BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
SEMINOLE COUNTY, FLORIDA
SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
The following is a non-verbatim transcript of the BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEETING OF
SEMINOLE COUNTY, FLORIDA, held at 7:00 p.m., on Wednesday, September 24,
2013, in Room 1028 of the SEMINOLE
COUNTY SERVICES BUILDING at SANFORD,
FLORIDA, the usual place of meeting of said Board.
Present:
Chairman
Robert Dallari (District 1)
Vice
Chairman John Horan (District 2)
Commissioner
Lee Constantine (District 3)
Commissioner Carlton
Henley (District 4)
Commissioner
Brenda Carey (District 5)
County
Manager Jim Hartmann
County
Attorney Bryant Applegate
Chief
Deputy Bruce McMenemy
Deputy
Clerk Jane Spencer
Commissioner Henley gave the Invocation.
Commissioner Carey led the Pledge of Allegiance.
PUBLIC HEARING
FY 2013/2014 FINAL BUDGET
Proof of publication, as shown on page
________, calling for a public hearing to consider the Seminole County FY
2013/2014 Final budget, received and filed.
Chairman Dallari announced that the Board of County
Commissioners does not have any control over the tax levies and budgets of the
School Board, the Water Management District, or any of the seven cities in
Seminole County. Questions regarding
property assessed valuations should be addressed to the Property Appraiser’s
Office, who is here today. The Board of
County Commissioners has limited authority over the budgets of the
Constitutional Officers of the County which include the Clerk of the Circuit Court,
the Property Appraiser, the Sheriff, the Supervisor of Elections and the Tax
Collector. He discussed how the budgets for
the Constitutional Officers are reviewed and approved. He explained that the purpose of this public
hearing is to take comments regarding proposed millage rates and budget, amending
the budget as desired by the Board, and adopting the millage rates and budget
of the County for FY 2013/14 as required by Florida law. Chairman Dallari announced that this budget
hearing and Seminole County’s intent to adopt the final millage rates and
budget for FY 2014 were advertised in the Seminole Extra Section of the Orlando
Sentinel Newspaper on September 19, 2013.
Joe
Pennisi, Resource Management Director, addressed the Board to display a
PowerPoint Presentation (received and filed) entitled “Second Public Hearing FY
2013/14 Final Budget.” He displayed the
first slide and explained that at the first Public Hearing held by Seminole
County, the Board approved a tentative budget totaling $711.9 million based on
no change in the current property taxes.
At this hearing the County must approve its Final Budget and Millage
Rates for FY 2013/14. He explained that
the proposed final budget totaling $718 million includes an increase of
$6,101,667 to the tentatively approved budget and advised the proposed changes
are detailed on pages 23 through 30 of the Final Public Hearing book.
Mr. Pennisi displayed the Millage
Rate Summary and advised the proposed FY 2013/14 Budget as amended tonight for
final adoption is based on maintaining current year property tax rates. He reviewed millage rates for the Adopted
2012/13 Budget; Tentative 2013/14 Budget; Rolled-Back Rates; and the Percentage
of increase in the Tentative millage rates over the Rolled-Back
millage rates for Countywide, the Roads District, and the Fire Services
District. The Voted Debt Service
(Lands/Trails Program) expired in FY 2012/13 pursuant to the voter approved
referendum and is no longer levied.
Mr. Pennisi continued his
presentation and reviewed the 2013 Change in Taxable Property Values; Property
Tax Revenue; FY 2013/14 Proposed Budget Summary (totaling $718,017,877). He noted that a detailed listing by fund of
changes to the tentative budget is located on pages 20 through 22 of the Final
Public Hearing Book. Mr. Pennisi
discussed a graph depicting a Summary of Sources and a graph depicting Expenditures
by Service Area.
Walter Osborne, Red Ember Road,
addressed the Board to suggest the County take step one towards a merit
system. He questioned whether it is fair
to give the same raise to someone who has three years of outstanding annual
evaluations versus another person that has three years of satisfactory
evaluation along with a written recommendation that improvement is needed in
certain areas. He discussed employees
who are self directed and questioned whether it is fair for a self-directed
learner to receive the same percentage raise as someone who just does their
job. Mr. Osborn requested the Board ask
the County Manager to take step one in the direction of a merit system.
