[captioner present]
[music playing]
>> Good afternoon everyone.
Welcome all of you back to the Orange County Board of County
Commission budget work session of July the 15th 2026.
We are now in the afternoon portion,
and we'll be hearing from several departments who
will be presenting momentarily.
This morning I do want to also recognize Nanette Mello did
the invocation.
And I'm going to invite her to --
we're going to take a quick photograph.
Whenever we have persons who come
from provide the invocation, we give them a little certificate
of our appreciation.
We're not going to slight her at all.
I'm going to come down from the dais and make this presentation.
Then we will start our meeting.
[ambient conversation]
>> Thank you all for indulging us for just a moment.
We are going to move forward now to our health Services
department.
We have the privilege of having the famed, The renowned Dr. Raul
Pino, director of our Health Services Department
who is going to be coming and will be leading off
this of the presentation.
Doctor Peeno, you are recognized.
>> Thank you, mayor, commissioners, the controller.
Thank you very much for the opportunity
to present our budget.
As you know, we'll go through our operating budget,
the proposed capital plans, potential programs and services
at risk, as well as offer you a summary at the end.
In our organizational charge, we have not seen changes.
But I want to thank our executive team for the work
that they do every day.
Diane Summers from Animal Services.
Probably doesn't go a day or a week without they
call the cardiologist.
Increasing quality of the services
that we provide at corrections.
The district nine medical examiner
who has been with us for over ten years now,
doctor Joshua Stephanie, doctor Hall, very integral.
Doctor Zuver from the office of the medical director for EMS
services, increasing quality and county services
through EMS, our medical planning with Jessica Rodriguez,
and the whole program we offer to our community
for early detection and treatment and prevention
for individuals who don't have the ability to pay
or don't have insurance.
Our mosquito control program with Steve Harrison,
they just moved to a new facility.
Thank you for your support with that.
Also the provision of disease borne, mosquito disease borne
diseases, and Claudia, are fiscal and operational support
who oversees our right hand.
And John Goodrich.
The mayor said he has the best county administrator.
I have the best deputy director in the county.
For the proposed budget, we have seen changes in our budget.
I'm going to explain to you where the changes are.
In general we have seen a 4% increase.
For personal services, our changes are about 3.8 million.
We have salaries and benefits and other elements.
It's going to come up to a $58.5 million.
Our operating budget has increased by 1.3 million
to 72.7.
And our total budget is increasing by $5.1 million
to 131.2.
We have seen a significant increase
in our grants, which is about 24% increase.
I'll explain that to you in details.
But that's also a big portion of that 4%
that we see in our general budget.
Our staffing remains very flat.
Only three positions that are required by law since we
did the changes to the Animal Services Ordinance.
We are adding some staff.
On the grants, I just want to give you an overview.
Opioid Settlement funds has a balance now --
this is cumulative -- of $21 million.
You'll see that's a lot of money paramedic
but the Opioid Trust Fund is very unstable.
We don't know how much we're going to get
or we're going to get at.
And we always like to have operations
funded for the next five years.
This is about five years of funding,
what we keep in reserve there in case anything changed.
Some of those funds are still in litigation at the federal level.
So changes could happen earlier.
Our HIV grants are $12.2 million annually.
Our general fund, this is what we
provide support for the PCAN network and the Health
Department.
That's about $4.9 million.
And Animal Services Trust Fund is about $300,000.
This is what we use to support nonprofit organizations that
provide services and care for pets around the county.
Another important driver in our budget every year
is the Medicare and Medicaid expenses
the county is mandated by the state
and the state decides what that amount is.
That amount for this year is $28.6 million.
It has been a 40% increase in the last five years
on the amount that we have to provide.
Just to give you an idea, in 2021, we provided $20 million.
Six years out or almost $9 million over.
So it's a fund that keeps increasing.
It's a regulation that has mandated funding.
On the three positions as I explained to you,
we really needed four, but we were
able to reclassify position within our 16 positions
so that we have to come for one less.
And we came to you and the proposal
took a veterinarian and two vet technicians.
This is to deal with increased services
that we foresee coming with the new shelter
that thankfully we will have in a year.
In operating highlights, as I mentioned to you,
we keep a straightforward approach
as indicated by the administration.
But we also have identified opportunities
where we can provide support.
Three secure three year grants of $700,000 to provide long
acting injectables of the jail.
We also apply for a three year 1.2 million grant
to bridge medication injectables for opioid use disorders.
These are the medications that have
been very successful in offering recovery for individuals.
But they are very costly.
But we are offering for free to many of our residents.
We also continue to renegotiate our contract
with the hospital in the way that we provide services
for correctional facilities.
And in corrections we also have transitions from services
that were provided by contractors.
And now we have the capacity to provide ourselves.
Because we are seeing an increase and stabilization
in our workforce.
The mosquito control program is also
another area where we are using new technologies
to offer a service.
Is a software that was developed by our GIS providers
inside the county collaboration with Mosquito Control.
It gives us the ability to see in real time
where we apply products what products are getting applied,
which vehicles are out, and also give us the ability
to coordinate with the population that may be placed
at risk by the products that we use
and in coordination with them.
The drug office also has seen an increase in the opioid response
that we provide.
We're expanding the medications the use
that we provide to residents.
And we have a partnership different providers
around the country.
Those are receiving funds from the Opioid Trust Fund.
And we are offering case management
for individuals connected through the jail
system and local emergency departments.
We also are in the process of creating a new service
at the East Side Clinic.
The project is called the General Column
but it will probably be something else more completely.
It's basically what it's going to do
it's going to be a 23 hour observation bay for individuals
you may come out of the hospital and want to initiate treatment
immediately for individuals who may have refused to be
transported to the hospital after an overdose,
but are okay by EMS to receive these services.
This means no one needs to wait anymore
to receive treatment for opioid assistance, drug use treatment
if they decide to do that.
We will start immediately in this facility.
We will be with you when the time comes.
I will give you a tour.
But we're making renovations to make this successful
for our residents.
And correctional Health, we are also always improving.
We have simplified our formulary to offer more straight line
services from the medications, but also
for inventory purposes and expenses.
We have removed some drugs that we
have multiple presentations of the drug to be more efficient.
It's resulting in about a 32% reduction in the formulary
without compromising care.
It makes it more streamlined.
And these help us to decrease the Number of weekly
prescriptions by 6% from about 41,000 to about 39,000.
Believe it or not every week we give about 39,000 medications
in the jail.
Also we have made some medications
that are generic available to our inmates
through commissary so they don't have to use the providers.
We foresee some risk coming to our grants,
especially as you heard in the news a few weeks back,
there was an issue with the program
in the state that has been reinstated, at least for a year.
We don't k what the future of it is --
without compromising the most essential services to the people
that are HIV infected in our community.
As I mentioned to you, our medication costs,
Medicaid costs continue to increase.
Will continue to increase.
That continue to affect our budget.
In the capital improvement plan, you
are very familiar with two projects that were involved.
The medical Examiner's office as well as the new shelter,
the new animal shelter.
For this year we are asking for $31 million in our NCIP.
With the animal services facility,
we have been keeping you updated as much as we can.
They are moving a lot around.
It looks like nothing is happening.
But this is preparing all the essential services, sewage,
water, electricity.
It'll be done by the fall in 2027,
and new facility will be about 123,000 square footage.
And right now the allocation is about $85 million.
After some consideration, $7 million
we're back to the capital fund because they were not necessary
as the process comes below was initially calculated.
And it will have capacity for 265 dogs, about 200 cats.
The medical examiner approximates
the total of about $28 million.
This is going to duplicate the capacity
that the medical examiner has.
We are prepared for the future as the population
grows in our county.
Remember that we also service Osceola County, which
already provided 21% of the cost to Orange County.
That has been fully paid and it's with Orange County
right now.
As you know, there are potential issues coming along,
not for this year, for the year after.
With initially in the November 3rd, 2020,
ballot for the constitutional amendment on the homestead
issue.
And if approved by taxpayers, you
could see some challenges to our budget in 2028.
It's estimated by county government that will
affect about 10% of our budget.
These are the areas more likely could
be affected as they are not in code, meaning
these areas are not either in county, federal, or state law.
It's basically the primary care access network.
These include services that we provide
to our client, secondary services,
any support of the county office to all the community health
centers.
And secondary care, this is an important area.
This is the work that we do when people do not
have health insurance.
To give you an example, negotiating
with the hospital at cost, we were
able to provide chemotherapy for a female last year that
did not have the funding.
That was a safe measure that would provide these services
at no increased cost, just the medication costs
in the negotiation with AdventHealth.
That was something that we were able to do as a great service
to our community paramedic and public health,
we support the Department of Health with about $1.3 million
a year.
That goes to essential services that
are provided to our community from STDs
to other infectious diseases.
And also our mosquito control program is not in code,
not for no reason this county was called Mosquito County
before it was called Orange County.
This is an essential service to our community.
Not only for the prevention of disease,
mosquito borne diseases, which are many,
increasing as the temperature changes.
We've seen an increase in the number
of species that are living in our area,
but also the business of this county, which is tourism.
For summary, the art department has implemented a number
of measures to try to control costs and reduce the expenses,
or at least limiting the rising health care costs,
reducing hospitalization and enhancing
on site care for promotion health services.
We have expanded services at our correctional facility
while lowering the cost per inmate.
And the potential state and federal
impacts that we could see in the future,
those are some of the challenges and the opportunities
that we have ahead of us.
Thank you.
>> All right, Dr. Pino.
I have one question.
I'm one of the earlier slides comment
you talked about the Medicaid expenditures
that the county is paying.
They seem to be going up and up and up.
Let me ask you a question.
If the state of Florida participated
in the federal Medicaid expansion programs, expanded it
here in the state, would that have any impact
on closing the gap in what we're spending
and on Medicaid expenditures?
>> Yes.
>> I thought so.
>> More people will be covered.
Less would be needed for those who are not.
>> I'm going to open it up for questions and comments from
members of the board.
Commissioner Wilson.
>> I can't tell if I'm hitting my button or not.
Just assume I am.
They're going to replace the data soon
comment which is good because I think we're all
operating on one power up here.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes we talk about critical municipal services
common local services, for little people, your team.
I say this -- you're talking about health services,
our mosquito control column which is a tremendous health
protector, taking care of the least among us and the most
fragile medically among us.
And then you combine that with things
that are mandated by the state.
And so what that means is should we meet a budget shortfall,
the state mandated things presumably
would require us to satisfy those first.
It begs the question --
I saw the programs at risk.
I want to make sure people understand--
I had a conversation over the with somebody
about mosquito control because they thought
it was about convenience.
And they were like, just buy your own Off.
You don't understand.
Mosquito borne illness has killed more people
in the history of mankind than almost anything else.
Understanding that that is an investment
in keeping people alive.
You said this is also for people who visit here.
We have more people who visit this area than anywhere
else in the world.
Are there any revenue possibilities for you
all to use that come from that revenue stream
come a tourist revenue stream, versus the things that we know
are at risk right now because of this proposed legislation?
>> So there are ways that we could qualify the mosquito
in County code.
That could protect the program.
Because it would allow you as the amendment
goes as it is to invest with the revenue that you may generate.
That's a possibility.
To your point, mosquito control program
is not just about mosquito biting you and having
less nuisance in that sense.
Every time there is a disease coming from any of the tropics,
we get a referral from the health department.
They deal with an segment of the area.
They develop a radius around the house
where the individual lives in that area
is treated specifically intensively
to monitor the mosquitoes in the area that
could transmit that disease.
Recently we have seen -- we heard about Zika five years ago.
Oda was here last year.
Those are new tropical diseases that are coming up
as the temperatures elevate.
>> Climate, yeah.
And I think to the extent of some of these health issues
that we feel like, having served here during COVID
and trying to make sure that we are planning for the worst
and hoping for the best, I cringe to think about any cuts
at all, understanding the impacts that those may have.
I think I asked about the tourist revenue stream
just because we understand that we have tourist development tax
dollars that come in.
Is always how they discussed here
within these really tight boundaries based on legislation.
But we don't often articulate well
how many benefits our visitors get by all the other investments
that we make that do not come from those revenue streams.
And they think every single person here from all your team
here are included.
I think about the fact that we have
Narcan at the airport in case somebody overdoses
and that if you happen to let your dog out of your hotel room
then they get lost and ended up in Orange County Animal
Services, we the most incredible team take care of them there.
Those are benefits that go rarely described
and not funded by the dollars that
are channeled into the efforts to promote tourism.
I'm trying so hard to make these connections because we are going
to have to get creative and we're
going to have to be able to also explain our current investments
and the importance of those in keeping people alive
and keeping people safe.
I think the other part that Medicaid expansion question,
was there any appetite any time over these last couple of years
for the state to pick up that tab?
I know the answer to this question.
The mayor is laughing because we struggle with this every year.
I just want to make sure that for this year,
I think there's an opportunity for us to talk about again,
this is an unfunded mandate.
We all agree that health care is necessary.
But if we don't have state assistance with state mandates
and they take away the one revenue source that is stable,
I am not sure how --
and there was no plan.
They didn't study it.
They had no idea how to take care
of folks who energy assistance.
I believe government were here for that health safety welfare
piece.
That is our primary duty is to make sure that we are keeping
people healthy and safe.
You do a fantastic job of it.
So thank you.
I don't have any other questions other
than I think I want to do a hard hat
tour when we are at that place for the animal services.
And I would love to see--
I think you said that 24 hour program.
I would love to hear more about that also.
It is brilliant.
As somebody who has looked at some
of that research about that first 24 hours out,
it's the most dangerous time.
Thank you for always continuing to look for those opportunities
to save people.
I appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you for the presentation.
You are one department that I will always
advocate for to get more money for because you're
in the business of you are taking care of the people who
without the care can end up without a life peer am I
I have some specific questions very quickly.
I know that district nine of the medical examiner
includes Osceola.
Does Osceola cover 100% of their costs, so none of those costs
are picked up by Orange County >> That's correct.
The percentage of the total budget, which we see 21%
of our case volume come from Osceola.
They cover 21% of our budget.
If it goes up, it goes down, it moves with it.
>> Thank you.
There were some concerning legislation
that was in Tallahassee this year regarding the state taking
over animal services.
So that was concerning the legislation.
I think it may come back if we start talking about the property
tax reform passing.
And I wanted to make sure because one thing that tourists
don't like seeing one of those streets
is stray dogs and stray cats.
We have an organization that was receiving
TNR, which is the spaying and neutering of stray cats.
They are called Cata-ppaloosa .
They reduce our street population
in Orange County by thousands of cats
because they trap feral cats.
They get them neutered.
They get them spayed.
Animals that run the streets can spread the disease
to other healthy animals as well as to people.
They impact tourism.
I know their funding is about $2,500 a month that they were
receiving through Pet Alliance.
But I wanted to put it on your radar
because they are providing an important service.
And their service is for free to us.
They are just trying to recoup the funds
for getting those stray cats spayed and neutered
so that they don't contribute to the continued increase
in stray cat population.
>> More than willing to talk today about the possibility
of including it in the future if we have the resources.
We do have a TNR program.
We have one animal services.
We have done this year about four of those.
And we also work with another organization care aligned to.
We brought about $5,700 a month, and that covered just about
another 95 spay neuter operations at the East Side
clinic that has operated.
>> And that is the one that they were using was the East Side
Clinic through Pet Alliance when Pet Alliance was rent out
the facility?
>> They don't rent.
They get it for free.
>> Thank you for doing that.
I think that group is spaying and neutering
ten cats a week so 40 cats a month.
It's a significant population when
you talk about having cages for the 200 in your new facility.
That will fill up very fast if we are losing our TNR funding.
We will send some more information to you
on >> Willing to support the activity if we
have the resources and we can do something about it.
>> Thank you.
And then I just wanted to bring up --
when we talk about on slide 23 when it talks about the impact
to people, just so that we have factual narrative that can be
used to comment if you could go to slide 23,
those were the potential programs that would be at risk
with a reduction in services.
What I just wanted to -- when you see these,
what is that primary care access network,
are you providing life saving services to people that access
that care?
>> Yes, we provide preventative services for people who have no
other sources of health insurance.
>> If we lose that program, are we talking about increasing --
families seeing an increase in the loss of family members
to death because they are untreated?
>> For sure, not only us, also supports,
all the community centers.
It's also a coordinated approach to services where we cannot
provide somebody else can provide a.
So it's a whole network of services
that we provide to people who don't have insurance.
>> Thank you.
And then of course, that secondary one
with providing access to care for people who are experiencing
diseases like cancer
>> Surgeries, cancer, you name it.
>> That third one regarding public's health,
talking about some vaccinations, is tuberculosis still active
in our society?
>> Very much so.
>> I have seen that in the news, that tuberculosis rates are
increasing.
Is tuberculosis a lethal >> Untreated, yes.
>> And then with mosquito borne, I have had chikungunya when I
was in the Caribbean.
It was one of the most painful life experiences
I've had in your joints.
But are there diseases that can be
spread by mosquitoes that could result in the death of humans?
>> Yes, just one that is always here, dengue.
>> So 100% of the potential programs and services that could
be at risk for reduction in revenue or program cuts are
actually life saving programs in our community.
>> Absolutely.
That's why they're funded.
>> Thank you, Dr. Pino.
>> On the animal services side, I saw a story --
I think it was yesterday somewhere
in the news about coyote.
Do we have another coyote in our shelters?
>> We do-- it is normally for the Florida Department
of Wildlife.
But yes, there are coyotes.
>> In Orange County Animal Services does a great coyote
presentation.
Water Park does have a lot of coyotes.
They come out and do services and presentations
to help keep residents safe from human animal conflicts.
>> Very good.
Commissioner.
>> Thank you for the presentation and thank you
for always being accessible to us into my office.
I just wanted to follow up with what Commissioner Semrad
waw was looking into in the secondary care.
You said here that all of these services
are critical services, right?
Oncology, cardio.
So where are these services provided?
>> The services are provided as part of the pika network,
depending on who has the specialization.
It could be AdventHealth, Orlando Health.
It could be whatever the person may decide or whatever
the services.
We also coordinate with the providers.
