Oh, yeah.

Good morning, everyone.

Uh, it's 9 30, and we will now open the meeting of Tampa Bay Waters uh Board of Directors for today, Monday, February 23rd.

The meeting was noticed in the Florida Administrative Register and on the Tampa Bay Water website.

The meeting is available for viewing through live streaming, and a recording of the meeting will be posted on the agency's website.

I want to note that David Jackson, Deputy General Counsel, will be sitting in for Kelly at today's meeting.

At this time, I'm going to ask our vice chair, Lizette Hanowitz to please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

All right, at this time, uh, I'm going to ask Krista to please call the role.

Vice Chair Hanowitz.

Here.

Commissioner Eggers?

Here.

Mayor Davis.

Here.

Councilman Miranda.

Commissioner Oakley.

Here.

Commissioner Waiteman.

Present.

Commissioner Wolstall.

And Commissioner Peters.

Here.

Avaquorum.

Okay, thank you very much.

At this time we are going to move on to public comment.

We have three minutes allotted per speaker.

We have one person who has signed up to speak this morning, and that is David Ballard Geddes Jr.

Good morning.

Hi, good morning.

Uh David Ballard Geddes Jr.

I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor.

House Bill 479 and Senate Bill 718 decommissions the county government and replaces it with an interlocement invoking statute 163.01.

As implied, the bill serves as an acquisition notice to the county and interlocally transfers the county functions and powers as recognized in Pinellis County Home Rule Charter, Section 2.04Q in the aiding and abetting of an internal foreign entity dissolving, liquidating the county, and simultaneously it shapeshifts the local and municipal municipal city and uh governments into individual watershed jurisdictions, usurping the powers of government as constitutionally gerrymandered under the 14th amendment.

Using a quid pro quo agreement with the water district, the bill internally manifests and insurrects an internal foreign legal entity giving rise to water despots, wholly intent on adjudicating against the civilian population intent on holding, acquiring, selling, and disposing of our property and development rights that they claim as their right to claim eminent domain against the residents, claiming that they have all powers and privileges materialized under Chapter 159 of the Florida State statutes without giving notice to the homeowner in their development practices and their backbiting infrastructure schemes as they intend on constitutionally formulating and methodically contriving against the residents of this town.415 section 16F.

This entity is claiming that they're able to assess taxes of any kind whatsoever in financing their levies and user fees, such as reclaimed water availability fees and such, and they intend to contrive annual inspection charges for future reclaimed water toilet inspection fees.

This rebellious entity, they claim that they are themselves exempt from laws that they intend on imposing on others.

And they claiming that we are contri or that we are obliged to pay their contrived indebted indebtedness, and at the same time, this legal foreign entity is claiming their rights to take our liberty and our property again under the 14th Amendment.

House Bill 479 and Senate Bill 718 decommissions our current government grants insurrects aids and abeds a third-party political usurpation of foreign legal entity in our government, and it's claiming rights to take everything that we own under the 14th Amendment and place us in bondage.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let's note for the record that Commissioner Wastall joined us.

Thank you.

At this time, we at this time.

Well at this time, uh, we're going to move on to the consent agenda.

Move for approval.

Second.

We have a motion for approval from Mayor Davis and a second from Councilwoman Hanowitz.

Please record your vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Moving on to the regular agenda, we are going to start with item B1.

Mr.

Carton.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair and members of the board.

Good morning to all.

I'm going to start with the regional system and talk a little bit about the drought, and then Warren Hogg's gonna join me and walk us through a few slides as well.

Through the end of January, uh the system is averaging about almost 204 million gallons a day, which is 4.1% higher than this uh same time uh delivery last year.

Um as you all know, most of the region is uh in a so very severe to extreme drought, and we are under the one-day per week watering restrictions that began on February 8th.

Uh enforcement is uh of these restrictions is critically important to preserve our drinking water uh supplies through the spring.

Um, and as you can see, uh we will be relying heavily on our diesel plant through the rest of the fiscal year.

Um I did want to emphasize I've said this several times, uh, we're we're not in danger of running out of water.

Uh we have simply would turn to the groundwater uh in higher capacities as things uh worsen.

So if Warren would walk us through some of those slides for us.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman and members of the board.

Just have three or four quick slides for you today to emphasize what Mr.

Cardin is has been uh discussing.

The 12-month running average pumping rate for the consolidated permit well fuels was about 88.13 million gallons a day at the end of January.

As we move into February and March, which we typically get uh rainfall in those two months.

So far for the month of February, we've averaged about a half an inch, and normally we get about 2.8.

So the drought will continue through this month.

Uh and we're heading into our driest months of the year in April and May.

As Mr.

Cardin said, we'll continue to balance our sources to meet our supply demands, but we do have an increasing chance of running up against our permit limit or perhaps going over the consolidated permit limit as we have to turn to this to meet demands.

Uh back two years ago when the one-day-a-week restrictions were put in place, we saw demand reductions of up to 30 percent because of the uh restrictions.

So the public can help us out tremendously by knowing your day and following your day, and that's a message that we and your staff and the district will continue to issue.

The 12-month running average pumping rate for the South Central Hillsborough well field was 25.87 million gallons a day at the end of January.

We did get our permit increase in late November, so our new permit limit is 26.82.

With the increase in demands that we expect through the year in South Hillsborough County, we will be again close to our new permit limit later in the fiscal year.

And depending on demands and rainfall, we could be over that limit later in the year.

We'll see how that plays out.

Again, the public is the entity that can help us tremendously with this system.

We began using water from our reservoir on October the 20th of last year, which is far earlier than we planned to.

We've seen a steady decline in the storage volume.

And actually, as of midnight last night, we were about 7.56 billion gallons stored, so about half.

And we expect to be down around two one and a half to two billion gallons stored by the end of the dry season, which is getting close to the useful storage in our reservoir.

So again, we will be working with the public and the media to get the message out for conservation.

We'll be balancing all of our sources to meet demands, and as the last case, we turn to groundwater to make sure that we meet your demands each day.

Okay.

Any questions from board members.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I have a few more slides if I can continue.

Um did want to mention uh the surface water treatment plant.

We are having a groundbreaking for the expansion next Monday at 1 30.

You should have all been invited.

Uh also the agency is launching uh a pay in class study.

Uh it'll be a comprehensive review of our agency's jobs.

Uh and our plan is to uh bring it back in late spring, early summer, be completed by it and bring it back to the board.

It is a requirement uh to do this every three years in uh in our personnel rules manual.

Also, uh we have two open houses that we're uh gonna be hosting here.

One is on February 25th for uh the engineering firms.

Uh we're gonna display some of the projects that we have coming up, and we've invited the member governments, so some of the member governments will be here doing the same.

Uh and we'll also in April on April 8th, we will be doing the very same thing for contractors, trying to show them what all of us are going to be doing and uh soliciting maybe the competition for the for the jobs.

On Wednesday in two days, uh, I will be up at the University of Florida's symposium uh for uh listening to the documentary for lightning in a bottle, as you recall.

Uh that was a documentary we showcased two years ago at our 25th anniversary.

And so you can see the panelists uh that will be there as well uh on Wednesday.

Uh we also uh partner with Pasco County Schools to support uh its environmental education program.

Three of our engineers served uh recently as judges for the science and engineering showcase, and you can also see uh board member Seth Waitman presenting uh the environmental stewardship awards to the winners uh just Friday night.

The City of Tampa awarded its 2025 Tampa Bay Community Waterwise Awards to city residents for their water efficient landscapes.

Uh at our April board meeting, uh, we will be presenting the best of the region award for the Tampa Bay Community uh waterwise awards.

Early this month, we hosted an activity booth at the uh St.

Pete Science Festival, and I was told there's more there was more than 10,000 uh people that uh attended that.

Uh to celebrate World Wetlands Day on February 2nd, uh our staff hosted an edible aquifer activity with the kids at the Great Explorations uh Children's Museum in St.

Pete.

And uh we did that in uh our wonders of wetlands exhibit.

Uh we recently joined our environmental education partners to uh uh keeping Pinellas Beautiful at a workshop and at the annual volunteer uh awards luncheon.

And in conclusion, uh I would like to take a moment to acknowledge uh the passing uh of our colleague Bobby Burchett.

Uh he was part of our Black and Beach family.

Uh he was also an integral part of our team.

He contributed not only to the help deliver uh the region's water supply projects, but also bringing warmth and kindness and a very bright smile to our work environment.

Uh he will be missed, and our thoughts are with his family and friends and colleagues across the region and at Blacken Beach.

All right.

Thank you very much.

We are going to move on now to item number B2, which is legislative and grant funding program update.

Good morning, Chairman.

Oh, sorry.

Apologize.

Good morning.

Today I'll be presenting agenda item B2, Tampa Bay Waters legislative and grant funding program update.

This item is designed to give the board a brief update of our ongoing legislative activities at both the state and federal level.

This slide shows the makeup of our legislative team.

Our team continues to work closely together to monitor legislation for implications to Tampa Bay Water, as well as advance our funding priorities.

Joining us today via Zoom, we have all three of our legislative consultants.

First, they will be providing the board with a more detailed update of our ongoing legislative activities.

First, we're going to hear from Mr.

Pete Denbar of Jones Walker to give us uh update on the state legislative session.

Following Pete will be Mr.

Matthew Blair of Corcoran Partners, who will provide an update on our appropriation requests.

And lastly, we'll uh hear from Mrs.

Mary Beth Nassif and Paul Cambon to provide us with our federal update.

So on that note, I'll turn it over to you, Mr.

Dunbar.

Thank you, Brant.

Mr.

Chairman, can you hear me all right?

Uh yes, we can.

Good morning.

Uh good morning.

Uh we're today begins uh the final two weeks of our uh annual legislative session.

Most of the committees uh have now concluded their regular meeting schedule, and that gives us an idea of what uh sort of remains in play.

I do believe that there you have an updated memo that sort of reports the items that we have been monitoring.

I will say that um the two houses are still having a little difficulty reaching the finish line together, uh, but the update will show what measures remain alive and those that are likely to die when the session concludes.