John Horvath, 1004 Bradford Drive,
addressed the Board to state he read the budget and is glad that the fees for
LYNX have gone up. With SunRail coming
around the corner, they will need the bus system to get people from outside the
perimeter of SunRail to SunRail and get cars off the road. He discussed the unfunded mandates from both
the Federal government and the State government, which chews into the
budget. With regard to prolonging the
purchase of equipment, Mr. Horvath stated he believes the County needs to start
looking a little bit ahead. He pointed
out that there were some fire deaths this year and advised they need to look at
all of the services. He discussed some
gaps in fire station coverage and the need to reduce response times. He thinks the County needs to start looking
at some of the things it has put off for a while. Mr. Horvath stated he knows the County has
run a tight budget over the years and is trying to do its best.
No one else spoke in support or in
opposition.
Speaker
Request Forms were received and filed.
Commissioner
Carey noted that they start very early in the year with work sessions to get
ready for the budget. She stated there
have been many prior discussions in the work sessions about things that they
need to do and believes it is important that they talk about a few of them when
they are having public meetings. Upon
inquiry by Commissioner Carey, Mr. Pennisi stated the balance in reserves in
the General Fund is $55 million and indicated they are using approximately $8.7
million of those funds to balance the budget this year. Of the three major funds (General Fund,
Transportation and Fire), they are using $20 million to balance the
budget. Commissioner Carey commented
that they cannot continue to sustain the budget by using reserves or they will
be depleted in several years. She wants
people to be aware that they need to work hard to change the way they are doing
things. She stated when she looks at the
budget and talks about delaying purchases and all of the things they have done
and the tough decisions they have had to make, she believes those are things
they had to do because the public expects the County to be accountable for
their funds.
Commissioner Carey stated that at
last year’s budget, they did a 3% across-the-board increase with a $500
one-time payment that did not go to the base for employees that made under
$35,000 a year. At that time the Board
was told that by the time they get to the next budget year, they would have
performance-based reviews back in place.
Since nobody likes the valuation system the County uses, she expected to
see a new system come to the Board.
Commissioner Carey stated she is opposed to 3% across the board and
would prefer for people to be paid for performance. She stated she threw out several ideas during
the work sessions but it seemed that the majority wanted to do 3%.
Motion by Commissioner Carey to approve
an increase in salaries by 3%; to cap the increase at $2,000 for full-time
employees and $1,000 for part-time employees; and to approve a one-time payment
of $500 for any employee who is making under $35,000. The increase would exclude the County
Manager, the County Attorney, and any employees who have been with the County
for less than six months or who are still on probation.
Chairman Dallari surrendered the
gavel to Commissioner Horan for the purpose of seconding the motion.
Under discussion, Commissioner
Carey stated she understands that they all wanted to do 3% but she believes she
is offering a compromise. She stated she
is not going to support a 3% across-the-board raise. She does not feel that it is
appropriate. She had hoped they would
not be having this discussion this year; but since they have not gotten to the
performance-based review process, she thought it would be a reasonable
compromise.
Chairman Dallari agreed with
Commissioner Carey. He stated last year
when they discussed this, they talked about the merit review. He stated he would like to see that review
come back. The process they have now needs
to be addressed and changed. He believes
it can be addressed over the next six months and believes this is a compromise
to get them there.
Districts
1 and 5 voted AYE.
Commissioners
Horan, Constantine and Henley voted NAY; whereupon, the motion failed for the lack of a majority vote.
Commissioner
Horan returned the gavel to Commissioner Dallari to resume the duties of Chairman.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner Carey, seconded by
Commissioner Horan, to remove from the budget the $21,500 salary increase for
the County Commissioners and keep their salaries as they are today.
Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 voted
AYE.
- - -
Commissioner Constantine complimented
Commissioner Carey for trying to find what she felt was a compromise. He noted that both the County Manager and the
County Attorney have asked not to be included in this salary increase.
