the passenger vehicles and trucks operated under the Board exceed six years in age; and Fleet Services operations provides services that can maximize useful lives of County vehicles and equipment. Mr. Stultz stated they can also provide the offices and departments with historical details of the repair and maintenance costs of the vehicles since acquisition; and such information can be utilized by the departments to assess their replacement vehicles needs and incorporate those into their strategic plans and budget projections. He stated there is no duplication of purchasing services within the Board agencies and offices; Charter offices conduct their own procurement activities; however, many utilize the Board contracts that are procured through the Purchasing Services office. He stated Asset Management is also unique in the services provided; and it maintains asset records for not only Board agencies but also for the Charter offices and the County Health Department. He stated vehicle and equipment repair similar to that provided by Fleet Services are present within some departments determined to have specialized needs such as Public Safety, Fire Rescue, Solid Waste, Roadways and Landscaping, Mosquito Control, and Transit Services. He stated there are opportunities for efficiencies regarding fleet operations such as continuing to review overnight vehicle assignments to make sure there are measurable benefits to such use that results in either increased efficiency and effectiveness of County government, a significant cost savings, or is in the best interest of the citizens of Brevard County; and except for those with specific markings, specialized equipment, or outfitting that dictates its use, consideration may also be given to providing a car allowance in lieu of a County vehicle. He stated all programs analyze their individual vehicle replacement needs; but establishing standards for determining and prioritizing vehicle replacements based on the repair cost history, the estimated cost to maintain the vehicle in a safe and reliable operating condition, and the vehicle’s mileage would provide departments and offices with a consistent method of determining their needs. He stated the Central Services Office strategic plan establishes goals that support its mission to acquire and maintain cost effective, quality goods and services to support County government operations; to maximize efficiency, it is necessary to provide effective training in the automated functions related to purchasing and asset management; and they have achieved this goal through the provision of annual year-end training as well as specialized training sessions conducted regarding recording, capturing capital construction costs, and contracts administration. He stated the added requirements of recording of assets have increased responsibilities, taxing current staff levels within Asset Management; and requests for additional staff were not funded in past budgets, so to compensate for needs, they have realigned positions within the Central Services programs. He stated while this has lessened the strain, an additional position is still needed; and realignment has started to present a challenge in maintaining the current level of services provided by the other programs, so they are taking from one pocket and putting into another. He stated the goal of providing effective communication has also been met at various levels; participation in outreach activities has provided the communication link with vendors and the public; and in particular, they provided presentations at events sponsored by organizations such as the 45th Contracting Squadron, the Florida Puerto Rican Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Brevard Small Business Assistance Council, allowing an opportunity to provide information on how to conduct business with the County to both the public and the business community. He stated the use of new technologies to improve services provided has been met through the use of bar code readers, which are utilized by the Asset Management staff; and one of the benefits of the new readers is the ability for Property Control agents to print onsite a property bar code for any new acquisitions. Mr. Stultz stated they have yet to implement automatic vendor registration, bid notification, and document downloading because they are continuing to assess the numerous applications that are available in the marketplace; and that has been an ongoing effort over a period of time. He stated he is comfortable that they have isolated some of the primary ones that they would be able to utilize that are most cost effective and would most benefit vendors and the County as a whole, so they hope to proceed in the near future.

Commissioner Pritchard stated Mr. Stultz has a copy of a fleet plan; with Mr. Stultz responding he has a copy of a policy from Ft. Lauderdale. Commissioner Pritchard stated the fleet plan is also from Ft. Lauderdale; and while he hates to piggyback on someone else’s work, the way the plan was laid out was well done. He stated it lays out vehicle numbers, life-span, operation and maintenance, and projected date of replacement; and it lays things out so one knows year after year what has to be replaced and what the cost is going to be so there are no surprises, needing 20 more vehicles and trying to find the money for them. He inquired if the County is doing anything that is leaning toward this type of fleet plan; with Mr. Stultz responding they have not initiated such a plan at this point; but this is a good opportunity to look at various similar plans. Mr. Stultz noted he looked at the Leon County plan some time ago; they implemented a scoring matrix for judging vehicles to calculate whether the vehicle should be scheduled for replacement; and there were several criteria uses and points assigned. He stated if they did not meet at a certain point level, they were not considered for replacement at that time; and the only thing is that it was implemented several years ago; but it appears to have been renewed so they are still using the matrix. Commissioner Pritchard stated with that type of matrix, it would be more after the fact; it would be something that the points would not fit until that year; and then the County would be wondering where to get the money from. Mr. Stultz agreed; and stated he did not see much description on how it was applied, and thinks it was being used for new year budget purposes. County Manager Tom Jenkins stated what Commissioner Pritchard is saying is to have the criteria and forecast the replacement in advance. Commissioner Pritchard stated the County would budget for it annually; and Mr. Jenkins has a copy of the plan, which includes everything from fire trucks and police cruisers to lawnmowers. He stated in the Ft. Lauderdale plan there is a 60-inch mower listed; there are eight of them with a life cycle of four years; they set aside $200 a month for operation and maintenance and $115 a month for the replacement rate, so the monthly payment is $315; and they do this for every vehicle and every piece of equipment. He stated there is always room for adjustment; out of 25 cars scheduled for replacement, five may still be pretty good; so they can go another year and build up the reserve. He stated on the other hand, if something falls apart prematurely, then the reserve would be used to pay for it. He stated he thinks this type of accounting is what the County should go to so it will know exactly what the cost is going to be every year and will not have any surprises such as trying to get $1.2 million to pay for something that should have been forecast for annual replacement.

Commissioner Colon stated the Board should go forward and make a motion that this is how it wants to see it come back; it is not asking for a lot to actually see it this year; and the numbers could be put together and crunched for this year so when they go in to the budget process this summer, they will be prepared. She noted this is for everybody in the County.

Commissioner Carlson stated she is interested in finding out if this can be done, although she has no problem if it can be put together for this budget cycle. Mr. Jenkins stated it would be the next budget cycle. Commissioner Carlson advised it is the budget coming up that they are talking about.

Motion by Commissioner Pritchard, seconded by Commissioner Colon, to put numbers together for the next budget cycle concerning a fleet plan so the County knows year after year what has to be replaced and what the cost is going to be.

Commissioner Scarborough stated this is for planning purposes; and if a piece of equipment breaks down prematurely, but another one has continued to have a useful life with minimal repairs, the County would have the ability to deal with the actual events of the equipment as opposed to being driven by a piece of paper.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if there is software related to this that could be utilized; with Commissioner Pritchard responding he is sure there is. Commissioner Pritchard stated he has a contact name; his experience was that it was done manually; but that is when computers were just coming in.

Chair Higgs inquired if Commissioner Pritchard is talking about a list in addition to the one Mr. Stultz actually has for fleet; with Commissioner Pritchard responding yes.

Chair Higgs called for a vote on the motion. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he noticed that one of the items being considered was a vehicle incentive plan where employees would be paid “x” amount of money in lieu of having a take-home car; and the reason he brought this up is that a take-home vehicle must cost $7,500 a year figuring depreciation, insurance, and fuel. He noted he is not talking about marked vehicles, but about unmarked vehicles, on which there are certain limitations such as the person cannot use the car for personal errands or to transport family. He stated the car is used for business by people who have a need after-hours and on weekends as part of their function. He stated if it is costing the County $7,500 for that per year and there are limitations that would mean the person would have to have another car to use for personal activities, the Board might pay the individual “x” amount of money and then they could use their personal vehicle, which would reduce the amount of money it is costing the County and give them an incentive to purchase a vehicle. He stated they would use the vehicle for company business; it would save the County money; and it would give them the opportunity to use the vehicle after-hours and on weekends, etc.; and it would be win/win on both sides.

Chair Higgs inquired if they are compelled by law to use the State rate; with Mr. Jenkins responding they would need to look at the ramifications of that; he has a car allowance but it is based on a contract; and it is worthy of further investigation to see what the issues are. Chair Higgs inquired what is the rate per mile the County uses; with Mr. Jenkins responding 29 cents per mile. Commissioner Pritchard noted the IRS allows 36 cents per mile. Mr. Jenkins stated if they could legally do a flat rate that is what Commissioner Pritchard is referring to. Chair Higgs stated the disincentive for people using personal cars is that the County does not really cover the cost; with Mr. Jenkins agreeing not now with gasoline being the price it is; but unfortunately that is regulated by the Statute at 29 cents per mile. Commissioner Pritchard stated it gives the person who has their car the ability to use it after-hours and the County pays a portion because they are also using it for on-duty work. Chair Higgs stated if they are operating in the hole when they are using it on company time, they do not want to use it. Commissioner Pritchard stated it would depend on how much the County was going to pay; with Chair Higgs agreeing it is a real dollar issue.

Commissioner Carlson inquired how would they track the usage of their own vehicle; with Commissioner Pritchard responding they would not because the County would pay them a vehicle allowance of, for instance, $250 a month and they buy a car to use for work. Mr. Jenkins reiterated it is worthy of looking at.

Chair Higgs stated there was a point in time when the Board did that; but if shifted away from it because the actual costs were less than what they were paying. Mr. Jenkins noted it would have to be reported as income; with Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten advising it would be taxable. Mr. Jenkins stated those are all the issues, legal and financial.

Commissioner Pritchard stated when he was faced with this decision, it was advantageous for him to take the money and use the vehicle for work rather than having a company car; and that way he did not have an extra vehicle sitting in his driveway, one being a company car and the other one for his personal use.

Chair Higgs stated the Board has to be sure it is advantageous to the taxpayers. Commissioner Pritchard stated if they pay $250 a month, that would be $3,000 a year, and if it costs $7,500 for a take-home car, they would be $4,500 ahead and the individual would have a car. Chair Higgs stated they will need to see how it works out.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if a motion for a report is needed. Chair Higgs requested staff provide a report.

Commissioner Scarborough stated on one of the pages, it had a shift of responsibilities from Finance Department staff to Asset Management; it was under trends and issues; there was a potential impact on SAP; and requested staff go over it one more time so he can understand. Mr. Stultz advised a lot of that is the result of the internal auditor recommendations and the assumption by Asset Management of any expenditures or costs to the Asset module; Finance staff was manually posting adjustments to the asset records; the recommendation of the internal auditors was to have a clear separation; and Asset Management assumed that responsibility with current staff. He stated one of the facets of the SAP upgrades that the County is considering is automating the manual process. Commissioner Scarborough stated they went into the SAP to have better information more readily available; and this is headed in the right direction, so it is a positive trend. Mr. Stultz stated that is correct; assuming the process as it is
now added an additional amount of requirements on existing Asset Management staff; and it is a time consuming process to manually review each of the records to insure that everything gets posted. Mr. Stultz stated with the SAP upgrade, there is an opportunity to automate that. Commissioner Scarborough stated one of the comments was that there was a shift of responsibilities between Finance and Asset Management, and because of that there is a potential impact on SAP upgrades; and inquired if this is heading in the right direction; with Information/Communication Systems Director Gino Butto responding yes.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Commissioner Colon stated she just received terrible news, the young man who died on the John F. Kennedy out of Mayport was the son of Michael Brown, who used to help run the jail. The Board observed a moment of silence.