Whatever we can get are the cheapest, we also go there.
But yeah, normally the negotiated approach,
whatever the client may want.
>> So that means if they have no insurance,
they could still participate in the medical services,
and then from there, they would receive the basic --
>> The pika is more about primary care,
general approach to health.
And then the secondary care is more
if they need hospitalization, if they need surgery,
if they need physical therapy, whatever the necessity may be.
>> That's good.
Thank you, Dr. Pino, for everything.
>> All right.
Dr. Pino, thank you, sir.
Great job.
>> Can I just say one thing?
I've already looked at your report.
Thank you for all you do.
Thank you for what you do with the project
opioid, Dr. Tie, everybody because it's
really make an impact.
And I know every dollar you do is going to the fullest amount.
Your team treats people with medical services
with such dignity that they just absolutely love it.
I hear nothing but great things from people who
need health services from you.
>> Thank you.
Mayor, if you'd allow me a minute,
I would like to thank the commissioners
for all the support that you have
provided to Health services.
This may be the last time that we
see each other in this kind of environment for some,
and also, to Byron and Danny for their support and guidance,
and, for your trust.
It's been great to work with you and for you.
>> Thank you.
We are going to move forward to the one and only
Joseph Kunkel from our public works.
>> Thank you, mayor.
Good afternoon.
I'm here to present the Public Works
budget for fiscal year 26, 27.
I have a large part of my public works team
here with me for support.
Our presentation will follow the standard outline
starting with the organizational chart moving to the pros 26, 27
budget, some highlights.
Moving on to the Capital Improvement Program column
and looking at some services at risk,
then finishing up with our summary.
Moving into our organizational chart,
I heard Doctor Pino say he has the best Deputy Director.
He may have one of the best deputy directors,
but I have two of the best deputy
directors in our organization.
The first of those on the chart as you see is Brett Blackadar.
Working on that side is our roads and drainage division,
stormwater management division, Michael Drazek is their manager.
Traffic engineering Division, the well-known Humberto
Castillero as well as our newest member to our leadership team
at Orange County Public Works is Taneya Simpson,
recently replacing Ralph Acre as our support division manager.
The second half of our duo, our top duo
includes our county engineer and Deputy Director Susan Ussach.
Included in her side of the house
is production and permitting.
That has Raymond Williams as manager of our engineering
division, helping our capital projects.
Highway Construction Division is led by Ken Leming.
They do administration for us for those construction projects.
We have developed engineering division which
reviews all the DRC and a lot of permits as well headed
by Dale Mudrak.
Transportation Division who initiates a lot of studies
and does a lot of other activities
is led by Brian Sanders.
At Public Works, we work together
to pursue and complete plan common,
construct, operate, and maintain safe transportation
and stormwater infrastructure framework we are pretty
proud of being able to do all those things on an annual basis
for the Orange County residents.
I think it goes without saying that we work 24/7, 365,
all year, all day, all weekend, and nighttime.
That could be something as simple as attending community
meetings and public get togethers as well as inspection
of projects that go into the night time
or required to do nighttime inspections,
as well as things such as the sinkhole that
occurred in Maitland somewhere around 2 a.m.
Our staff got a call about the sinkhole occurring in Maitland
at a county owned facility.
We responded and went out in the middle of the night
to work on that issue.
Also, one of the other items that is a 24/7 activity is
our traffic signal operations.
Regardless the time of day, or traffic signal technicians
will respond to a downed signal, day or night, after storm.
Will respond.
Any time of the day they will go out
and work on signals and signal operations.
You may not be as aware of that we collaborate
with a number of different divisions and departments
across the county.
For example, Fire Rescue has an optical system
attached to our Signalization.
One there's maintenance and activities required
for that optical system, our traffic
signal ops folks go out and work on those repairs.
Likewise, we have a number of design contract administration
construction administration contracts
that we do for the departments as well, including
parks and recs for their trails, EPT for water quality projects,
and community development block grant projects.
Public works and appliance, amazingly
enough over 27000 311 inquiries coming to public works a year.
That's over 500 per week, 100 is a.
Most of those go to roads and drainage
and also go to traffic and engineering.
But then they get responded to by other divisions.
We still have almost 6000 miles of pavement
that we need to maintain, over 2000 retention ponds,
and we are approaching 700 signals
that are our responsibility.
Our development engineering group
reviews a number of permits as I mentioned.
As the first part of June, they have reviewed 4500 permits.
They're on pace for 6000 this fiscal year.
Moving on to our proposed budget for fiscal year 26, 27,
our funding sources have remained pretty much the same.
We still get a good share of our operations,
almost all our operations monies come from the state sales tax.
You can see that on the right, $186 million.
Our capital program CIP, we use gas tax,
impact fees, miscellaneous construction funds.
And then some CRA funding as well
goes into our capital program.
As for our proposed budget, we're
seeing a slight increase for our personal services
in line with the direction that we are provided.
And we are making up for that additional cost
in the personal services through our operating budget
so that we are resulting in a one
tenth of 1% change for our budget this year
and our staffing will remain the same at 577.
I'm at the distribution of our budget,
it's clear that roads and drainage
is the largest division, has the largest number of staff,
and has the widest range of responsibilities
in the operating side.
They have the largest amount of funding inside of public works.
There are things that they handle
that include paying the street light bills for all the street
lighting across Orange County.
They also have more traditional types
of activities including sidewalk repair, street repair,
maintenance of pipes and culverts comet inlets, cleaning
channels, and small canals.
Also in the higher end of our budget
is stormwater management, traffic engineering,
are the two operations groups.
They have varied responsibilities
outside for the operations and maintenance of all
the infrastructure that we have, as well as
our fiscal and operational support.
They provide funding for all of our intergovernmental indirect
costs as well as the facilities and maintenance
costs for all the locations that we have either our main campus
or our satellite campuses.
The other divisions have a similar responsibility
with personnel services costs as well.
Moving on to some highlights, you
may ask how do we reduce our budget.
There's a couple things we did.
We sharpened our pencil and looked
across a number of different lines,
making smaller changes here and there
to reduce the impacts of our budget.
We look specifically at the rolling stock
and heavy equipment needs that we have for this year
and looked at what we can defer and be able to move
into future budget years.
We looked really closely at the historical expenditures
on our overtime.
In some scenarios we were able to the budgeted over time.
We also looked at travel and training
and reduced some of those costs.
We are focusing on certain leadership training program
this year.
We have an internal public works leadership
program that we are providing to our staff.
That is being done through insight internal
to public works.
A bit of a good news perspective is our in-service contract
pricing.
Last year's budget we anticipated
some of the term construction contracts coming in much higher.
It's hard to predict sometimes what's
going to happen in the construction industry.
We have had a handful of contracts come in
lower than expected, particularly
on the stormwater side.
So as we move forward through those multi-year bids,
we are seeing some reduction in the contract pricing for some
of those term contract activities paramedic also
we were able to utilize our in-house paving operations.
This is a plus.
It's a partnership between our operating side and our capital
side.
We use in-house paving to do some
of the smaller paving projects last year that
received some funding from our capital program.
It saved us about $2.5 million being
able to use our crew as opposed to going out under the contract
price.
A second bonus this year is that we're
going to be using our in-house paving
crew to pay for the parking lot in our main complex.
That should result in some savings
to that capital expense on the facility side.
You may also have heard about this modular roundabout
that we installed recently in Wyndham Lakes at Rodrick Circle.
It's the largest in Florida and the second
in the state of Florida.
It went in in about three weeks as opposed
to multiple months for installation.
So the installation time was much shorter.
The total costs were about half compared
to a regular construction of a roundabout.
There is some time for fabrication.
But once it's installed, it gets installed very quickly.
And that quick installation reduces disruption
for the neighborhood when the roundabout is installed.
So we were proud of this approach and innovative idea.
Something else that we've done recently
is that we have combined projects
as part of a road resurfacing program, we went in last year
and did a road diet design and installed
some of the other items associated with road diet,
including access control and pedestrian crossings,
then use the resurfacing to finish off the project.
We combined two projects into one
for some significant efficiencies
with that Rio Grande project.
And we continue to look at those types of activities
in our division and department.
Lastly, we also want to highlight
if you will the funding challenges that are still there.
We recently got a FEMA grant.
We weren't notified -- it was over a year ago that we were
going to get some funding for the Bonnybrook subdivision pump
station.
It took quite a while for that funding to come forward.
FEMA funding is still unpredictable,
but we will continue to look for opportunities to apply
for those types of grants.
Additionally we have applied for some safe streets
for all and some other transportation and safety
grants.
Those have become extremely competitive.
We thought we had a very good request last year for our safety
program for our high injury network projects.
At the end of the day, we were told that the grant request
was just too much.
There's too many requests going around.
We need to look at applying for smaller grants, which
we did this year.
We'll see how that turns out.
I don't think it needs to be said that we have been looking
for dedicated funding sources for transit
for a number of years now, as well as looking for funding
to meet the funding gaps that we have in our transportation
program.
Moving on to that transportation program, our capital improvement
projects, we're requesting $264.4 million this year.
And here is the split of the projects
into different categories.
Once again be in roadway major projects are the big projects.
The insanity of the funding inside our proposed program.
We also include 44-ish million dollars for our resurfacing
program, about $1 million more than last year,
as well as the drainage improvements in ATSP.
Program fundings are about the same.
Note that our traffic calming, traffic signals, bike program,
as well as sidewalks program is higher this year.
Those two groupings of projects are
receiving about $19 million more than we did last year.
Over the course of all of our interactions for any
of the infrastructure for sales tax initiatives,
we consistently heard the need for sidewalk, ADA,
and bike and ped safety.
We responded with some additional funding for those
this year.
A new mandatory part of our budget
process going to the transportation
Mobility Advisory Commission, Transmac.
We refer to them this year and they did a recommendation
on March 12th to recommend approval of the capital program
that we presented.
That came over to the BCC sometime in March.
They also followed up with a submittal
for some recommendations to BCC.
One of the things that has been discussed consistently
with Transmac has been prioritization and project
phasing, project scheduling for the capital program.
So we are looking at coming back sometime this year
with a presentation in BCC.
We are scheduling a meeting with Transmac
in August to go over the prioritization proposal
that we are putting in place.
Requested and we are looking at a matrix that
is going to utilize current data to address the necessity
and prioritization of not only our major projects
but also our programs, bridge program, sidewalk
program, traffic safety program, and Vision zero
as well as traffic calming.
We're going to be looking at all those programs
and coming up with some prioritization based
on current actual data, then utilizing that
as part of our future planning program
as well as to come up with a more accurate projection
of project's schedule.
Moving into the remainder of the capital program,
I want to start off with some of our outside partners
before I get into the projects that we have internally.
We have a number of partnership projects with dot,
the first being State Road 50.
This is an agreement that we entered into,
a reimbursement agreement we entered into with Dot that
will advance portions of State Road 52 years,
and then consolidate that time frame for the construction
of those improvements out on State Road 50,
and it will result in a reimbursement
back to Orange County.
We also have a number of projects.
Those are local agency program projects with the Dot.
Lab projects generally consist of trails and intersection
projects that we work on.
The majority of the funding is in the trails program.
You may recall we recently double
dashed there was recently finished
the Apopka, Lake Apopka Extension Trail in West Orange
County as well as the last segment
of the Shingle Creek Trail coming forward with Lap funding.
We have some vertical projects with private development,
new independence is underway.
It's fairly far along and we'll be
I'm sure completed either way this year,
first part of next year, as well as a very desperately
needed Fleming through an extension and connection
to Orange County to support a part of Orange County and Lake
County.
Moving on to our resurfacing program Palma
I will start off the CIP there.
You may remember last year I went into a long discussion
about resurfacing and compared it to the roof of your house
and a whole bunch of other things,
but need to just say that all those things still apply.
If you remember that, kudos to you.
I wanted to identify one thing particularly.
That is milling and resurfacing is around $250,000 per lane
mile.
Recycling is a step up.
That comes up to about 400,000 per lane mile.
If we get to degradation that you see in that left corner,
upper right left picture, a lot of times
you are going into full depth replacement.
That comes out to be about three times the cost.
The whole vision of the resurfacing program
is not to get to that level of degradation,
to try to address these resurfacing as it comes forward.
This year we are planning 175 lane miles for fiscal year 27.
We are still not getting close to reaching that almost 400 lane
miles to hit that 15 year cycle, which
is desired industry standard.
Right now we're looking at about a 34 year cycle
to resurface all our roadways.
However with this upcoming fiscal year,
will be looking into other preservation treatments as well
to see if we can possibly extend and expand the budget
for the resurfacing program here in --
talking about costs with resurfacing and construction
in general, this slide shows the cost increases
over the last 5 or 6 years or so for our road program.
This is a standard two lane improvement or modification
with design, study, right of way,
mitigation, and construction.
You see over the last five years there's
about a 72% increase in the total costs.
Not too surprised that the last two years,
you're looking at about a 30% increase.
However if you look at resurfacing and this
is where you can see the big jump that occurs.
One of the big challenges that we have with resurfacing.
That is over the last 3 or 4 years,
there's been a tremendous increase in the cost associated
with resurfacing.
It's one and a half times the cost
from 2019 and over double the cost from 2021.
There has been a tremendous rise in the resurfacing program cost
associated with resurfacing.
With resurfacing behind us, now I'm
going to look at the major roadway program.
I'm going to start off with identifying the projects that we
have funding available and projects
that are either moving forward or currently in construction.
E trail is coming to a close and should
be coming up this fiscal year.
All American Boulevard and Kennedy Boulevard
is a joint project on the west side.
That has received notice to proceed
and has started some work.
As well as Ficquette Road in Western
Orange County has started construction.
Later this year we expect Reims Road is going out
to bid, had gone out to bid.
We expect it to start this year.
And then the Taft Vineland Road project
which we are collaborating with dot on
will also start this fiscal year.
We're looking at projects that are in the design phase,
we have orange Avenue, Vineland Road,
and Innovation Way are all in their design phase
and we'll continue to get funding for the design phase.
Lake Underhill is a project that we are bringing back
and initiating this year.
And then en oda road, we have our phase one contract
for design to occur this fiscal year.
Projects that have moved along and are either
in right of way phase or going into the right of way phase
this year include Avalon Road, Woodbury Road, Kennedy Boulevard
East, and Tradeshow Boulevard down by the Convention Center.
[audio out]
We have I know what's going on between stormwater drainage.
I listed a few that are going on this year that are newer.
Cottondale drive is in East Orange County
and we are looking to have that be under construction shortly
after the start of the fiscal year.
Orlo Vista drainage, we have some associated
secondary drainage in that area that
is going to be a project this next fiscal year
as well as replacing Oakland Terrace in the Doctor Phillips
area.
We have seen some drainage in the past.
We have a number of other projects
across the county that are still in play that I did not list.
We have our major watershed plan updates moving forward
and coming to a close.
And then we have stormwater pump station
upgrade that I mentioned earlier in the Bonnybrook subdivision.
Overall there's about $20 million
in those drainage improvements we have and master study.
Looking at another portion of our safety
program, the intersection sidewalk and Ada.
Including in this one, we have a couple of bridges.
The one in note coming forward is designed for the I drive
pedestrian bridge.
That we have the Rock Springs Road complete Street project,
which is slightly different.
It came through the MPO.
There was some grant funding for that.
It's a lap project.
That's something in the Apopka area
we're looking at some intersection improvements as
well as some access management.
That was a through a study by Metro Plan Network moving
forward to construction.
We have our county wide programs with sidewalk Ada
and the median tree program.
Certainly last but not least is our accelerated Transportation
Safety program.
They'll be getting an update a little bit later in August.
We are calling it mid-term, but it's a little bit more
than midterm that'll be providing
an update on the activities associated
with our accelerated safety transportation safety program.
For next year we are looking at providing some lighting sidewalk
projects.
And then we are including funding
for the Seidel roundabout.
It is finished and going through construction right now,
that will be funded next year.
And then some traffic calming up in the tangerine area.
That is what we have.
This slide tells what we don't have.
This is a fiscal year CIP shortfall.
There is a lot of information on here.
We try to squeeze the next five years onto one slide.
I think the big takeaway from here is that there is some gray
-- and it's supposed to be blue, but it turned out to be gray
on the slide.
Funding that we have in place for anticipated budget
as well as the shortfalls when we look at the projected needs.
There's a lot of numbers and items there
but you've seen a lot of this information previously either
in our stormwater utility fee or the infrastructure Sales Tax
initiative.
Moving on to the next slide, this
may be a little more easy to follow.
This is the total budget shortfall by fiscal year.
You can see that the total budgets of available monies
are going down as we progress into fiscal year 31.
And then you can see that the total project
funding is going slightly down over the five year process.
But most scary is that the red shortfall increases
every year year over year.
As we move forward with our CIP, we
are seeing our funding go down.
We are seeing the shortfalls increase.
And we are seeing the construction costs for projects
go up.
This is looking again at the same data
but looking at it by the categories.
What I did was I combined roadway safety with Vision Zero.
Those two categories together to help things out.
You can see that over the next few years
we are looking at making roadway safety
and the Vision Zero projects a priority by providing
some additional funding.
However, you can look at the stormwater capital
and see that there is a huge shortfall.
That is one of the reasons why we were looking at pursuing
that stormwater utility fee.
You can look at these shortfalls on the roadway
and the rehabilitation projects.
That was the reason we were looking
to pursue separate funding or dedicated funding
for the transportation program.
With those funding shortfalls, here
are some of the projects that are not moving forward
and will be on hold.
The first one, projects that have started or completed
study, but there is no funding for moving forward
and the design right of way or construction.
That includes the Western portion
of Lake Underhill, Chickasaw to icon trail, Hancock, icon trail,
the tiny road, Edgewater drive study, and the Valencia College
Lane project.
Our Hiawassee road pedestrian safety study currently
is not funded in our program.
Looking at projects that design has been complete
or is underway, but does not have
funding for right of way or construction,
that includes those eastern portions
of Richard Crotty Parkway, and then Schofield Road.
We have funding for design but we have not
put funding for right of way or construction as at this point.
We have not been directed to do such.
We were stuck with that.