Commissioner Constantine stated he
does believe wholeheartedly in a performance-based system of salary. Although he wasn't here last year, he agrees
that if it was suggested that it would be coming back, it should have. He believes it is important that they put in
a motion that a system comes back to the Board in some form, that they work on
with it with staff this year and have recommendations come back; so when they
go through this process next year, it will be in place.
Motion by Commissioner Constantine, seconded
by Commissioner Carey, to bring a merit increase evaluation process to the
Board.
Under discussion, Commissioner
Carey stated she would like an amendment to the motion to put a time specific
on it. She commented that she takes
leadership at their word when they say they will have something taken care of
before they have this discussion again.
She stated that last year she voted for the increase based on that
statement and here they are again having the same discussion.
Commissioner Constantine clarified that the timeline in his motion would be before the Board votes
again on any salary increases.
Chairman Dallari wondered, since
they do the budget in September, would it be acceptable to have a system in
place by the end of August. Commissioner
Constantine stated he believes it should be done earlier. If they are going to do it right, there needs
to be an evaluation and discussion. When
he says “before they ever increase any salaries,” he can guaranty that puts a
fire under everyone to make sure they get it done. As far as a date, he stated it would be by May
31.
Commissioner Carey agreed to the
amendment. She stated the system they
have is very flawed, which is why no one likes to use the system they
have. She believes they need to start
right away to get a system that they want to use for performance-based
evaluations. Then there is the training
process. The County has a lot of
management that does not understand the evaluation process. She further discussed the evaluation
process.
Commissioner Henley stated in order
for a merit system to be done properly and fair to the employees, you have to
let them know in advance on what they are going to be evaluated, what the
criteria are that are necessary in order to determine whether they performed in
a meritorious way, and upon what the indicators are for the evaluators in order
to understand clearly what it takes to be meritorious. He believes it has to be worked on and
implemented earlier unless they move to a two-year approach, which many people
do. He cautioned that if the process is
not done properly, it can be a real morale destroyer. Commissioner Henley stated he believes
Commissioner Carey is right in that evaluating personnel in the job on certain
criteria takes a certain amount of training.
He believes it is a step in the right direction, but he would hope they
would go about it very deliberately and develop a system that the employees
understand and the evaluators understand.
He stated that to implement it a month or so before they are ending up
the budget is a little bit late, although he understands they are trying to get
it going and will support that.
Commissioner Constantine stated he
was trying to come from a standpoint of making it happen and being fair to the
staff, the County Manager and the people the County Manager will have to pull
in such as HR. He pointed out that there
are examples out there. He is open to whatever
timeframe staff feels they can get this implemented. He believes that by making a motion and the
Board saying they are going to do this before next year, they are putting staff
on notice as to say this is going to be evaluated; so therefore, the better job
performance you have, hopefully the better increase you will get next year.
Commissioner Horan discussed the 27
years he spent in the private sector in a management capacity hiring, firing
and evaluating professional personnel.
He stated it takes time to develop a valid and credible evaluation
system, especially with all of the different types of pay grades and different
types of activities that there are with 1,300 employees. He has discussed this with the County Manager
and has no doubt that it is being worked on.
There has to be a way of evaluating personnel and of tying that
evaluation to performance. Then there
has to be a way of tying that performance to compensation. Commissioner Horan encouraged the County
Manager to continue on that particular quest.
He stated he does not believe they need any type of time period for
doing that and he knows it is in the works.
Commissioner Horan stated his own
experience with the County Manager with regard to performance and employment
situations is that the County Manager is trying to get the right people on the
bus and he believes that he is getting the right people on the bus. Commissioner Horan noted that he is not
concerned about performance of staff at this particular time. He believes staff performs well and thinks
the morale is good so he is in favor of a performance evaluation system but is
not particularly in favor of putting any time period on it.
Commissioner Carey suggested that
they asked the County Manager, since he thought he would have it ready this
year, where he is in the process.