And I might mention that the legislation Mr.

Geddes referred to earlier has been something we've been monitoring all along, but virtually now uh has not moved through commit any committees in the House and is dead.

Uh there are a couple of water related items that I do want to uh briefly mention.

There is one relating to PFAS, and I know uh that's always been a high priority for Mr.

Hegers, uh, Commissioner Eggers.

And that bill seems well along uh in the process.

It will eliminate uh certain types of film forming foam and its use, and also require new testing requirements for domestic weightwater wastewater systems.

Uh, there are also a couple of measures that are moving that deal with uh not directly our agency but with the um uh service of municipalities outside their um regular boundaries.

There are also a few operational um related measures that uh I do think have a chance to pass this year.

One will increase the um sovereign immunity limits for uh public agencies in Florida.

There will potentially be new private meeting options uh for agencies when we have uh a property owner making claims against the agency.

And finally, there um is a committee bill that I think will make it through the process that will provide new protections uh to the agency's operational technologies.

That makes us uh uh trans uh transfer on to the budget related items, and as I mentioned earlier, uh the houses are still having a little bit of difficulty coming together on a number of issues.

The budget would be one of them, but I'm gonna defer to Matthew and let him uh provide us an update on the state budget matter.

Matt, you're up.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh can you all hear me?

Yes, good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Uh yes, the legislature, the house and Senate passed their respective budgets last week off their floors.

Uh both Tampa Bay water funding requests are in the Senate budget.

And as a reminder at this point in the process, the goal is to be in one budget or the other to set up being part of the conference committee conversation.

Uh so success there so far.

The legislature, both the House and Senate announced conferees for their appointment uh appropriations subcommittees on Thursday and Friday of last week, and they begin the process of identifying the amount allocations that they'll spend in each subcommittee bucket.

They've not decided that yet, but they're in the process of that negotiation and um expecting that that would happen this week.

Um, as we head into the the final two weeks, I think there was some discussion that conference committees might be prepared to meet as early as this weekend.

I think we actually believe that'll be more likely to be the case next week.

And if last year is a guide, uh, they would handle conference committee meetings during the week and bump items uh to the chairman of the budget committees, likely that final weekend, as well as the speaker and Senate president.

We do think that we're currently on track for what looks like an on-time finish.

Um, and so that's positive.

And the last day of session uh is currently scheduled to be March 13th.

Um, unless there are other questions, I'm gonna hand it off to Mary Beth and Paul.

There is just uh one question.

Uh Commissioner Wistel.

My question's actually for Mr.

Dunbar.

Oh, okay.

Uh it's a question for Mr.

Dunbar.

Yes, sir.

Yes, Mr.

Dunbar, you mentioned that there's some movement on the legislation that allows municipalities to operate without their municipal um outside of their municipal boundaries.

Can you elaborate on that more?

Because I'm I've been working on an issue from a state law that was um introduced like in the 70s that essentially allows the city of Tampa to charge my unincorporated constituents roughly 25 to 30 percent more for their water than um their adjacent neighbors in many situations.

Is that the bill that they're making changes to?

Yes, that appears to be the case, and there are actually two moving um subject matters on this, excuse me.

One comes from um House member and Senate member from Brevard County, and um that you would find on the bottom of page two of the report if you wanted to look at it in more detail.

Uh, the other comes from Lee County, and that one is shown on uh page three of the report.

Um so I'm I'm we're not sure exactly which or if both will pass, but they definitely deal with how municipalities can and under what circumstances and what they can charge when they extend service outside their uh boundaries.

Do you and I'll go find these pages in the report, but do you know off the top of your head, are they looking to restrict them?

Are they putting handcuffs or are they expanding their ability?

Um the one that uh is coming out of Lee County will put some limits on the on the revenue and how it can be used um once received.

Um the one from Brevard County.

Um basically limits when you can um deny that service uh to those outside the boundary and cannot condition it on annexation of the property.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mr.

Dunbar.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Mary Beth.

Okay, I yep, I think I'm up.

Good morning, Chairman, members of the board.

Uh can everybody hear me?

Yes, we can hear you fine.

Good morning.

Great.

Okay.

So uh I'm gonna give you a federal uh federal update.

So just to let you know, the House and Senate, they're returning from recess this week, and we have 11 of the 12 federal FY FY26 appropriation bills passed.

There's one that's still outstanding, which is the Department of Homeland Security.

Um, it's currently shut down, so we federal governments in a partial shutdown with that one department.

Um, but they do have a lot of funds from carryover in the one big beautiful bill to keep many of the programs operational.

So we hope that this week there'll be some progress on that, and we'll keep Tampa Bay Water prized of um funding advancement, funding advancement.

So uh in addition, uh we reported in our monthly report, there was a um a hearing on addressing cybersecurity and challenges to protect America's water infrastructure, which I think is important to Tampa Bay Water, and as well this week coming up, there's proposals for water resources development act of 2026 administration priorities.

So we'll be tracking that as well and providing a summary.

On the Tampa Bay water funding update early this month, two members of Tampa Bay joined us on Capitol Hill, and we did visits to promote and further explain our water resources and development act or water request, which were submitted to five House members and to two Senate offices.

Uh we prepared and submitted those uh proposals, and that was for the authorization of about 200 million dollars under the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers environmental infrastructure program.

So we had great visits with both the House and the Senate.

And while we were visiting with them, we also discussed two community funding projects or earmarks that align with Tampa Bay Waters Capital Improvement Project's priorities, and those are the service water treatment plant expansion and South Hillsborough water initiatives.

So we're in the process of gathering support letters, writing up the uh documentation and submitting that information, you know, over the next month.

And we'll continue to coordinate with Tampa Bay Water and staff on congressional delegation and keep the board informed of uh these items.

Okay, thank you.

Any conclusions?

Oh, yes, Commissioner Angers.

This one's uh for Pete and Matt.

Um, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about um the progress on on property tax uh issues that uh the governor raised early on, and there's been discussion about off and on, and any any indication of how that's going, if there's going to be a special session or what area of our of our constituents is going to bear the brunt of the shortage if we do anything.

So just if there's any update from your perspective, and really just thought I'd call on your well, your information.

I'll jump in on this it really there's been very little movement.

The House has passed one bill out, everything else has been sitting still.

The Senate has offered no ideas uh that have formally hit the system, nor has the governor.

And Commissioner, I think if it's going to happen at all, it will be a special session.

Um I had to guess would be that the burden will fall on um the benefits will be for those who have homestead and the the burdens will fall on those that are commercial or basically tenants and running property, but there really has been no movement um other than what you hear in the dialogue in the newspaper.

Matt, you feel differently?

No, I would offer nothing else except to say we could certainly commissioner share with you the bill that was uh passed by the House, which passed last Thursday.

As Pete said, that's the only piece of legislation that's in writing that's um been considered and passed.

The Senate hasn't uh got anything on paper, nor does the governor, as Pete said.

Uh happy to also send you the comments that the speaker made and prepared remarks on Thursday after passage of that, which might give you a bit of a flavor of at least the messaging from the House on that particular topic and concur entirely with Pete uh that uh if something is to pass, it's likely only going to be in a special session at some point uh further into the future.

No clarity on where the real dollars uh come from.

I think in larger counties like the ones that you all comprise.

The expectation probably is that burden falls to the local government if something were to pass, and in some counties where there's fiscal constraint, more rural counties where there's very little property tax revenue on homesteaded property to start with.

I think the suspicion would be that the state would be required to come up with some mechanism for helping offset that, but again, that's entirely speculative at this point, given the fact that there's just really nothing other than the House bill uh that paints a picture of what the legislature writ large is willing to do.

Okay, well, I didn't expect anything more, but I thought maybe you might have an inkling.

Thank you for that.

And uh the information that the speaker uh the uh his comments that would be helpful if you could send those.

Thank you.

All right.

I don't see anyone else in the queue, so thank you very much.

We are going to move on now to item number B3, which is the 2025 performance audit and management study final report.

Good morning.

Chairman, members of the board.

Nice to be here with you again.

Um Isaac, my colleague is joining us remotely.

He planned to be here in person, but the snow in New York did not agree with his travel plans.

So he'll he'll be on Zoom with us.

Um, I'm here to present the outcomes of the performance audit and management study for 2025.

So a little bit about the background of the study.

As we know, you're assessed every five years.

So we did a five-year look back looking at progress made on the 2020 audit, and then over the past five years, what the performance of the organization has been.

We really use the EPA's effective utility management framework to ground our study.

So there's a visual of that up on the screen, but it really looks at 10 key areas of operations, everything from community sustainability to operational optimization, workforce development.

So we really use this as a tool to make sure that we were comprehensively looking at the agency and not missing any key aspect of operations, governance, or leadership.

What we really found during the study that is a this is a very high functioning organization.

You have very strong processes, very good governance in place, and you benefit from very dedicated leadership and employees.

We did have some findings and some recommendations that we will go through, but our overall takeaway is that it's a very high-functioning organization.

So we began our study by going through quite a bit of documentation and data that was supplied to us.

And we also issued an effective utility management framework survey that some members of the board and the and the leadership participated in, which was really a self-assessment of how you're doing in each of those 10 key areas.

We did a lot of stakeholder engagement, so we did interviews and focus groups with your internal staff.

We interviewed some of the members of the board, we talked to representatives from your member governments as well.

And then we took all of that information, both the qualitative and quantitative data, and we really did what we call a gap analysis, which is where there are opportunities for improvement, what's the gap between your current operations versus what the best practice is versus what your strategy is, so that we can identify areas for you to improve as an organization.

We also issued a benchmark survey to get information from peer agencies, and then we finally put that together into our recommendations for improvement.

So we identified key themes across the agency's operation.

We bucketed our recommendations in the report into workload and structure, technology and process, succession planning and career development, strategic planning and governance, and organizational culture and communication.

When it comes to workload and structure, we really found that the team, the staff have demonstrated a lot of flexibility in adapting to changing needs.