And then those projects that there's
either right of way in place or right
of way being acquired in the city and designs are complete
but there is no funding for construction
is, again, that first part of Richard Crotty Parkway.
We've only funded up through that right of way acquisition
process.
Kennedy Boulevard East is in a similar scenario
where there is funding for future right of way
but no funding for construction.
And Texas Avenue and Woodbury Road
both are in that same funding situation.
Looking at the potential program services at risk,
I don't think this is a new slide.
I know I've seen it a number of times today.
I don't need to do a deep explanation other than these are
not necessarily my recommendations
but just potential items that can be problematic or create
some issues or areas that may be possible for some funding
reductions.
We looked at some very specific items inside public works
and our mowing schedule over the years.
We've increased our mowing schedule
on landscape activities and our medians and canals
to where we are on about a two week schedule.
We can certainly look at modifying that schedule
to reduce the costs but extend the mowing periods
so then you would have higher grass in the summertime
when you get into those 2020 or 2024 business days cycles
for mowing.
Our road resurfacing program is not something
that I certainly want to move forward,
but it is something that we would look at if we had to.
And that would go into that paving cycle
that we've talked about.
One item that we provide some -- some funding comes through some
of our programs is for LYNX, mainly in the I-drive area.
But something that could be certainly impacted
would be the County Ride transit services, reduced and or impact
their service schedules.
Capital drainage, that's one of the areas
that we've identified a fairly large program using
the stormwater utility fee.
If there is funding issues associated
with that, that could extend some
of those timelines for those capital drainage
projects to move forward.
Vision Zero and sidewalks I would hate to touch,
but those are items that are out there that funding is areas
that could be impacted as well.
Those would be based on future evaluations.
And then if we get into a directed scenario
that we had to do personnel cuts and make some modifications
to our Manning tables, we would look
to evaluate those vacant positions
that we have available.
Most of our vacant positions have
to be in roads and drainage and stormwater.
As we cut those positions, we may
need to consolidate some of our maintenance units
to provide services and full crews to be
able to find at least an acceptable level of services
as best we can.
That would impact the timing associated with those 27,000 311
requests that come into public works every year.
There are a couple of things that we have identified that we
didn't think really cannot be reduced or totally reduced.
That would be our Ada improvements.
We typically have to identify that we have an Ada
program in place to be eligible for the federal funding
that we get through LAP.
Our bridge maintenance program, we
are not going to compromise bridge maintenance and public
safety in any regards.
If we do have contractual obligations
particularly for construction, I suppose they could be canceled.
That would be disastrous to stop a project
in the middle of construction.
So we would say that those need to occur as well.
And then one other item that came up to my mind
is that we would not compromise our response
time for signal issues.
If there's a signal that is out and it
gets routed to our traffic operations team,
then they would respond any time of day or out
of time or whatever.
That would be an area that we would not want to reduce.
In summary, our operating budget is 191 million.
Our capital project budget is 264 million.
No new positions requested.
Budget growth is one tenth of 1%.
We're going to continue to invest
in resurfacing as best we can.
Safety, mobility, drainage are priorities for us.
We'll also look at maximizing efficiency
through either innovative technology
such as the module roundabouts, or looking at some
of the collaborative projects.
That is my presentation for today.
>> With that, let's see.
They all lit up.
>> Everybody likes to talk about public works.
>> Usually I look to my right first because Commissioner
Wilson is district one.
But I'm going to look to my left first.
Commissioner Semrad.
>> Thank you, mayor.
That was fun.
Thank you, Joe, for the presentation.
On slide 12, I noted how to reduce the budget.
Congratulations on achieving that.
What I was a little concerned about
is I saw some of those budget reductions
seemed like it was taking away from programs that were offered
to help staff continues to develop over
the years of their career.
Education and certificates and training and such.
I just wondered, what is the consequence if in your industry
people don't stay current of trends in such
that you see happening in public works?
>> There's a couple of things.
We looked at historical usage of the travel and training
budgets combined.
But there are some things that we absolutely
continues to maintain.
We maintenance traffic certifications
that our field staff have.
There are some other certifications
associated with construction inspections
that we will continue to do those.
There is our professional engineering requirements
that we will continue to do those.
We will also look at continuing to offer CDL license
string to staff.
It may not be as many as the past,
but it will still be some available for staff
to be able to get that CDL license
so they can move from an equipment operator
one to a two, three, or possibly four.
Some are still staying in place.
What we are looking at was some of the other generalized
training with either conference or subject specific training
or things like stormwater design or some of our other inspection
activities that we have internal staff that
are experienced and can share some of those things.
So we're not looking to compromise
any of the certifications that our staff have.
But we are looking at trying to bring in and do
some internal training.
>> Thank you for the explanation.
And then I just had another question regarding, again,
the slide where it talks about what other programs at risk.
Could you just put that one up and could you
provide an example to us of what you mean by a public safety
risk?
It's number two on that slide.
>> I guess I need to do that.
>> So right --
>> This one?
>> No, it was the other one with the bullet points.
>> This one?
>> No.
I should have written it down.
This one right here.
When you see something like it says programs
that could be reduced or would be at risk
and it says bridge maintenance, parentheses public safety,
could you give us an example something
that would happen with a bridge that could result
in a public safety issue?
>> We have biennial reports, reports that we get from
the DOT.
They look at a number of different things associated
with the bridge.
Some of them are truly esthetic, things
that you can see that just don't look well, but still
may approached.
And then there's some things that
are operations and maintenance repairs and upkeep.
That may be some small squall line
where there's little patches or pieces of concrete that
come out.
Or there may be some scaling on the piles, which happens
over the course of time.
>> Could that result in safety issues for cars using those
bridges?
>> It can.
We get these reports every two years.
You address those things more immediately so
that scaling on that pile doesn't
get so bad that the reinforcement bars are exposed
and can collapse.
So yes.
And one thing we are not willing to compromise
and we're not going to produce in our budget
is how we are looking at our bridge maintenance and safety
programs.
We're making sure that we get some of the things settle down
or may be some things that we can say,
that it's more maintenance related items
and we can push those out for a fiscal year.
But if there is something that comes
in that is more of a structural component,
that would either get an immediate response
or we would close the bridge or would
look at doing those repairs and modifications as quickly as we
can.
It depends a little bit on the force receive.
There's no coming back from the Comptroller
that's going to discuss some of that.
>> It sounds as though some of the things that you are
describing, that could happen if these things aren't maintained
are catastrophic.
>> Absolutely.
That's the intention of getting these reports every two years,
making sure we are addressing those accordingly,
looking at the items that are most important to get done,
and making those decisions.
Is this an item that we have to do today
or is this an item that we can schedule with some other work?
Or is this an item that we can postpone for a year or so
and bring it back based on budget availability?
>> Thank you, Joe.
>> Commissioner Gomez Cordero.
>> Okay.
Thank you for your presentation and always
being accessible on your team.
Your engineers are so amazing.
Thank you.
I wanted to say thank you also because you did put here
the critical programs that --
I like it.
Thank you so much for doing that.
That was excellent.
I probably signal issues, we call you
and then you take care of it.
Thank you so much.
What I wanted to say?
The mowing schedule that you said it couldn't be reduced
and you know that we received so many calls because the ordinance
is 18in.
But the county is the one that had the --
that would be a problem, right?
>> Yes.
That's one of the reasons we identified that.
If there are budget constraints and there
is a decision or determination that we
need to look at what things can we
do to reduce certain areas of our budget,
the mowing cycle can be impacted.
We can look at that and say we are going to go from 12 or 1824
business day.
And that would reduce your cost by however much
depending on how you go.
We wouldn't reduce it and eliminate it.
We do need to come out and maintain the rights of way
and mow the medians and those other common grass areas.
But there is certainly the chance
that that could be something that we would look at and have
to make a determination that these are the things
that we need to do.
>> But anyway, thank you for the presentation.
>> Thank you, Commissioner.
>> Commissioner Uribe.
>> How are you?
Party over here.
Mayor likes to go to the right because that's
where we party the.
Anyway, I did have a question.
One that stood out to me very quickly was econ ,
Chickasaw to Lake Underhill that you said was unfunded that was
on the slide --
I have it right here -- slide number 35.
What price tag is that having nowadays?
When I was elected in 2018, it had a number of.
I was just curious to see if that number has grown
or if it's still the same.
>> I'll have to get back to you on what the price tag is.
I know the big challenge with that piece from Chickasaw over
--
>> Right away.
>> Right away is one but then the canal on the other side
and the impacts that creates is the other.
Closing that open air canal, do you know
we have issues with drainage.
>> We'd have to almost eminent domain a little too.
>> I'm sure.
We typically try not to go into yards
and do take down walls and replace walls and impact rear
lots.
But that particular project may require
some right of way acquisition along the southern side as well.
The bigger challenge is how are you
going to move from the open area east and then close that canal?
That and the long term maintenance of the boxed canal
creates a number of different challenges.
>> Sorry for going for that question first because actually
I want to thank your staff.
Brett, even when a 91 year old man threatened
to bring his gun out when they were going to tear down an oak
tree and he smiled because he remembers,
we all rushed out and had to call the Sheriff's office
because you guys were laying out sidewalks just Felipe.
>> (indiscernible)
>> Not in that way.
Not when we have to have the Sheriff's office and everything
come out because Brant was serious.
You can't do guns.
We don't do guns.
But what I'm saying is the reason
why I was so impressed was communication
and how quickly your team and even the contractor
all came together and actually found a beautiful solution being
able to pivot around this huge beautiful oak tree
and give still some nice landscaping to my very
older Gatlin area.
And at the same time still successfully do the sidewalk.
I want to give kudos to Brett.
I would also like to give kudos to Susan because whenever we
talk sidewalks -- and I have an Enfield district.
Some people don't have a lot of yards.
They argue and don't want sidewalks.
But then when I took a sidewalk issue that was literally
where kids were waiting for the bus on the road
because there was no sidewalk, they
came in and had probably one of the safest
areas in our community because it stopped the cars from parking
on the side because once you've used car lots and mechanics
and actually made a safe place for kids.
I've actually gotten phone calls personally thanking me for that.
That is when this works.
And then lastly, Ed, who is here,
him being the shield to go into Rio when that was a tough
conversation, but knowledge is --
truth and knowledge has validity in communities.
You give that community although we can't solve anything,
you are honest.
We are honest with them and let them know
and we are responsive and continue to be.
And so those are the great things
that happen in our community that many people don't
get to hear the stories of.
I want to thank your staff.
Where is that angel Jeff Charles?
Is he here?
He is an angel.
He's like an angel that goes around
because he has the most calming personality that
has been able to deal with anybody irate.
And not only gets them from here but they end up
hugging when they're done.
That's why I call him an angel.
That is super important.
My question is, as I've been doing all the research
on our budget, when I found out that the communication utility
fee that got put into general fund,
I know you've been here for a long time
and you left and came back.
I don't know, Byron, since that predates you
how long that's been happening.
I understood that was Mayor Jacobs that is --
switch to that.
>> It's been a while, Commissioner.
Really just to allocate it to something,
we could allocate it to public works,
but then we could allocate -- >> I know it was originally
established.
I've been talking to a lot of people in communications.
What hurts me is your deficit financially.
Even if we talk ten years of let's just say 10 million
a year, that would have been $100 million
that could have gone against that 276 million in the whole.
And so as much as we prioritize and know how important you all
are to not have even those little resources to assist
is very frustrated.
I've got one last thing.
When it comes to the grass thing is
something we hear all the time.
Are we responsible for that on dot roads also?
How does that work?
>> There are three double dashes that what you were saying, Ed?
There are three locations that we have in the dot
and they pay us similar to grass.
Otherwise, no.
Generally we have gotten away from those responsibilities,
accepting any of those responsibilities for landscaping
and maintenance of any of the dot rights of way.
There is just a couple that we did
agree to do because of their location and relationship
to stuff we were already doing.
But generally the answer is no.
>> Because that's to me, I gotta tell you financial,
it seems like one of the worst financial situations to be in.
Because you cut it and it rains and it grows.
Everyone calls us and says, when are they
going to come cut on Conway Road?
When are they going to come cut on retention pond?
Every day that it rains it just-- so even when they cut,
a week later it's up again.
And then how do we work with municipalities?
Do we also maintain theirs on the county right of way?
Or do we actually give them that funding for them
to maintain it themselves?
>> So there's two types of functionally classified roadways
in the county.
There are those that are orange County maintains
the full right of way, right of way line to right of way line.
For those roadways, we cut the grass.
Byron may know this one, but line more road is a road that we
have -- we mow the grass all along both sides of Whitemoor
Road.
It's functionally classified as road
that Orange County maintains, but it's actually
two municipalities.
It's partly in Winter Park.
Those are ours to maintain.
I know there's other roads that are functionally classified that
were functionally classified later.
I was around, but this is not something
that I'm as familiar with.
We maintain the road infrastructure
and the associated drainage only,
and the municipalities are responsible for maintaining
the sidewalk or the signage or the grass.
George and our roads and drainage division
is familiar with all those tweaks and ins and outs
as to who maintains what.
We have a pretty good working relationship
with municipalities, at least clarifying
that this is ours to maintain or this is the cities or towns
to maintain.
So if you have a specific example-- >>
I could give you a whole bunch of specific examples.
I think it's a difficult task.
It's probably the only good time is winter when it freezes.
But I was going to ask, Byron, our CR
is allowed to use funding to maintain those roads when
we look at Winter Park has gathered?
Because I feel bad because it seems like we always looked at.
It's constantly our fault. That is the trend I see.
How long is the county going to do this?
I honestly don't even see as a landscaper
how that even financially makes sense because you are just
doing strips.
I'll have to have a deeper conversation.
>> There's larger zones across the county.
You get into multiple acres that you are maintaining.
That is where the profitability is is that you have the larger
areas and you can -- >> You see them on the turnpike when
they're doing big sections.
When I look at the medians and the islands and stuff like that.
And we are not really doing that as much.
When we do create them, are we doing more of a tree?
I know in OBT it's palm trees.
It's not really grass.
It just seems like a futile financial hole
that you can never ever get right.
>> There's a number of challenges with the landscaping
and mowing contracts.
That is something that Ed and his team
have been working through ever since I came back
on the cost associated with those.
It's like you said, Commissioner.
>> So yes, if that activity, Department vacation is included
in that CRA's play -- plan --
>> Winter Park has grown their CRA.
>> They'd have to be included -- you only do CRA expenditure
on what's in the plan.
But if they have some beautification effort
included then they can tie it to improve the area,
yes, it could be eligible for CRA funds.
>> I'm just trying to find solutions.
It's almost better to have the HOA going >> Commissioner, six
minutes.
>> That's not fair.
I have a solution.
Let's go to Florida native plantings and all of these areas
so we don't have to worry about expending water.
We don't have to worry about the type of mowing maintenance.
We don't have the type of pesticides and runoff.
It makes no sense to me why we use things that are not
native to Florida and then we wonder
why we are spending so much money maintaining it.
So that Florida Pernicious Peanut
is a ground cover used in areas that can use sandy soil.
There's 3 or 4 other kinds that makes no sense to me why we
continue to use the same --
it's two minutes.
Wait a minute.
Stop.
>> I agree.
>> I'll get her to talk to you.
>> Part of the problem we have with our medians and to some
extent even some of the roadsides is our giganto fat
oversize road plants all over the county.
You look at this.
The CIP budget.
Public works, I don't know how you do it.
You do more with less every single year.
They're exactly right as far as looking at this
and giving me anxiety about the amount of revenue sources.
I apologize on behalf of my board
for not being able to carry the stormwater fee
conversation any further.
I'm sorry we didn't get our impact fees caught up
like we should have.
I am sorry that we haven't been able to do better for you.
We've got to get better with the design.
What we know is if you look at the capital improvement amount
of money, the biggest chunk of it -- it suppresses transit.
It suppresses pedestrian safety.
All of that.
It is that specific mile of road lane.
It's expensive.
From what we put out there, even if the developer pays
for it in the beginning, it's ours forever after.
I think the approach to design has
to be show me exactly why right now you
need a big fat road in all this land.
Because I think the problem is we have been very land rich
but we have less and less to work with as time goes on.
I quite frankly what we have learned
is if we are not getting any more funds or grants or monies
for safety, one way we know for sure
if we're keeping pedestrians, cyclists,
and drivers safe is to make sure they are going slow.
And the only way we can really make sure they're going slow
is to not give them gigantic fat fast roads.
I see a lot of benefit in approaching design automatically
a different way than Orange County has done it
for that long term maintenance piece, for the short term,
and then understanding that we are not getting
what we need from impact fees.
I would say especially look at Schofield Road.
We don't have any money.
We don't have any development that's actually partnering
with us to do that right now.
And stop giving out building permits.
We're not going to be able to get people in and out of there.
Until we're able to get people in and out of there,
I don't understand how we could be considered
burdensome to the developer.
There needs to be like a walk out from the building department
because there's no cohesion between the resources that we
need that you have to have to provide access into and out
of a new development and what we are actually getting from that
developer in order --
Schofield Road is a perfect example.
How many years has it taken to get Flemmings Road done?
That's not your fault because we were
relying on private development interests
under the current regulatory scheme, which is insufficient.
It is insufficient.
Has put you in a horrible place and I'm sorry for that.
I'm going to keep fighting for it,
but just know any place that we can
say we've got to tighten it up, put a native grasses,
slow people down, it's going to look better,
we can make that decision purely based on the fact
that we've been completely defunded.
Even if they don't believe us on the rest of those issues.
>> We will take your considerations
into consideration.
>> Thank you.
>> That was good.
That was good.
You have one minute.
>> One question, it's because it came to my mind, Commissioner.
What about the econ 2D?
Are you going to finish that because it is still there?
>> Lake Underhill to econ 2D, that design is moving forward
and we are looking to bring that project and fund it at least
through design, which is the next stage.
>> Thank you.
>> Excellent, 3:15, thank you, Joe.
We finished up on time.
We are going to move now to--
>> (indiscernible)
>> We are going to go to Community and Family Services.
Ms Thomas is going to come and at least to lead off with that.
>> Good afternoon, commissioners.