PRESENTATIONS, RE: BUDGETS (CONTINUED)

Sheriff

Deborah Barker, representing Sheriff Philip Williams, stated she will provide an overview of the 2003-2004 budget, including programs, trends and issues, accomplishments, and those types of things. She stated the mission statement is an integral part because it shows the reason for the existence of the agency; it shows the purpose; and it shows the reason the taxpayers provide funding for this governmental service. She stated it is important because it talks about working in partnership with the citizens; and they are always dedicated to providing superior law enforcement service. She stated they have to focus on reducing crime, but they also have to look ahead strategically to take law enforcement services, and work in partnership with all services to focus on the Brevard Tomorrow plan and improve the quality of life in Brevard County as a whole. She stated their priorities are professionalism, law enforcement, and crime prevention, in that order; and while some may think crime prevention and law enforcement would be more important, those cannot be obtained without a professional agency. She stated Sheriff Williams, being a visionary sheriff, has looked to the future to see what can be done with yesterday’s problems, today’s problems, and the issues of tomorrow; and many of those problems deal with lowering the crime rate and dealing with the personal safety of the population at large. She stated no matter what position one has in the Sheriff’s office, they are there to see about providing for the safety of the citizenry under the umbrella of the Sheriff’s office; and they have to look at the prevention program, especially for juveniles because they all know and strongly believe that the future is tied to our children. She stated the goals are broad; and the first is to recruit and maintain highly qualified employees so they can continue to do the best job they can for the citizens. She stated they want to continue to encourage the community policing philosophy as a whole within the agency, which means going proactive versus reactive throughout the entire agency, and attempting to solve things and work in partnership with the communities so that they can solve issues and crimes before they happen. She stated not only do they encourage that in the road patrol, which is proactive, but they are attempting to make it more proactive versus reactive; and that has to be an overall philosophy within the agency. Ms. Barker stated a goal is to reduce the crime rates and focus on juvenile crimes with all of the programs that are done with regard to the school resource officers, the Police Athletic League, Camp Chance and those types of things; and they are trying to refocus on achieving a different mentality with the juveniles so they can be shown respect for authority and law enforcement instead of just catching them later in life. He stated they are dealing with them through the Juvenile Assessment Center; they are trying to work to adopt and implement a strategic plan to focus on improving the quality of life and incorporate that, in partnership with the County, into the work done by Brevard Tomorrow. She stated fostering the partnerships with community is essential because it goes to encouraging the community policing philosophy; and the partnership has to be between law enforcement, local government, State government, federal government, and the citizens. She stated no matter what position one has in the Sheriff’s office, they all work to provide a safe and secure environment for the citizens of Brevard County. She stated they started looking at the comparison of dollars; they took the County budget book and looked at the total County budget as represented at $749 million for FY 2002-03; and the Sheriff’s portion is $71 million or 9.56% of the total. She stated going to the General Fund, which is $187 million, the Sheriff consumes $53 million or 28.7% of the County’s General Fund. She stated the other sources are grants; charges for services such as contracts at the Port and Cape Canaveral; monies derived from inmates; fingerprint fees; off-duty fees; fines and forfeitures; ticket money; State drug forfeiture money; balance forward, which is the MSTU; and special revenue fund money. She stated overall they get 75% from the General Fund, another 15% from taxes dedicated specifically to the Municipal Service Taxing Unit, and other sources represent $3 million from things such as fees and other types of cost to offset the total commitment to the taxpayers.

Commissioner Scarborough requested Ms. Barker explain the $11 million and where it is coming from; with Ms. Barker responding that is the MSTU and the transfers from General Fund are the amount coming from the County’s General Fund.

Commissioner Pritchard stated miscellaneous is shown as $345,000; and inquired what generally falls in that category; with Ms. Barker responding things such as interest income, money from towers or rentals, sales of fixed assets, fingerprinting fees, and those type of things. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if that is the revenue stream Ms. Barker mentioned about six months ago as being slightly higher than expected; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Ms. Barker stated there are multiple revenue sources. She stated looking at expenditures, the most significant thing shown is the compensation and benefits; what that is, is salaries; and it shows that 75% of the Sheriff’s budget is allocated to people. She stated it is the weekly paychecks of the people who work in the Sheriff’s office; and that means 75% of everything in the budget goes toward paying the people.

Chair Higgs inquired if the Sheriff pays weekly; with Ms. Barker responding no, biweekly.

Commissioner Carlson stated that includes compensation and benefits; with Ms. Barker advising the benefit rate for sworn deputies is 39%. Chair Higgs inquired if it is 39% plus health insurance; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Commissioner Carlson inquired if half of that amount is what they take home; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Ms. Barker stated law enforcement is high risk as is public safety; and it just illustrates the cost of doing business. Chair Higgs inquired where is the health insurance cost; with Ms. Barker responding under compensation and benefits. Chair Higgs inquired if it is not part of the 39%; with Ms. Barker responding that is correct.

Ms. Barker presented a program summary; and stated within the whole pot of money they break out the programs that define the certain different types of major components of services that are provided within the Sheriff’s office. She stated there are different types of services that make up the $71 million; and some of it is MSTU, which is the road patrol. She stated some of it is court services; part is the detention center; contract services are with the City of Cape Canaveral and the Canaveral Port Authority; law enforcement includes everything else like general crimes, the helicopter, canines, DUI, the bomb squad, all support services; and everything else, sworn and non-sworn are within one umbrella. She stated there are five different main types of services that the Sheriff’s office provides; and the dollars and percentages are shown.

Commissioner Scarborough stated there is a separate MSTU tax; and he assumes some of the $31 million in law enforcement is paying for deputies that may be out in the community like an MSTU funded deputy. Ms. Barker stated law enforcement pays for all sworn personnel except road patrol and corrections; but if a road patrol deputy is called to a 7-Eleven and requires backup of an officer or a dog, that would come out of law enforcement. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if it is necessary to account not only for income, but for an expenditure within the accounting of who is doing what; and stated it may be working the same but coming out of different pockets; with Ms. Barker responding yes.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired if they have to show a wash on MSTU’s; with Ms. Barker responding yes. She stated it is a special revenue fund meaning the citizens pay a separate tax dedicated for that service; and then if revenues exceed expenses, it rolls over every year, which is the balance forward. Commissioner Pritchard stated the answer is really no because he asked whether expenditures had to equal revenue; and Ms. Barker responded they do. Mr. Jenkins advised the budget is balanced. Commissioner Pritchard stated he knows that, but was talking about the MSTU program. Mr. Jenkins advised the MSTU is balanced; the budget revenues and expenditures are balanced; but they may not spend every penny, so there may be money left over at the end of the year; and inquired if the Sheriff budgets a surplus each year. Ms. Barker stated they estimate it based on what might be available, and that is included in what balances it as an expenditure. Commissioner Scarborough stated they balance; but there is a requirement that they not spend 5% which is out there as contingency. He stated they might have cash carry forward because all the positions are not filled; and he thinks the answer to Commissioner Pritchard’s question is yes. Commissioner Pritchard stated he understands; the carry forward will change every year depending on expenditures and revenues; but he was trying to be simplistic about it. He stated he understands it is always going to balance; and the difference is the carry forward. Ms. Barker stated it is the same thing in the General Fund because what carries forward is given back to the Board at the end of the year. Commissioner Pritchard stated if the Sheriff charged Cape Canaveral $1 million for deputies but only did $800,000 worth of service, then the City might ask why the Sheriff was not charging $800,000; and that is the gist of where he was going with his question. Ms. Barker stated the budget is nothing more than a financial plan that is established to the best of their abilities, but then changes on October 2; and that is why there are budget amendments and cash carry forward. She stated the MSTU is $11 million; the cash carry forward is going to an estimated $400,000, so it is small; but it is still a balancing figure; and they are careful to never overspend. She stated the General Fund comes back to the Board, but the MSTU rolls over. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if Cape Canaveral is in agreement with the amount of money the Sheriff is charging for providing deputy services; with Ms. Barker responding that is correct. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if it is updated every year; with Ms. Barker responding yes, there are separate negotiations with the Port and Cape Canaveral. Commissioner Pritchard inquired what happened with Palm Shores and Malabar; with Ms. Barker responding they are currently open issues. Mr. Jenkins advised Palm Shores will stay in the MSTU. Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten stated the agreement was the traffic tickets would come to the Board for the current year; and next year they are actually in the MSTU boundary so they will be charged and the County will receive that revenue from Palm Shores. Mr. Jenkins stated the County Attorney is addressing Malabar. Commissioner Pritchard inquired have any other areas been identified that may be receiving services and not paying for them; with Ms. Barker responding not to her knowledge. Mr. Whitten advised he is not aware of any others.

Ms. Barker stated the position summary shows how the positions are distributed; there are 925 budgeted positions; and displayed an illustration showing how those resources are distributed throughout the different types of services. She stated there are 61 people going to court, 256 are at the detention center with another 10 at the farm, with those two budgets together; and the slide shows how the resources are allocated to the different types of services called law enforcement. She stated those are the sworn types services other than road patrol and detention; and they have provided information on how many dollars and positions go toward that service. She noted there is also a pie graph showing the breakout; and the high number within each program is compensation and benefits. She stated the biweekly paycheck is the majority of the budget for every type. She stated there are performance and productivity issues, which are accomplishments that can be considered a return in investment to the taxpayer; over a year they have experienced an increase in crime clearance rates; index crimes, which are violent and nonviolent combined have decreased 1.3% over the prior year; and they have maintained their CALEA accreditation. She stated there are some trends and issues that are facing law enforcement as a whole; communication is an up and coming significant issue that the County is experiencing; and they are looking at inoperability issues and being able to communicate better with other law enforcement agencies all the way up to the federal level. She commented on advanced technologies, real time analysis, information sharing, and crime mapping; and stated there is a lot of emphasis on training, homeland security, and domestic issues. She stated law enforcement continues to have the vehicle replacement issue and increased maintenance costs because of the aging fleet; and they are all experiencing high fuel costs. She stated the next program type of service level is the MSTU, which is the municipal service taxing unit; that tax is applied to those people who live in unincorporated Brevard County; and they pay a separate tax on the property tax bill, if they own property, to pay for law enforcement services to directly serve them. She stated again the salaries are 76% of the pie; calls for service have increased over the prior year by 5.21%; and that is the portion that is related to the increase in population that continues in the County. Ms. Barker stated response times have decreased; and violent crimes have decreased by 4.5%. She stated some of the trends and issues include looking to full implementation of the community policing philosophy, not only in road patrol but in all segments where they can more proactively deal with crime so it does not occur; and that takes partnership with communities. She stated there is also a trend toward domestic security; and everyone understands how important that is coming into play. She stated she does not know about the continued population growth.

Commissioner Scarborough stated response time decreased 33%; but that is only half the formula. He stated the element Ms. Barker needs to give the Board is that it has not only decreased, but it has decreased by a position and is significant. Ms. Barker stated Commissioner Scarborough is looking for more of a time; with Commissioner Scarborough advising it is a relevance issue.