Mr. Hartmann advised that over the
past year, they have had significant turnover in the HR Department and there
are now a number of new people, many of whom come with a great deal of
experience. He believes that is a
critical first step. They have also
created the Office of Organizational Development and have just recently hired
an individual who developed similar processes in Sarasota County. He pointed out that they are in the process
of reworking what will end up being a performance evaluation, but it is also
something where they need to begin with some strategic initiatives, and he will
be bringing those focuses back to the Board because they have to establish
those first if they are then going to tie the organization's performance to
meeting some of those standards. Many of
the standards will also include the values that they all have. He has put a list of those out and these are
expected behaviors that they want in this organization. He stated this is not easy work and it is
something that they have got to make sure they are training people to do.
With regard to the timeframe, Mr.
Hartmann stated he wants it as soon as the Board does. He discussed what they are currently doing
regarding the process of putting the timeframe together. His hope is that when they get to January or
February, they will have instruments and training in place in order to do
that. Then they can begin a
conversion. He noted that several years
ago they moved people's evaluations to their anniversary date and he discussed
reasons for undoing that. Mr. Hartmann
stated he is mindful of all of this and he wasn't able to accomplish that in
the last year because they frankly did not have the Human Resources and the
organizational resources in order to make that happen. He is more confident today that they have got
many of those resources in place and will be able now to move to that
conclusion.
Commissioner Carey pointed out that
when the request went out for other organizations to state what they were
doing, some of them weren't giving raises at all; but the majority of all of
the other jurisdictions who were giving any increase, whether it be 1% or 3%, were mostly basing it on performance
evaluations. She believes government can
do things different and that they have to do things different. She stated they certainly will have to do
things different in the County or change the way that they have their revenues
streamed because they can't keep balancing the budget the way they are doing it
now.
Upon inquiry by Chairman Dallari,
Commissioner Constantine stated he doesn't want to be here next year and hear
the same thing which is why he wants to make it a motion and put it on the
record and move forward. He stated he
understands Commissioner Henley's concerns but he has confidence in the new HR
Director, the County Manager and County Attorney to come up with a proper procedure.
Upon inquiry by Commissioner
Constantine as to whether or not May 31 is a date that he can live with, Mr. Hartmann
stated that date is fine and he will try to deliver something ahead of
time.
Commissioner Henley discussed his
concerns in getting something done in time to be able to educate their
employees as to how they are going to be evaluated and what they need to know
as to whether they have reached a meritorious level. He stated if the County can get any
preliminary indications out to the employees as to what they have to do to be meritorious, he would have a better comfort level than he
does now.
Commissioner Carey stated there has been an
evaluation system in place at the County for years. She believes the employees have a pretty good
idea that they are expected to show up and do their job at a minimum
ability. Most of the employees show up
and do a great job. She stated she
believes the management team understands the process and the employees know
that the County is looking for an A team.
She further discussed evaluations.
She reminded the Board that in the past, they evaluated the County
Manager and the County Attorney and she believes they need to do that again,
that it is that time of year to let them know if the Board thinks they are on
the right track or not. She stated she
doesn't think it will take too long to develop a system and if Mr. Hartmann
believes he can have something rolled out by January or February and they get
the training done, they should be able to make the May date.
Commissioner Horan pointed out that
there has been a 50% to 60% turnover in directors since Mr. Hartmann took over
so those particular directors are going to have to get to know their employees
and understand the core competencies. He
is not surprised that it is taking some time to do this. With regard to fairness, Commissioner Horan
stated he would hope whatever compensation or evaluation program the County
has, that it would be based and implemented on fairness to the employee. If it is not going to be fair to the employees,
you are going to squander the whole value of an evaluation process, which is to
make the employees better and to make the whole organization better. He does not look at May 31 as being a magic
date when all employees are evaluated and they have all the core competencies
identified. They just need, as a Board,
to understand from a policy point of view that they believe that their
employees should be evaluated on a performance basis and that performance
should be explained to the Board and then operationally should be implemented
in such a way that will be fair to all of the employees.
Commissioner Henley stated that
while he agrees with a lot of the comments that have been made, he thinks the
expectation is more than simply showing up and going through the motions. If that is the level of expectation, then
they can move forward tomorrow on that.