As the region has experienced population growth, obviously your capital infrastructure needs have increased greatly, which has increased the workload demands on your staff.

You have used contractors to lighten some of that or to be able to get that work across the finish line, but you do have limited internal staff capacity to oversee those contractors.

We did note that you have several critical roles with limited redundancy.

So, you know, niche skills, very technical roles that have a single person in them that does that job.

While the organization takes a lot of pride in running a very lean operation, being staffed very lean, that does open you up to some operational risk if somebody is to retire or leave for other purposes.

So we have some recommendations about how to reduce that risk for yourselves.

Moving on to technology and process, we noted that the IT function has really matured into a very strategic partner in the organization.

With that, we did note that there is a somewhat fragmented system landscape.

The agency is operating more than 50 systems, which have limited integration.

And there that leads to some inefficiencies and duplicated efforts.

So in some cases, there's no need for integration, or it's a conscious choice not to integrate, but there are opportunities to make some improvements there.

And then for performance metrics and data use, while each division is tracking KPIs.

Some of your data collection is inconsistent.

We did note that there is an opportunity, and staff expressed a desire for clearer, more outcome-focused metrics and better data access to support their decision making.

Moving on to succession planning and career development, we noted that you have a very strong culture of professional development and training for your staff.

They have access to the development opportunities they need to perform their work well.

And you do have formal succession plans in place, although the implementation of those is varied and something that we noted further implementation and focus on those implementing those succession plans could reduce some of that risk I talked about before with the limited staff redundancy.

We also noted that there's an opportunity to create more clear career pathways, cross-training, staff rotation.

That helps with things like uh retention of employees.

It also helps with things like transferring institutional knowledge if a position is to become vacant.

Strategic planning and governance.

We noted that all of the findings from the 2020 audit have been implemented successfully, and that since that time there has been an improvement in emergency preparedness, regional coordination, and communication, and that you have effective long-term planning mechanisms in place.

We noted here that there's an opportunity to continue your focus on asset management.

It has remained a bit of a challenge for the organization due to some inconsistent system use, some lack of sustained leadership in that position, and then program restarts there.

So we do we wanted to note that efforts are underway currently to rebuild that program with stronger documentation, better leveraging of systems, and sustained leadership.

Finally, organizational culture and communication.

We noted that you have a very positive organizational culture, which is characterized by great trust in your leadership, and that you have very strong morale.

We also noticed that you have uh very strong relationships with your member governments, uh, which is notated by a focus on transparency and communication with those governments.

Um I'm going to turn it over to Isaac to talk through our recommendations.

Thanks, Caitlin.

Can you guys all hear me okay?

Yes, uh, we can hear you.

Okay.

And I apologize for not being able to be there.

We got around 12 to 15 inches of snow in New York, and uh, in addition to that, Zoom does not want my camera to start.

So it's gonna be flexible this morning.

Um, I'm gonna briefly talk through the 11 recommendations that we included in our report.

Uh, and the recommendations are grouped together in the same categories that Caitlin was just discussing on the findings slide there.

And then in addition to those categories at the top uh in kind of the reddish color there, uh, each of the recommendations in the report shows the most applicable EUM framework area in the the bluish color at the end of the recommendation statement.

Um so for the first one here, uh, this recommendation was to develop an overlapping employment strategy for some of your higher risk roles, and this is to help ensure some continuity and resilience if you do have turnover.

So, as we mentioned, um, you know, Tampa Bay Water operates with a fairly lean staffing model.

Uh, and so the recommendation for this overlapping employment strategy, uh, which we are recommending somewhere saying one to three months of overlap is a way to help mitigate the risk of any institutional knowledge loss and any disruption to your operations.

You know, some of the keys to this recommendation being successful would really be providing some clear parameters from the form of a policy on when this strategy can and should be deployed within the organization.

And we also provided a few uh example positions on the slide listed there that we believe may be good ones to start with for the agency, but ultimately uh management will need to review uh across the agency and see if there are any other uh roles that this may be a good candidate for the strategy.

Moving on to recommendation two.

Um this was uh recommendation to continue developing the agency's knowledge retention and knowledge documentation initiatives since the 2020 study.

It was clear that uh Tampa Bay Waters made some significant efforts to document processes and procedures across the entire agency as a whole.

And we see these initiatives as being really critical for your knowledge retention as well as recommending that they continue on.

Our recommendation here is really just meant to bolster uh the current efforts that are going on by building in a specific knowledge retention transfer process for when an employee is leaving their position.

Um so we're recommending that this process be incorporated into the agency's um offboarding processes within HR for if an employee is promoted, retiring, leaving the organization, transferring, and it really focuses on discussing the employees' roles and documenting their roles, responsibility, and having them review those already documented processes and procedures that you all have been doing to make sure that they are still accurate in what's happening in their day-to-day responsibilities before that next individual steps into the role.

So moving on to recommendation three here.

Um this is really uh meant to explore options to utilize shared service agreements with your member governments.

And again, this recommendation is really meant to kind of mitigate the risk of capacity issues that could be related to a leaner staffing model.

And it's really meant to help harness the collective power of all the member governments to stand up some of these shared service agreements where possible.

You know, they could be deployed during times of high workload volume or potentially vacancies or when maybe it is most cost effective for the agency to do so.

You know, some example examples would include purchasing trainings, repair services, and there may be others.

And then in addition to that, you know, for purchasing, we believe that the opportunity is there for some joint procurement for like materials or services that are needed between the agency and the member governments, and hopefully realizing and taking advantage of some of those economies of scale when you're purchasing at a larger volume.

Recommendation four here.

And the key actions that we're recommending the agency take on are really listed there on the screen from expanding the career ladders, the employee education and communication aspects and integrating some of those career ladders within their succession planning activities.

And then in addition to that, in the report, we mentioned a few areas of focus in the near term, which would be the finance, information technology, and then folks in the science division.

Moving on to recommendation five here.

And within each of these tiers, you know, there should be several components that we're recommending are included there, which are listed on the screen, such as formal training, coaching, mentoring, competency-based curriculum, and performance measures and evaluation.

And these development programs when developed can certainly be paired with the agency's succession planning activities.

You know, through succession planning, the agency will identify critical roles and then individuals or roles within the organization that fill that talent pipeline that could potentially step into those critical roles if necessary.

Recommendation six here.

This was to develop and implement a set of standard key performance indicators aligned with strategic plan and operational priorities while refining the existing key performance indicators to measure outcomes rather than just activities that are done.

So this recommendation is really focusing on uh the creation of real-time dashboards to illustrate performance metrics that are tracking outcomes, as I said, and not necessarily just outputs.

Of this is um important is that it gives you insights into what's happening right now, and we see this as replacing the somewhat manual dashboard that's created and presented, I believe, on a monthly basis.

And so the idea here would be that throughout the daily operations of the agency, you would be harnessing the data that's put into the system to automatically update these key performance indicators.

And then ideally, um, the key performance indicators should also be tying in to the agency's new strategic plan that they'll be adopting next year.

In the report, we recommended a few KPIs in an attachment for the agency to consider examples again, focusing on outcomes and not output would be something like ratio of preventative maintenance versus reactive maintenance, asset downtime for repairs, energy consumption per million gallons treated, things along those lines.

Seven uh this recommendation is to continue to consolidate uh overlapping systems applications and prioritizing integrations between a few key platforms, particularly uh within the human resources and finance, which was an area where we noticed some inefficiencies there between those systems.

And as Caitlin mentioned earlier, the IT department has already begun to identify if there's system overlap.

And we're recommending that they continue to do so with starting their efforts, focusing in on that human resource and finance areas.

And furthermore, we're recommending that the agency create a system selection or approval process to help ensure that software systems that are brought in in the future are not bringing in duplicative systems and that they're truly meeting all of the needs and requirements of the agency before they are purchased.

Eight.

Fairly straightforward here, just formalizing the annual AI policy.

During the course of our work, the agency created an AI policy, and given the speed at which AI is being integrated into existing software systems as well as just the working world as a whole, we're recommending the agency review this policy on at least an annual basis and ensure that they're looking at the areas such as the bullets that are listed there on the bottom of the screen.

So again, fairly straightforward here for number eight.

Number nine.

This is developing a robust asset management program, documentation and predictive maintenance planning process.

Asset management is an area that the agency's been actively working to improve on their current practices, and it's seen across the organization as an important program, which will really help the agency operate as effectively as it possibly can.

And so we provided a recommendation on what should be included within the asset management program once it's developed.

And so that would include integration of your GIS and your computerized maintenance management system or CMMS.

And this would essentially allow it so that assets can be geolocated in the field and maintenance records are available on those assets at these specific locations within GIS.

An additional key component here would be mobile access.

It'll be critical for the success of the program given many of the end users will be in the field when they need this information.

And then speaking of end users, you know, another key aspect that we think is important is getting input from those end users during the creation of this program.

It'll help create some buy-in and understanding of what's happening and why the new requirements that they'll you know need to do in terms of information gathering and documentation.

And then it also ensures that the program is capturing the information that these end users find most valuable when they're doing their jobs.

And finally, the other piece that we think would be important to include here would be you know some standard documentation protocols.

So this would help outline what data is collected, and ideally this will feed into those dashboards that I was mentioning a few minutes ago.

All right, moving on to recommendation 10, um, creating a business continuity plan.

So we're recommending that the agency create this plan because it'll help identify how to maintain core operations if the systems are unavailable due to some form of major event, whether it be a weather event, cybersecurity attack or something else.

Currently, the agency has an emergency plan, uh, which those plans typically focus on some of the short-term, you know, minutes to hours of an emergency happening, whereas this business continuity plan would cover a little bit of a longer time frame, uh, you know, days to two weeks, and then really focus in on you know how are you going to maintain critical function and what's the prioritization of those functions?

Uh, what are the workarounds or manual processes that you need to be ready to deploy?

Are there alternate work locations that could be set up if something like that is needed?

Um, you know, IT disaster recovery coordination and any kind of vendor or mutual aid agreements that may be needed.