Ms. Barker stated going to court services, which is a judicial segment, those are the people who work in the courthouses; there is a high profile case going on right now; and those are the folks who are taking care of that. She stated there are a lot of domestic violence issues occurring there; and they have to put an emphasis on court security training for those people. She stated there is a trickle down effect based on the jail; the more people there are in jail, the more caseloads are on the judicial; and 96% of their budget is for compensation and benefits. She stated the detention center has 256 positions and there are ten for the farm, which is alternative sentencing; some of the serious issues at the jail, which the Board is aware of, that they continue to bring to the forefront, are the overcrowding and understaffing at the jail, the infrastructure issues, and incarceration of people who are mentally ill. She stated the mentally ill prisoners are not what they would call hardened criminals; they just have issues of mental illness; and there is no place else for them to go. She stated that issue has been identified by the Committee for Mental Health and Community Solutions; and it is one of the top issues the County is interested in, working on a quality of life solution. She stated they have the recidivism rate where there are folks at the jail who continue to return because they like the service or because they have not received the life skills needed to regain their quality of life. She stated there is the expansion issue; and the County is dedicated to doing the pod in the next year; and they have the ATIP program, which is the Alternatives to Incarceration Program. She stated ATIP has two phases; and it is significant that the citizens understand because it does two very important things. She stated one of them is in inmate labor; it takes the people who are incarcerated for lower level crimes, who are lesser risks to society; and they are allowed to go out during the day and perform inmate labor. She stated they work and help the County; they work throughout all aspects of the County; and so they save labor costs. She stated if an average rate of $8 an hour is applied, it is approximately $1.8 million per year. She stated the ATIP program is a little different; it is an alternative program for juveniles and adults; those folks are actually sentenced to the Sheriff’s farm to do work on the weekend; they do not spend time in jail; and this is an alternative program where they do their community service. She stated it is an alternative started a couple of years ago for the juveniles to try and keep them out of the JAC; and these are ways to try to help eliminate overcrowding at the jail. She stated the 3% increase in inmates received and processed is just the influx at the jail; the increase in inmate meals is based on population; they also have to feed the people who go to the farm; and the same folks make the means that are served to the ATIP people and the inmate labor.

Commissioner Colon stated she met with Senator Haridopolos; and inquired if the Board is aware of a bill that provides if someone has been convicted five times within a 12-month period, they will automatically be doing time. She stated they were trying to figure out how the dollars were going to affect the jails; but one of the things Senator Haridopolos mentioned was that the Sheriff in Jacksonville was the one supportive of this because he felt it would be a savings instead of having inmates coming to the jail; her concern was the fact that there are people who are mentally ill who will probably be going in on a frequent basis; and inquired what will happen in regard to their benefits and medication, and who is going to pay for forensics. She stated she wanted to bring it to the Board’s attention because she does not know what the dollars will end up being, whether this is a plus or a negative, and how it will affect the jails. She stated the Sheriff from Jacksonville was the one who brought this forward as far as the savings and the safety issue; but she has a lot of concerns in regard to the dollars. She stated she supports the bill and the fact that it is a safety issue; but when it comes to the jail, she does not know what the dollars are going to be; and Ms. Barker needs to take a close look at that. Ms. Barker stated she will speak to the Sheriff and also to a representative of the detention center.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired when it says a 3% increase, is that over the prior year; with Ms. Barker responding yes. Commissioner Scarborough stated while there was only a 3% increase in the number of inmates received, the jail must be keeping them longer if there is a 7% increase in meals; and that is not based on anything being done in the jail, but on what the judges are doing in the courts; with Commander Altman responding that is correct. Commissioner Scarborough stated this is leading in the same direction as what Commissioner Colon was saying; there may not be many more persons; but through the methodology and what the Legislature is telling judges is creating a greater impact.

Assistant County Attorney Shannon Wilson stated there are a number of laws passed in the last couple of years that have mandated longer stays or minimum mandatory sentences for more misdemeanors. Commissioner Scarborough stated it goes back to the Legislature; the judges are responding to that; and the County is seeing the impact.

Chair Higgs stated they should also plug into the equation the people who are not going to State prisons as quickly, people who might not get out on parole or probation as quickly, and some of the factors the Board identified in its discussions because there are all these other factors.

Commissioner Scarborough requested a further analysis. Chair Higgs stated that is what they will be doing with the consultants the Board agreed to fund; that is the kind of scenario they have to piggyback with the Public Safety Coordinating Council; and all of that information will be coming together because all of those factors control the population. Commissioner Scarborough stated it may actually help the consultant and the Board if that is already in the process; and there are some numbers that staff could share with the Board; with Ms. Barker responding certainly.

Commissioner Colon stated part of that discussion was if the County gets more judges, that would expedite it; that was part of the discussion with Senator Haridopolos; some of the judges were saying they need help and there should be funding for more judges because they cannot handle the load; and it is a combination of both.

Commissioner Scarborough stated this goes to those persons who had a crime that they could not be released back into the community; and they are not getting into court fast enough because of the lack of judges. He inquired about the speedy trial rule. Ms. Wilson responded there is a speedy trial rule; but in many cases there are a number of other factors. She stated the Public Defender’s office represents a majority of indigents in the system; and they cannot get to the courts fast enough, so are waiving the speedy trial. Commissioner Scarborough stated there is a problem with the number of persons the Public Defender is able to employ; with Ms. Wilson advising his is a State-funded budget. Commissioner Scarborough stated the problem is so complex; the Board is talking about what it needs to do at the jail; but the problem is all over the place. Chair Higgs stated that is exactly what the study and consultant are supposed to do for the Board.

Ms. Wilson stated the Jail Oversight Committee had a meeting this morning; Judge Holcomb is the new judge who has been assigned to that committee; it was a relatively productive meeting in terms of some of the considerations and things he is thinking about doing; and they have all gone off with tasks.

Commissioner Scarborough stated what he is hearing is they are doing a jail study; from Ms. Wilson he is hearing that they are dealing with how much the State is giving the Public Defender; according to Commissioner Colon it is the number of judges available; and inquired will the consultant be able to look at the big picture or are they just going to be going to the jail. Chair Higgs stated she is confident that the consultant will bring in all those factors. Commissioner Scarborough stated he does not want to end up with more questions than answers. Chair Higgs stated the Public Safety Coordinating Committee has the grant; she will be coming back to the Board to discuss this further; the key components are together; and there are 12 to 13 different factors that play into this that have an effect on the population of the jail.

Ms. Barker stated she got both requests yesterday and will follow up on those. She stated the next issue is contract services; and the slide shows the expenditures with the Contracts with the City of Cape Canaveral and the Canaveral Port Authority; and they are dealing with a lot of issues at the Port, including heightened security measures, FDLE standards that have come into play last year and this year; new legislation looking at some maritime issues, domestic security, and interoperability. She stated the City is looking at annexation of the no man’s land between the City of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach; and that is on the ballot this year for the voters to decide. She stated there has been a huge increase in population on the beachside as well as tourism; and that is why the call for services increased by 10%. She stated there has been a 92% increase in the need for canine responses, primarily at the Port and the City; the Port has a bomb dog and the City has a drug dog; and those are programs that deal with quality of life issues. She stated there has been a 155% increase in patrol activity; and she will close the program with some of their measured successes, which are the returns on investments. She stated it is what they do with the dollars that the Board provides them as a law enforcement agency; and she is talking about community policing and proactive versus reactive law enforcement. She stated they have the Selective Enforcement Unit; and E. C. Smith is present today. She stated there has been an increase in DUI arrests over the prior year; an increase in speeding tickets, which is not popular but does save lives; and traffic crashes have decreased by close to 2%. She stated the AED implementation is interesting; they have worked to put automated external defibrillators in the majority of the patrol cars; and seven lives have been saved in the last several years. She stated it would be interesting to talk to those seven people and ask what that program is worth; one of them was a 35-year old soccer mom on a Saturday morning; and she is still going to soccer games on Saturday mornings. She stated the School Resource Officer program and the SHOCAP series continue; there were over 21,000 student contacts; and they are strongly focusing on juvenile issues to try to make a difference toward the future. She stated Brevard County experienced zero marine deaths during 2003; it is the first time that occurred in 23 years; and the aviation unit is always out doing good things. She stated the next successes deal with community involvement and the partnership aspect; and the community relations unit is diversifying and working on implementing residential and commercial security surveys as well as expanding business watch and neighborhood watch programs. She stated the school resource officers provided over 600 parent counseling sessions in 2003, which hopefully will help the children and the child/parent relationship; and they have provided 850 interactions with children in the County in a mentoring capacity. She stated at the Sheriff’s Farm they worked on produce to feed the needy; and they give it to the Christian Network and Daily Bread in Melbourne. She stated the auto theft unit had some grant funding tied to it; and they have conducted some public auto theft prevention training in the neighborhoods. She stated at the federal level they have just been made aware of a great acknowledgement; one is that they are being used as a showcase with the School Resource Officer Program; and some of the statistics show the value of contacting children that young. She stated based on the statistics they have, they can show very good return on investment for that. She stated the COPS office feels they have done such a stellar job that they are being showcased in the nation; Camp Chance and the Police Athletic League are also involved; and they are going to be written up as a community in the COPS Report from the Field, which is a law enforcement magazine that will be coming out this summer. She stated they have tried to show an overview of their services, some return on investment for dollars provided, and some of the significant trends and issues.

Chair Higgs inquired if Commander Altman would like to add anything to what the Board is hearing from the consultants on the total picture of the jail. Commander Terry Altman stated the Board asked him at the February 19 workshop to come back with some projections for start-up costs on the new facility as well as annualized five-year expenditures; and he has that information available. He distributed written materials to the Board, but not the Clerk. He stated as Commissioner Higgs said, at the meeting yesterday they received presentations from two agencies interested in conducting the criminal justice systems needs assessment for the County; they are looking to do an in-depth study of every facet and aspect of the criminal justice needs, starting with the officer on the street, why he does a street arrest, what he is arresting for, whether there is a necessity for that arrest or can it be deferred, whether they could issue a notice to appear versus bring the person in, and looking at every aspect of the criminal justice system from the time the individual is arrested on the street or the contact is made through the complete finalization of the judicial process, sending that person to State prison or the County jail and then subsequently releasing them. Commander Altman stated they will examine all the things that can be done in the middle such as diverting the people from the jail to such things as Mental Health Court or other avenues; and they will see whether there are any bottlenecks within the system such as needing more judges, running courts at a different time, or assigning more people to the Public Defender’s office that slow the judicial process down. He stated they will examine each aspect and come back with a report on recommendations of how the County might be able to streamline the judicial system and process; and they will look at whether they need to increase the size of the facility and the kind of facility needed. He stated the question is whether they need 500 maximum security beds or whether there is a sufficient number and whether they need to apply minimum security beds; and the study will answer those questions in a timely manner.

Chair Higgs inquired if Commander Altman wants to introduce his colleague. Commander Altman introduced Commander Greg Futch. He advised Commander Futch is taking over the command of the Brevard Detention Center, assuming that role on Monday; and they have been working very closely together on what needs to be done.

Commissioner Colon stated she is happy to see that because it is very comprehensive; and that is what the Board wanted. Commissioner Colon stated the issue is complex in regard to the suicides in the jail; and inquired if they have been able to identify that when a person is already sentenced to life or something and is going to be suicidal, how they are going to be dealing with those types of individuals. Commander Altman stated anytime someone comes back from court who has received a sentence of death penalty, a life sentence, or other serious sentence, they take an immediate look at those individuals; and they are reviewing all their processes and procedures at the facility at the present time to see if there are other people that need to be identified. He stated they send approximately 100 people a day to court; generally they know the high profile cases and see those immediately; but there may be some lesser cases that may be gaining the general public attention; and they are looking at the issue.

Ms. Barker advised the Sheriff has other experts present.

Chair Higgs stated the Board will take the information it has been given today and digest it, and then allow the other groups to speak.

The meeting recessed at 2:37 p.m. and reconvened at 2:47 p.m.

*Assistant County Attorney Shannon Wilson’s absence was noted at this time.

