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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.