He discussed the purpose for an evaluation. He believes the discussion today has been
healthy and thinks they all want the same thing, which is a system everybody
understands clearing of what the expectations are. Commissioner Henley stated he has confidence
in Mr. Hartmann and his staff and that Mr. Hartmann has demonstrated time and
again that they have a staff that is competent, capable and willing to go the
extra mile in order to meet the expectation of the Board as it relates to the
funds they have to deal with. That is
the reason he was willing to support a 3% increase while they are working
toward the improvement of the process.
Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 voted
AYE.
- - -
Commissioner Horan pointed out that
the budget year started out looking very promising because there were
preliminary indications from the Property Appraiser that the tax base was going
up. That additional tax base was going
to create somewhere in the neighborhood of about $5.2 million or $5.3 million
additional revenue. He noted that then
the Legislature met and the County was met with $5.2 million in additional
assessments for the contribution to the Florida Retirement System (FRS). He discussed retirement contribution rates as
established by the Legislature. This
year they are contributing 33.03% as the employer contribution for FRS, which
he believes is ridiculous. He believes
the actuarials will be coming back in October of this
year and they will show the FRS system to be even more healthy
than when the assessments were made.
Commissioner Horan also discussed the $3 million increased assessment
from LYNX.
Commissioner Horan stated he liked the
way the budget was balanced, particularly the
responsible way they have handled reserves.
He stated it is essential that the County maintain adequate levels of
reserves across all of their funds as a protection to the taxpayer to mitigate
current and future risks. He further
discussed the reserves. Commissioner
Horan noted that they did cut their contributions to Community Service agencies
from $930,000 to about $780,000.
Assuming things are as he prognosticates, that they are going to have a
healthy year, he intends to during the year bring back before the Board the
possibility of replenishing some of those particular funds during the fiscal
year.
- - -
Chairman Dallari referred to the
Employee PTO Buy Back plan document that he distributed earlier in his District
report. He noted that the plan is not in
the budget and wondered if there was any support to put it back into the
budget. He stated that he believes it is
fiscally prudent to allow people to cash out some of their PTO at a lower rate
than to cash it out at a higher rate.
Commissioner Carey stated it is County
policy right now that anybody that has some time can get paid out 40 hours, if
they are a regular employee, up to 120 hours if they are a 56-hour
employee. That would come out of either
the Fire Fund or the General Fund. She
stated she does not know that they ever budgeted for it particularly. She stated she has an issue with the County's
policy and she knows that is something that the Chairman is hopeful to bring up
sometime during the year to look at the PTO policy.
Chairman Dallari stated he believes
the Buy Back program was suspended for this budget session. Mr. Hartmann verified that the program was
suspended. Chairman Dallari stated he
would like to have the employees paid out for the PTO as they see fit.
Commissioner Henley stated it is a
move in the right direction from the taxpayer's standpoint because most of the
accumulated hours were accumulated at a much lower rate of pay than they have
today.
Commissioner Carey pointed out that
typically the employee had to do it between October and December. They are about to give everybody a 3%
raise. Maybe they could allow it to
happen if the request is made before October 1 and then pay it out in next year's
budget and make it a very short window for those who are eligible. She stated they have a huge liability by
allowing people to accrue up to 960 hours and carry it on the books. It really is just not something that is good
policy and she thinks it is a policy they need to look at.
Chairman Dallari reiterated that
right now the plan is not funded in the budget.
If they want to institute it this year, it has to be put back into the
budget.
Upon inquiry by Commission Horan,
Mr. Pennisi stated the amount of money they are talking about is $113,000 in
the General Fund, which is what was taken out of the budget to reflect the
change, and it would need to go back in.
Upon inquiry by Commissioner Carey, he stated they did not make changes
to the Fire Fund. Commissioner Carey
confirmed with Mr. Pennisi that if the firefighters want to cash in their PTO,
they will still be able to do it and they didn't take that out because it was a
part of the collective bargaining.