County Finance

Chief Deputy Clerk Jim Giles stated Mike McDaniel with Clerk’s Accounting is present; and Clerk of Courts Scott Ellis was present but has a court appointment and had to leave. He stated they received notice of the requested PowerPoint presentation several weeks ago; at that time Steve Burdett and the Finance Department were busy preparing the County’s financial statement; and he does not have a presentation, but will try to answer any questions.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the Clerk of Courts would have liked to be present; and inquired if the Clerk could be done at a later time. He inquired if that would be the Clerk’s preference; with Mr. Giles responding he is sure it would be. Mr. Giles stated he is sure there is much to discuss as there have been a lot of changes. Commissioner Scarborough stated he would like to give the Clerk the opportunity to be present and have a PowerPoint presentation. Mr. Giles inquired if Commissioner Scarborough is speaking of a PowerPoint presentation on the Finance Department; with Mr. Jenkins responding focusing on the ad valorem funding agencies primarily. Mr. Giles stated that would be fine. Commissioner Scarborough stated he is personally interested in how anybody is impacted as performing services within the County, and if Article V is going to negatively impact the operation and could mean limiting staff; and a full briefing is worthwhile. Mr. Giles stated Mr. Ellis would like to do that.

Sheriff’s Office (continued)

Chair Higgs stated Commander Altman is still present if anyone has additional questions.

Commissioner Carlson stated she asked him for a breakdown of the personnel, and he answered her questions; and she is sure the consultants, in their due diligence, will be comparing things.

Chair Higgs stated there was a group that did the report with the Mental Health and Community Solutions Committee; it is very informative; and Housing and Human Services can email it to the Commissioners if they want it. Commissioner Scarborough stated he would like to get it.

* Assistant County Attorney Shannon Wilson’s presence was noted at this time.

Information Systems/Communications Department

Gino Butto, Information Systems/Communications Director, stated today’s presentation will hopefully give the Board a good idea of a lot of the different things his department does; there are three distinct programs that a lot of people do not realize are encompassed in the same umbrella; and in their mission statement, the optimal words would be cost effectiveness. He stated the solutions they provide are stable, not necessarily leading edge; but they have to be proven not only to the industry, but also in a similar environment to the County’s and also fit within the County’s long-range plans and standards. He stated the three programs are fundamentally distinct; they are functionally diverse and fiscally dissimilar; and they are covered from the least to the most impacting to the General Fund. He stated 9-1-1 is 100% autonomous; Information Systems is an enterprise organization that derives funding through its revenues and user fees; and then the Network Communications Program is almost completely funded from the General Fund. Mr. Butto stated the Board may have noticed that within a lot of the strategic plans, Information Systems is rooted in their goals; there are very few references to Information Systems separately independent; and they are much like Central Services in that their contributions are distributed throughout the plans of the other departments. He stated the split is fairly close because the 9-1-1 portion is regulated by the State; Information Systems is balanced through the enterprise concepts; and the Communication support is almost complete General Fund. He stated the number in General Fund support in the telecom side may be misleading because a lot of what they are funded for is charged back directly to the users, so the money does not necessarily stay with them; miscellaneous revenues are mostly external for the organizations that are like title agencies that come into the systems for research on property and such; and that is a function that will be going away as the Tax Collector implements a new system for property management. He stated the $1.9 million General Fund is almost completely for the communications within their department; and commented on expenditures, reserves, and things that are regulated like E-9-1-1 and infrastructure for public safety and law enforcement. He stated the requirements dictate how they can administer the monies collected for 9-1-1; and there are also guidelines for any systems and operations of 9-1-1 centers Statewide, which they adhere to. He stated there are federal directives for addressing the growth in wireless devices and cellular phones within the County; and they have to meet the industry changes in telecommunications as they affect 9-1-1. He stated there has been a shift in technology; most people have heard of the difference between landlines versus wireless; landlines are the phone lines at home that are connected by a physical wire, whether used for telephones or fax machines; and there is a 50-cent charge associated with those lines. He stated the wireless industry has really taken off; a lot of people have a wireless phone as an addition to their home phone line, which is why at one point, it was decided that instead of 50 cents, it would be 20 cents for those; but unfortunately the trend is these phones are replacing a lot of landlines. He advised of an interlocal agreement with municipalities and agencies, ability to remain self-sufficient, and internal support. He stated the Board asked for performance measurements; and the Board can look at the trends and the growth in a lot of these. He stated what he described does not do justice to the wireless cellular phones and does not reflect the phenomenon when there is an incident; cellular phones have a tendency to accelerate the calls to the 9-1-1 center for the same incident; and they are still trying to find out how to include those in a meaningful fashion. He advised the State is still having some trouble collecting and fairly distributing the monies that is received from wireless carriers. He stated he has touched a little on trends and issues; the funding is something that represents the most significant trend; it leads to the mentioned issues there; funding is the issue where there are wireless lines in the County; but the County receives less than it does for the landlines. He stated leading into that trend is the logging recorder; they had expected in this current fiscal year to upgrade that to an updated digital system; but a lot of delays, coupled with revenues being down, have caused them to maintain the old system at a much higher cost; and near-term what they are going to have to do is make some adjustments in the interlocal agreements. He stated a lot have been accustomed to a certain revenue and autonomy; and commented on reduction in revenues, and collapsing some of the smaller municipalities into some of the larger answering points and combining some of the cost centers there in the next six months. He stated Information Systems is the more
classic data processing function that has been known for years; they do the programming and maintenance of software, as well as a consulting function for the County. Mr. Butto stated they take requests and analyze them for the cost benefit and try to find a solution; and that has been a shift over the years away from the typical environment. He stated whenever they can, they find a solution that has already been developed; and they look at cost effectiveness of systems rather than building systems in-house and tailoring them for their needs. He stated Information Systems is almost completely self sufficient through the user fees; and the fees are audited early and revised as needed. He stated more recently they have actually worked with a consultant in the Budget Department to come up with a new distribution for those fees; they have reduced them for a lot of departments; and this reflects the fact that they have tried to minimize the payments in the General Fund and outside groups for their resources, particularly in the recent challenging years.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired what was unfunded; with Mr. Butto responding they had requested some upgrades to the enterprise resource planning software, which is the SAP financial system; but they could not be justified at that time. Commissioner Pritchard inquired how much was unfunded; with Mr. Butto responding $1.2 million. Commissioner Pritchard inquired what has been the effect on the operation by not having that funding; with Mr. Butto responding they put themselves in a little bit of a bind in upgrading the SAP system because for years they have been told that the system will not be supported in the current version that they are running; they have managed to keep it going; and fortunately the vendor has postponed some of those support issues. He stated some of the modules have become more expensive because if one waits until it is a mandatory upgrade, then a lot of other people are going to be in the same situation so the vendor can charge more because they know they have the customer. He stated he cannot quantify the efficiencies; and commented on things that cannot be done without the upgrade. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if this will be brought to the Board for consideration during the budget cycle; with Mr. Butto responding affirmatively. Mr. Butto stated they have the funding now, which they intentionally accumulated over the years through user fees, to do the technical upgrade; it is the core financial system without any additional feature functions; but once they have that, they are hoping to have the infrastructure and business plan that will be developed with their consultants to actually get to those functions. He stated they have a draft of the agenda now; and in the next few weeks the Board will probably see a plan for that. Commissioner Pritchard inquired can Mr. Butto forecast what the cost may become once the vendor gets in a position of being able to dictate his fee; with Mr. Butto responding they can try to do that looking at what it would have cost two years ago as opposed to next year. Commissioner Pritchard stated Mr. Butto made the comment that the fee could increase once the vendor gets the users in a position where they are caught between a rock and a hard place; with Mr. Butto responding that is right. Commissioner Pritchard stated he would be interested in hearing what the cost might be if it could be done in 2004-05 versus when the vendor could dictate a price later.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired if this is one of those things that is a capital cost that the County would be purchasing over a period of time, and what time frame would be the rational purchase of the technical upgrade; with Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten responding they are on a schedule; and part of the issue of not having the dollars is that this is an internal service fund, and to have those dollars, it would be necessary to increase the charges in order to reserve more dollars for the upgrade. Mr. Whitten stated they are at a point where they have sufficient dollars to do the technical upgrade with some enhanced functionality, although not what they would like to have; and the other issue is the matter of need and efficiencies and whether things can be done better in terms of bringing on additional modules. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if they are talking about $1.2 million; with Mr. Butto responding it is in that general area. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if $1.2 million is available so it is not necessary to use commercial paper; with Mr. Butto responding yes. Mr. Whitten advised it is always cheaper to do it sooner rather than later.

Commissioner Carlson stated what Commissioner Pritchard was saying was if they wait until they are in breakdown mode and desperate, the vendor can hike up the price and the County will just have to deal with it. Mr. Butto advised they are on target and hope that they can do it now and not delay further.

Mr. Butto stated in terms of staffing, there is nothing significant; it is pretty stagnant; and the performance measures are pretty realistic and have been met.

Commissioner Scarborough stated whoever did the copying did not copy all the performance measures into the Commissioners’ books; and requested that be sent to his office. Mr. Jenkins stated they were emailed out, so that may be the problem. Mr. Butto stated he will get Commissioner Scarborough complete color copies.

Mr. Butto stated some of the trends they have been dealing with include the SAP upgrades; they brought the system in five years ago; and they are looking forward to enhancing some of it now. He stated email and file and print services were listed mainly because they are in effect for everyone including Information Systems; it is a telecommunication/data communication project; it has been holding them and a lot of their users back; and they have reached the point that they think they will be doing something about it very soon. He stated on the SAP side, there is a public sector module; they do not operate like General Motors; and the new updates will be specific to their industry.

Commissioner Carlson requested Mr. Butto explain the first trend that talks about stressing current personnel and computer resources based on the development boom. Mr. Butto responded the building development there is not intended to be structures, but the systems they build from websites and interfaces; and the requests for those systems have been growing dramatically. He stated the customers and constituents are savvy; they know what can be done; they are requiring more of his department; and in turn they have to try to keep up with that with the very limited group of people they have. Commissioner Carlson inquired if there is a possibility that trend is going to impact the County to the point of critical mass in terms of trying to keep up and stress on the system. Mr. Butto responded from the system standpoint, the answer is yes; the dichotomy is there is a lot of infrastructure that is in the General Fund portion of the department; that portion is becoming very congested and overtaxed; and it is the area that needs the most help.

Mr. Butto stated they want to insure the operating availability; they need to make sure the development of the new software enhancing the existing system is something that is done in an effective way; and more and more they are getting citizen inquiries. He stated they are working on not only an internal system to help manage those based on a model that Commissioner Carlson’s office did first, but other products that can be used in conjunction with that in the future should money ever become available. He stated Network Communications is responsible for seven large PBX units which are of a magnitude to support a building such as the Government Center with a large campus environment; and in addition there are 85 small key systems, which support some of the outlying offices. He stated they are responsible for some very complicated communications hardware; and each of those has very sophisticated software that runs on them for email, Sheriff’s services, and local area networks, so there are some very technical folks in that department. He stated the objectives are to do all these things in a very effective way; they have the staff, Commissioners, and a lot of the Constitutional officers as well; and they are trying to keep up with the rapid growth and demand while at the same time trying to minimize downtime. He noted sometimes it is hard to build on something without the risk of taking something else down; the network communication group is almost entirely dependent on the General Fund; and that has kept them pretty lean in the last few years because it has been tight in general, so they have had numerous requests that have gone unfunded. He stated some of those will come back because it is just a matter of time before they go from a future to an immediate need; and staff has held down the fort in a lot of these areas; but they have reached the point that postponing some of these will not only become more expensive but can actually jeopardize the integrity of the system.