It is a pleasure to be here before you
to present the budget for the community and Family Services
Department.
I am Van Thomas, the department director
for just over three years now.
Very excited to have made it that far.
This is our presentation outline.
Will be covering all these topics today,
starting with our organization chart .
I would like to invite my dream team managers who
comprise the Senior leadership of community and Family Services
Department to stand.
They are all present today.
We have doctor Traci Salem as well as
LaVonne Williams, Esquire, who are
the department deputy directors reporting through Traci,
Chastain with the Citizens Commission for children,
cooperative extension manager Kevin Kam,
recently promoted to an extension for the highest level
that there can be for our extension.
We're very proud of them.
The fiscal and operational support manager, Yolanda Brown.
Our Head Start manager, Sonja Hill.
Our mental health and homelessness manager,
Isabel Klier-Graham, otherwise known as Lisa.
And our Youth and Family Services manager
is Barbara Williams, PhD.
Reporting through Lavon Williams are Yvette Reyes of our Citizens
Research and Outreach Division, our community action manager,
Jonathan Kohn, our parks and recreation manager Kyle Kent,
and last but not least, our regional history
center manager, Ms. Aela Santana.
These are the folks who work with our 1100 almost community
and Family Services team members to provide
a human and social services and community
services here in Orange County.
Next, we are going to go over some highlights of the proposed
budget for the coming fiscal year.
As you can see from the pie chart,
we receive a little over half of our resources
through the General Fund, $124.8 million,
54% of our total revenues.
Second would come the Parks Fund and impact fees, $68.7 million
or 30% of our resources.
The federal and state grants that we get, some of them
are listed there, the largest being the Head start grant,
but also we receive USDA Community Services block grant,
low income heating and emergency assistance energy program,
the emergency shelter programs that we operate through Great
Oaks Village, and the family and children's
counseling programs that we operate all
receive a proportion of great from the, all of which
is supplemented by general fund revenues.
I'll talk a little bit more about that later.
We also receive some gift funds primarily
for trees in the parks and recreation Division,
as well as for great Oaks village.
We have listed some of the general fund programs.
You'll recognize many of them listed here for your reference
as well.
Looking at this another way, we can break down
what our personal services budget is as compared
to the operating budget.
And you see that dollar change is 1.9 million for our staff
and salary related costs, while the operating budget went down
by 1.1 million, which netted an $800,000 change in our budget.
Of course we received the award from the mayor and county
administrator that we were striving toward a status quo
budget.
We did our level best to try to keep it that way.
We did make some internal efficiencies changes
and noted some things we might be
able to do a little bit differently
in order to conserve funds.
We feel like we've presented to you a great budget that
allows us to continue those very important services that
are within our purview.
On the staffing front, we have increased I a mere three new --
increased by a mere three new positions.
Those are on our parks and recreation team.
We end up with 998 proposed positions
total for our department in terms of full time and some part
time roles as well.
Those three positions that are new
and proposed in the budget, as I mentioned, are featured here.
They are all three in Parks and Recreation Division.
We are looking to add two additional parks services
specialists for Tangelo Park which
will be opening our new Park gymnasium
and also Community Action Center there a little
bit later this year.
We also feel a strong need to add a warehouse supervisor.
This is our largest department warehouse
with many tools and equipment, chemicals
and the like that are necessary for the stores
to operate our very large park system.
Additionally by way of a staffing update,
we have made great progress in terms of our hiring.
We have a mere 92 vacancies when we last took stock of this
on June 24th.
That represents only a 9% vacancy
rate, which is very good by almost any measure.
We've worked very hard to attain this rate of vacancy.
And we have many positions that are
in the process of being hired even now.
So hopefully we'll be taking this even lower
within the next month or so.
We have used a lot of new tools to help improve our ability
not only to attract talent and staff
but to retain them as well.
Now we will go over to our -- a few operating budget highlights,
one of which I would like to reiterate for your recollection
is that last year I outlined for you in my proposal to make
a significant addition to our ability to provide very much
a quality customer service approach to both serving
our customers but also the collection of data,
and being able to connect their eligibility for various programs
through a much simplified process that is easier
for our customers.
We nicknamed this project the Magellan Project.
We proposed a pilot that would enable
us to test this new system out on a few of our divisions
and to be able to make connections for customers
through all the programs that they might
be eligible for through one simple application process,
making a streamlined approach for them,
for us, and being able to collect more data regarding
their outcomes and the different places
that they touch within our system.
And I'm just happy to be able to report
that we have made significant progress on moving
this project forward.
We are in the process now of selecting the builder software
builder we'll design this system for us.
We hope to have it in operation within the next 12 to 18 months
if not sooner.
We created some efficiencies by reallocating some dollars
from several different programs to be
able to use for the acquisition of this system and the work
that it will take to build it.
And we are very excited that we anticipate piloting it
with the Citizens Commission for Children Division of Health
and Homelessness, and we are finding
that our builders may be proposing ways
that we can add other divisions as well sooner than we
had otherwise anticipated.
We will be keeping you posted on our progress as we develop this.
Also in our citizen Resource and Outreach division,
we have reassigned some dollars that we
had set aside prior to COVID to develop a new housing
program in order to recruit Empire
to new veteran services officers.
This would not require additional new dollars.
However, the program that we had intended to create
got delayed because of the COVID-related work
that we needed to do to distribute housing assistance
dollars.
That team was overwhelmed by those tasks, did not get
to develop this shared housing.
And since then, we have come up with other ways
of achieving the same goal that we
had planned to through that particular program.
So these dollars we now propose to use
to bring the additional veteran services officers that there is
a clear community demand for.
It enables us to locate them in other areas
with more depth, such as Lake Baldwin and Lake Nona areas.
Also in our Citizens and Outreach division,
we have had the pleasure of being
able to add the Office of Tenant Services.
They continue to do their excellent work
and are very well connected.
It's a very good fit with the outreach and other programs
that we run within community and family Services Department.
You can see some of the statistics
here for work that they have done in the past year.
They look forward to some upcoming partnerships that we
will solidify with memorandums of understanding,
such as the Orange County Library system and also with
Community Legal Services, both of which have proven to be
amazing resources for the team in the way that they do
their outreach to citizens, as well as the way they're able
to connect citizens with the legal services that they need
in order to hopefully sustain their housing and resolve other
legal housing land -- housing related issues.
Citizens Commission for children has continued its dynamism
in terms of all the things that small but mighty team
accomplished over the course of the year.
You can see here some of their outcomes
that we are highlighting.
Almost a thousand youth completed paid internships.
There were 1.2 million meals at least served
to children and their families.
2500 were more ready for school through the supplies
and clothing.
They got immunization and their sports physicals for free.
And more than 11,000 youth were served through our after school
zone programing, job rates, all the Oak Middle --
OCPS middle schools.
Through our children's services funding,
our programing continues to grow.
We are looking at adding to that that
is provided the innovation programing that
is provided for young people.
Life skills training and of course we
must accommodate the new commission districts
that will soon be established.
We don't do this alone.
In fact we primarily do this work through the partnerships
that we have with community organizations.
Specifically there's a total of $37 million
that is invested through nonprofit partnerships
with contracts over 139 of them, and over 340 programs
that result from that 139 contracts.
You can see some of them listed here.
I'm going to flip through just to demonstrate the number
that we are looking at here.
Those that are highlighted in the orange
are new ones from this last fiscal year
that have been established.
We have small.
We have large.
We have grassroots.
We have institutions such as OCPS.
You can see foundations.
There's a wide range of programs that are available.
And some of these programs actually
help to support the operations of other divisions
within our department but also serve children and families.
We must talk a little bit about these Citizen Safety Task
force that has been in operation for some years
now under the leadership of Mayor Demings, of course.
We received $2 million annually to supplement
these programs that are geared towards violence prevention
and focus on young people.
We are proposing a couple of new things for this year.
One of them is adding to a successful new program
that we established through Citizen Safety Task Force
funding, the credible Messengers program.
We intend to add two new ones that will likely be part time.
We hope to focus on the east side, where
we know we need to add some capacity,
and of course we do have our new commission districts
the as well.
Also we will be implementing youth violence prevention mini
grants.
We do expect to serve at least 3500 youth
through these programs.
And then there is our mental health and homelessness team.
Talk about small but mighty.
They are in charge of about 59 --
39 and 1/2 million dollars.
They operate primarily out of contracts for their services
that we provide.
The service providers are nonprofits.
Many of them are listed here.
One new one that is depicted is the Hope center.
There is much that is going on right now in the mental health
and homelessness arena.
We have been innovative.
We have expanded our ability and capacity
to serve the unhoused population as well as those who
have serious mental illnesses.
And there is a briefing that will be scheduled
for the commission in October.
One of your October meetings, Ms. Lisa Graham
will be going and a fair amount of detail
in the assortment of things her her team
were responsible for coordinating and planning.
However, in the meantime, I will let
you know that in terms of mental health related accomplishments,
the Hope center, the new contract that you
saw on the prior list, a modular approach
to therapy for children, served 166 youth this year.
Devereux implemented Multisystemic treatment,
which resulted in a 66% reduction in youth Baker acts.
That's involuntary commitments for mental health treatment --
since the program began enrolling young people.
Those are quite successful early results for those two programs.
In addition, we have our behavioral health outreach
services for individuals and education
that we do and provide for law enforcement relating
to crisis intervention.
We are proud to say that there was an 8.7% reduction in Baker
Act and Marchmont Act commitments
from the previous fiscal year, and the 213 first responders
were trained in crisis intervention.
Access to care for high risk pregnant mothers, healthy start
coalition in partnership with the Nurse Family Partnership
Group was able to help at least 23 mothers who were in care.
In the homelessness arena, some accomplishments.
Our outreach services expansion which
connected individuals experiencing homelessness
with shelter, benefits, and supportive services,
was augmented by our contract with Grand Avenue Economic
Developments outreach team.
We were able to respond to 61 encampments.
Access to permanent housing through our engagement
of landlords, our affordable housing, and new housing
navigation efforts it was very successful.
An example being the new housing Connector program
that has housed 236 individuals in this last year, just amazing.
You know how difficult that is to do
to provide affordable options for people who need them.
So we are very proud of that tool
and are making great use of it in our citizens
resource and outreach.
And Anderson also our housing development team
in the PEDS Department are also now contracting
with Housing Connector for their services.
In addition, we are developing and have developed
some bridge housing options both for individuals and families who
are experiencing homelessness.
And Samaritan Resources efforts are an example of that.
They were able to transition 43 families from bridge housing
to permanent housing.
Also our access to employment and education
was improved by the addition of first step staffing to the tools
that we use for that purpose.
Total number of clients who are currently employed is 16.
They came from the 32808 zip code
and are starting out at pay rates of $17 an hour on average.
So what are we looking at that is new for mental health
and homelessness?
Here are a few examples.
We have got Golden Rod Village.
We're very excited about this brand new facility that
is planned in district three.
We are looking at a 150 bed housing navigation
center, beautifully designed and hopefully in place by 2029.
We're also pursuing the purchase of a hotel that
could be a mixed use facility for supportive and market rate
housing.
And we are going to experiment with an overnight shelter
bus for chronically unhoused persons.
I mentioned that we have a pretty decent reliance double
I believe it's 15% reliance in terms of our total resources
on grant funds.
These are the major ones that we receive.
This particular slide highlights the general fund resources
that are utilized to supplement the salary and expenses related
to those grants.
Just to reinforce for you that although we
do receive federal and state funds,
we do as a county also make investments
in these particular programs.
The largest one of which is our dynamic Head Start program.
We receive over $16 million annually for that program.
And the county more than matches, more than some
of those funds to the tune currently of 5.6 million.
CINS FINS, children services call for families in need
of services, $1.1 million.
That's a counseling program for youth and families.
Our Great Oaks Village and Emergency shelters,
for million dollar investment there well worth
that investment for children who need a safe place to live.
Juvenile assessment center for the work that they do to help
kids get and stay out of trouble,
120,000 is what the General Fund contributes to that operation.
And the Oaks program also housed at Juvenile Assessment Center
location, $150,000 is our general fund contribution.
Next we will move on to capital improvement program.
The bulk of which will be presented by our dynamic Parks
and Recreation Manager.
But we do have just a few programs outside of that
that we will cover first.
The overall capital improvement budget for our department
is 28.8 million.
Is what is proposed for the coming fiscal year.
There are very few projects that we'll focus on outside of parks
are next.
The first is building E at the John Bridges Community Center
campus.
This was I understand a collection of portables
previously.
We have gotten rid of those that are constructing
an actual building that will house some
of the operations for Community Action Division,
as well as the head Start program.
So we look forward to getting this building completed
next year hopefully by October.
That whole project cost is 2.9 million.
But for the coming fiscal year, we anticipate spending about 500
000.
Also we've talked a bit about Goldenrod Village.
You see there that we are in the design phase.
We actually have some decent designs
that give us a clear sense of what we are going for there.
That cost us 200,000.
Total project cost anticipated is 26 million.
We have applied for 5 million through Congressman Frost's
office in federal funds.
And we expect to complete that project in 2030 according
to this slide --
the 29 to 30 time period.
Lastly is Great Oaks Village.
Thanks to the generosity and discretion
of the Children's Services Board of which Commissioner Wilson is
part -- thank you very much -- we are looking at a total
redesign of the dining hall and other portions of the facility
that serves meals and the ability for some camaraderie
there at Great Oaks Village.
We are in the design phase, which is 5000 anticipated.
And the total project cost for that project which will come out
of GOV donation funds is 150,000.
We hope to complete that project later this year.
And so now we shall move on to the parks presentation portion
of our budget presentation.
I will then come back and talk with you
about the impacts potentially of any reductions that
were required to make our Community and Family services.
Thank you.
>> Thank you comment director Thomas.
Good afternoon Mayor Demings, commissioners, controller,
administrator Brooks.
The presentation that I will proceed through,
I will cover first a brief --
The parks system has nearly 15000 acres maintained
for the public to access, 13,000 acres for passive recreation
sparks, picnicking, and ritual activities.
Some of these highlights include 130 acres of athletic fields --
that's 88 plus athletic fields, 11 public boat ramps,
six splash pads.
We will soon have two pools, one at Fort Gatlin and one
at tangelo, 13 dog parks, and equestrian venue, Stadium,
five family campgrounds, which see nearly 35,000 camping nights
reserved each year.
We also maintain 57 miles of main trails.
These are paved pedestrian trails.
These trails make connections throughout Orange County
and into three surrounding counties, offering
a very popular multi-modal recreation transportation
system.
As you are aware we also have 12 recreation centers
in our system.
Six of those are gymnasiums with collegiate courts,
NBA sized courts.
Six of these gymnasiums are prepared each year
to serve in case there is an emergency need for shelters.
We also serve the community to access relief
from heat or extreme cold.
With over 50 unique interior spaces,
our partnerships and recreation centers
make it possible for over 120 local nonprofit clubs
and organizations to host gatherings and serve
the community.
All these wonderful spaces are the perfect setting
for creating lasting memories and building community
through activities and gatherings.
I will review some of those.
A favorite program of kids and parents
alike for the fun and affordability are summer camps.
We are currently operating 12 summer camps at present.
We have after school programs that will pick up
at 13 locations here shortly.
A sense of achievement is a goal with all of our recreation
programs and those offered by our sports partners.
The division prepares nearly 90 athletic fields
on a daily basis.
These fields host over 7000 of our local kids
who play soccer, baseball, football, lacrosse,
and softball in leagues offered with our youth sports partners.
The county officially partners with 13 youth partners
to provide recreational and instructional support
to school aged youth.
There is 225 private sport clubs and travel
teams that routinely rent our facilities to train and play.
Kids grow up and they keep on playing.
Adult athletics in Orange County is robust.
We host a variety of adult sport activities.
Among these favorites are softball, inline hockey, tennis,
pickleball, disc golf, and basketball
throughout the county.
Nothing slows down.
Our maturing active adults in Orange County
paramedic the Renaissance Senior Center and Marsh Street Senior
Recreation Complex continue to be favorite destinations
for recreation and fitness with Oliver 1900
Senior Adult fitness memberships between these two centers
and 1900 hours of senior volunteers.
It is evident that our mature adults
are living life to the full.
Many senior adults also invest their time
back into the community through our Adopt a Park programs
and two nonprofit friends of corporations that
assist their favorite park.
Special events in the parks are one of our favorite ways
to give back to the community.
Music festivals like the Mayor's Jazz
Festival at Cypress Grove Park, the Bluegrass Festival
its Christmas Park line up right alongside our family fun events.
Some of those are award winning movies in the parks,
Pine Castle pioneer Days, and our crazy cardboard Canoe
Regatta at Kelly Park.
Lastly holiday events are a favorite for everyone.
We don't want you to miss our 48th Annual Cracker Christmas
at Fort Christmas Historical Park this December.
Our sixth gymnasium recreation centers
and two senior recreation centers
all feature a personal fitness facility
with treadmills, free weights, and resistance machines.
There are actually nine across the county where
you can achieve fitness or with the same membership pass.
It's easy to stay fit.
You don't have an excuse if you live in a far reaching area
of the county.
Colored.
School aged children is eligible for a free youth membership
so they can gather right after school and on weekends
with time set aside specifically for their age group.
There are nearly 6900 youth enjoying
this special membership.
Now I'd like to celebrate with you
some of your recently completed parks capital projects.
Barbara Park now features a new state park designed
by and for skaters of all ages.
The Mayor and Commissioner Uribe opened this too much fairy
affair in == to much fanfare in February.
A new parking lot and a traffic roundabout.
Little econ Greenway trail gap has been completed.
This short section of the little Econ Greenway
is a step towards completing the connection between Forsyth Road
and a future crossing of State Road 436 to the Katy Way Trail.
Horizon West Regional Park was popular
before we could even get the gates open and more so
since the ribbon cutting officially
conducted by the Mayor and Commissioner Wilson in February.
This playground is out of this world.
It is the highest elements we have.
And there is more to come.
We'll talk about that in a moment.
Lake Apopka loop Connector trail one
of the most beautiful sections of our mainline trails.