Commissioner Carey stated she would
rather pay them out at a lower rate but she suggested a compromise of putting
the plan back into the budget but guaranty that by mid-year they discuss this
policy of PTO.
Motion by Commissioner Carey, seconded by
Commissioner Horan, to approve the PTO Buy Back Plan for this year with the
condition that by mid-year, they have a new PTO policy presented to the Board.
Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 voted
AYE.
- - -
Commissioner Constantine noted that
he has noticed since he has become a member of the Board that each one of them
is a fiscal conservative in one form or another. He has heard a lot of "railing" on
unfunded mandates that the State has presented to the County. Commissioner Constantine stated that this
year the State is going to have an additional $835 million of non-recurring
money. One of things he thinks they
should and can do is work very hard with their legislators on finding things
that are imbedded into their budget that are or should be in some form or
fashion State funded. He believes there
are opportunities where their legislative delegation will be able to find
things they have not funded in the last couple of years that are non-recurring
dollars that they will be able to bring back which naturally should be partially
funded by State government.
- - -
Commissioner Carey stated that she
is pleased they all agreed to keep the millage where it is so they are not
putting this burden on the taxpayers.
She thinks there are a lot of things that need to come forward next year
including funding of transportation and how they will do that so it is not on
the backs of only the property owners in the county. She added that philosophically she disagrees
with the way the funds are being allocated; and because of that, she is not
going to be voting for the budget.
Commissioner Horan agreed with
Commissioner Carey, that they will need additional revenues, which means that
next year they will probably have to go out for some kind of additional tax. When you look at the revenue needs, where the
revenue is today, where the revenue was five to ten years ago, where the
millage is today, and where the millage was five to ten years ago, obviously
that is not sustainable. They will have
to be honest with the citizens and honest with the voters and say this is the
level of service that you have and we will need additional revenue. He stated they will have to look that
straight in the eye and that this budget shows very simply that they can't
continue to use the prudently accumulated reserves the Board set up for a
number of years because they will run out.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner Horan,
seconded by Commissioner Henley, to adopt the FY 2013/14 General Countywide ad
valorem tax rate of 4.8751 mills, as described in the proof of publication.
Districts
1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner Henley, seconded
by Commissioner Horan, to adopt the FY 2013/14 Fire MSTU ad valorem tax rate of
2.3299 mills, as described in the proof of publication.
Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner Horan, seconded by
Commissioner Henley, to adopt the FY 2013/14 Unincorporated Road MSTU ad
valorem tax rate of 0.1107 mills, as described in the proof of publication.
Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
At the
request of Chairman Dallari, Mr. Pennisi displayed the FY 2013/14 Millage Rates
chart and read the established millage rates into the public record as
follows: The adopted General County millage
rate of 4.8751 mills represents a 2.35% increase over the rolled-back rate. The adopted Fire/Rescue MSTU millage rate of
2.3299 mills represents 2.77% increase over the rolled-back rate. The adopted Unincorporated Road MSTU millage
rate of 0.1107 mills represents an increase of 2.69% over the rolled-back millage
rate. The proposed “aggregate” millage
rate is 6.5192 mills, which represents a 1.78% increase from the current year
“aggregate” rolled-back millage rate of 6.4054 mills.
Motion by Commissioner Horan,
seconded by Commissioner Henley, to adopt appropriate Resolution #2013-R-233,
as shown on page _______, approving the Millage Levy for FY 2013/14 inclusive
of the millage rates announced, as described in the proof of publication.
Districts
1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner
Horan, seconded by Commissioner Henley, to approve budget adjustments to the FY
2013/14 Tentative Budget totaling $6,101,667, as described in the proof of
publication.
Districts
1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
Motion by Commissioner
Henley, seconded by Commissioner Horan, to adopt appropriate Budget Resolution
#2013-R-234, as shown on page _______, for Fiscal Year 2013/14, as described in
the proof of publication.
Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 voted AYE.
Commissioner
Carey voted NAY.
- - -
There being no further business to come before the
Board, the Chairman declared the meeting adjourned at 8:01 p.m., this same
date.
ATTEST:_______________________Clerk_____________________Chairman
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