Commissioner Pritchard stated the public is moving more toward wireless communications; he knows people who have taken the phones out of their homes and all they have are cell phones; and inquired if Mr. Butto has noticed a trend toward that in government. Mr. Butto responded he has noticed a shift from things like beepers to using only cell phones so there is a growth in the number of cell phones, but they have not seen any trend where the landlines are being eliminated in the public sector. Mr. Jenkins stated the reason is there are fixed locations and there are fax machines; but with the use of more emails, the use of fax machines is also going down. He stated wireless is good for personal use; but it is not good necessarily when one has a fixed location. Mr. Butto elaborated with wireless one loses the functionality of being able to transfer calls or have conference calls and things like that; they are completely detached from the PBX; and that is a big part of the reason.

Mr. Butto stated in terms of the number of lines maintained, it only addresses the landlines, not cell phones, so the trend is that they are slowing done; they are not installing as many more per year as they used to; but they still have to keep things like fax machines. He stated more offices are trying to fax things rather than mail them; some are using email; but a lot of the remote sites do not have access to the high speed network, so they need to install phone lines to get to the internet; and they are not big enough to justify putting a dedicated line there. He stated anything connected to the network is considered a workstation; this number has grown dramatically in the last five years; but they have leveled out in the communications group to do more with the same amount. He stated they have done their part to try to keep the funding needs to a minimum in the difficult years. He stated everyone has felt the pain of the email system; and that need has been at the top of the priority list for a long time and is a real necessity. Mr. Butto noted the system they are running has not be supported for years; people in the department have found ways to band-aid that to keep it running because it has been free to the County; and anything done going forward will have a price tag associated with it. He stated they have more requests to start retaining information and start using the digital environment for the constituents; and in the next few months, they plan to begin replacing the current email system. He stated security concerns are here to stay, not only from a public safety standpoint, but also from a daily integrity standpoint; and the County cannot afford to have someone find a way to take the system down. He stated document management has been a very popular discussion lately; and they are a few weeks away from having a study begun to look at the good strategy for the entire public records issue, not just the technology issue, but a business discussion from a practical standpoint because there is no limit as to how much could be spent to do this.

Mr. Jenkins inquired why is the voice over internet protocol important; with Mr. Butto responding that is where the data world can be shared for things like telephone conversations; and that is important because it is not a cost savings but a cost avoidance. He stated as they go forward, they can include the voice communications; they did not do that in the past because the technology was not mature enough and it was expensive; it was good for things like long distance; but they could not justify it until the costs came down. He commented on more bandwidth for higher capacity; advised users are requesting it; and this is what is seen as necessary in the next three to five years. He stated the upside is the infrastructure they put in a couple of years ago does have the capacity to grow to this without significant costs in terms of the total replacement; and they have the right foundation to do this. He displayed a chart; and stated it is the only one that goes back more than three years. He stated it is not easy to see change if one goes back a short period of time because change is gradual; and inquired if they went back five years ago, how much did they do on the computer and what was the sophistication they used it for. He stated in 1999, he, as a professional in the industry, did quite a bit less than he does now with the computer; and that is where the complexity comes in; but if one looks at the growth and number of users, he will have a feel for the fact that is a challenging time for them to keep up. He stated the bottom line is for the last five years, they had a very flat budget; but it has caught up with them; and recommended they keep that in mind when they come forward and ask for things in the future.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he gets a lot of spam; of 80 to 100 emails a day, 30 to 40% of them are spam; and inquired what can be done to stop this. Mr. Butto responded that is part of what they will be addressing in getting the system replacement; but he does not want to set an unrealistic expectation because they are government in the sunshine. He stated they have that caution of the possibility of stopping an email that was legitimate and then being criticized for not having received it intentionally because of the block; and that is what forces them to be very lenient on what comes through. He stated they are doing their best to identify these to block as many as they can; but a lot of technology is driven by the private sector and its needs; and they are the ones forcing the innovation on things such as records retention and filtering. He noted at home he does not care if he misses a message; if it is important, someone will send it again; but new systems are not designed for the public sector; and they are just catching up on being able to handle that in the public environment. He advised of being in a meeting with a top executive from Hilton who said their policy is anything older than six months is deleted; if it is important to the individual, they can print it or whatever they want; but they are being forced to delete information off the desktop PC because they recognize it causes slowdowns in the systems. Mr. Butto stated they do not care about retaining; and they do not care about filtering things that may be inappropriate. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if he notified Mr. Butto of the items that were inappropriate, could they be deleted; with Mr. Butto responding affirmatively. Mr. Butto stated they can delete that sender; in many cases they can delete anything sent from that location because they can try to use multiple names from the same equipment; and they can track it that way.

Commissioner Carlson stated they have taken care of most of the spam, but still get incidental spam; but when she works at home and gets attachments, if she brings those to work and loads them into her computer, she could be bringing things into the County system, which could result in her getting spam. Mr. Butto stated Microsoft and the Pentagon have been infiltrated. Commissioner Carlson stated in the spreadsheets, she was trying to correlate the numbers with the presentation; under Network Communications there is $1.999 million, $893,000, and $638,000; she could not get that to come up to the balance of $3.5 million; and inquired what is the $638,000 associated with. Mr. Whitten stated he will get the answer to Commissioner Carlson; what she has on the matrix is from the budget book; and he will reconcile the two.