This was opened in February of this year
thanks in large part to the wonderful collaboration
from Orange County Utilities and Public Works.
With the completion of this loop connector trail
it is now possible to circumnavigate
the entirety of Lake Apopka on a network of trails that
goes from Orange County into Lake County and returns
to our trailheads.
Now let's highlight several of your current and ongoing CIP
projects.
Watermark Park Project is a new project
for Horizon West Community.
Features a playground, shade trees, open play areas,
and a picnic pavilion all with direct access
for the kids at Panther Lake Elementary School.
We are finalizing progress on that
and it should be open before the year's end.
Our ongoing efforts to increase safety for players on our fields
and improve our power consumption efficiencies
was played out this year at Downey Park.
Youth and adults on five diamond fields
will be playing on a new LED support lighting.
Barbara Park is on track for a new recreation
center and gymnasium.
The seventh such center serving the county.
Design of this new facility continues
and we are anticipating an opening date sometime in 2028.
Silverleaf neighborhood Park, master planning
was recently completed.
Now the project will be moving towards design.
This is a community driven plan.
With top amenities designed to mimic those of Watermark Park.
Downey Park new skate facility is
close to being awarded for construction.
We anticipate an opening in the fall of 27.
This will feature some of the favorite streetscape elements
that our community frequently request.
Mary Demings and Commissioner Wilson
broke ground on the next phase of construction
for Horizon West Regional Park.
On June 18th phase one B was launched and includes a splash
pad, additional parking capacity,
and a watercraft launch and Julie Hartley.
We're looking forward to a ribbon
cutting in late summer of 27.
The Magnolia Park Solar Panel project
for the Magnolia Eco Tourism Center
is being bid for construction.
And Horizon West Trail phase one A is being bid.
This will connect eventually horizon West Trail systems
to the West orange Trail.
Timber Bridge Preserve is currently
in the permitting phase.
We are working through the recent comments
in 20 resolution early in 2027.
Lake Eleanor Community Park is in final design
and anticipated for construction in 2029.
Work is ongoing to restore much of the previously built out area
on the east side of Blanchard Park com
where we'll be adding the new passive recreation
areas for families to gather.
A hundred years of parks and recreation
means there's facilities that are just outdated.
Replacing some of these outdated and inoperable and under
restrooms are an existing priority for us.
New universally accessible designs
are underway for both campgrounds at Trimble Park
and Camp Joy and for the day use restroom at Moss Park.
The Parks and Recreation Master Plan update
applies to the entire park system countywide.
We anticipate an award for that contract before the year's end.
Then we will begin community and stakeholder outreach
to gauge overall needs.
Orange county's portion of the Shingle Creek Trail
is in district six and district one, starting at Sand Lake
and running to the orange, Osceola County line.
Phase one segments two and three have been awarded
and construction will begin this year.
This section is largely comprised of elevated boardwalk
along beautiful sections of Shingle Creek
and as always with our trail projects
this work is coordinated through Orange County Public Works.
We appreciate that very much.
Waterloo Park North is in the bidding phase,
still on track with that top ranked amenities
for the community our playground,
basketball court, walking paths, and a multi-purpose open space
area.
Waterloo Park South also the neighborhood park,
similar amenities including top amenities
such as the playground, picnic pavilions, multipurpose court,
and walking loop.
For fiscal year 26, 27, our proposed capital projects
are conservative and focus on our goal
now of maintaining safe, clean, and fun parks
where our community can create lasting memories.
As our parks system is turning the corner from its 100 year
birthday, it's an ongoing effort of ours
to maintain safe play structures, buildings, fields,
and parks.
Our budget reflects these recurring capital needs.
Some of those reflected here are trails and asphalt repairs
throughout the county.
Our work with the National Pollutant discharge areas
that are scattered throughout our parks,
but ongoing work and repairs and rebuilds
of boardwalks and bridges, and our public boat ramps.
Constant use of pools, splash pads,
and in and out of the public areas and surfaces
is a constant demand, which we need to address,
as is gymnasiums, athletic surfacing, roofs, lightning
protection, and then with the constant demand on playing
fields and playgrounds, there is work
to be done each year on those as well.
These might not be glamorous projects,
but they are necessary to meet the level of service
that our community has come to appreciate
and for Orange County.
Our plant safety and efficiency work
continues with a lighting upgrade
proposal for another of our popular youth baseball
complexes.
This year at George Bailey Park.
Lastly as mentioned earlier in the presentation,
construction on phase one B of Horizon West Regional Park
began in June.
Where requesting additional funding
to construct a combined services building near the Pavilion
and event area on the east side of Park.
This partnered approach to serving the community
will feature a mini station for sector two of the Orange County
Sheriff's Office, alongside a public restroom and parks
Maintenance office.
Thank you for your time and I will
let this time turn it back over to Director Thomas.
>> It's always amazing to consider all the our parks
and Recreation Division does and the broad scope
of the facilities and trails and fields that they manage,
very spectacular asset for our county and a long held
for the -- long held investment.
We return to our assignment of also
imagining a world where we unfortunately
have to implement reductions.
In our considering this, we feel that it
is going to hit us perhaps most heavily in some
of the costs associated with our programing.
As I have mentioned, more than half of our budget
pertains to general revenue funds.
We are looking at not being able to hire additional staff,
and probably hiring freezes if we
are required to make a significant reduction.
This would have an impact throughout our department.
I have already described how hard
we have worked to hire, retain, and train our staff.
When it comes to programing, we can pretty much
go down the list of nearly all the programs that
were on that first pie chart where
we listed the general revenue funded programs,
and even some of our grant programs
could potentially be affected.
The eviction prevention programs in the community,
which we lovingly refer to as epic, is an example.
This is a crisis funding for households
that are having trouble sustaining their rent.
Our veterans services, our family
and children's counseling programs
would likely be impacted.
Some more of those are listed here.
Great Oaks Village, Children's services programs
that are funded through the Citizens
Commission for children, funding levels of over 30
million their in total. $2 million citizens Safety Task
Force paramedic these are programs
that I don't necessarily anticipate we will be proposing
to eliminate, but we would have to consider a level of funding
that could go to the programs.
We have family preservation and stabilization as well as
our pregnant and parenting teen program,
the parenting supports another example
of a potential reduction.
We have made strides in our planning and efforts related
to human trafficking that would have
to be rethought to some extent.
And the work that our citizens review panel funds,
including child care slots and food insecurity initiatives,
would have to be rethought.
Our neighborhood centers for children
are very well utilized programs and spread
throughout the county.
We would perhaps have some difficulty
in the levels of investment that we
could make in their programs, not to mention the after school
zone that currently operates out of all of the middle schools.
We would have to look hard at that.
Those programs contribute to preventing juvenile delinquency
because if they give children something
to do during that downtime between school
and when working parents return home.
And the cooperative extension, regrettably there
are counties in the state that are rethinking
their partnerships with IFIS because of concerns
about funding.
I would hope that that would not be the case for us,
but it is a program that does receive some support
from our general revenues.
We just need to think about the relative priorities of all
of these things that we do.
Climate efficiency program, we are
very proud that we helped seniors
stay comfortable in their homes by helping
them replace their Hvac systems and make other life saving
home improvements.
Our community centers are these jewels
that are well utilized within many of our communities.
Well used by the county and well used
by citizens for their own activities and events.
We would really have to look at the hours perhaps,
maybe the level of security that we
are able to supply, again, rethinking our operations there.
And we make a large investment in mental health
and homelessness, some of which I described to you earlier.
Again, we would need to perhaps do less
than we plan to do going forward if we have
less funding available to us and perhaps
one or more new initiatives will have to be delayed.
The Head Start program, which we know and love
and I should say award winning, we
were notified of five more awards
just this week for that program.
They're making a presentation to you
also in October, their annual report.
You will certainly hear about it then if not beforehand.
In any event, this is largely federal funded, what I showed --
but I showed you that $5 million of federal revenue helped
supplement the operations of that amazing program.
And then of course, our manager Kyle Kent
has just outlined for you the vast amount of work
that goes into operation of our parks and Recreation division.
That's a very dynamic and will utilize
team that has a very diverse set of responsibilities
for the vast property management facility management
and programing that is managed their paramedic there would be
a collection of things we would have
to consider related to the parks and Recreation operation.
From deferring some things that we currently have planned to
reductions in hiring and the like
would need to be considered.
And on top of all that, like other parts
of the county's operation, we have some unfunded mandates
that are things that we would have
to pay for regardless of any other kinds of reductions
that we would have to consider.
One are the health mandated costs
for the medical examinations we are
responsible for paying for for abused, abandoned, and neglected
children.
We bear the total cost for those at the state's behest.
Similarly the juvenile detention center, we invest $4.2 million.
We in other counties are required
to share the cost of juvenile secure detention
with the state of Florida.
That comes out of our budget.
In summary, I would say that even though this has been and is
a status quo year, we in community and family services
are very excited about all that we have initiated.
And we look forward to continuing
the implementation of our brand new Magellan concept.
We will continue to work on our strategic plan.
We have made great progress there.
We've already achieved seven of the 60 goals
that we've established for ourselves,
or I should say 60 strategies that we're pursuing.
And we have got almost 40 more that
are in very active development.
We are excited about what our teams are doing their.
And we are making strides in our ability to measure and monitor
our service delivery and the outcomes related to them.
We have a very committed and dedicated staff.
And I hope that you can recognize
the diversity of the visions, operations, and programs,
that we are responsible for that we do embody our slogan of where
joy lives, hope grows, and health happens for the Orange
County community.
With that, Kyle and I invite any questions that you may have.
Hopefully we can address those at this time.
Thank you.
>> All right.
It's working.
Commissioner Scott, you're up first.
>> Never a first.
I won the lottery today.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Thank you, everyone.
I have no questions.
I just want to say thank you.
I probably thought about half of you about once a week
depending on what the request is.
And so I just wanted to publicly say thank you
for what you've done.
Veteran services, head start.
Event and her team, thank you.
You guys have been phenomenal.
You've had some complex math problems across the district.
You guys always find a way to make sure
that the folks are informed and taken care of.
I sincerely appreciate you guys.
>> We are very happy and proud to be so relevant
to the priorities that you and the other commissioners have
when it comes to serving members of the community.
>> Commissioner Semrad.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
I want to ask a comment when you talk about the reduction --
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to not say thank you
because you guys do so much with not always a lot of resources.
The parks program, I am so impressed with how much you
contribute to the quality of life of our community
and of people.
At the Senior Center I go to, I am so impressed by seeing people
doing Tai Chi and swimming lessons and prevention --
there's so much.
Thank you to all of your team.
I have a question, Kyle, for you in a minute
for something I saw on the news pertaining to savor.
Can you tell us what are the veteran services
that you provide?
What are services when you say we
could see a reduction in them?
What types of services are those that we are helping veterans
with?
>> One of the ones that is most popular is helping veterans
learn what it is they qualify for and literally hand-holding
them through the system of acquiring those services.
Not only veterans themselves but their family members
and dependents paramedic it is a system
that can be very difficult to understand and navigate.
And sometimes your first try is not very successful.
You have to keep coming back to it
and be very persistent in following up.
That's probably the single largest.
But there are other kinds of ways that we help
build connection for veterans.
In terms of counseling type services that they may need,
mental health services, connection with other veterans.
We have events of different sorts.
We are well resourced and have connections with other veteran
focused resources.
There is a pretty wide range actually.
We have an excellent reputation as well,
which serves as a real benefit to Orange County residents.
But we do have residents from other counties
that seek out our services because of how thorough
and relatable the work that our staff does.
People know that we care and we know what we were doing.
And we are successful at helping them navigate to a greater
extent than some other existing veteran services programs
that are out there.
>> I'd like to say in district five office hours,
sometimes when we hear from veterans who are struggling
to find housing or are unhoused, a lot of times
it's because it's because they couldn't figure out how
to access services and how to access the programs that they
need.
And I think it's important to reference
that when we talk about the tax reform
and if it passes that we begin to look at not being
able to care for people who went and fought for our country when
they come back damaged from the service.
So I think that is important to share.
I saw in the news that Sanford was
going to have to consider selling some of their parks
or charging admission in order to keep the parks open
if the property tax reform passes.
That is something that might have to happen in Orange County.
>> Selling parks?
>> Selling or charging admission to keep all the parks open
and sustain the way that they need to be common
if the property tax reform passes I'm saying.
>> Sure.
I think our first focus would be to facilitate the community's
access to the parks.
And then facilitate communities access to programs.
Certainly depending on how drastic things turn,
there might be an enterprise style approach
to some of the services aspects of it.
But the county right now only charges entry at two facilities.
That's Kelly Park and Moss Park.
Not anticipating changing those or charging
entry for other facilities.
Along with our master plan we have a fee study underway.
The last time we conducted a fee study for how much it costs
to provide services and provide a field turnover or a room
rental was in 2006.
With that coming back to us, that
might give us some direction to bring back and ask
for direction from the board.
Right now we are not anticipating changing fees
or access.
We're certainly not selling any properties.
>> But that is a consideration, to your point, Commissioner.
It very much is a possibility.
As we look at those fees and those costs.
Not selling, the second part of your request.
>> To the programs and services.
>> And more will be revealed once we have a fee study that
says what it costs to provide that.
>> Thank you.
One last question from us.
When you talk about the programs for youth that you provide
and that is to help reduce child delinquency behaviors,
how does that impact -- if those programs go away,
is there anything that you know in your industry that leads
to an increase in crime in our communities?
>> This is anecdotal for me at the moment,
although I bet we could stir up some studies that would make
a more credentialed view.
But I believe that we would see an increase if we were not
able to offer after school and other programs
such as what parks is able to make available.
What do kids have to do otherwise?
They are more likely to divert themselves
to activities that would not be as healthy for them,
some of which might be crime.
>> Thank you.
Of course everybody understands that an increase in crime
impacts the tourism economy significantly
where you begin to then see people opting out
of coming to Orlando for fear of public safety while they visit.
Thank you.
>> I see Alameda from the Veteran Services Office.
Come to the mic for just a moment.
>> Talk about some of our superstars.
We are loaded with them.
>> She's a veteran herself.
How many veterans are we currently serving
through our Veterans Service office?
>> We serve approximately about 24,000 out of about 71,000.
>> (indiscernible)
>> Yes, sir.
>> Does he have all his benefits?
>> Not yet.
I'm working on them.
>> Some you've got to work hard on.
I understand.
How are things going there with the office?
>> Right now we are doing good.
I would say that staffing is a little challenging because we
lost a few due to retirement.
So we are trying to make up and really
provide enough DSOs to manage.
We have three locations, the main office
and Lake Nona and Baldwin.
Having the staffing to do that would allow us to help more
beverages and get out into the --
help more veterans and get out into the community.
We're always hearing I didn't know you existed.
We are trying to --
>> I hear that sometimes and we encounter people who are
on the street.
Sometimes they are homeless and they say their veteran.
Sometimes they don't know whether --
>> And sometimes they are not.
I'll be honest with you.
With that we do have veterans that are on the street,
but that is by choice because a lot of those veterans
are receiving benefits and we help them all the time.
When they don't get their check, you will see them in the office.
But as long as things are going and they field reps
are able to reach them wherever they are living
in the community, it is just by choice
and it's not that they don't have funding or money.
They have the money.
It is just choice.
>> Sometimes I don't know if they have other issues but they
are dealing with.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> I just wanted to ask if there are services that you all
provide that I didn't think of in response to commissioners
question?
>> Those services, we do have veterans that are in need
of dental services.
Let's say a veteran that is 100% service connected
gets dental service from the VA.
Those who are not from the state as
given multiple programs a lot of money.
And we can submit referrals to those programs
for those veterans to get them into service.
Because nothing beats a great smile.
It makes you feel like a person when your teeth are great.
Other programs that SSPF, you work closely with them.
We have veterans who may have substance and mental health
issues they may need request for assistance through
our domiciliary programs at both Lake Nona and Lake Baldwin ,
as well as Careersource and other agencies that we provide
referrals to for employment.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
Commissioner Gomez Cordero.
>> Thank you, mayor.
Good afternoon, team.
I have to say that I have been part of this team more
than ten years.
Before it became a commissioner I was already
part of community action.
And also the panel advisory, Angela down there,
and I love it.
Thank you for everything you all do because I think you all
are one of the main services that we
need for what is going on in.
Let's put it that way.
Can you give me like very short, what does the pilot
Magellan going to be about?
>> One of the newer movements in our human services world
and really beyond that is the use of technology to help avoid
access to services from residents.
Also we could use that to make connections
between different kinds of services
easier so that perhaps one application process,
you can determine a person's eligibility
for any of the programs that we provide.
And that is our goal is to get to where that will be the case.
We also will be able to collect data
that helps to tell us how we are doing in that regard
and how resources are being utilized.
We expect that this is going to break down
the silos that currently exist not only
in how our customers access our services,
but also between ourselves internally
and it will make it easier and more streamlined
for us to serve a person without having to shuttle them so often
among our different programs.
We think it's going to be a game changer for us.
>> Thank you.
I have a question for Kyle.
I see that in your presentation and slide 65,
you said about the restroom replacement.
And I remember in 2020, 21, there
was a replacement already remodeling.
Was that the >> Moss Park is a large park.
We have a group campground.
We have regular campground.
And then we have a day use area. use The area.
restaurant we Yes are speaking Ma'am.
of here is the day use area.
>> That's what I wanted to know.
And then I wanted to ask you also, like for example,
the service at risk, I know you also,
for the park and recreation requested to supervisors.
And a warehouse specialist.
On the parks supervisor.
Do you think maybe because of all of this
you're going to put one supervisor to supervise
more than one park instead of one for each?
Or you don't get into that?
>> For the 114 parks that already exist,
we have roughly 32 man sites and then those serve to operate
the others as satellite parks.
We have a support section that oversees a lot of our pocket
parks but there's 32 man sites.
They spread themselves out and they service
multiple other parks as well.
They have a hub they work from.
That already exists.
>> Okay, thank you.
Thank you for all you do.
Thank you >> We'll go to commissioner Wilson and then
commissioner summary.
And the Sheriff is on deck outside.
We are running probably about ten minutes behind.
