Okaloosa County BOCC — October 5, 2013 — Trip Report on Gulf Consortium Meeting, Sept 18, 2013 — reading text

Trip Report on Gulf Consortium Meeting, Sept. 18, 2013 at West Palm Beach, FL Attendee: Dave Parisot, Director 1. The Meeting Agenda is attached. My comments will be on Agenda Items 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10/11, 12 and 13. [Note: This meeting had the lowest attendance of County Directors to date. Seven of the 23 Consortium counties were either absent (3) or had a non-voting representative (4) in attendance. Reasons given for non-attendance were due to meeting location and/or budget hearings.] 2. Agenda Item 4 (Draft Treasury Rules)(Note: A copy of the Draft Treasury Rules was provided to each Okaloosa Commissioner, County Administrator, and County Attorney via email on Sept. 5, 2013, and posted to the County’s RESTORE website on Sept. 6): This item comprised the bulk of this meeting. Sarah Bleakley (Consortium Counsel with NGN) provided a paper with her comments from reading the Draft Treasury Rules. Key topics addressed in her paper and during Consortium discussion were in the following areas (Note: The Draft Treasury Rules refer to “Pot 3” as the “Spill Impact Component”): a. Reimbursement of planning expenditures prior to approval of the State Expenditure Plan (SEP) by the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council (GCERC). b. Recognition of the Gulf Consortium as the “consortium of counties” for Florida. c. Interfacing with the Florida Clerk of Courts Assn. to help standardize the handling of RESTORE grant funds at the county level. d. Still awaiting input from the GCERC on factors to be used to apply the formula in the RESTORE Act for “Pot 3”, in particular how to measure impacted shoreline within each State. e. Additional guidance on the format and criteria of the SEP needs to be provided by the GCERC and Treasury. f. Who certifies that the projects and programs in the SEP meet the criteria of the RESTORE Act and the Treasury Rules? g. There is still much information from Treasury to be provided after their review and finalization of inputs to the Draft Rules (due in by Nov. 5, 2013). Since the next scheduled meeting of the Consortium was not until after Nov. 5 th, I proposed having a meeting in Tallahassee on Oct. 25th to further address the Draft Treasury Rules in time to submit questions/comments to Treasury. Anyone with inputs on the Draft Treasury Rules as they pertain to the Gulf Consortium (Spill Impact Component or “Pot 3”) to Sarah Bleakley (SBleakley@ngnlaw.com) and Doug Darling (DDarling@fl-counties.com) by Oct. 4th. (Note: I submitted some comments and questions prior to the Sept. 18th consortium meeting, but will most likely submit more after I meet with the Clerk of Courts staff, County Administrator, and Matrix Design on Oct. 2 nd.)  Agenda Item 5 (Procurement of Development Plan RFP): After some discussion of the task requirements for consultant services to develop the Consortium’s Multi-Year Plan to be submitted to the GCERC and the number of questions to be addressed in the Draft Treasury Rules, this item was tabled for further discussion at the Oct. 25 and Nov. 13 meetings. It is still uncertain by the Draft Treasury Rules whether the costs of these consultant services prior to Plan approval will be reimbursable. The draft RFP for these services currently contains tasks to have the consultant firm be involved with the receipt and disbursement of RESTORE funds. I cautioned the Consortium that this would be a bad idea. 4. Agenda Items 6 (Interim Manager Contract), and 7 (Interim General Counsel Contract): The contracts with FAC for services of Mr. Chris Holley and Mr. Doug Darling for Managers were extended for one year. The contract for Interim General Counsel with Ms. Sarah Bleakley of NGN was extended for one year. 5. Agenda Item 8 (Transition Budget): The original proposal was to continue with the formula of the “8--disproportionately impacted counties” (including Okaloosa) providing 75% of the funding for the Consortium. Prior to the meeting, I had requested that FAC managers provide a list, by county, of contributions to date (copy attached). This chart shows that the 8-County group has provided $147,534 of the total of $180,904, or 82%, of the funding to FAC. (The $50,000 paid in 2011-2012 was for support in getting the RESTORE Act passed by Congress with the funds to be paid directly to the Florida coastal counties vice to the State.) As a result, the Consortium agreed for the FY2014 annual funding of FAC to be revised such that the eight smallest counties by population (Dixie, Jefferson, Gulf, Franklin, Levy, Taylor, Wakulla, and Walton) will pay $2,000 each and the rest of the counties will pay $8,284. This is a reduction of $7,703 in the originally proposed assessment for Okaloosa County of $15,987. Our billings will be in two 6-month increments of $4,142 each. 6. Agenda Items 10/11 (Future Meetings): a. The next consortium meeting will be held on Oct. 25 at 11:00AM (EDT) in Tallahassee, site TBD to review and discuss the various inputs from the Consortium counties to the Draft Treasury Rules of the RESTORE Act prior to submission to Treasury not later than Nov. 5, 2013. b. There will be a Gulf Consortium meeting on Nov. 13, 2013 at 9:00AM (EST) in Daytona Beach, FL in conjunction with the FAC Legislative Conference. c. There is proposed to have a Consortium meeting on Jan. 24, 2014 (site TBD). d. There is proposed to have a consortium meeting in Tallahassee on Mar. 24, 2014 in conjunction with the FAC Legislative Day (Mar. 25). 7. Agenda Item 12 (New Business): a. I inquired as to Governor Scott’s appointment of his allowed six non-voting appointees to the Consortium per the Memorandum of Understanding. No names have yet been provided. . b. I requested the Consortium to establish a process whereby Directors may input an item to the agenda in advance of the meetings, rather than during “New Business” discussions. This format could be identical to the currently used Agenda Items (Statement of Issue, Background, Analysis, Options, Recommendations, and Submitted By) to be completed by the submitter. The Consortium Chairman would have authority to include or not include the items on the meeting agendas. Item approved. c. I initiated discussion of the seemingly self-imposed 2-hour time limit of Consortium meetings and the impacts of holding most meetings in conjunction with other FAC meetings or conferences. RESTORE is one of the more important things for Florida’s Gulf counties in decades and we need to have sufficient time for both discussion and for public input (required by RESTORE Act). As efforts to reduce meeting costs for staff and travel for Directors, most Consortium meetings have been held in conjunction with scheduled FAC meetings. Two practices have driven the 2-hour limit: 1. Advertising meetings with a start and stop time, and 2. Scheduling meetings in the morning of the first day of the FAC meeting, e.g., 10:00AM. Discussion followed resulting in consensus that future meetings will not have an advertised stop time and meetings in conjunction with other FAC meetings will be scheduled to start earlier if pre-conference or be scheduled at the conclusion of the FAC meetings. 8. Agenda Item 13 (Public Comment): Due to the passage and implementation of SB 50 by the 2013 Legislature, the Public Comments section of future agendas will be moved to the front of the meetings to allow comments on any agenda items that the Consortium will vote on prior to the votes. Dave Parisot Okaloosa Director to Gulf Consortium, and Commissioner, Dist. 2