Facilities Department

Sam Stanton introduced his staff, Hugh Muller, Jaime Irizarry, Elaine Miranda, Teresa Camarata, Rich Cohen, and Wendy Dulay; and stated it takes a team to do a lot of the things. He stated they maintain safe and effective workplaces; make a positive impact on the County’s productivity and financial bottom line, and ultimately service to the taxpayers; and promote employee satisfaction with the work environment. He stated the next slide shows a lot of things people do not realize his department does; they are responsible for courthouse security; a lot of people think that is left up to the Sheriff, but it is not; and they also do leases, work orders, utilities, alarm service, and multitude of other things. He stated with all that, they only have three painters for the entire County. He stated Facilities Management consists of 61 full-time employees; it is mandated by the State; and it includes finance and planning, contracts administration, work control, building operations, and building maintenance. He stated Facilities Construction has eleven full-time equivalent employees; it is mandated by the County; and they perform projects planning, pre-construction design and permitting, project management, and procurement of professional services. He stated Facilities revenue includes General Fund, transfers, charges for services, charges for rent, and different things like that, which make up the revenue. He stated the next slide shows expenditures; and the interesting thing is most of the time salaries takes up the most, but theirs does not because of the high operating expenses. He stated the operating expenses are high because they pay all the utilities, which is approximately $2 million between two utilities. He stated the next slide is Construction in Progress; it shows transfers, General Fund, balance forward-capital, and balance forward-operating. He stated under Finance and Planning, they generate alternative financial strategies efficiency such as monthly monitoring of utility variances, analyze financial information such as sales tax savings by direct purchasing on projects, and develop controls for greater cost budget projections. Mr. Stanton stated through this they came up with the thermal energy storage system that is in three buildings now; and it saves a lot of money. He stated $12 million has gone for operations and $6 million for projects; and how they pay for things and the cash flow are constantly changing as they analyze the financial information. He stated the Contracts Administration program has real estate leases and service contracts; during the anthrax scare, they responded within ten days with a facility to run the mail through to scan for anthrax; and that facility right now could be up and running within 24 hours of a notice to do it again. He stated a hub of Facilities is Work Control; this is where everything goes through; and what is important is the amount of paperwork handled by four people. He noted they process 36,400 documents annually; they deal with over 15,000 phone calls; and that is a lot of work. He stated there are 13,000 purchase orders annually; and the reason there are so many is that they do not have the funding for bench stock of normal things one would have in place such as wire, wire nuts, etc. He stated they do not have the budget for that so Ace Hardware, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. act as their bench stock; and driving back and forth for things is also very costly. He stated another program is maintenance and repair; and this is where all the managers are. He stated Building Maintenance is supported by 41 skilled tradespersons, three painters, six carpenters, six plumbers, seven general repair techs, nine AC technicians, two electronic techs, six electricians, three roofers, and three overhirers for the entire County; and they work from Mims/Scottsmoor down to Micco. He stated the next area is Construction Planning; they define the scope of work, generate alternate strategies, cost containment and value engineering, develop bid specifications, and minimize impact to customers and productivity by doing a lot of those things. He stated in Pre-construction Design and Permitting, they take care of renovations and relocations, reconfiguring of offices, and workplace planning and space allocation; and those are things that are invisible to a lot of people. He stated they just had a major move over the last two years in Building A; it was one of the most non-eventful moves that he has ever seen in his 40 years of dealing with things like this; a couple of people just took the ball and ran with it; and these are the kind of invisible things that people do not see or realize what all this entails. He stated in terms of the CAD, computer-aided design as built plans, they are years behind because they have been so busy with what they were doing; they need to have the as-built drawings because when they are moving people, they then need to run out to take measurements of things like that; and that could be stopped if they had the as-built plans already done. He stated Construction Project Management coordinates project tasks and controls change orders; and they have been very successful; when he first met with Commissioner Higgs and Commissioner Scarborough, they talked about change orders, and Mr. Jenkins advised he needed to keep them down. He stated they are below 3%; he talked to friends at NASA who said they start looking at 7% and 10% does not scare them; but the County is less than 3%, and has gone two years at .5% at times. He stated that comes from due diligence on the part of the people who review the drawings. He stated Construction Contract Administration is where they prepare bid documents and monitor contracts; and they have numerous continuing contracts. He stated he recalls a conversation with Commissioner Higgs about how long it was taking projects to get started; it was almost 287 days from the time the Board approved a project until someone stuck a shovel in the ground; by going out and
getting continuing contracts, it has really cut the time down tremendously; and he appreciates the fact that the Board has supported them through the seven years he has been here and doing this. Mr. Stanton stated a lot of things that need to be built, needed to be built yesterday; and that is just the way it happens. He stated anything over a million dollars, they go out for RFP. He stated the next slide is trends and issues; there has been a 20% rise in property insurance rates for FY 2004; there have been increased costs for building services such as janitorial; but the current janitorial group does a lot more than what their contract says, for a fairly reasonable price. He stated there have been increased utility expenses; they are doing some things for conservation efforts, such as waterless toilets, which can save up to 40,000 gallons of water a year; and they are already experimenting with them and saving money. He stated they are using exit signs that do not require electricity; they are guaranteed to shine for 20 years; all it takes to recharge them is the light off of a regular fluorescent bulb; and if over a 20-year period they replaced all of them, that would be a million dollar savings over that period of time. He stated the water bill for the jail was $33,000 a month; and they are putting in different types of hardware to experiment with to cut that bill. He stated they are constantly looking at ways to do things to cut down costs and find alternative ways of addressing some of the things that just keep climbing. He stated in terms of other trends and issues, there are services agreements such as for pest control, AC, and elevators; for elevators, for instance, they were all separate agreements; and they have put them together and bid them, saving approximately $20,000 a year, which may not seem like much money, but $20,000 here and $20,000 there, and they are saving money. He stated they went out with HVAC and did the same thing; there are Countywide contracts for some of the major systems; and that has paid off tremendously in service. He stated once it gets hot, no one wants somebody to be down without AC for a week or two. He advised there are different approaches to maintenance; and a correlation is when talking about predictive type maintenance, it relates to rotation and alignment of tires. He stated preventive is a tread wear indicator comes up so it is time to replace the tires; and reactive is when there is a flat tire because one did not do that and had a blowout with high speed. He stated with the amount of people they have, they are into the posture of most of the time they cannot do anything until something breaks; they cannot predict when something is going to break; but that is the posture they are in with the amount of staff they have. He stated other people in the County have done a good job with the limited resources they have. He stated the next slide is additional trends and issues that affect construction; and that includes the increased cost of building materials. He stated gasoline delivery is going to go up; they need SAP integration for the project systems module they have; and the use of continuing contracts expedites projects resulting in greater customer satisfaction. He noted they use in-house staff for quality assurance and contract management; at one time the in-house project managers had six to seven construction projects each; they stayed busy; and they did provide the quality assurance. He stated in this day and age a lot of people were in the business; they have experienced people who have been in the business themselves; and it helps to have those type of people working with them. He stated the Facilities Management goals include providing prompt service to customers at a competitive rate, managing utility expenses and conservation efforts, performing preventive and corrective maintenance, and administering lease and service agreements. He stated corrective maintenance is when it breaks; they try to get to preventive maintenance as they can; and they are still able to perform a little bit of that, but not a whole lot. He stated Facilities Construction goals include managing
pre-construction and design phases to ensure reasonable costs; managing the construction phase of projects to ensure quality construction; and planning for future facilities, department growth, and space needs. Mr. Stanton stated they have done those things; they started keeping drawings of the entire area, like Viera; and they are going to start one at the jail to put all the buildings in one particular area and make it so a committee of people have to sign off before they do anything in the areas so they have control. He stated for the past two years, they have completed 15 construction cost estimates, 20 in-house engineering studies, 87 construction projects, and other cost savings; they also negotiated natural gas discounts with FP&L, which is the biggest natural gas user in the State; and they offered the County their price, which is the wellhead price versus what one could buy it for here in the State. He stated he appreciates the backing the Board gave him on the Urecoat roofing application machine; the machine more than saved the County the cost of buying the machine on its second job; and they have jobs lined up for it. He stated they are looking at trading that machine in after about three or four months and getting two smaller machines; that way they will be able to split up the roofing crews; and that agenda item will be coming back to the Board. He stated they can save a lot of money just with that machine; and they look for ways like that to save money. He stated their accomplishments include starting job order contracting; they have new work order software; and the reason they have this software, called CAFM, is because they have a CIP team that has stayed together for almost three years, looked at approximately 12 different software problems, and selected one. He stated it is very inexpensive; it is web-based so it does show continuous improvement; it does work; and they have people who can prove that. He stated the Facilities Goals involve aging buildings; three out of four major facilities are over 40 years old; they have minimal staffing; and they are in the rust capital of the United States. He stated he was going to bring a pulley that was just installed three years ago when they traded out the cooling tower on the building, and it is already shot because of rust; and everything deteriorates quickly because of the brackish water here, the salt content, and things like that. He stated every building has a life cycle; unfortunately three out of four buildings are at the bottom end of their life cycle when everything starts going back such as AC and electrical; and unfortunately that is where they are with a lot of buildings. He stated they are understaffed by approximately 90 positions; this is based on Whitestone Research, which is considered the Bible of the facilities maintenance world; and a lot of people use them to do estimates and different things like that. He stated if they could get 20 positions, they would be able to do at least a minimum amount of the maintenance needed; there are 384 buildings they could work on; and displayed a map. He noted the distance to drive to County buildings, and the age of the buildings from the Courthouse in Titusville that was built in 1881 to the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Center, which opened up this year. He stated there are mods in Melbourne that were built for ten years; they have been there for 17 years; and they had to bulldoze one and Parks is getting ready to move out of another because they are just deteriorating; but the County got more than what they are worth out of them. He presented a photo showing a thermal overflight done in 2001 of the jail; and pointed out pink areas with circles, which are areas that show up wet under a thermal picture, and are suspect. He stated the picture was taken on a day when it had not rained forever, so what it is showing is basically that the insulation is wet, meaning there are holes in the roof and 26 places that leak, with the majority of them being in the administration area. He stated they do not have the funding, although he has put in for it; and he understands things are tight; but something needs to be done with this. He stated the Urecoat system would work fine on the jail; and if they had the two little machines they could go out there and do the work if they had the money to get the material. He reiterated the hardware stores are acting as bench stock areas; 75% of the fleet has over 100,000 miles on it; 22 of them are only worth $1,400 each; if a car needs a new transmission, they would have to put a $1,500 transmission in a $1,400 car; and that does not make sense, but it is what they have to do. He stated they buy SCAT vehicles with 130,000 miles on them; out of seven vehicles in one area, three were down; and only three vehicles were available for the entire south part of the County. He stated the cars stay in the shop; some people, when they make a right-hand turn, have to lean over because if it is raining, it rains in the door; but they still use those vehicles and put duct tape on the top. He stated they have a lot of unplanned expenditures; they do not have a crystal ball; and it is hard for them to figure out what they are going to need. He stated two years in a row they overspent through no fault of their own; it was by 7% in FY 2003; their budget was reduced by 20% in FY 2004; and in October and December, they were getting warnings from the Budget Office about spending money. He stated his fear is what will happen when everything breaks, which is where it is going; and inquired if they overspend, what will they do the next year. He stated there are some serious challenges because they have no way of predicting; if they did some assessments and set aside money every year, they could do that; but if they cannot do assessments or predict things, it is catch things when they can and hope and pray. He stated they had some potential solutions; one is to establish some type of reserve budget they could go into with the approval of the Board and/or County Manager; they have no way of knowing when things are going to go; if a roof caves in at the jail, they have to go fix it; that means going into next year’s money; and they cannot keep going along like that. He stated they need to fund new vehicles; they have an employee who uses his $45,000 personal truck to pull equipment around because they have nothing that will do it; if he does not pull it, they cannot use it; and the employee is getting tired, especially at 29 cents per mile. He stated a goal is to implement facility assessments to be able to tell where the real problems are; that will allow them to come in and say this year they will need this and next year they will need that; and they keep getting hit with things over which they have no control. He stated they need to increase staffing; they are 90 persons under; but if they can get 20 people, that would put them in a good position. He stated Facilities is the catchall for a lot of things; the Central Reference Library archives are full, so now Facilities does archives; and they are very proactive. He stated they will do whatever they are asked to do, if they can; but these are some of the challenges they have.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he is pleased with what Facilities does; when he asks for something, it happens in a timely manner; and they do good work. He stated there is an $800,000 budget and eleven employees in Facilities Construction; and inquired if Mr. Stanton has thought about privatizing any of this. Mr. Stanton responded they have thought about it but the problem is they are County employees; there is something in it for them; and all a private company cares about is money. He advised of work done at the Moore Justice Center by a gentleman who had finished up the Port St. John library, worked at the jail, and worked three or four other projects; the County would have spent $300,000 to $500,000 paying a private company to do that and would have one or two people on the job. He stated if they want somebody at the jail, they have to pay for that; if they want someone somewhere else, they would have to pay for it; and it would be cost prohibitive to do that. He stated if the surtax had gone through, the plan was to hire private people and have staff watch over so many of those projects; but inquired how they can get someone privately to go out when they have projects as low as $2,500. He stated it would be necessary to hire somebody to watch four or five of the little projects; but it would be the impossible dream with the size of the projects they get; it could be done if they had big projects and a big building program; and these people also have a value with the Facilities Management side because if you can build something, design it, renovate it, and things like that, that they have to be able to do as project managers, then they can also augment shortages, which they have done in a couple of places. He stated they have actually put people back with their tools; one is an area supervisor who knows the equipment; when someone is in construction, they know all the equipment that people maintain; and privatizing would be cutting out a very valuable person who could augment. Commissioner Pritchard stated Mr. Stanton had spoken when the Board approved the construction of the addition to the jail about overseeing the project, which would be handled by a private company. Mr. Stanton stated they are acting as the general contractor; they are going to hire subcontractors; and it is better than hiring a general contractor who could possibly mark it up from 18% to 23%. He stated with the County acting as the general contractor and subcontracting things like the electrical, HVAC, and things like that, they will be able to augment with some of the County people on a case-by-case basis to give more flexibility; and it should save a lot of money.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the $2 million for utilities was for all facilities or just for the Government Center; with Mr. Stanton responding that is for all the ones he pays for. Commissioner Carlson inquired if Mr. Stanton has done the analysis of the utility costs in the vicinity, the potential power plant, and the long-range cost effectiveness that might provide; with Mr. Jenkins responding they did that. Mr. Stanton advised it was before his time. Commissioner Carlson stated that was with the School Board; and requested a copy of it. She stated Mr. Stanton said he was using Byrd Plaza for an archival facility; the County just received 30,000 photographs from NASA; and expressed concern about the proper archival facility to store those. She stated the Historical Commission has a new place, but she does not know if it has the proper facility to preserve that many photographs because it would take a lot of space; and inquired if Mr. Stanton has looked into that. Mr. Stanton advised there is air conditioning at Byrd Plaza and it works. Commissioner Carlson requested Mr. Stanton look into that and provide a report. A staff member stated she spoke with Steve Benn yesterday and he said they have sufficient air conditioning to store newspapers and photographs. Mr. Jenkins stated staff will provide a report on that. Commissioner Carlson stated one of the slides had 2003 and 2004 decreases in the budget; there was a 20% decrease in 2004; but the Board has not passed the budget yet. Mr. Stanton stated it is a year behind; they overspent two years ago; in 2003 they took 7%; and in October for 2003-04, they took what was overspent last year.

Commissioner Scarborough commented on paying when things go wrong with major construction projects, problems and litigation on the Stadium, and problems with a Port St. John project. He stated there are always going to be problems; but he is happy with the County’s ability to handle problems promptly. He stated he is much more comfortable today than he was years ago; when problems arise, the County can end up losing all over; and commented on replacing contractors, litigation, and losses. Mr. Stanton stated it is kind of a chess game from the day the contract is signed. Commissioner Scarborough stated the County saves money by doing things right and having good people; he heard from some department heads that employees who are critical to the operation are being offered triple their salary to move to other jobs; and the last thing the County can afford is to have its good staff lost. Commissioner Scarborough requested some analysis be done to make sure the County does not lose those people, because once it loses them, it will get hard.

The meeting recessed at 4:10 p.m. and reconvened at 4:19 p.m.