So we're going to try to catch up if we can.
>> Thank you mayor.
I have the same question.
I am concerned about the spread thin.
First of all, I should just say, this group,
it is an incredible --
I mean the heart, the, it is an incredible group.
I just want to let you know the leadership,
from the top down, and then your teams.
Thank you so much for everything you do.
It is the heartbeat I would say, for the county.
Thank you.
Got the Magellan question out of the way.
But I think we could maybe get some information now,
whenever it's possible.
I understand there's been ongoing development of what's
going to come next.
So we can let people know about the four phasing piece of that.
We don't often think of our residents as customers.
But that customer service aspect is critical especially
when we think of case management or family services.
All the things.
Keep us in the loop and we can help advocate
and continue to pursue what you're looking for.
Which is a streamlined experience.
My question comes the next one is a Parks and Rec question
but it may also require some administrative advice here.
I've been asking this all day.
In our parks, we were just talking about Moss Park
and the camping.
I know they have a visitor log.
They are international visitors that come in
and they said every state in the country and most of the nations
that travel here have signed in to visit
some of these locations.
Which by definition then under Florida
Legislative qualifications makes our parks
eligible for tax funding, should they
be able to evidence the visitation.
I understand we have dedicated funding right now.
I would like to know about the possibility
or thought in dedicated funding, especially
in these areas we know there's been preservation.
Very unique.
I think Moss Park is one of those.
Magnolia Park, definitely.
Christmas.
There's many of these that we know
should be evaluated for a revenue source.
We are struggling right now thinking about what could be
and the idea of losing services.
I realize those services may not be able to fall
but if we can pull some of those funds
from what I would say are the things that do fall into the TDC
definition legislatively, people are literally
coming and including them in their vacations.
If we can do that so that we know
that we use the services piece.
Any thoughts?
>> It's a wonderful idea.
>> We probably need to do a better job of documenting that.
Do you all have good records?
>> I will say I've talked to them at Butler.
It was a couple of years ago.
We just kind of do it casually.
Can you just make sure it's someplace that it's
pretty centrally located.
They do guided hikes.
People come in with groups.
>> You know the other thing, I have been tracking that.
They don't go through because you don't have to sign in
or whatever.
And
>> We are looking at technology that will do things that we
didn't think were possible before.
Without a sign in log.
And still be able to capture that kind of data
to support that.
We think we have a way to do that.
>> You're pursuing it on behalf of your incredible work
and the effort to try to make sure that we're holding
on to the quality that we know are the important pieces.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Commissioner Uribe and then Commissioner Simrad.
>> I wanted to ask, I'm looking at all of these groups
and things that we fund, 237.1 million.
I'm a little disheartened because there
are plenty of times when our office needs resources
and I didn't know we were funding
all of these organizations and to what extent
and what they can offer our residents.
Is that all we give or do we give more than --
I've seen numbers higher.
>> I would say that when you look at the county overall,
there is certainly the prospect that there is more.
I know for instance in yesterday's agenda,
the planning and Development Department
presented some grants for some nonprofits.
As one example.
And other parts of our department give grants as well.
That particular section pertains to what the children's
services funding or the C.c.c.
Division oversees.
And Commissioner, with your help and inspiration in fact,
we were able to design a system specifically
for use of a commissioners that your aides
could use to look up resources that we fund.
>> I appreciate that.
What I'm trying to do is come up maybe
with somebody from your team, I'm
looking at these organizations that I know we're
getting requests for help.
And there have been some that have been a little critical, who
have not helped us.
We've brought it up to them, that organization itself.
I just feel like when we're using tax dollars to fund
programs to help residents, we've
got to make sure it's a bit more seamless.
I appreciate that.
I'm going to brag on Kyle for a moment.
I've got to tell you Kyle, when Matt
left I had a little bit of anxiety
because he's really created a little clutch with us.
We were so dependent on him and how he did things
and how he took care of things.
I want to commend you for your hard work and dedication.
To go beyond the scope when it comes to that.
I also wanted to address Commissioner Wilson.
On the parks and TT.
We actually got Congressman Soto and Senator Smith.
Writing letters of support for Lake Conway.
For TT funding.
To requested.
It is happening.
It's happened to other places.
And you're absolutely right, when
we do pioneer day is, we meet so many people that
come from out of town who love to go to festivals and things
like that.
I'm excited to see us quantify that because I believe
we are a town with so much culture
that people want to do more than just the norm.
They want to visit the local spots and things like that.
But I've got to tell you, as a parent who
put her child in your summer camp for the first time ever,
and I did have anxiety.
I'm a helicopter mom.
I'm going to admit it.
I love to watch what's going on.
My child is absolutely so happy and gets
excited to go to camp every day.
And your staff at Meadow Woods, and I'm sure
all the Orange County, are phenomenal, great supporters.
That is a big plus.
And Josh, over at barber, and his team in Cypress Grove,
top notch.
We honestly have some of the best dedicated, and Renaissance
center.
The employees, you could ever ask for a.
I've never had anybody -- they are there to serve.
How can we help, what can we do.
They come in, they get involved.
That just shows your leadership with your team
and of course Mandy, is Mandy around here?
She's a selfie queen.
It's just so impressive.
And I just don't think you guys get
to hear that enough and just know that we really appreciate
you all because you give us a place
to celebrate our communities and I know I have an event coming
this weekend.
Back to school and food drives and Halloween and Christmas
and everything we do.
It's just been a pleasure to work with the best
team in the state.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you mayor.
I'm very quick.
Kyle, I forgot to reference the TT for the Christmas..
The Fort.
And the Christmas Historical Society
is more than willing to try to do the process.
They just need a little bit of assistance.
They're ready and willing.
It has a great tourism draw there.
>> We recently took a trip together.
>> That's amazing to hear.
Thank you for doing that.
I also wanted to say that, pertaining to just the team you
work with, every single time that district five does a food
distribution at a park, they open the park
and they're there to greet us but they also
roll up their sleeves and they help distribute the food.
And then there's a citizen group that created the district five
park protectors and they've removed several tons of debris
from parks in district five.
And 100% of the time your employees
have rolled up their sleeves to help.
Not just help do the process but to actually participate
and in every single one that they weren't working,
we still always have two people that
come from Parks and Rec that are just purely volunteering
their Saturday morning to do that.
I just think it's great.
Thank you.
>> They had a all staff meeting this morning and I know some
of our staff will be here, are watching,
because I invited them to do so.
So hopefully they can hear all of the accolades that you all
are -- we appreciate them very much.
>> All right, thank you all very much.
We are going to move forward.
I know the Sheriff and his team are out there.
>> They're next door.
>> A presentation of today.
You all can stay if you want. (laughs)
they're rushing out of here.
Sheriff, come on up.
Come on down.
You're up, sir.
Sheriff, we're running a little behind.
I know we talked about the children,
it runs a little long it seems.
I said whenever we talk about the children it always
runs a little long.
>> I reviewed last year's presentation.
I was standing at this podium for two hours.
Even though my presentation was only 20 minutes.
>> Let's hope you won't be here for two hours.
Welcome, Sheriff.
>> Good afternoon Commissioner, mayor, happy to be here again.
I'll dispense with the pleasantries
because I know I've been watching you guys,
you've been sitting here all day.
Thank you for what you do.
Thank you for your strong support of the public safety.
We really appreciate you.
So, I'll get started.
This is the overview.
We're going to do some highlights.
I always like to brief you guys and show you
a little highlight video of the great work we're doing out
there.
Talk about our citizen feedback survey that we recently did.
Of course crime statistics.
The budget.
And our priorities.
>> 911 what's the location of your emergency?
[video playing] Things like nine years old .
[video playing] Bam so, could it be more prouder.
I know you are as well.
Before we put together our budget,
we go to hundreds of meetings every single year
and one of the things that people
tell us is, you guys do a great job, we love you.
But we need more of you.
We don't see enough of you.
So we decided to ask the residents.
We did a survey.
75% were 35 and older.
This was Geocoded for unincorporated Orange County
only.
Each survey user, we are only allowed to do it once.
I tried myself to do it a couple of times and I could not.
It locked me out.
This is what the people said.
At 98.1%, the residents say the Sheriff's office
plays an important role keeping families safe.
No surprise there.
96.9% residents say deputy visibility and active presence
are important.
Again, this is the theme we hear over and over again
around our communities.
And 91.5% of residents support growing the Sheriff's office
to keep pace with Orange County.
Nine out of ten people.
That's pretty telling.
When we put together our budget we based a lot of this on,
do our residents want from the Sheriff's office.
They want to see us.
They want us out there.
Just want to go over our staffing levels.
We are at 1939 sworn positions.
We're requesting 27 sworn.
We aren't requesting any civilian personnel
in this budget.
For a total positions of 2753.
And I no vacancy rates always come up.
Right now, out of the 1939 authorized positions ,
we had 70 vacancies.
That is 3.67%.
And with the conditional hires, we are --
all those people I offered a job to over the last several months,
make it through that process, we will be (indiscernible).
Here is our recruitment retention
over the last four years.
We've hired 826.
This is just sworn deputy sheriffs.
And retired, 596.
And we added 148 new positions over that time.
Over these past four years we are easily
keeping up with retirements.
We are keeping up with attrition.
And new positions.
You see the trend.
We really started beefing up our recruiting efforts to catch up.
Remember, several years ago I came to you,
we were at like 200 vacancies.
So we had closed that gap, as you can see.
There are plenty of people who want
to become a part of the Orange County Sheriff's Office
and we don't see that stopping anytime soon.
And the retirements have flattened out.
That 2022 number, that was right after COVID.
Right after George Floyd incident.
A lot of things were going on in our nation and a lot of deputies
were up for retirement.
As you see in 23 and 24, the state of Florida
allowed sworn deputy sheriffs to extend their drop three years.
To eight years.
So that really slowed down retirements.
And with the solid efforts of our recruiting units
we were able to catch up.
I know you're all interested in this.
I came to you in 2023.
We had 91 vacancies and 200 and something positions.
And we only have two current vacancies
and that's basically with conditional offers
that we have out there.
I know the county, you haven't received
any of those nasty grams about 911 calls not being answered.
That's because they're full.
Now, busy, they're very busy.
You'll see here in a minute, the calls for service
continue to arise.
So we are very proud of that number as well.
Want to go over our crime stats.
This is the first 25.
Couldn't be happier.
Crime is going down 15% over that year.
In all categories really.
And year to date this year, down again.
Slightly up in homicides.
We have a very small number of homicides.
Last year at this time we had 14.
This year at this time we are at 15.
But my estimation is that's one too many, in my philosophy.
We don't want any violent crime.
And I may have said this last year but,
what does drive down crime?
The great work of the men and women at the County Sheriff's
office, all the work we do in our community.
Engaging with our nonprofits.
Talking to all of our kids.
All of that adds up.
And finally technology.
All in my opinion causes these great crime reductions.
And our homicide unit, couldn't be more proud of them.
The national clearance rate for murder is 61% and we were at 85%
last year.
I'm going to give you a snapshot of how many people
we actually arrested in a year.
It's a lot.
1.6 million people live here.
76 million residents.
The vast majority are good, law abiding citizens.
Residents and visitors that love,
trust, and respect law enforcement
and abide by the law.
We have people out here who want to commit crimes
in our neighborhood and want to do harm
to the people in our community.
Here's another snapshot.
Again in 2021.
It kind of dipped.
Comparing it to other years because of COVID.
Everyone was inside.
Universal and Disney was shut down.
Crime began to spike and by adding positions
every single year, by all of the efforts of the men
and women in the Sheriff's office,
utilizing technology and engaging with community.
Arresting bad guys.
We continue to drive the crime down.
This is interesting and you probably have already
seen similar trends.
Overdose deaths, we, we down period continue to go down.
That's a combination of things.
That's a combination of the prevention programs
that we're all a part of.
Start with the DEA.
The -- I think when people heard that,
they were like wait a minute, I can use it one time and die?
I think that resonated with people.
As well as the local prevention programs here and the fact
that all of our deputies, firefighters, they carry Narcan.
You can buy it at Walgreens.
Honestly, the users know that.
They have it readily available.
All that continues to drive fentanyl overdoses down.
Now is that stopping the drugs coming into our community
from other areas?
No, absolutely not we are still seeing massive cocaine seizures
all throughout the United States.
So this is what I talked about.
As our population continues to increase,
as our visitors continue to increase,
so will our calls for service and that will --
I have no doubt.
With the development and growth, that number
will continue to rise.
We want to keep up with that growth.
Because of the calls for service.
We are very busy.
Our deputies are answering 41 calls per hour.
Extremely busy.
And they're doing a great job.
But it just goes to show you that we're not
just parked in our cars.
We are actually doing stuff.
So the program we started several years ago,
as some of you know, we were one of the only Sheriff's offices
in the state who were not responding to traffic crashes.
We used to get this complaint over and over again.
Our residents waiting hours and hours for FHP
to come and right the crash report.
We started doing it ourselves and you see the number of crash
reports we have done.
Since we've started.
Over 200.
That helps.
That's a service to our residents that they deserve.
They shouldn't have to wait for a state agency
to come to Orange County and do a crash report.
Here's that tourist impact I told you about.
76 million visitors.
That equates to a 200 -- and you all know this.
210,000 average daily population increase.
If you count our residents only, we are two deputies per 1000.
That is the standard throughout the country.
But if you add in our visitors, it's 1.67 deputies per 1000.
The city of Orlando has about three officers
per 1000 residents.
So, this is the budget that I submitted to you guys on May
1st.
It reflects our operational needs based on service demands.
And the growth and the calls for service.
We know that there is an amendment freeze out there.
So to be available to us is 470 million.
And 439 million for law enforcement.
30 million for court.
And that's a 11% increase.
Really that only covers salary increases.
Mandatory increases for FRS.
Anticipated health insurance cost.
And this is the second year in a row we are not receiving
any capital funding as well.
That available budget, that was basically given to us.
It represents 3.51% increase.
As for fleet operations and support, software system
renewals, and insurance and risk management.
But again, based on what we believe,
we believe we need more than that.
And that's why that budget was originally submitted.
Based on operational needs.
Based on growth.
Based on calls for service.
In this budget we are only requesting
the two behavioral response unit deputies per program.
It's been very successful.
Deputies responding to people who are in crisis.
We want to expand that unit.
And then the 25 patrol deputies, which is unfunded at this point.
I'll talk about our priorities and our priorities drive,
as well as the increase in services and the calls
for service and our operational needs.
This priority drive, we want to reduce violent crime.
We want to reduce burglary and theft.
After those nightclubs have been a source of frustration
for our residents.
They have been a source of violent crimes.
We've seen some real success in that and of course
our super speeder law update.
And we talk about our community engagement.
Over the last four years we've been
able to reduce homicide by 43%.
Violent crime by 29%.
We are hitting those priorities.
This is what we're striving for.
We want those numbers to continue to decrease.
We don't want them to stay stagnant
and we certainly don't want them to rise.
And again our property crimes.
Auto theft decreased.
Residential, auto, all seeing large decreases.
We are hitting that mark and those are our priorities.
I talked about the after Hours club.
After our successful legislation that was passed.
Making selling alcohol a felony.
A lot of people think it's not really that big a deal
it is a big deal when people are at these clubs drinking
until 4 or 5 in the morning.
All kinds of crime happens there.
It attracts a criminal element.
And they commit crimes and shootings.
And so this has really helped us.
We've made over 60 felony arrests we're hoping these bar
owners come a -- holding them accountable.
And the property owners, most of them live out of state
and they see that and they're evicting these folks.
As soon as we shut down one, another one opens right back up.
And the super speeder law, it's just people speeding, well,
this is the number one complaint in Orange County Sheriff's
Office.
Speeding.
This is the complaint that people care about the most.
Traffic congestion and speeding.
It's what we hear the most.
And so, there were people in the legislature who fought us.
Who said no.
They want to drive 100 miles an hour
on I-10 to get to Tallahassee.
We said no.
2500 people a year die in Florida because of traffic
crashes related to speed.
And so what has happened?
Over the past -- ever since we've started.
We've arrested 328 drivers.
But, more than five going over 120 miles an hour.
But what we're seeing issue here is a decrease people are not
going that fast deputies are finding --
there is still speeders out there.
But they're not reaching the speeds over 100 miles.
Why is that important?
We want everyone to go the speed limit
but when they're going 100, 120, 150,
no one's going to survive that crash.
We've all seen that.
And so of course, as many of you know,
community engagement is a hallmark of this agency.
We believe this community engagement
has helped us drive down crime.
People see us out there.
We engage with them.
We have different activities that we do.
You see them all.
There's so many programs.
It's hard to remember them all.
I really do think that helps us build trust within the community
and certainly we cannot stop doing that.
If you're thinking that, that would be a huge problem.
Especially in our more challenging communities.
It's something we are very very proud of.
And we receive a lot of accolades and credit for things
that we're doing.
And with all those arrests we made we see a lot of drug money
and we are putting it right back into the community.
As you see since 2020, 2.6 million.
Back into nonprofits that we all love.
Human trafficking.
Mentoring programs.
Domestic violence and drug prevention programs.
We believe this is working.
We believe it's having an impact.
I know you guys have many questions for me
so I'm going to end right there and go back to this slide
so you all can look at it.
>> We will open it up for questions.
Members of the board.
We'll start with Commissioner Michael Scott.
>> Twice in a row got to go first Sheriff I have four
questions for you.
The first question is, I think it
was last year we gave you guys some funding for enhanced 911.
I think that's why you were able to send a link.
Can you tell us how that's working?
>> Yes.
It was live 911.
We tested it and it wasn't as effective
as we thought it would be.
>> Okay.
>> Okay so we ended that program.
>> And then the Florida Police Department,
are you guys still evaluating that?
>> Absolutely.
We met with a drone company recently.
They're going to do a pilot program with us.
And at around your convention area.
That happens to coincide with the big huge law enforcement
conference that's going to be there.
But they're going to leave it there for several months.
And so we're in talks with them about that.
I will say that we are very interested in that.
We're looking at that closely.
To be able to get eyes on a call very quickly.
With a drone operator watching that video.