And then finally, recommendation 11.

Uh, this is to create a financial working group with the member governments to proactively keep them up to date on financial expectations.

Much of the feedback we received through our interviews and conversations with member governments was positive.

They appreciate the current cadence of communication and the format chosen to communicate with them.

The one opportunity that came through a couple times was the mentioning of having a discussion specifically focused on finance.

They felt like it would be helpful to understand more often the agency's future financial expectations or upcoming capital projects, major purchases, really anything that could have the potential uh for rate adjustments that may impact their their citizens or the end users.

So to wrap things up here, um ultimately we found that Tampa Bay Water is a is a highly functioning organization whose leadership has deep technical expertise.

There's a clear mission for the organization and a committed workforce.

Many of which were positive, as well as some opportunities for improvement in the main areas of focus for those recommendations or the areas for improvement are listed there on the bottom of the screen.

With that, um are there any questions?

Yes, uh, there are.

Thank you very much.

That was very thorough report.

I'm gonna go first to Commissioner Wussel and then Commissioner Eggers.

Sure.

Um mine are less of questions than statements for Mr.

Carden.

Um I was surprised to see so many of the technology comments.

Um that comes to mind is that I actually had a background in implementing ERPs in a variety of organizations, and what I found every single one of them consistent consistently is that there was always um an effort of pushback from the internal stakeholders because it requires work to implement and consolidate a lot of those um technology platforms, but in the end, it's usually of great benefit to the organization, even though it is and I will agree quite a nuisance and a headache to do so.

Um I would be interested to see what types of cost savings you can find.

If there it the report suggests that there's a lot of technology overlap, I don't know what that means, but I would be interested to see what type of cost savings you end up coming from, especially since they highlighted twice that we needed to make sure that whatever platforms were buying and implementing is actually a value of the organization, which seems to imply that they found something that was bought that was not a value to the organization.

So if that is the case, I would just like to know what that was and and encourage you guys to um embrace um implementing a more unified some type of platform.

Um the other thing is um the only reason I say all of that, they mentioned it once in here, but the reality is is that we are a sensitive utility provider.

I see the other utility providers in the room, and cyber um security is just more and more critical for these types of agencies.

And when you do run a lot of fragmented systems, sometimes that can be good because it means that you're not just gonna have one attack that shuts down a lot of things, but also that means that you could be opening the door to some small provider that you just thought was safe.

Maybe they're a third-party software as a service company, and it opens up some door into your network that you weren't aware of.

So the the county, our county I know is partnering with this um company AGS Global Securities or something, April 9th through 11th.

There's going to be some type of symposium in the city of Tampa, and it's it's all focused on cybersecurity, and I would encourage all the utility providers to um take part in that if they can and just do everything we can to prevent those attacks.

So thank you very much, and good luck on fixing all 11 of these very thorough responses.

Thank you.

Commissioner Eggers.

Um, first of all, thank you for the report.

Um these reports are so critically important.

Um, I remember the last process the last time we went through this was um uh there was a lot of energy.

Uh I'll just say that way, a lot of issues, a lot of problems.

Um, this is this report is encouraging.

Um I share some of the comments that Commissioner Wistel just brought up about technology.

Um, and wondering, and again, I think before I get into the comments or questions, I think this is an important topic.

And I and I hope that we are able to maybe come back at a future meeting and have more discussion about these because I just think it adds to our understanding of our organization here and also communicates better with all the member governments.

Um but technology is a biggie, and I sometimes I've wondered whether we have the breadth and depth of the talent on staff or if we need to have more assistance with that, um, whether outside assistance or uh more in-depth uh because that seems to be an area where we always compete for talent and people coming and going at brisk pace, and to see some of the comments that were made about overlapping technologies and um I didn't hear didn't see a lot of comments about cybersecurity, but obviously that's at the height of everybody's concern, especially a utility like what we what we manage here.

Um so that was that was important to me.

Um, and then just talking a little bit about the the our upper staff and and we've got great people there um discussions about cross-training, I guess.

Um and then just talking a little bit about the the our upper staff and and we've got great people there discussions about cross-training, I guess, and I'm not sure how that would work unless they each take change their hats, these four folks up front for a week at a time and and understand what the other person's doing in their jobs.

But um to me that's that's important to make sure we understand that and obviously the I'm not sure how we how we stack up with staff depth on vertical uh the vertical integration.

So just maybe a couple of those to start.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I think one just from the the positivity of the report.

I think when we looked at the 2020 report uh in preparation for our meetings, you know, we were sort of saying, is this the same organization that went underwent the 2020 audit, right?

Because um, we just found you to um be so high functioning.

We did ask questions of around um of what has changed culturally, what is that you know, and and a lot of the the rationale we got was just the excellent leadership that the organization has and the high functioning board that you have that trickles down into the whole organization and just a real culture of continuous improvement.

So that was very encouraging.

Um when it comes to technology, I wouldn't say that we um it was egregious, you know.

There are some organizations we walk into and they have two systems that do the same exact thing, or they have uh across the whole board.

You know, there it's I would say more pieces of systems that are doing the same thing.

So there are opportunities to look and say, you know, where do we want to house that function fully?

And I and Isaac, you could speak to this too, but I would say our general sense was um that your IT department is starting to take a more active role with what I would call IT governance, so um, sort of driving more of the conversation around decisions that individual divisions or departments are making around technology, so they're having a more active voice in those conversations.

Isaac, is there anything you'd add to the technology piece before I talk a little bit about succession planning?

Sure.

I I would just also add, you know, it's fairly common for organizations as they mature to slowly um compile systems.

We see that quite often.

Uh and I think your IT department was well aware.

I mean, it was something that they brought up and something that they are actively looking at.

Are there areas where we have overlap?

And if we do, is it for a specific reason?

Um, does this one system do something that the other one just can't quite do well enough?

Um so I would say in addition to that, they they do actively have some cybersecurity practices and testing and drills that they're running fairly routinely.

So they do have focus in those areas.

And then when it comes to succession planning, we did do a uh retirement forecast and analysis over the next five years.

The detail of that is in the report.

I would say for all utility organizations, retirement is gonna be one of your biggest, and succession is gonna be one of your biggest challenges over the course of the next decade.

You've already been dealing with it.

I would say for about a decade, it's can going to continue to be a challenge.

Um, and I think it is one of the biggest risks to any organization.

And I think um, you know, we we you spend the most money on capital, but you're you spend a lot of money on people too, right?

And um investing in those people and and making sure that they can stay here and have good careers and serve the organization well.

When we talk about metrics, we we suggested some you should be looking at those metrics too, related to the implementation of succession plans, your forecasted retirements to try and keep an eye on that.

I would say that you have just by nature of being a smaller organization, it makes it more challenging to cross-train.

Um what you you should be doing when you're looking at those critical roles in the organization.

We say I identify up to 15% of the positions that you know, if if that position was vacant tomorrow, some piece of your operations would stop or be very hard to deliver.

And then you need to have multiple candidates internally that are prepared to step into that role, and you should have an external plan.

So if we had to recruit for that position tomorrow, do we have a compensation study updated?

Do we have a good job description?

Do we have industry networks that we can recruit from?

Those are all things that will make it a little bit easier for you.

And is there a way to, I mean, I know in some of the different departments, you know, that you're you're more prepared for that succession training.

And and then in some cases uh their decision is more like, well, this is probably if we did something tomorrow, to your point, we don't have the depth now.

We may have to do bring go outside.

Yeah, is there a way to rate how we are in each of our departments, how we're doing in that area?

Are we prepared or do we need to go out?

Yeah, we could we could definitely based on the data we have provide that ranking to you.

When we talked about the um, you know, you might need to have an overlapping policy and then implement some of those succession plans.

The pieces that stood out to us, the functions that stood out to us were finance, IT, and science.

Um so just really focusing on those three areas.

Um, but we can go back into our report and prioritize all of them for you.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I I certainly agree with your comment about the the types of folks that we have working here in the culture and the leadership, and um I've been a whole lot happier than I was five years ago when we had that report because it is almost a different um organization, yet doing the same work.

So I really I'm really happy about the the improvements, at least that that independent assessment of how we're doing.

Um I'm frequently reminded by one of my colleagues and on my county commission that I'm the old guy in the room.

So when I asked the question about like AI policy, and that seems to be everywhere going on.

Some in some cases we're behind behind it, seemingly behind.

I don't know what we're behind because I don't understand it all.

Uh, and some of we're we're doing okay with.

Um what's your assessment about the use of that tech?

Obviously, everywhere in in our organization, and and are we kind of on that very early learning curve or how are we doing?

Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that you have in a you know an AI policy that you that doesn't that seems like okay and easy first step, but a lot of organizations we have haven't even taken the step to create an AI policy and some governance around it.

And Isaac, feel free to jump in here too if you have something you want to add.

I would say you're kind of at the the beginning cusp of it of exploring AI, and that's not that's uh don't I wouldn't take that in a bad way.

I think the organizations that I have seen do it the best so far have been slower or let's say more intentional in their adoption of AI.

So instead of saying let's just start using AI with everything, it's saying let's pick out a few use cases where this could be really valuable for us and we could have good controls in place around it, and then let's be intentional about implementing it well.

So I think you're doing fine.

And that's and that is wrought with cybersecurity protection as well in all of that.

I mean, yes, yes, you definitely have to to consider that.

And so I there are you know AI tools right that you would that could be embedded within your organization and sort of be closed into only using the data within your organization, so they're not looking externally for any data.

Those are gonna be the safest, right?

Because they're already contained within your four walls.

I would be very cautious when you're purchasing new systems about the use of AI in those systems and where is it pointing data to, who has access to it.

Um it's just a a new area to be cautious about when you're looking at those systems.

And then the final question I had regarded your recommendation number 11, which was um kind of working with our member governments on a uh I'm I'm I'd be curious to hear more about the member government group or working group.

Um I know that there's been some concerns expressed to me that that we're we have the capital that we're g uh gathering and amassing or for future projects.

Uh sometimes they're around the corner and sometimes they're not.