Budget Office

Dennis Rogero, Budget Director, stated the mission of the Budget Office is to coordinate all budget and financial management policy activities of the Brevard County government; the primary mandate is to develop and implement the County’s annual operating budget; and this is mandated by Chapters 129 and 200, Florida Statutes. He stated Chapter 129 is very important; that is the portion of the Statutes that say the Board must have a budget, it must be balanced, and there must be a County Budget Officer; and the Board has designated the County Manager as the County’s Budget Officer. He stated Chapter 200 details the instructions and rules counties have to follow when projecting and levying ad valorem taxes and millages; and that is done in conjunction with the Property Appraiser’s office. He stated OMB Circular 887 of the federal government governs the rules the County needs to adhere to for coordinating and overseeing the indirect costs in the cost allocation plan. He stated the second mandate is to monitor the County’s adopted budget; and that is referenced in Chapter 129, Florida Statutes and various Board policies. He stated the third mandate is to coordinate the development of and monitor the County’s Capital Improvements Program. He stated because of the mandates, the Budget Office has a number of responsibilities; it assists the County Manager in presenting a balanced budget report to the Board; and it provides guidelines, instruction, and review of departmental program and performance measures. He stated they do the performance measure guideline review in conjunction with various Board agencies; and most of the performance measures that are contained within the Budget book originated from an exercise that was done three or four years ago in conjunction with the University of Central Florida by a consultant, who is now the Chair of the Public Administration Program at UCF. He stated although it has taken on many forms since then, they periodically review these measures in comparison to what they already have and in comparison to what other similar agencies are using; and in this area, they usually hold Orange County and Hillsborough County up as a benchmark or gold standard. He noted the performance measures he will be sharing are actually based on Hillsborough County; they are proud of those performance measures, which while not perfect, are very good; and they continue to refine them with the agencies and the strategic planning staff. He stated a third responsibility is to develop and implement the cost allocation plan, which includes Central Services agencies, such as the Budget Office whose costs are distributed out to other Board agencies and intradepartmental charges that are charged by various Board agencies for services performed for other Board agencies. He stated they provide operating instruction for the Countywide financial management system (SAP) and Budget Development Application; the SAP program is the primary financial and human resources management system; but they also utilize a second program called the Budget Development Application to prepare the budget for eventual implementation with SAP. He stated the next responsibility is periodic reporting to the Board on the budget and amending the annual operating budget; the Budget Office is funded entirely by a transfer from the General Fund; and the budget for the current year is $592,683, representing just under a 5% increase from last year. He stated using the same benchmark everyone else has been using, that is .000008% of the entire County’s budget. Mr. Rogero stated the $26,614 increase is attributed mainly to compensation and benefits increases with some increased cost in operating expenses. He noted they not only implement and coordinate the budget, but also are the publishing entity; and it is at least five inches worth of documentation that they distribute three times every year, the tentative budget, the revised tentative budget, and the adopted budget. He stated there is a lot of work that goes on in operating expenses involved in publishing that; but they are continuing to expand their exploitation of electronic media. He stated now people can find the budget in brief on the net; they also distribute it on CD; and this year for the first time, they will also distribute the adopted budget on CD along with the Countywide preparation manual in an effort at both streamlining the process and reducing some of the costs. He stated 90% of the Budget Office budget is for compensation and benefits; they are very personnel oriented; 90% of the budget is for operating expenses; and a very minute portion of the budget is allocated for capital replacement, primarily PC’s, printers, etc. He stated the Budget Office measures its productivity based on its mandated responsibilities such as developing, implementing, and monitoring the annual operating budget; and coordinating and monitoring the capital improvements program. He advised the annual operating budget, as it stands now, is approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars; the five-year CIP totals nearly one billion dollars; and staff hours and funding expended are tracked along with compliance with laws, Ordinances, and Policies. He stated the first mandate is to develop and implement the County’s annual operating budget; he has given a three-year history; and he has continued to use the figures that are in the budget book because he does not anticipate any significant changes in the current fiscal year. He stated the first outcome is the number of staff working hours expended and funds expended for budget development; and the second outcome is compliance with laws, Ordinances, and Policies. He noted it is 100% across-the-board; and it better continue to be 100% because the Truth in Millage law (TRIM), as defined by the Department of Revenue is very strict and has stiff penalties for failing to adhere to the TRIM policies. He stated the Budget Presentation Award has been received every year consistently for ten years; and a percentage of funds expended by his office, as shown, takes care of the first mandate.

Commissioner Scarborough noted he is not the only one not getting the information as the Chair also does not have it. Mr. Rogero advised staff will get that information to the Commissioners.

Mr. Rogero stated the second mandate is monitoring of the County’s adopted budget; and he has performance standards associated with the second mandate. He stated the number of staff hours continue and are projected to continue to increase; it is very time consuming, not only from the Budget Office’s perspective, but from the agencies’ perspective to amend and monitor the budget; and that is because the budget is a very fluid document that will continue to change, along with funds expended for the monitoring of the budget and the periodic budget compliance reports. He stated they send an exception report to the Board every quarter to let it know what staff foresees as concerns or things that are going well on the horizon based on the actions of the last quarter. He stated in FY 2001-02, they changed the budget 899 times; he highlighted FY 2002-03 because it decreased to 825; and he wants to explain the decrease in the context of the increasing man hours and amount of money spent for this function. Mr. Rogero stated the decrease is due to a number of different factors; one is their continuous attempt to streamline the budget changing process; there are a lot of actions and lot of manpower and analysis that goes into changing these things; and they have been very successful in terms of delegating some of the approval authority to the County Manager and combining some budget change actions. He stated rather than sending ten pieces of paper asking the Board for approval, they have consolidated some of those to provide a concise explanation; but at the same time analysis being performed by the analyst is increasing and getting more detailed. He stated they are moving further from just a data processing function to an analysis function; and they are getting a better picture as to what is going on with the whole County. He stated the third mandate is Capital Improvement Program coordination and monitoring; there are CIP performance measures; and there is a decrease in this particular section. He stated projected performance measures in the coming year probably are a bit rosy, but it is decreasing; and he attributes that to the increasing effectiveness at working with the Finance Managers and Finance staff of the agencies in an exchange of information and an analysis. He stated the Budget office employs a staff of ten; seven are full-time and three are part-time; and two of the part-time persons are actually the result of a pilot program on job sharing that they began recently. He advised they took one full-time position and split it into two part-time positions to fill those vacant positions; so far it has been a tremendous success, both operationally and in terms of funding; and he presumes it will continue to be successful and will allow him to decrease his budget next year or mitigate some of the increases they see on the horizon such as health insurance increases. He stated seven of his employees are budget analysts; and they also have a special projects coordinator who handles special projects, office accounting duties, and oversees the production of the Budget Book and the CD. He stated there are some trends; responsibilities have increased beyond those mandated; analysts spent increasing amounts of time in support of County agencies in financial analysis; and he does not view that as a negative thing; but it is a manpower and resource issue. He stated the Budget Office has assumed responsibility for the coordination and development of the cost allocation plan that charges out the costs associated with the Central Services agencies, the Budget Office being one and the Board of County Commissioners being another. He stated they oversight interdepartmental changes such as rent, information systems charges, telephone charges, etc.; and they are now oversighting, with the Human Resources Department, the position control database. He stated all of these things are being done in an attempt to make the Budget Book or CD the authority on what is going on in the County right now, on funding, on intentions, on performance, and on positions; and its ongoing goal is to provide effective planning, implementation, and evaluation of the County’s annual and long-term financial policies to ensure the County is meeting the current needs of its citizens while planning for the future. He stated the Budget Office provides a unique service to the County and does not duplicate other County services.

Commissioner Colon stated one of the things she has been talking about for the last three years has been the kind of decisions the Commissioners make and the kind of impact it causes in the Budget Office; and a perfect example is the presentation from the Facilities Department, and the

DISCUSSION, RE: BUDGETS

disappointment about not being allowed to increase its budget and things like that. She stated the more the Board spends, the harder it is to balance the budget; and this year more than ever, especially with Article V issues, a lot of decisions that have been fought are whether they can give $150,000 to one and $50,000 to the other. She stated it starts adding up; the next thing you know, it adds up to a half million; and it becomes a matter of quality of life. She stated she sees where the other Commissioners are coming from; but she has a hard time with that; and she has been having that for years because people should have to do with the kind of money they have. She stated that is why it is important to have the kind of data that the Board asked for earlier in regard to the fleet where it shows the cars and how many will need to be replaced in year 2007 because that shows accountability. She stated she was surprised to learn that Information Systems had a nice $1.2 million cushion; that is good news because it means the Board does not have to come up with that; but now she wants to know whether everybody else has a cushion that she does not know about. She stated it has to do with planning ahead; this is the first year the Board actually had the different departments come to it; coming from a municipality background, she had five years of zero budget and discussion line by line what was going to what; and changes were made at that point. She stated capital improvement was a priority, as well as being able to look five to ten years ahead. She stated the Commissioners put the burden on the Budget Office to balance the budget; but the Board needs to be careful because $50,000 here and $40,000 there adds up; and it comes down to the matter of quality of life. She stated they do not have the dollars, especially with Article V and the State doing so many unfunded mandates; and she does not know where the Board is going to get those millions from. She stated it comes back to living within ones means; she feels bad that sometimes the Board puts pressure on staff; but the responsibility falls on the Board to see how the dollars are being spent.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired what does the budget analyst do; with Mr. Rogero responding some agencies, because of the size or funding, do not have their own financial personnel; Solid Waste is an example of a department that has a very extensive financial division; but for agencies that do not have that, the analysts serve as de facto finance managers.

Commissioner Scarborough stated Mr. Whitten said there may be an opportunity to talk about what is envisioned next. Mr. Jenkins stated he was going to suggest doing that at the next workshop. Commissioner Scarborough stated one of the things that was distressing last year was that a lot of very strongly felt things came together very late in the process; and he would like for the Board to have the opportunity to go through it, without a lot of data or presentations, so they would have some clear instruction of what the Board wants to do. He stated at one meeting the Board gave some of the information in a memorandum; inquired are they going to have an analysis of the revenues; and advised new construction is one that comes out, but it is still running well. He stated there has been mention of known additional expenses; and he thinks there are known uncertainties such as Article V, what the Legislature may or may not do, and within what parameters could they move. He stated if there are programs the department is not recommending but that a Commissioner strongly recommends, he or she should let them
know early on. He stated if the Board could reach a consensus months before Mr. Jenkins had to bring the budget to it, it would be a wonderful budget year as opposed to the fire drill at the end, which he is not looking forward to going through again. Commissioner Scarborough stated it has to be a more thoughtful process; somehow Mr. Jenkins needs to hear from the Board next; and requested he schedule it.

Chair Higgs stated the Board needs to see the final budget sheets and millage sheets and analysis of the impact on a single-family home by district and those kinds of things; and the Board needs those earlier in the game. Commissioner Scarborough stated that would be helpful. Mr. Jenkins inquired what timeframe is Chair Higgs referring to. Commissioner Carlson stated Mr. Jenkins does not have the detail. Chair Higgs stated she does not see any reason to think about them until they get all the information from the State; but she would like them several weeks in advance of the first budget hearing.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired how does the Board respond to Capit; and stated even though it is not required by law, it is something the people want. He inquired to what extent does the Board want to increase reserves and how is it going to respond to the jail; and stated he does not know why the Board cannot go through a checklist with Mr. Jenkins early enough so they do not come in at the last moment and make it difficult for each other. He stated one may be in the minority or in the majority but at least they will know that the community is going to see the Board thinking things through and giving instructions; it is not an easy decision; everyone would like to have more money to spend to make the quality of life better; but the trouble is there is never enough money for all that they want to do.

Chair Higgs stated if the Board wants to have the discussion about Capit, it needs to have that discussion about Capit and what it really means; and it needs to have it well in advance.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired if there is a desire of the majority of the Board to work within a statement of the people, not in a legal required manner, and to what extent and how quickly does it want to increase reserves. He stated the more information Mr. Jenkins has earlier on, the better he will be able to serve the Board.