It could be a game changer.
And so I do say that and I will also say that a drone,
and those other pieces of technology,
it will never replace a deputy out on the street because AI
and drone, they can't tell right from wrong.
They don't have that human brain.
Law enforcement is being very cautious regarding AI,
and rightly so.
It's done a lot of good things.
But we have to tread lightly.
We do have a committee specifically
looking at AI stuff.
But back to the drone, yes we are
going to do a pilot program and commissioners, it's just money,
it all costs money.
These tech companies, they provide some very good products.
But it comes at a huge cost.
The challenge for us is, we're always
going to need a deputy Sheriff.
We've got that drone program.
But can we get rid of a deputy because we have a drone
up there?
No, the deputy is still going to have to go
to that call in most cases.
>> And then I recently learned about --
I wasn't aware that the body camera Taser,
I ended up with one company.
I guess if you could give me a ballpark
number of what that costs.
I know it's almost like a monopoly.
How does that?
>> With our tasers, body cameras,
it's $9.5 million a year.
All of our deputies who wear uniform out there
on the street, who are affecting an arrest,
in units that typically don't wear uniforms,
they all have body worn cameras.
That's why when you see a critical incidence, when
you see those things, we're able to see
it's incredibly expensive.
It's huge for trust building with our community.
As you know.
Having a less than (indiscernible).
And of course that all goes into the evidence.com.
It's incredibly expensive.
But it's needed and I can't ever see going back.
Because if we got rid of our body cameras
and we had an incident, wait a minute, we had body cameras now
we don't have body cameras.
Now we don't know what the deputy did.
It's one of those costs that we can't live without.
>> This wasn't one of my original questions do you have
one of the (indiscernible).
>> Yeah.
We had one before them.
Which was bought with grant money.
>> I have one more question.
This is maybe the hardest.
Obviously you've had folks come today and talk about ice.
Can you summarize what the money received is
and maybe there's some misunderstanding of what it is.
But kind of clarifying what those dogs will do.
>> I heard all the comments this morning and I assume some of you
have questions.
And there might be more.
But I'll try and answer it.
First I have to start with this, as you know,
Florida State's that law enforcement shall use its best
efforts to assist in immigration enforcement period
so I'll start with that.
I will also say that the enforcement of immigration
is not our top priority.
I have the data to prove that.
You looked at that 15,000 arrests last year.
We have only, since the program started,
we have only made 101 arrests related to immigration.
And those people also had local charges.
If you look at your own jail stats.
People in jail this morning.
Their et there that have a detainer on them.
That have nothing to do with us.
There are 184 in your jail right now
that have a local charges and a hold from ice.
In other words, all of those people
committed some type of crime in Orange County.
Whether it's domestic violence.
It could be a super speeder.
They committed a crime in Orange County.
They were brought to your jail.
Where their fingerprints were ran.
Their fingerprints were sent to the through the system.
And Vermont ice facility up there says hold those people.
None of that has anything to do with the Orange County Sheriff's
Department.
Now since we are by law using our best efforts
to support immigration enforcement,
we are part of the 287 program.
What does that mean?
The law also states we will assist.
So Ice folks, they have contacted us.
But we don't go on any raids.
We don't initiate any type of self-initiated immigration
enforcement.
The people who are here illegally,
who happened to come into our contact, they committed a crime.
They were pulled over.
We responded to a domestic violence call.
Ice has called us to transport a handful of times.
Ice has called us to assist with protests on their property.
Which we have assisted them.
They asked for us to assist them with crowd control training.
Which they desperately need, as you
can see throughout the country.
And we're experts at it so we have assisted them.
They don't call us that much for that assistance period
but, as the Sheriff here in Orange County,
the Sheriff of Florida, I will follow the law.
I won't break the law.
I will use my best efforts to assist immigration enforcement.
So the money that you're talking about,
yeah, there's $250 million grants available
for agencies that are in the 287 G program.
And so, we are receiving 10 million from the state.
For one year of Parigramme program.
Which I will explain that in a minute license plate readers.
And radios. $10 million.
First with the radios, each radio that they carry costs
$12,555.
That's the bulk of that 10 million.
We originally asked for 25 million and they cut it in half.
If you want to give me $10 million or $9 million
to buy radios today, I'll give that grant back.
Obviously we're not using those for immigration.
We use those every single day.
It's not a top priority program is basically --
all of us at the Sheriff's office, all of our systems,
computer aided dispatch, our records management system,
evidence.com.
Body worn cameras.
All of our systems are siloed.
For a deputy or detective or crime analyst
to do an investigation, he or she
is looking for someone who has committed a crime in our county
or in another county in.
Trying to find a phone number.
We have to go through all these different systems.
What does, it puts it all in one system.
At the fingertips.
It marries all that information that we have.
Are we using it for immigration enforcement?
No.
Could it be used?
Yes.
But as you see by the numbers on the data,
that's not our priority here in Orange County.
But we will follow the law.
I hope that answers your question.
>> No, that was very thorough.
I appreciate it.
Now to my request.
I noticed, and I'm not jealous, I promise,
but I noticed you do annual spaghetti dinner with
Commissioner -- just something to think about.
Not a request now.
But I was wondering as we bring new commissioners on,
obviously we'll have four commissioners here.
There will be time for them to learn.
Would you consider doing something,
it may not be spaghetti.
For me it might be a fish fry.
>> I like fish.
>> Doing something for the districts.
>> Absolutely.
>> I know the chief goes around and does district meetings.
And
>> We attend hundreds of meetings.
I attended one for Commissioner Cordero just a few weeks ago.
Absolutely.
Orange County, it's 1000mi².
And so, again I get a lot of help from my staff.
If someone requests me personally to go to a meeting,
I rarely turn them down.
>> I appreciate that.
My final request, I've got to work on my resume,
but I'm looking for a job.
Since you have released the ice cream shop a.
I get so many calls about the ice cream truck and the gaming
truck.
I feel like I may call center seasonal employee for you guys
because I tell them how to request it.
Is there any thoughts to be able to expand
either one of those items.
I do get quite a few calls.
>> That comes with the expansion and personnel.
>> Right.
>> It takes personnel.
Thank you for that.
The ice cream truck and the gaming truck.
We've got agencies all over the country asking us how we did it.
My friend in Polk County copied us.
Sheriff Judd has ice cream trucks too.
People realize the importance of engaging with kids.
When you're giving a kid an ice cream,
it doesn't get any better than that.
They get to see us in a different light.
We are not in the neighborhood arresting someone.
We're not giving someone a ticket.
Nothing bad is happening.
The cops are smiling at us and giving us ice cream.
It's been a home run.
>> Kudos, Sheriff.
Appreciate you guys.
>> All right.
Commissioner Wilson?
>> Thank you.
Thank you all for the work you do.
Thank you for coming and talking to me ahead of time.
I appreciate that.
One of the things we did talk about, obviously
these various revenue sources.
I think there's a general understanding that you
can't leave money on the table.
I don't want you to misinterpret the questions
but I also think we are trying really hard
to make every little minute of this budget
hearing as transparent and publicly facing as possible.
And the public has come here every two weeks
for over a year now.
Begging us to help get between them and aggressive ice tactics.
One of the things I'm worried about when
I'm looking at the statistics, about the crime numbers going
down, is how many of those are just
unreported because domestic violence
victims are afraid to call.
Because they know Orange County Sheriff's do enforce with ice.
Has there been any analysis of that?
>> That's almost impossible to capture.
Underreported crime is an issue.
Regarding everything.
I would say regarding people who are here illegally.
Women and men, they don't call for a variety of reasons.
Immigration status is probably just one small reason.
It's almost impossible to capture a number.
We're not sure.
And
>> I fully understand that.
I just want to make sure when we're talking about statistics
in a time when we've seen over the last two days
that this wouldn't happen here in Orange County
because you do have the body cams.
But then someone was shot, they were not the target
of the ice operation.
These are tragic stories.
Once again I'm grateful for the training
that your team undergoes.
We do have the transparency for activities.
I think what I want to try to do is make sure we talk
about that trust relationship.
There is a community of people who are very frightened right
now of engaging.
We do food drives.
We noticed almost immediately after the DHS activity.
The families that used to show up didn't show up at.
And even some of the volunteers didn't show up.
And I need to figure out how to bridge some of that trust.
We've done as much as we feel like we can do.
But you're our other link in that trust.
Being able to understand why Orange County
Sheriff was the highest requester
in the state under that 287.
>> No.
We're not the highest requester.
>> That was reported.
That's why we're having this conversation.
>> There's $250 million out there.
All of their deputies -- go ahead come and finish
your question.
>> Know you're doing what I want to talk through this.
I want to make sure there's no family out there that
would hesitate to call you all in the case of an emergency.
That is the priority.
I want to make sure that our tax dollars are
going in our criminal justice system to criminal justice.
Not to civil federal enforcement.
These are the things I need to hear from you.
>> Going back to the crime piece, when I started in 2018,
as compared to now, crime is down 43%.
That's way before the 287 G. Way before the new state law.
So crime has been trending down.
And that goes back to the reasons I stated.
All of you have been great at Orange County -- as it grows,
adding personnel, and then all the different programs we had
in the Sheriff's office has continued to drive crime down
and when we talk about designated immigration officers
in the 287 program, out of 1939 deputies, we have 160.
That's 8% of our personnel.
That have that training.
And if you look at surrounding counties all of their deputies
have that training.
That may go to show you it's a different priority for them.
It's just not our top priority.
And here's the last thing I will say on that.
Anyone I invite any one of you to come ride with our deputies.
You can pick the deputy, the shift, the area,
and you ask them.
Are you out here looking for people who are illegal?
Ask them and you will see the truth.
Their priority is violent crime.
Their priority are people who are selling drugs and killing
our residents.
Their priority is to drive property crime down
and their priority is to engage with the community.
We do that with every one.
We don't pick a specific area.
If you watch what we do on social media,
it's 1000mi² as you know.
But we hit all areas of the county in an effort to engage.
I'm telling all of you, we will do
what we can to continue to build that trust.
Making people follow us.
We've met with very nice people.
>> I would love for you to facilitate --
>> We've met with them several times.
I watched the public comments specifically.
I want to know what people are saying about the Orange County
Sheriff's Office.
About what's happening in our county.
Very nice, passionate people.
It seems more of that passion is directed towards Maine
and other parts of our country.
We are just not seeing those interactions here
and I can tell you, the Orange County Sheriff's Office
is not going to be involved in any of that
and I certainly can't control what Ice or DHS does.
But, our deputies know what their priorities are.
And I'll end again, but I am the Sheriff, I will follow the law,
I'm not going to break the law.
We will follow the state law.
It's just not a top priority for us.
>> I appreciate you talking through that.
I look forward to facilitating a meeting with some
of the advocacy folks.
It is purely a public safety point
that I'm making as far as what I think
can be a blind spot for a lot of us
who are trying to understand why we don't have
as many kids in some of our after school programs who
are potentially children of immigrants.
Across the board we've seen withdrawal
from many really beneficial parts of society.
So thank you for talking me through that.
I appreciate it.
I look forward to having more conversations about it.
>> Commissioner Semerad?
>> Thank you mayor.
Thank you Sheriff.
My neighbor is right there.
His mother in law Stole our garbage can.
>> I'm sorry.
>> Sheriff, in the last presentation we heard from
the community and family Services department and they
referenced that if the property tax reform passes that they
would need to look at potential reduction in sex trafficking
programs in Orange County.
As a Sheriff, would you think that if there's
a reduction in those programs there
could be an increase in that type of crime in our community?
>> Absolutely.
I will tell you I am willing to, and I have helped out
many organizations, including the human trafficking and sex
trafficking.
And will continue to help them financially.
As you know, we have many people signed up to the Metropolitan
investigation.
Our longest standing task force.
Split half of their task force into human trafficking.
Again, we are one of those communities that doesn't
sweep that under the rug.
I imagine you get funding for any program,
it's going to have an effect.
But we'll do what we need to do to continue
to prevent that and stop that.
>> To be clear, when we talk about an increase
in our community, that involves our children, right?
>> I can get you stats.
But as far as human trafficking, yeah, we save,
and I say save, we save about 50 children, juveniles a year.
And usually that is , either that juvenile or adult was
involved in sex work prostitution.
Years ago we would just arrest them and take them to jail.
But now we find out, hey, wait a minute,
someone is actually giving them drugs and giving them
money and a hotel.
And getting them into that life.
And using them as a sex worker.
We are able to grab that kid.
We are connected with those programs.
We try to get that kid or adult out of that scene.
Unfortunately some of them voluntarily go back.
But we certainly will continue that.
>> Thank you Sheriff.
The mayor is going to cut me off soon.
You have to answer shorter than that.
In your statistics where you asked residents to come
you know come with the questions.
Did you ask them if they were willing to pay
for a tax increase?
>> No we did not.
There were several comments that people wanted to pay.
>> That's great too know, and that's great to share.
I want to tell you that generally I'm
supportive of what you're requesting.
Generally.
But when district five met with the Sheriff's department,
it was about an $86 million dollar budget increase,
it was like a gasp.
We got word from the mayor to stay relatively stagnant
in terms of the budget.
And because we just endured a really nasty process
with Doge telling us we had so much wasteful spending.
Of taxpayer money.
Which has now played into the state
narrative of how local government uses and abuses
taxpayer funds.
And now we're battling to try to keep our budget.
Which also impacts your budget.
So I asked Byron if there was a way for us to --
because I think generally Tallahassee is very supportive
of your labor union.
And I was asking Byron if there was a way because you have not
only the mstu that you guys get, but also 500 million
that comes out of the general fund.
And I was thinking maybe what we can
do is move you guys out of the general fund,
put you into a separate line item.
Reduce the county millage accordingly.
So you can be funded.
But there's all these technical aspects that came into it.
In terms of the funding.
I do believe you are an essential part
from a public safety perspective.
With tourism.
Because we have 76 million additional people that you
all are helping to keep safe.
I do think that when we talk about TT and the use of it,
I think the public safety should be included in that.
To help pay for some of these programs.
Additionally, I just wanted to let you know, if in the future
if there is any way to use some form of technology
to increase your revenue sources,
not to replace officers, but red light cameras and other forms
to increase your revenue intake so that the Sheriff's office can
pay for more of this.
Because quite frankly, the narrative
of asking people to increase taxes
when the state is offering to get rid of property tax reform,
it doesn't align right now.
The narrative is -- we have to find revenue sources.
Can technology help with this?
Can't d t help with this?
>> I will remind the board that last year I asked this board
to increase Mstu.
I think maybe if they had we would
be a little better off with the impending news
that might come in November.
Just my opinion.
But I did ask for that last year.
And I'll continue to ask for an increase.
I saw that slide earlier that Kurt presented.
That flat line of no increase in Mstu.
I think this board needs to take a hard look at that.
I'm here as your Sheriff to tell you what I need.
And you all have a very difficult job of figuring out
where that needs to come from.
I don't envy you.
I know it's tough and I saw some of the other presentations
people talking about cuts.
I can't say no that we're not going to respond to your house.
I can't do it and I won't do it.
When we ask for that huge budget,
that's why we requested all those people.
That's what we believe we need.
And that's what the people want to see.
As far as red light cameras, I'm a huge component
of red light cameras.
I believe they work.
I believe they actually work.
I know there's data on both sides that differ,
but I think they work.
I see people.
They know.
They don't want to hit that red light camera.
You just approve those school zone cameras a few meetings ago.
And I know the school board is also in partnership with us,
looking at the cameras for school busses.
For people who run around the school bus.
Which I'm very supportive of.
To help our kids out.
All of that will generate revenue.
I am in favor of that.
>> One last question.
What would be your narrative when
he criticizes Orange County for increasing a budget,
while he's saying all of this is wasteful.
What would be your response, in the board's defense
of a decision like that?
>> I would say he can come to the Sheriff's office and see.
We are very fiscally responsible at the Sheriff's office.
We do a lot of things internally that
probably upset some of our people, as far as spending goes.
Because -- I always say, if that was your money,
you wouldn't buy it.
It's kind of like the philosophy we have.
Yeah, I know you want it, but do you need it.
We put this budget together.
It's not that I want it.
Gets that I need it.
I said this last year.
We are growing every single year.
The visitors aren't going to slow down.
I would tell him that the people want
to see more law enforcement.
We are being very fiscally responsible
with the funds we have.
We always have been.
They are open to having him look at the budget.
I think the county as a whole does a very good job of that.
Some of the reports I've seen on that,
and without the specifics to back that up,
I really don't think --
I think it's money that's needed.
I know myself, probably the Florida Sheriffs Association
will be doing some education about amendment three.
Whether it can have an impact.
And honestly, one of the reasons the governor
is not campaigning for it is because he knows.
Based on polling.
It may not be popular with everyone.
>> Lastly Sheriff, when -- if this goes, first of all,
just the ballot language.
I said this to the fire chief as well.
If you read it, it talks about how
the revenue that when we left from property tax,
it should be used for an enlist these categories of funding.
Including public safety.
I think it sounds very misleading to voters
because they don't really think it's a defunding of the police.
They think it's still going to be used for that
and people support that spending mechanism.
I think you have an opportunity to educate voters that hey,
it does impact our budget.
Your budget.
>> I know the language is not perfect.
I know there's some lawsuits out there against the amendment
and the language.
Absolutely.
>> Lastly, just yes or no, but when you pull somebody over,
do you run them through immigration software >> No
there's no immigration software database.
It's the same thing that's been happening
since I have been in law enforcement, when I started.
We run it through the NCIC.
Which is the database that's been around for many years.
That tells us whether they have a warrant.
And the thing that changed under this last administration
is they took a lot of their ice detainers
and put it into that system.
So when a deputy or officer runs that person's driver's license,
it could pop up if they have a detainer.
That's when we call one of our designated immigration officers
to come and investigate.
And to communicate with Ice.
And check their system..
We want to make sure you have that.
But more often than not, because I ask our deputies every day.
And again I invite you to go ride with one of our deputies.
You'll see them run people and you'll
see that doesn't happen a lot.
A lot of the people that have been --
a lot of the criminals who are in our country illegally
and committed some serious crime,
a lot of those have been picked up and deported.