So how long do we hold these in our um inventory of dollars ahead of time?

In other words, we are we gathering the dollars too soon, and therefore the rates that we're charging are a little maybe higher than they should be as we transition.

I don't know if that would be kind of discussed maybe in a group like this, but it seems to me that that would have a place for conversation.

Um so I I just comments on on that.

Yes, that's the intent.

You know, when we had discussions around um around debt and capital financing, um we felt that the agency had a very solid plan in place in terms of managing long-term debt, managing your rate increases, things like that.

Um we felt that what we heard from the member governments was they maybe didn't have the depth of of understanding of that financial strategy that maybe would give them the comfort that they wanted.

So some more regular communication on that, and it really seems like um sort of the next iteration of building and strengthening the relationships because they all said it is significantly better.

You know, the we are we feel like we can call somebody, get somebody on the phone, answer our questions.

We feel like there's good rapport going back and forth that we're working collectively, and this financial piece was really sort of the the lat the next step.

Well, I would echo that last comment.

I think the relationship among all the member governments are so good and so much better than we had we had so many issues before, and I think they're just in really good stead.

Um so it'll be interesting to see that that kind of conversation.

And most of the comments that I've heard have not been questioning the capital that's in the planning processes, but how soon do we account for it in our rate structure and and when should we be maybe pushing it out just a little bit and provide a little relief on that increase.

So thank you, Mr.

Chair, for a few extra comments.

Yes, of course.

Uh Commissioner Wistel and then uh Mayor Davis.

Mine will be very brief, and uh I brought up AI to our development services, and you would have thought that I was the develop devil after that, so be very careful.

Um I I my questions were gonna be about recommendation 11, but most of my um question was answered, which is that I wanted to miss sack it, you're not having troubles getting information from my member government, right?

Okay, okay.

I just wanted to make sure.

Um, and and my last comment is about Commissioner Eggers' um points about collecting money for capital projects, and one thing that we're going through at the county that I have found out since uh my county since I've been there is that they have never cleaned our separate CIP budget ever.

And right now, the as they can only tell me projects back to 15 years old, and that's just because they transferred systems and don't have start dates before that.

But there's more than 15-year-old money just sitting in there depreciating for legacy projects that will likely never come to fruition.

So we we should be diligent on this board that that's not happening with this large amount of money.

So it's a it's a good point.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Mayor Davis.

Um, I just want to um kind of acknowledge a few things, um, not so much question, but acknowledge because I always felt that a business was like a a pyramid in the base of the pyramid to like 15, 20 years ago was finance, you know, and then with a little help from HR.

But but um it over the years now um IT is snuck in, and that helps the base of the pyramid.

And now um just to comment uh AI is sneaking in, and that's gonna be part of that base of that pyramid too.

So if you don't have strength in the base of the pyramid, the pyramid's not gonna you know hold up and it's gonna tip over.

So we've got to be aware of that AI and be ahead of it as it approaches us.

Just like we kind of, you know, in a lot of business, not just here, but we all kind of you know kind of didn't move as fast as we could have done in IT, didn't realize how important it was.

We always thought it was just finance.

But all three of those are really part of the base of it of business right now.

And uh um the the um whole bit of I think you're you're you know what you got from this is you were we're running a lean mean machine here if as far as HR, you know, so I'm really happy with that.

And um, just a comment about that lean mean machine.

We made a transition with Kathleen here, and I didn't feel it.

So thank you.

Yeah, yes, councilwoman.

Thank you.

First of all, Caitlin, thank you so much for the report, the comprehensive report.

Um I thought it was great.

Um, sometimes you know, organizations and uh people are always nervous about these type of reports.

Um we do them at the city for different departments, and everyone feels like they're being picked on.

But the reality is these reports really are helpful to move an organization forward.

And like all my colleagues here have mentioned, there's a lot of good information and guidance in this that um we can use.

So, my question for Chuck, just going forward um in terms of the report, um accountability, the individuals responsible for implementing target implementation dates, prioritization, that sort of stuff, and then how we track that, and then how will the board get um the reports within the next five years in terms of what's going on?

If you could just tell us a little bit about that.

Well, surely.

Um I'm uh wanted to first say I I'm very pleased with the results of this because there was a lot of hard work our staff has done since the last audit uh of 2020.

Um I'd say more than half.

We are uh you see the word develop uh continue.

So we have started a lot of those already, uh, and this is you know improvement and and continue the work.

Uh we will be reviewing um the the plans for implementation, and um some of the um recommendations will be incorporated into the next strategic plan.

Others will be started right away uh or already started.

Um my plan was to be back in front of this board uh probably April is what I'm looking at for a presentation on exactly what you asked.

Uh, how are we going to start the implementation of the 11?

How are we going to track it?

And what interval uh which I would think right now would be on a monthly board meeting schedule.

So I'll have a lot more details on the 11, and I already uh you know entertaining bringing this back.

I think Commissioner Eggers even suggested this needs to be back to talk about and give the conclusion to you brought the the items to the board and then we're going to bring the what are we going to do with them as a staff.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And and I just wanted to close out by first of all complimenting you on an excellent report and complimenting the organization because the fact that there are so many recommendations shouldn't overshadow the fact that the report itself shows tremendous progress and and that we are highly functional.

I think that's a a great description of what Tampa Bay Water is.

This was a very uh good discussion, and a lot of things were covered.

I wanted to just come back though to something that Commissioner Wussel touched on much earlier, and that was that implementing systems and running systems doing the day-to-day business are really two entirely different things.

And it is not realistic to expect that our current staff that's responsible for running things day to day can also take on the task of running the projects to implement major system changes.

And because we are very conservative in our budgeting, and because we don't I think you've pointed out that we run a lean organization, it may be as part of of this discussion that Chuck's going to bring forward that we want to discuss really program management and project management as it relates to implementation of things.

If in fact we see that there's going to be major implementations coming up looking to see whether or not we need to add that to the portfolio of of things that we do.

So with that, I appreciate the discussion and uh we'll look forward uh to uh the follow-up in April.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item uh B4, uh, we are going to turn it over to Mr.

Jackson.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Item B4 is a request for two attorney client sessions between the board of directors and legal counsel pursuant to section 286.011 perenne 8, Florida statutes, to discuss settlement negotiations and our strategy related to litigation expenditures.

This request pertains to the matter involving the Polk Regional Water Cooperative or Southwest Florida Water Management District and Tampa Bay Water.

That's Florida Division Administrative Hearings case number 25-005480.

The first attorney client session requested is for today, February 23rd, 2026, as indicated on the agenda under item G1.

And the second request for an attorney client session is for April 20th, 2026.

So this item does require a board vote.

Can we please have a motion for uh the two sessions that Mr.

Jackson requested?

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion from uh Commissioner Peters, second from Councilwoman Hanowitz.

And uh once it pops up, please record your vote motion carries unanimously.

So we will uh recess for that uh uh meeting uh directly following uh the close of uh business on this agenda.

We don't have any action items this morning, so we are gonna move on now to presentations and reports.

We have uh three, I believe, or no, four.

So the first is item D1, which is our member government report.

That is coming today from Lisa Ray from Hillsborough County.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, members of the board.

I'm Lisa Ray, Director of Water Resources for Hillsborough County.

So I'm gonna show you a map you've seen multiple times in the past.

Uh it's an overview of our system.

And what I really want to point out is that we do continue to grow.

Uh since my last report, which was in January of 2025, we have added 40 miles of new water main, 37 miles of new wastewater pipe, nine new lift stations, and 362 new manholes.

The growth predominantly has been in our South Central system, which is where many of the large cooperative actually with Tampa Bay Water infrastructure projects are currently underway.

Now, usually I spend a lot of time talking about what our CIP is and how that all fits together with the services we provide.

But what I'd like to take some time to do today is talk to you about our staff, because they are more than just employees of Hillsborough County.

They're members of the community.

They live in our communities.

They pay for water services and wastewater services to their local utilities.

And they take this very seriously.

So a couple of the things that our staff regularly participate in is one is the United Way Barbecue.

This is an annual event that has been going on for 17 years.

There was a pause for one year in COVID, but we picked it back up again.

Last year we raised over $5,000 for the United Way campaign that's going on in the fall and I mean in the spring.

Our next event is this April 17th.

There's lots of good food and it's a good time.

Usually the weather's really good on that day.

So it if you have time, if you're available that day, I'd want to invite you, but it is a completely volunteer event by our staff, hosted, organized by the Water Resources Department.

Another one that we have undertaken recently are backpacks for students, and this is supporting the exceptional student education at Gaither High School.

And this past year, employees and team members from Lake Park Water Treatment Facility, Fawn Ridge Water Treatment Facility, Northwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility, Van Dyke Wastewater Treatment Facility, and the Brandon Services Operations Center team together to come up with a fundraiser.

And during this process, we raised almost a thousand dollars to help support the students and their needs in this program.

This isn't the first time that we have done this type of outreach.

We have also volunteered at the Special Olympics when they hold that, and we do take our hydration station there so that participants in the Special Olympics have a source of very safe drinking water that comes from our regional systems.

And our staff really gets a lot of joy out of being able to give back to the community.

And this year, that was our first year participating in Future Career Academy.

And the Future Career Academy was originally started by in 2015 by the school board, Hillsborough County School Board, in conjunction with the business community, to educate students in high school who were not heading towards a college career on opportunities that were available within the community for their future.

Well, we had employees back in October going to the schools, talking to the students about careers at wastewater treatment plants, water treatment plants, working on our pipelines, all of which are very necessary for the services that we provide.

And it culminated this year in January with about a hundred students taking tours of our different facilities.

They went to the different yards, saw heavy equipment, were able to operate some of the equipment using simulators, and we had about a hundred students from Alonso, Gaither, Jefferson, Sickles, and Sign Brenner that participated.

Our staff really enjoyed it.

In fact, one of our team members made a comment, you know, this was him in high school.