Commissioner Colon stated that is key; what she has seen in the last three years has been disappointing; when she was on the City Council, she knew where everyone stood in the summer and there were no surprises; but with this Board it was almost like at the last minute she did not know who was going to vote in favor and who was not. She stated to her, it is a matter of philosophy; after October 1, she does not want any money spent and the Board knows that; she is not going to criticize any Commissioner for supporting whoever comes before them because they feel it is legitimate; she does not think it is her job to criticize any Commissioner who feels passionate that something should be approved; but she is going to stick to her guns and say after October 1, no one will be getting a penny from her. She stated she made that perfectly clear; if that is not the philosophy of the Board, she is not going to be supporting it in the summer; there are no surprises with her; and everyone knows where she stands. She stated she had asked to have an outside agency come in and look to see whether there was anywhere the County could save; and maybe they would have said the County was already stretched to the maximum; but the Board felt it was better for this to be done in-house. She stated it is a matter of philosophy; it does not mean that any Commissioner is wrong or right; but it is a matter of what is important to each Commissioner as an individual. Commissioner Colon stated she has been clear in telling how she feels about it; it is good for everyone to state whether they feel comfortable at this point; they are in April; and she is not comfortable and will not be supporting the budget because she had asked everyone to be conscious of the fact that after October, they should not spend any money; and it is a matter of sticking to what they said. She stated she got a lot of hate mail for not supporting some of the people who came before the Board; they claimed she was against children, women, people dealing with domestic violence, and things like that; she advised the County was on a tight budget; and she refused to give anybody any money. She noted she only speaks for herself; she is willing to take it on the chin because people are mad at her for not supporting those folks; and she is not going to criticize any other Commissioner who did support it. She stated they should go outside; and they should not be looking at this inside because then Mr. Jenkins and staff are looked at as the bad guys when they are just following Board orders. She stated a department that was before the Board was upset at the fact that their dollars were cut; but that is the direction the Board gave, so it is good to have this discussion, and she agrees it needs to be done early so everyone will know where everyone else stands.

Chair Higgs inquired if Commissioner Colon said she wanted to go outside; with Commissioner Colon responding that is one of the things she brought up. Commissioner Colon stated there are corporations that hire these people; she does not know the cost to have someone come in; but the Board felt it was able to do it in-house in terms of watching the dollars.

Commissioner Pritchard inquired about an overview of County operations. Mr. Jenkins stated they solicited and received four different options; they provided copies of the different approaches; the Board asked them to send those to the Citizen Budget Review Committee, which he did; and one of the things on his list today was to bring that up. He suggested piggybacking that on one of the four upcoming workshops so the Board can discuss the options; the Sterling Award was one; another was getting a pilot project coming to do one department; and there were three or four options.

Commissioner Carlson stated they did not get time to talk about those; with Mr. Jenkins advising they were given to the Citizen Budget Review Committee, as the Board directed, and now they need to be brought to the Board.

Chair Higgs stated that option is not closed out.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired when they could have another workshop to deal with those issues; stated they may not be able to come to consensus; but the more they are able to come to consensus on some of the deep philosophical questions, the easier it is going to be. Mr. Jenkins advised they get revenues on June 1, so it would be at that point; but the Board could look at some of the issues in the latter part of May. He stated they do not know what the revenues are going to be; they need to let the Legislature finish; but the sooner they do it, the easier it will be. Chair Higgs suggested sometime in May; with Mr. Jenkins responding possibly but they will not have the tax revenues in May, so the Board will not be able to deal with the revenue side until later. Commissioner Carlson stated the Board can answer some of the questions Commissioner Scarborough came up with and get that out there. Commissioner Scarborough stated if they want to increase the reserves, they can say that is what the Board wants to do; when the numbers come in, that is already part of the discussion; and he does not know why the Board cannot give some direction. Mr. Jenkins stated he thinks the Board can provide direction; and the only thing it cannot talk about is revenues. Commissioner Scarborough stated everything comes together when they get the revenue. Chair Higgs stated they can be consistent in July and August in putting the budget workshop as a priority. Mr. Jenkins stated that raises an interesting point; the Board has spent several months now receiving a very detailed explanation of what is in the budget; there are not going to be that many major changes other than what the Board has already talked about through some of the memos; and the Board could start its budget discussions with the changes and provide direction because it has a real full detailed explanation of what is in the budget. He stated the Board can talk about what variables are out there for next year; it can then start giving direction; and that will speed up the other process. He stated everything the Board has done up to this point in time will shorten the process; the Board will not have to do this again in July because it has done it now; and in July, when they get the revenue numbers, they can start talking specifics.

Commissioner Carlson inquired in terms of the decreased funding in certain areas, are the Commissioners going to prioritize that. Commissioner Scarborough stated he is not going to do that. Commissioner Carlson stated she is not going to do it if nobody else is going to do it.

Commissioner Scarborough stated one year he was very concerned about Mosquito Control because his office was getting a lot of calls; and the Board supported the staff. He stated for him to define where there should be a reduction becomes very problematic; while Florida TODAY is supporting the Board totally in doing something with the jail, his office has not received one call so far supporting that or even expressing interest; the Board does a lot of things because they are right; and therefore, it is not a popularity contest. He stated when he gets into operations, he is not capable of doing some type of analysis of the staff that is available and whether things can be combined; it is very complex; budget cutting is complex; but by giving Mr. Jenkins early warning, the Board will give him the ability to do it wisely and well, which is all the Board can do. He stated Clerk of the Courts Scott Ellis told him that he was going to have reductions on the Article V side; he is probably going to have people in the Clerk’s office who are not going to be there; and that is going to impact the capacity of the judicial system to move things through. He stated those are known factors; the Board is going to have to live with things; and recommended doing it intelligently.

Commissioner Carlson stated she agrees, but she also agrees that the Board should get feedback from management to provide detail and a convincing argument so the Board can weigh the decisions.

Commissioner Scarborough stated he does not understand the work within a department enough to know how to do the cut; and he does not like across-the-board cuts because there may be a need to increase Mr. Stanton’s department while there may be something else that is not as critical.

Commissioner Colon stated in regard to surprises, there are some groups that were told no last year and are prepared to come this year and ask for an increase; that is what she is saying in regard to philosophy; the Board asked the County departments to tighten their belts; and even though there are wonderful organizations, people, and institutions doing wonderful things in the community, she does not know if the Board is going to be able to say sorry, there are no funds if there are 150 of them present. She stated she knows two groups already want to come before the Board; they are going to say the Board held them down last year; and all of them are lining up so the Board had better be prepared. She stated she wants to make sure there are no surprises because those groups are ready to come before the Board.

Chair Higgs stated the Board needs to get to the end point, get to the millage sheets and the final decisions and work backwards as opposed to saying, this department and that department; and reiterated they should start at the end and work backwards. Mr. Jenkins suggested setting July 31 to be done. Commissioner Colon stated the Board should set the millage and that is it.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if that means the parade people who want money will come all at one time. Chair Higgs stated they need to let them know because they will be coming to the public hearing expecting to be heard; and then they will say the Board had closed minds and had already done everything.

Commissioner Scarborough stated he is not always convinced that spending money for something that is a public concern does not save the taxpayer more because the County is able to utilize free resources as opposed to having it totally under County resources; and commented on Meals on Wheels, which captures funds and has volunteers. He inquired why does the Board have to say those are the programs it is going to cut; and stated he is not going there.

Chair Higgs stated she does not think anybody was going to any cuts; she is just saying the Board needs the funding formulas that it sees in September and should work backwards; and then it will know where it is and how everything else fits into that.

Commissioner Colon stated the Board is going to start with the bottom number and work backwards; this is a different animal; after September 11, the State does not have the revenue that it did; it passes down to the counties unfunded mandates; and there are a lot of those, so it is totally different. She stated this is a totally different nation than it was three years ago.

Chair Higgs stated if they have the discussion regarding Capit or whatever definition the Board wants to take, what millage it is comfortable setting, and try to work the budget from there, then it will get it. Commissioner Scarborough stated that is not the way the Board does it. Chair Higgs stated that is not the way the Board has done it as it gets to the final number later. Commissioner Scarborough stated that would allow Mr. Jenkins heads up as to where the Board is headed; with Chair Higgs advising that is the goal.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he does not disagree; but he would like to add to what Commissioner Carlson was saying. He stated the survey that they have prioritizing all the elements within the operation of Brevard County government is something Mr. Jenkins needs to see. He stated he made copies for his staff; they went through and ranked them; then he ranked them; and then they all came together to develop a final composite ranking. He stated Mr. Jenkins should have a copy; with Mr. Jenkins responding he does. Commissioner Pritchard inquired if everyone has done it; with Commissioner Carlson responding not yet, she was waiting for the presentations. Commissioner Pritchard stated he did that based on previous knowledge and the others in his office did the same; and it may help Mr. Jenkins make adjustments that would be palatable to the Board but not offensive to the organization. He stated there may be something there that he would rank as a three, but it would be crucial to something else that he did not recognize.

Commissioner Scarborough stated he does not know if it was when they had a hiring freeze or a wage freeze, but the librarian at the time orchestrated a beautiful attack on the Board when she made sure the cut occurred where it would most impact people who would be mean to the Board. Chair Higgs stated adult literacy was cut. Commissioner Scarborough stated the Board can avoid that by giving Mr. Jenkins a heads up so he can go back to a particular department head who is going to stick it to the Board and say wait a minute. Commissioner Carlson stated the department heads do not have any choice; with Commissioner Scarborough responding they will; they are smart; and they will cut the area most sensitive to the user group, which will be before the Board screaming. He stated if there is enough time, the Board can look at their budget again; but it is not going to put up with this.

Commissioner Pritchard stated he is not disagreeing with Commissioner Scarborough; but the more information they can provide Mr. Jenkins the better, which is why he is suggesting Commissioner Scarborough may want to rank the survey. Commissioner Scarborough stated within them, they will play a game; therefore there can be cuts that can occur; and the cuts will be where they are most politically dangerous for the Board.

Chair Higgs stated if the Board starts with the bottom numbers and then works on the particular aspects that may or may not need to be cut, then they should get there.

Mr. Jenkins stated libraries operate off their own millage; there is no General Fund in there except for the operation of the archives; and inquired where can they cut libraries. He inquired should they reduce the number of books, reduce the days they are open, close earlier, close a library, or cut the literacy program of books by mail; and stated it is hard to cut. Chair Higgs stated the Board understands that there is nothing that will make people happy. Mr. Jenkins stated he can predict today without looking at a number that expenses are going to exceed revenues; and employee salaries and health insurance are probably five million dollars in one fiscal year Countywide. He stated if they freeze salaries, there is a problem because the labor union has a multi-year contract that is going to get a 2% and a 1% increase; and inquired if the Board wants to give blue collar workers a salary increase and tell the secretaries who do not belong to the union that they do not get a salary increase. He inquired if the Board wants to dramatically increase the workers’ contribution to health insurance; stated the Board may have to look at that; and the Board is not going to balance the budget without making reductions somewhere. Chair Higgs stated she does not think any of the Commissioners are naïve enough to believe it will be easy; they have all said they want to do it early on so they are not at the wire; there seems to be some consensus about starting at the end and working forward; the Board will look at cuts or programs as needed; but it wants to start in July so it is not delayed in September. Mr. Jenkins suggested finishing in July. Chair Higgs stated if the Board finishes by August it will be in good shape; she is not sure it will be able to finish by the end of July; but that is the goal.

Upon motion and vote, the meeting was adjourned at 5:05 p.m.

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

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SCOTT ELLIS, CLERK

(S E A L)