And I ask deputies all the time, how often
do you get one of those ice detainers?
Almost never.
More often than not, what happens
is we arrest that person for a local charge,
and when they get jail and their fingerprints are run,
that's when Ice finds out.
And that's when Ice decides they want to hold them.
So very rarely.
The data is in your own jail.
There was eight people in there this morning on an Ice detainer.
That's it.
Eight people.
Out of the 2500, 3000 people that are in there.
The data proves it.
It's not the priority.
And to answer your question again,
yes, there's not a special system
that we run those folks through.
>> Again I just want to say, generally I am supportive.
But I am concerned that the narratives
don't align at this time.
When we talk about increasing local taxes while the state
is slamming us for having too much money in taxes.
So I'm concerned about that.
>>, not our area, you're talking about this?
>> Yea, but it's your narrative.
It's how we respond.
If we absorb, I think it's like a $46 million
increase, at the same time we're being actively criticized
by the state, the governors, that we have too much money.
And we increase again.
And I think it drives the narrative
to justify for taxpayers to choose
to defund local government.
>> Again I will just say that I'm happy,
we have an independent audit every year.
I'm happy for any audit.
Law enforcement's in a different position.
We can't tell people know that we're not going to come.
And to the point, the growth continues.
It's not like we're getting smaller.
And
>> They didn't play that game with law enforcement.
For political reasons.
What I will tell you though, Commissioner Semerad,
the Sheriff initially submitted a budget request of 508,000 --
$508 million.
As indicated.
But to his credit, he reduced that to $470 million.
After a conversation with us.
He lives in the same world we live in.
The same state that we live in.
And the only thing we ask was okay,
Sheriff, take a look at that.
Because that is not something we can
make happen and the current environment that we're in.
So like all divisions of government, all we can do
is take a tough look at our themselves from time to time.
To reduce where they can.
He did that.
He came and he said this is what I need.
Out of that $470 million.
The Sheriff talked about the law enforcement municipal service
tax.
We are one of the few counties in Florida
that has a law enforcement Mstu.
We have a fire as well.
Many counties don't have a specific taxing mechanism
to fund their law enforcement.
Their Sheriff's office.
But we do.
It's been decades since that law enforcement mstu paid
100% of the Sheriff's budget.
The Sheriff, as he has indicated to you,
his job is to come and tell us what he thinks that he needs.
And as a former Sheriff, that's exactly what I did.
But it's up to us, the Board of County Commission that
has to fund the Sheriff, to figure out
how we're going to fund that.
And so what we've done for decades now,
we have supplemented what law enforcement mstu brings in.
And this budget, we are doing that period this time
we are looking at our public service
tax on communication tax.
136 million.
And then we're supplementing that from our general fund.
The non revenues that we bring in.
And we're providing 93.5 million from that period between the 240
with law enforcement Mstu.
The 136 with the public service tax.
And the 93.5 million that Kurt went over this morning.
That gets him to 470 million.
That's what he is requesting.
And that's what we have put in this budget.
He is sensitive.
What he's saying to you, he's sensitive to the era
in which we're living in.
Where there's a property tax reform
going on a ballot at the same time and the Sheriff is correct.
He came last year and for the last several years
and he thinks we ought to increase the law enforcement
Mstu.
But in the prior year we increased the fire Mstu.
What we're trying to do is balance that out
with affordability.
What can our taxpayers afford in this county.
And that's the balancing act that we all have to do.
We have to be sensitive to everything
that everyone comes in here and needs funding for.
But we made a commitment.
The Sheriff has the largest budget.
First off.
And we made that a priority Become a Sheriff.
We have funded positions for the Sheriff.
We have tried to work with the Sheriff to the best
that we could.
Provide him with the revenue that he needs.
And they've done a good job here crime is down.
That's indisputable.
At a time when our population has grown,
I can tell you looking at the booking numbers every year,
and 2020, the total bookings in our jail, 28,442.
2021, (indiscernible).
2024, 35,000 hundred 13.
2025 41,876.
It went up by a little over 600.
What is that attributed to, a number
of things but probably some immigration bookings in there
that caused our numbers to go up.
But, I've been around a long time.
I remember when our population was down about 1.6 million.
When our population was 900,000 and we booked 61,000 people
through our jail.
And so just in 2025, even with the numbers going up,
we are still 20,000 bookings.
And this is all law enforcement that books into our jail.
Still 20,000 under where we were a decade and a half or so ago.
I think there are good reasons why
those bookings have gone down.
There's some good law enforcement in there.
But I don't want us to ever lose sight of what we
spend on fixing broken people.
Stopping people from becoming broken.
All those children's programs that we
have funded that we've talked about in this budget.
With the money we're spending.
People who are mentally ill.
We increased our budget.
We are taking care of people who have a substance abuse problem.
We spend money to make certain that --
without treatment some of these people will still continue
to commit those crimes over and over again.
It is not a silver bullet just to say you can do this.
You cannot arrest your way out of a crime problem.
You have to look at it holistically.
The Sheriff and law enforcement is a big part of this.
But all these other programs that we have talked about today,
that you've seen, that you've heard about,
we have to do those things as well.
I just want us to have a fair conversation about it.
To look at the bigger, broader picture
of how we are keeping these numbers relatively down in terms
of the bookings in our jail.
And reducing crime at the same time.
It has been an effective collaborative
that we have as a community.
And I wouldn't put what we're doing in our community
up against any other community.
The numbers look good.
But, as the Sheriff said, when he
talks to those families with those homicides
that he talked about, every one of them
wished that that didn't happen to them.
And so we are here to support law enforcement.
I appreciate the Sheriff being sensitive to where we are.
At the end of the day, we've come to a happy place
where we're funding the Sheriff, what he says now,
after looking at the current landscape of what's happening
in the real world time.
And he said okay.
470 million is what I've got to have.
Is that right, Sheriff?
>> That's what we're told.
I want all of the 500 million.
But like you said.
>> We can't make money.
We are not the federal government.
We cannot run a deficit.
We cannot run trillion dollar deficit.
Our budget has to balance.
And that's a major part of my responsibility.
It's to present to the board a balanced budget that allows us
to do everything we need to do.
Do we all wish we had more money?
Absolutely.
But we don't.
And we may have less money next year.
So we are preparing now.
For the prospect that amendment three could pass.
But we're going to need everybody
to help with this process.
And I believe that if we arm the people with factual information
about the consequences of not providing those services, what
will happen to this community.
And listen, I firmly believe that when
they are armed with information, they'll make the right decision.
They'll make the right decision.
Not everybody.
Because right now this conversation about property tax
reform is only, the only people that will really see those
are those who own a home and live in a home.
If you rent and you don't own that place,
you're not going to see the reduction.
If you're a commercial property owner,
that's not part of this conversation today.
And so that leaves out a lot of people who are not
going to see the benefit.
And so we have to make that up somewhere.
So Sheriff, thank you.
>> (indiscernible).
>> I'm coming to you.
But I wanted to respond to Commissioner Summers
questions of the Sheriff.
And kind of restate where we are with the conversation.
>> Mayor, I appreciate the narrative.
I didn't know that you went to him
and said hey, what's the amount that you can do.
And I hear the 470.
Maybe there's an opportunity to get more funding
through AI or technology or something like that.
>> So we're going to work with the Sheriff.
Revenues coming in strong.
If the Sheriff finds himself, like any
of the other subdivisions that we fund,
if they find themselves in trouble,
we're going to take care of them.
That's the way it works.
Commissioner Gomez?
Then Commissioner and then Commissioner Wilson.
>> Thank you mayor.
Thank you Sheriff and all your team.
The whole 200 and --
2753 employees.
We honor you all and respect you.
Thank you.
I have a few questions.
Very easy.
In May you requested $508 million.
140 new positions.
Today with the for 70 million, including the 27 you requested.
And
>> 25 are unfunded.
I will be coming back to this board when I need that funding.
Because I'm going to close that gap.
>> That's what I said just a moment ago.
That's the way we work.
>> So the 470 does not include those positions that
you're requesting?
>> Just the two.
25 deputies are unfunded at this point.
Around January, I will be coming back
before you to request funding for those 25 deputies.
I anticipate being full by -- >> I wanted clarification on that.
I know you said you were responding to the commissioners,
do you know how many of the traffic
stops that you said had led to Ice arrests,
do you know how many of them were traffic stops,
but then it led to ice?
Does anybody track those?
>> We don't track those specifically.
What we track is the number of people we arrest,
who also happen to have an Ice detainer.
And that was 106 out of almost 15000.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Commissioner, we have data.
When they book persons into our jail.
The jail keeps data on them.
What the charges are.
And that's because the Sheriff isn't the only law enforcement.
They all do, into the jail.
>> My last question.
Whose speed 150mph.
With all this traffic going on.
>> 528.
Those are where we catch the ones that are going 150.
528.
408.
>> I'm going to ask, if they crash,
>> You will not survive a crash going over 100 miles an hour.
Most of them stop at.
The number has decreased.
The message has got out.
They see it all over our social media.
They see it all over the news that they're
going to go to jail if you're going over 100 miles an hour.
It's been a pretty successful campaign.
So what I'm hoping, and what I think we'll see,
is traffic fatalities as a result
of speed, decline throughout the state period not just here.
>> Because we have to protect our -- okay, thank you.
>> Commissioner Garibay.
>> Sheriff.
First of all, I took the women's defense and I give it a two
thumbs up.
Your team was great.
But it was great.
I even made a video and I was in a room full of women
and it was fantastic and I can't remember the gentleman as older.
If you say his name, I'll know.
>> Wayne -- >> It was really great.
I also, even though Commissioner Scott was not
trying to crochet on my spaghetti dinners,
we have really, they have been incredible.
First you bring your team and your team is amazing.
But it's really been nice where it's a welcoming environment.
Everybody is relaxed.
It's not a pressure issue.
I thank you for being a partner.
I did want to ask you, two questions.
What is our current response time when somebody
calls for law enforcement?
I know we have sectors.
And I've been unfortunately on the longer side
but I'm also in sector four which is a high intensity area.
I don't want to be judgmental but do you have those numbers.
Pretty much where we are.
>> I don't have them in front of me.
But we keep track of all different emergency calls.
Calls where the suspect has already gone.
We keep track of all of that.
We can definitely get you that information based on the area.
And sometimes it does depend on the area.
I saw your presentation earlier.
We have 5932 miles of road.
It takes a while to get there.
And again 8000mi².
As this community continues to grow.
We need more deputies.
But we can provide any area response times.
>> I was just curious.
We hear that a lot.
And when we talk to municipalities that's
the reason for wanting their own city police
and when I think of the work you guys do,
I have to give you kudos for the amount of work you've put in,
and your team, over the last couple of years.
It's like night and day.
It's really great to hear residents actually
acknowledge they've been seeing a difference.
I wanted to ask another question.
How much -- I can't help but see in our visitor areas,
our tourism areas, you guys have a high presence.
Is that mostly off duty or is that you
guys patrolling that area pretty intensely, do you know?
>> It's both.
Obviously all the theme parks, a higher number
of off duty deputies.
Disney funds the on duty deputies there,
but they also fund well over $1 million
in off duty deputies every year as well.
You will always see a high presence in that area.
>> We hear a lot and we all kind of agree that we would like
to see some tourism dollars for public safety.
You guys do do a lot out there.
If we ever needed to request that information,
do you have a little more detail about your presence
or the amount of calls.
I've been to the luncheons where they recognize officers
every month.
For going way beyond the call of duty.
It would just be interesting to know.
You know that data.
We see it come up but we don't know it.
Would be nice to really understand how much of an impact
that is in that area.
>> Yeah how about we keep all that data up here
>> I just have to tell you.
Your JAG unit.
Your community folks.
Your team has really stepped up.
I feel to be more inclusive with the community.
I know that has a lot to do with your leadership.
But it's really refreshing to see.
I've even seen --
I mean I shop at Walmart.
And I've seen your guys actually engage with the community.
Really go out of their way to make people feel comfortable.
Especially children.
And I think that's really important nowadays.
I heard you speak at the Nobel lunch.
And it was very impressive.
About how you talked to --
law enforcement is love and anger.
That trend across the country.
It's difficult for you all to know.
Right now you're a hero.
Next time you'll hear something totally opposite.
It's really nice to see you guys purposely
engage with the community.
And that has a lot to do with your leadership.
And I'm a little biased.
Even your water folks.
The engagement has been phenomenal.
I'm just talking about what I experienced as a commissioner
with the team.
And even when we've seen events go on where normally they
would be kind of like not right but as long
as everything is cool, they're cool.
They don't purposely go and agitate the crowd.
And I'll just say, recently we had a big soccer game.
When Columbia was playing somebody.
Right at the Florida mall.
At one of the Columbia restaurants.
We were so excited.
And everybody was good.
You guys let it happen.
They were fine.
There was no issue.
And I got to see that firsthand.
As just a person going out to dinner.
I just wanted to say that.
That was very impressive.
>> We appreciate that.
And I have a wonderful team.
A lot of them are here.
All of our deputies commonly get the philosophy
and our philosophy, I tell them this all the time, I want --
I like when the bad guy goes to jail,
but we also have to take time to engage with our residents.
Especially our kids.
And I think we're seeing the results of that.
>> I think we already beat the bag on the money part of >> I do
have a question for all of you.
>> Commissioner Wilson --
Sheriff, just indulge us.
Trying to get through this
>> Quick procedural question, if we were to --
could we even do that even though we're one short?
>> The new law that just passed, you can only raise 0.0922.
Because we're missing a board member.
That requires unanimous vote of the board.
And we've confirmed with the state that rule.
So under the millage calculation,
under the unanimous amount, it would be 0.0922,
it's the only amount the board would be able to do this year.
Next year the board goes to nine and it doesn't require --
the law requires three fourths vote this year unfortunately
the way the law is written, it only allows for a very small --
>> It's $12 million.
So you could do that and give us $12 million.
And we could fund more deputies.
>> I was curious about the procedural.
I have one more technical question.
I apologize.
I forgot this came up at a community meeting.
Seems to be coming up more often.
The cameras people are seeing pop up around town,
are any of those paid for or utilized
by the Sheriff's department and what kind of data
are you getting?
>> Absolutely.
We utilize flock cameras to reduce and prevent crime.
I'll invite every single one of you
to ride with one of our deputies.
Especially the deputies and our --
you can watch in real time how they actually use that camera.
I'll give you an example.
When I was riding not too long ago they were like hey,
we know about this guy, he's wanted
he keeps tearing us up with burglaries in this area.
And we know between 6 and 7 every Thursday,
he comes by the intersection.
This is a criminal now.
This is a person who's wanted.
Still committing crimes.
We know he goes through this intersection between 6 and 7:00
every Thursday night.
And I was like okay.
I'll play.
Sheriff do you mind sitting here with us?
It might take an hour.
He might come through.
He might not.
We were there five minutes.
That flock camera notified the deputy on his computer
in his car and we went down the road and arrested him.
That's how they work.
>> I understand that.
What if that had just been his car and somebody was driving it.
>> Then they're free to go.
All that technology.
Artificial intelligence.
Facial recognition.
That doesn't give us probable cause.
That just points us in the right direction.
We pull over that person and it's not them,
then you're free to go.
>> Yeah, I mean so we won't continue this now.
>> Law abiding citizens have nothing to worry about.
There's facial recognition on cruise ships.
We are on camera right now in the public.
>> I realize that.
I realize cars are different.
You don't have a right to privacy necessarily in your car.
>> The flock camera, in the old days before flock cameras,
what would have happened?
We would have had to look for that license plate and search
for that license plate.
It's the same exact thing as a deputy Sheriff
going there's a blue car.
A BC123 that's the tag number.
Give a human can see it, so can a camera.
It just speeds it up.
It's in the public.
It's not like that person was in the backyard.
It just speeds up the process.
And again points us in the right direction.
It doesn't give us probable cause if we can't arrest someone
because their tag came up.
But we can go investigate because that tag does belong
to someone who's wanted and that person is committing crimes
continually in our neighborhood.
>> Okay thank you.
I'm getting a nod from the mayor.
Who's going to get the hook out in a second
and pull me off the mic.
I would love to maybe have a follow up on this one.
I think there were legitimate privacy concerns.
>> Yeah.
Talk with you individually.
I'm trying to get the man out of here.
That's high dollars sitting out here.
Anyway.
Commissioner Scott.
>> I have one quick question.
Request for an update.
I had this past year a really challenging ,
they created different categories.
We were able to track that and this was Nashville, Rio Grande.
I want to say thank you.
Took us about four months.
Great stuff.
We still have things to talk about.
If you could talk about what you guys do and what you don't do
when it comes to homelessness. >> Okay.
Again, we've been doing this a long time.
The law enforcement always seems to be stuck in the middle.
Homeless.
Unhoused.
Whatever you want to call them today.
But we do not arrest people simply
because they do not have a home.
Most of the people that are homeless that we arrest actually
committed a crime.
As you know, it's not against the law.
The Supreme Court law ruled that it is not against the law
to ask for money.
If you can ask what the weather is, you can ask for a dollar.
Where people get into trouble is they step into traffic
and that's where we can take some action.
But I will say we have a lot of business owners, residents,
community members who complain about homeless people.
Just because they're homeless.
Honestly it's not fun to look at.
But that's not against the law.
In those areas where people are trespassing
and they're on county property or they are private citizens
or business owners property and we get direction to remove
that person, that's what we do.
>> All right Sheriff.
Thank you for staying around.
We're trying to get you out of here before you're here
for two hours.
At the end of the day, it's a long day for us.
The members of the board.
Just as a reminder, we will start tomorrow morning
at zero 900 in the morning.
We have constitutional offices.
Byron,
>> They have all indicated that don't need to be here if you
don't want them.
>> I was going to go.
Sheriff we're done.
Before we conclude, is there anything
you would like to say at this point?
>> No.
I think it's been a very productive day.
And tomorrow morning --
>> They might want to hear what you're saying.
The controller is typically here with us all of the time.
Thanks for being here.
If there's nothing further, we're
going to stand adjourned at this time.
Thank you all.