He was graduating as a senior, didn't know what he wanted to do, didn't know, you know, he knew he was not going to be heading to college, but was looking for something that he could have as a career, something to take him into the future, and he is now one of our plant managers.

So kudos to him.

And he was one of the participants and organizers of this.

And when you get farther inland, it was even colder for a longer period of time.

During that time, as they always do, agriculture pumps extra water out of the ground in order to be able to protect their crops.

Given the drought conditions that we've been seeing, groundwater tables were already lower to start with.

And as they started pumping, what started happening was private wells at different homes over in the Dover area started going dry because of the drow down drawdown from the wells and the pumping.

When we found out about this, these are not our customers, they are not part of our service area, but they are our neighbors.

They are residents of Hillsborough County.

So we went ahead and we mobilized, we took our hydration station out there.

We coordinated with the Office of Emergency Management to get bottled water out.

We had hydrant locations available so that people who did not have access to their well water were able to go and get water and have water for flushing their toilets for cleaning up for drinking and you know all of those very essential needs.

And you can see the impacted area on the screen in the map.

So now on to something a little bit different, a little more fun.

How many of you watched the Super Bowl?

I did, and I usually do, and uh most years.

So I have two graphs.

All of you have probably heard about like the halftime flush where everybody flushes their toilet at the same time.

Well, I'm gonna show this to you from the drinking water perspective.

And from the drinking water perspective, this is a graph from the 2008 football game.

It's actually, according to the statistics I looked up, considered one of the best games in professional sports history.

It was between the Giants and the Patriots.

Close game throughout.

Back and forth.

Eli Manning and guess who?

Tom Brady.

So people were watching it.

And you can see you got kickoff on the left, it's marked here.

Flows are kind of steady, but they're down.

But see what happens at halftime.

The game is no longer the focus.

Now we're going to go use water.

And at that point, at halftime, flow demand jumped from 28 MGD to 38 MGD, like that.

So then we on this game was a good game.

Kept going.

At the end of the game, you still see people are watching this game.

What happened at the end of the game?

The game ended.

Demand went from 17 and a half MGD to 36 MGD at the end of that game.

One of the best games ever.

Now, this game was the one that we just had a couple of weeks ago.

Not quite as impressive.

I I'll tell you personally.

Be um the Patriots weren't doing anything, and I thought it was a done deal.

I was very surprised when I woke up the next morning and saw that they had actually scored 13 points.

But you can see the pattern here is not as pronounced as it was in 2028.

So we're able to actually give you some insight without the Nielsen ratings on how impactful a football game was by looking at the water demand.

So I thought that was interesting and wanted to share that.

And then into a completely different topic.

We've got Florida friendly landscape incentive program talking about the drought here.

And as part of this, our goal is to reduce outdoor irrigation.

We're encouraging people to convert from turf grass, which all of us know uses a lot of water, to Florida-friendly landscaping.

And as part of this, homeowners would be eligible for rebate on changing out turf grass to Florida friendly.

In order to do it, we are uh coordinating with IFAS, and they are a series of three workshops: micro irrigation and site selection, landscape design basics and plant selection and soil preparation that will be available.

Once you complete those workshops, you make the switch out, you can be eligible for the rebate.

Um, a lot more information is available at the link.

That's a live link, it'll take you to our site that provides the information.

It'll take you to our site that provides the information.

We're really trying to get the word out on this because with the drought as cold as it is right now we're not seeing as much demand but come April when it warms up that's when the demand's going to hit.

So this is a time to get people thinking about making some changes to the way that they landscape their homes.

So with that thank you very much I appreciate your attention and hopefully next year we have a better football game.

When's the bar where's the barbecue?

The barbecue is held at our Brandon Support Operations Center, which is on 332 Falkenberg Road in out in Brandon.

So if you'd like I can share a link of the information through Tampa Bay Water and everybody is welcome to come.

We do sell the tickets and that's how we raise money.

They'll let you be in the dunking booth they've already got the mayor of New Politzi three times.

Yeah.

Council.

Thank you and thank you for the presentation.

So I'm just curious for Hillsborough County what do you think has been some of the challenges that you've had recently and some of your successes.

So I think one of the big challenges that we continue to have really has to do with the cost of the projects and the funding availability looking for because what we have seen and continued to see a lot of our projects were planned either pre-COVID or early COVID prices were a lot different.

We've uh we have done price increases and adjustments as we've moved forward however we are still have uncertainty in fact we have one project that we had budgeted and it came in double what we had budgeted and it's a critical project it's an aging forest main and I mean coming from St.

Pete you know how important the wastewater side of this and how expensive it can be and so we're we absolutely have to do it it's the Water Avenue Forest main and we've had several breaks in it and so we there so now we're taking a step back and it's like okay now we have to look at all the other priorities and how can we adjust accordingly as well as continuing to fund all of the much needed work for the continued growth.

So that has been one of our biggest challenges I think one of our biggest successes recently and you guys were talking about AI is within water resources we have implemented some AI initiatives.

So the first one that we implemented one of the problems that we experienced was we'd get calls into the call center and finding the correct information to tell the customer and to get back to the customer takes time.

So we implemented an AI bot that's internal for our call center people to be able to quickly it's an internal AI only looking at our information our data we update it regularly we double check it but that way they can quickly check it so it helps teach our customer service representatives as well as quickly provide the information to our customers that's been one another one that we are working on and we have done a pilot on it also related to AI is after hours call out so if a lift station for example we because they're on SCADA and the monitors the levels and the performance of the pumps if for some reason it loses power right now there's a lot of manual calls that have to happen it calls a person who has to hit a four button code that then turns around and calls another person who has to assess it then calls and and then that person has to call somebody else to go physically check it.

So that first part taking in the information the call from SCADA going ahead and hitting that four digit code transcribing the information and sending it over we are working right now on a pilot with AI to do that.

And so it would bring in the information it would figure out what area it is send it on to the correct person then you would still need that trained technician to assess like okay is this a lift station that can only be offline for an hour is this one that can wait till tomorrow morning because the collection system's large it's residential and everybody's asleep and so nothing is really going to happen.

Um, and so we pilot tested that it has been very successful.

Uh now we're gonna roll it out and kind of increments.

We want to make sure we do it slow and carefully.

Um that was one of the comments somebody made about you don't want to just you want to make sure you're taking those baby steps and making sure it's working before you roll it out completely.

So we're working on that.

Um another one we would like to be able to do is uh chat bot on the website, but um our website is not just ours, it is the county's website, and so that does require coordination across different departments within the county.

Great.

Well, it looks like you are using AI in a good way, especially when it comes to customer service, because I know that's when uh you get all the where you get all the calls where people are upset um on their utility bills and all that.

So that's I'm sure the representatives help are very appreciative of that.

In terms of the cost pressures, I mean that's something that we're all dealing with uh with our utility systems.

Um, you have certain rate structures already in place, and obviously the cost of projects um has skyrocketed skyrocketed.

So it's you're not the only one, and you're obviously you know that you're not alone.

Well, thank you, and thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.

We are gonna move on now, excuse me, to item D2 reports of certified public accountants regarding financial statements for the year ended September 30th, 2025.

And this will be presented by representatives from Maldon and Jenkins.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you all for having me.

Um, I'm Garrett Marlowe.

I'm a senior manager with Malden and Jenkins.

I just wanted to thank y'all for putting up with your second audit presentation of the morning.

I know one's usually pretty everybody's limit.

So we're kind of gonna go through who is M and J, who are your auditors, and then we'll go into why you can track with our firm and as to opine on the uh financial statements as well as our required communications to governance, and then we'll end with any recommendations or related matters that we had and some statistical schedules where we kind of highlight some of the main points of Tampay Water throughout the year.

So, first, who is MJ?

Um, we're a large regional firm throughout the Southeast, and we're nationally recognized as a top 100 firm by IPA and accounting today, and we've served over 750 governments uh throughout the Southeast, including 70 standalone, such as Tampa Bay Water, and we have over 180 clients that do receive GFOA certificate of achievement and financial reporting that Tampa Water will apply for as well for this year.

And then we do have 43 partners, directors and managers such as myself to reference the um breadth of knowledge that we need in case there are any unique situations that arise for Tampa Bay Water, and then lastly, we are dedicated to the profession and we do teach at various national and state conferences as well as offer uh CPE that I'll reference later in this uh presentation for your staff.

And then to give an overview of our audit opinion to begin with management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements, and then we have issued an unmodified opinion, which is the highest form of assurance that we can render on these financial statements, and we did perform the audit of the financial statements in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States and government auditing standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, and then these financial statements are considered to present fairly in all material respects the financial position and results of operations of the agency for the year ended September 30th, 2025.

And then to move on to our required communications.

So this kind of just gonna highlight some of the items that you'll see in our ADNA that we uh have given out.

And so to begin, the accounting policies, management judgments, estimates, and financial statement disclosures are the responsibility of management.

We did not encounter any significant difficulties with management or the finance team.

Christina and Sandra and the rest of the finance team were awesome, and they got us everything we needed in a timely manner to complete the audit.

And then there were no proposed adjustments, no uncorrected misstatements or disagreements, and then there were also no federal or state single audits in the current year, and the federal threshold for FY25 did increase to a million dollars for single audits on future projects.

The state's still 750.

And then GASBY 101 was implemented in the current year.

Um, this relates to compensated absences.

So there you will see a restatement in beginning that position, roughly around 500,000 that the Tampa water did incur this year, and then there are future pronouncements, um, but nothing that we see making a major change of the financial statements in the coming years.

And then we did receive a management representation letter at the end of the audit, and we are independent with respects to Tampa Bay Water.

And then go into any recommendations or other matters from a financial statement.

There were no audit findings or current year recommendations that we have.

And then our ADNA does contain kind of more in-depth detail of these upcoming GASBE statements for future years.

And we do offer free quarterly CPE for the finance employees that will kind of cover what are the kind of the major changes for these new pronouncements that come through over the next couple of years.

And then to highlight some of the stats towards the back of the ACFER.

So one of the kind of major ones that we like to show is kind of the water sales compared to total revenues.

And you will see that both water sales and total revenues did increase.

Kind of the biggest jump this year would be the investment income jumped up as well as the litigation recoveries due to the PFAS settlements.

And then the operating expense analysis, you'll see as well the operating expenses did increase this year, obviously with the uh increased projects and all the kind of capital planning moving forward.

And then the water revenues by member, the largest change obviously correlated with growth from Hillsborough County.

And then the water rate did increase in 2025, and this was enough to cover the increase in expenses in the current year and led to an increase in deposition of around 62 million.

And then lastly, the uh total debt and capital assets.

Um, this kind of you'll see the debt increase this year with the 2024 A, B, and C issuances as well as the 2025 debt issuance.

And then obviously with the increase um coverage and population in the area.

We do um like the increased rate increases that kind of correlate for those increased future capital projects.

Any questions?

Questions?

Just a couple.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, yes, Commissioner Agground.

Um, yeah, thank you.

Um appreciate it.

I just let me find my note here.

Um I noticed that um the rate, the the pages that you had that describe the rates uh or the changes um seemed like the one that had the operating expense analysis.

Um it just jumped out at me, and then I looked at the numbers and it seemed to be more in line.

So I think it was the link in the 2025 orange.

Yeah, the Excel link.

I noticed that when I was a little bit more than a lot of different things.

Yeah, it was like wow, what a drop.

And then when you look at the numbers, it was a so that was a the numbers are accurate.

Yes, yeah, yeah, the numbers are accurate.

I apologize on that.

No, no problem.

And it seemed like uh again, one of the things that we tried to do from 21 and 22 on the rate per thousand gallons was it was flat.

So we weren't we were trying to do a lot through efficiencies.

We've gotten reports that the team's doing a great job of being pretty lean.

So we've started to increase, excuse me, started to increase our rates.

Just but I mean, this seems dramatic by your graph, but it it looks like from 24 to 20, it's about a one percent.

Yeah, yeah.

When you look into it from a year by year change, it's not that yeah, a larger change.

But I think I do think it was it's been a change that we've consciously made to try to keep up with some of the capital investments that we have.

Um, the last comment I'd ask just on the total debt and capital assets page where it shows um our debt more a higher percentage, or I guess a higher number as compared to our capital assets in total.

So that relates to pretty normal for some intergenerational kind of investments or yes, and I think uh Christina, if you want to speak for the 2025 debt kind of issued at year end related to future capital projects.

So the the chart shows the like uh Garrett said the addition of the 2024 um a bonds, largely the addition of the 24A's, which was the almost uh half a million that we took out to help with the pipeline.

So you'll see the assets increasing over the next couple years as that work on that pipeline goes up.

Yeah, again, these are pretty long-term capital assets, right?

So we're bonding and not sometimes people in in our county sometimes gets we get over over the top with we don't have any debt.

And I'm thinking in some cases it's good to share debt with future generations, especially when it comes to projects that are 30, 40 years in the duration of the year.

Sure, and that kind of correlates with the issuances in 25 will lead for future projects.

Yeah, so you're you guys think we're we're doing pretty good comparatively, yes, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All righty, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

We are gonna move on now to item number D3, which is our water quality update.

Good morning.

Morning, Mr.

Chairman, members of the board.

Today's water quality update will review the regional water quality study recommendations presented last month and introduced the capital improvement program cost estimates for these recommendations, which we reviewed uh with member utility directors and others last month at a workshop meeting.

Today's presentation is for information only, and no board action will be requested today.

The original study, which was requested by member utility directors focused on reducing total organic carbon known as TOC to make disinfectant residuals last longer and be more predictable in the regional system.

The updated study examined PFAS in the regional water supply, which became a federal compliance requirement after the original TOC study was completed.

Now the original and updated regional water quality study has been ongoing for several years as shown on this slide.

TOC treatment recommendations were paused in 2023 when our attention focused on EPA's new PFAS limits in drinking water.

PFAS treatment recommendations and updated TOC treatment recommendations were finalized in a comprehensive report last month.

Now based on current federal regulations, Tampa Bay Water will need to comply with EPA's PFAS limits in drinking water by April 2029.

It is, however, EPA's intent to change the current Federal regulations by extending the compliance date for PFOS and PFOA by two years to 2031.

EPA's current PFAS limits remain challenged though by EAWA and others.

A court decision is anticipated later this year or possibly early next year.

Now given the regulatory uncertainties, Tampa Bay Water's approach is to achieve current PFAS requirements while recognizing the EPA's limits and compliance deadline may change.

As a practical matter, planning and design of PFAS treatment, if approved, would be underway, but construction would not be scheduled to begin before there is more regulatory clarity.

Our staff also continues to work on contingency plans to achieve compliance on an interim basis if that becomes necessary.

Now, as presented last month at this board meeting, uh three of our regional delivery locations showed one PFAS, PFOS, at levels slightly greater than the EPA limit.

And to comply with current EPA requirements, PFAS treatment is recommended at three Tampa Bay water locations, shown on the graphic by Orange STARS and identified with corresponding treatment approaches and technologies listed on this slide.

To reduce TOC and strengthen disinfection stability, TOC reduction treatment is recommended in phases, shown in this slide as two orange stars on the two TOC treatment locations recommended for phase one implementation, which are in addition to the PFAS treatment locations.

Now these locations are recommended for phase one because they have some of the highest TOC levels in our regional system, and TOC reduction will assist downstream member governments maintain disinfection in their distribution systems, particularly during summer months.

Now CIP projects will also be underway at these locations, so cost savings can be achieved by implementing projects together.

And once these two systems become operational, performance data from each treatment technology will guide the greater number of phase two TOC reduction projects.

Shown in this slide are the recommended phase two TOC treatment locations.

You'll note that each of the listed treatment locations use phase one technologies.

In this way, we'll learn from the phase one performance data how to improve on the earlier designs.

Now this slide identifies the phase one treatment locations, their technologies, and the CIP-based costs.

Phase one PFAS reduction to comply with current EPA drinking water requirements with the limits, I should say, is nearly 190 million in capital costs, with O and M at about 3 million per year.

Phase one TOC reduction at two locations, again, those are the ones that have the highest regional TOC concentrations, is approximately 50 million in capital costs, with OM at about 4 million per year.

And again, that's to enhance disinfection.

Now this slide identifies the phase two treatment locations and the technologies and CIP costs.

Phase two TOC reduction, a totals approximately $340 million in capital costs, and O and M at about $13 to $14 million a year.

Now these phase two projects, which show a projected 2032 start date, they'll be identified as placeholders in the 2027 CIP.

In closing, we plan to seek board approval in April to begin the phase one projects and list the phase two projects as placeholders in the fiscal year 2027 CIP.

And that concludes today's brief water quality update, and be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Commissioner Wistall.

Is it one vendor or multiple vendors that you're seeking solutions on the TOC applications in terms of whatever technology you're going after?

Well, that'll be that'll be implemented by our our planning and projects division, and they'll be putting those out to bid.

Okay, so it hasn't been selected yet.

Thank you.

Commissioner Hegers.

Um Wow, it's a lot of money.

Um so um just the O and M that's the O and M column.

That's just for the implementation of the of the capital, or is this going to be additional OM ongoing for that work?

It would be the latter.

It would be the ongoing operation and maintenance costs after everything's been constructed and put in place.

How many how many people are we talking about?

Um adding for those particular improvements?

Or is it more ongoing utility costs or what what would it be?

Well, I mean electrical and that kind of yeah, I mean it's all it's chemical, it's electrical, it's it's it's it's it's energy, it's all all those types of things.

Uh in terms of your other question about the numbers of people, this has been uh not not fleshed out to that level of detail as to how many people would be in-house versus outside contractors.

This would be an operating cost as a whole.

But it would be for personnel related, it that would be included in the it would probably be a combination of looking outside and and using outside contractor services as well as in-house, but that's something that'll get fleshed out and brought to the board in the future.

But the estimate of that is in here already.

Yes, it is.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilwoman.

I'm just gonna add a wow, because this is a lot of money.

Um it seems like in April we're gonna be considering phase one in the project.

But when you're looking at something, I can't look at one without looking at a total cost.

I I will just throw that out there.

So I'm looking forward to having the conversation in April.

But the idea of going forward on something that costs this much money, um, and just looking at by phase, I it's hard for me not to look at the total cost and what we get at the end of the day for that cost and what it costs our ratepayers.

So that's all I'm gonna say for now.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yes, Commissioner Peters.

Now you said that we're not gonna do construction until we hear from the EPA, right?

Yes.

Now, what's our goal?

Is our goal just to be just under what they require, or is our goal to eliminate it?

Our goal is to meet whatever the federal limit is.

Okay, so we're not talking about maybe making sure that we have none in our water.

We're just talking about lowering those standards, right?

Yeah, these numbers are based on designing and constructing systems that are capable of reducing the numbers down to basically nothing, but the the calculations on on operations is based on the four part per trillion limit.

So I mean, I'm more into protecting our citizens versus giving them them these four of our chemicals and saying, well, the EPA says this is okay, so we're gonna let it go.

I I'd rather see us strive to be better, and if we're striving to be better, then we don't have to wait.

And um, and I would like to see a strive that not go to four.

I mean, if four is the minute what minimum, why why not strive for two?

Or why not strive for zero?

And and I don't know how much more that costs, but I would rather see us not even delay it, just exceed whatever their their expectations are and go for lower and protect our citizens and be very confident that we're protecting our citizens.

That's just my thought, and I know I'm not looking at the price tag, and when I see the price tag, I might change my mind.

But I I you know these are dangerous chemicals, and I just don't understand why we would not try to just do the best we can better than what they're saying.

And I would not be okay if saying four is four is the is all we can have and and setting our laurels at four.

I mean, I would rather see us do better.

And and and if we and if that was our goal, and we haven't talked about it because we haven't talked about the money, but if that was our goal, I don't even know why we would wait.

We should just move forward and go for a goal of something that is far less than whatever they would come up with.

And that's my soapbox, and I'm gonna that's I won't say anymore.

Commissioner, one of the things that the EPA did when they uh back in 2024 and they proposed those and then finalized those numbers of four, it's because from an uh analytical laboratory perspective, you can reliably detect down to four on a and be certain that that's the quantitative number.

So the reason that the number was set at four for the limit was because that's what that's the best laboratories across the United States can achieve.

The goal that EPA set back in 2024 was to have non-detect.

So it's still and and right now there's a there's a great debate whether the number should actually be raised above four, and that's the debate going on at EPA right now.

Okay.

Thank you.

One last yes.

Just for perspective for perspective, because I think it's important to have it.

What have the current standards been, say for the last five to ten years on the same on the same area?

Um just that's the first one.

So there have not been standards before 2024 nationwide.

There was guidance, and the guidance number just for perspective was 70.

So 70 parts per trillion compared to four parts per trillion was was what was being viewed.

Um but I could tell you also that certain states had more stringent limits before the federal limit of four came out.

Those numbers ranged, and and these are states that are very proactive, very pro-environmental.

They were in the range of 10 to 20 parts per trillion.

So when the federal numbers came out in 2024, they were far lower.

One exception on the state side with California, they were lower than the 10 to 20.

And and how how are ours, how are ours performing when we did that, when we looked at the numbers when those groups are.

You're talking about our our actual concentrations in our waters.

So we're seeing at as I've pointed out that there are three locations that are I I say they're slightly above.

They're at the they're at numbers that are four, five, six.

Okay.

Those types of from our perspective.

Um we've not been in the tens and twenties and thirties.

No, no, no.

No.

And 50s and 60s and 70s.

I mean, again, I think the water quality that we've been delivering on those on those two items, or PFOS for sure, has been relatively ahead of where we where we could have been, and certainly way ahead of where we could have been, and always looking to do better.

So the idea to your point about acknowledging the existence, or you can you can rate it down to four with the technology, doesn't mean that's where we're stopping.

It could be and I also have to point out that that when we're talking about where we meet compliance, those are those are locations where our regional, our water that we treat from different different sources enters the regional system and then gets delivered to member governments.

When the water actually goes in certain locations through a member government's treatment plant, that's where we we we see the blending of different source waters in the treatment plant, the numbers come out a lot lower to the customers.

I think that's an important point to remember too.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our last uh presentation this morning is the annual demand forecast update and evaluation.

Good morning again, Mr.

Chair, members of the board.

I have a brief presentation for you this morning on our annual demand forecast.

And given the hour, I won't go into a deep dive on the probabilistic forecasting methodology, but just show you the work that we've done and how we use this data.

This is just for information and there's no action requested today.

We use updated annual demand forecast data in our annual budget cycle, and to plan how we balance our water sources for the coming year.

Putting it in our budget cycle for the next three to five uh actually five to six years allows us to better manage impacts to the uniform rate.

We use this long-term data in our master water plan to make sure that we develop that next water supply source or infrastructure on time before the demand arrives.

It helps us look at the reliability of our regional system and also the uncertainty in the long-term forecast.

And we do this annually to stay ahead of changes, make sure we deliver water supply.

We look at the seven water demand planning areas of the members, and this year we incorporated two changes.

The expansion of the South Hillsboro uh service areas included, uh extending down towards the to the Manatee County line.

It's the medium green shading in South Hillsborough County.

And we've incorporated this at existing uh zoning densities.

We also included a change to the PASCO County water demand planning area that now covers uh most of the county, including all the way out to the eastern boundary.

We do our forecast for three different sectors single family, multifamily, and non-residential, so we can understand the differences in those three use sectors.

And our forecast that's reported to you goes out through the year 2045 to match our water planning cycle.

Requires a tremendous amount of data for this annual update, and key to that is the billing data and other data we collect from each of you, property uh appraiser data as well as individual account demand data.

So that's essential for us.

We also include population projections from Vieber and the Census Bureau and socioeconomic data from multiple sources.

This is our demand forecast looking out for the next 20 years, which goes through 2045, and this is what we use to look at what could the demands be so that we make sure that we're ready for them.

The dark line in the middle of the graph is the median demand for each year, and the dashed orange lines on the top and bottom are the fifth and the 95th percentiles.

For each year, the further away you get from the median line, the less likely that demand will occur, but it's possible, so we have to consider it.

Our demand for the year 2045 in this year's report increased a little over 9 million gallons a day compared to last year's report, and that reflects the growth in population and the demand that comes with it for our whole region.

This is the information that we will work into the budget.

This takes the prior graph and it subtracts any water that's self-supplied by some members.

This is what Tampa Bay Water plans to deliver to each member government.

We're looking at a forecast water delivery of 212.84 million gallons per day next fiscal year, and it's an increase of about 3 million gallons a day compared to the current year budget.

We have met with each of your staffs to review this information and compare it to their each of your forecast, and the member staffs have agreed that this is reasonable for use for the next year and the next five years.

No surprise, we're continuing to see uh a significant increase in population in our region and the demand that comes with it.

The fastest growth rates are continuing in South Hillsborough County and in PASCO County.

We will take this information, incorporate it into our annual budget cycle, and also our master water plan update to make sure that we have the next supply increment online to meet your demands.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Questions, comments, Commissioner Hackers.

Uh yeah, just two quickly.

Thank you for the report.

And it uh interesting to look at that short-term demand forecast as we go out.

And looking at 28 is when we're talking about the next water supply source coming online.

And that's 10 to 15 million gallons a day that we'll be adding.

Surface water treatment plan expansion will be complete in 2028.

And then we're looking beyond that for that next increment.

So we're taking this annual data each year, looking to see does that push out a year, does it come back a year?

Where does that next timing come?

We will have the feasibility studies to you by the end of 2027 for that next increment.

So we'll take this data, any updates from later next year, and and give you that better window so we don't build stuff too soon and strain capital.

We also can't build it too late.

We're trying to narrow that window.

Right, okay.

And then um the 2033 project, there will be an we're looking at those now, but we're also looking, you got you've been doing a good job of accumulating some credits in certain areas that allow us to do more with what we have so that we're not having to maybe minimize the the capital needed for 2033.

Is that the more we can use our existing sources to increase our supply?

That may push that window out in time.

Any partnerships with uh private uh entities that are transitioning from ag to residential, if we can harvest that quantity.

Uh as we discussed last board meeting, if we can partner with the city of Tampa to extend a supply.

Uh we acquired water from TICO and another transition.

All those things could push that window of time into the future and save us some capital expenses.

So that'll be part of that 2033 analysis as we look at what we're going to be needing.

Correct.

Can we come back to you in late 27 with the recommendation for that next water supply?

We'll incorporate all of those system additions and give you a picture of what we need and when.

Okay.

Thank you, Warren.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right.

At this time, we are going to move on to uh item number E1, which is the election of officers uh board organizational action.

Let me say before we uh take motions uh for chair and vice chair that it has been a pleasure and an honor to serve as chair for the past two years, and I look forward to joining my distinguished uh other former chairs of this organization.

Uh one of the the things about being chair is that uh you speak generally last by custom.

So most of the questions and discussion have already taken place.

So I'm gonna look forward to being able to be a more active participant in the future and handing over the Gavel responsibilities to someone else.

Good question.

Yes.

On the uh selection of chair and vice chair, uh, could you talk to the traditional kind of approach?

Maybe thank you for for asking that.

So traditionally, we alternate between the three counties uh in terms of the leadership of the organization.

Uh the last chair was um Commissioner Oakley, and before that was Commissioner Eggers.

It would traditionally now be uh Penelis County as turn again to to occupy the chair, and uh PASCO County would presumably go after them.

That's kind of and that's been the tradition, and also we have a two-year uh limitation uh on the on the chair.

So that would uh necessitate the it being time for a change.

So uh with that, I will um also just announce that the uh the these elections will be effective at the conclusion of today's meeting.

We are going to, once this is over, have a motion to receive and file and then adjourn to the back for our attorney client session.

So uh, Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

Um if I'm not mistaken, we used to do one-year chairmanships until we had an issue with Tampa uh wanting to change the water, and our meetings were going very long.

They were going to two, three in the afternoon, and then so we decided then to change it to two years.

Is that correct?

It is uh I always say one year term, but you can serve uh two two years consecutively.

So that's how it's we vote every year for I thought though I did think that we weren't doing two, I thought it was just single, so maybe I misunderstood back then.

Yeah, we we you will be approving for the just one year, but generally traditionally they allow up to two years.

Okay, thank you.

Vote again every year.

All right.

At this time, we will entertain nominations for chair, Commissioner Oakley.

I move to nominate Mrs.

Hanowitz for chair.

Okay.

A second.

The motion does not require a second.

Thank you.

Um seeing no other nominations, the nominations are closed.

Can we go ahead and have a vote to nominate Ms.

Hanowitz for chair by acclamation?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

All right, congratulations.

Thank you.

At uh this time we will have nominations for vice chair.

Yes, Mr.

Oakley.

I'll nominate Seth Whiteman from Pasco County District 2.

Okay.

I'll second it.

And again, this uh nomination does not require a second.

But we appreciate the the show of support.

I don't see any other nominations at this time.

All those in favor of Mr.

Waitman for vice chair, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

All right.

Well, congratulations to both of you.

Uh at this time, can we please have a motion to receive and file?

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion from Count Commissioner Wastel, second by Councilwoman Hanowitz.

Please record your vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you.

At this time, we are now going to move into a private attorney client session pursuant to Florida statute two eight six point zero one one eight to discuss Polk Regional Water Cooperative versus Southwest Florida Water Management District and Tampa Bay Water.

In attendance will be General Counsel Kelly Fernandez via Zoom, Deputy General Counsel R.

David Jackson, Special Counsel Timothy Riley, Elizabeth Ross, and Greg Munson, Commissioner Cohen, Vice Chair Hanowitz, Board Members Davis, Eggers, Oakley, Peters, Wussel, and Waiteman.

General Chann Manager Charles Cardin and a certified court reporter.