2023-08-15 VI. A. Exhibit 3 • • Exhibit 3
or . 08/15/2023
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1 2024-2025 Legislative Priorities
The City of Okeechobee thanks you for your service and appreciates your dedication to the rural
areas and for your support especially with funding of the water quality grant programs for
resilience, stormwater, wastewater and water infrastructure, broadband, and for transportation
funding.
We are requesting your assistance and support with the following 2024-2025 Legislative
priorities:
Appropriation Funding Requests:
• Public Safety Facility: $1,200,000 — Funds will be used for contractual
architectural/engineering and construction services to address hardening of City-owned
Public Safety Building, which will serve as additional Emergency Operations Center for
police and the general services department.
Resilience improvements include replacement of openings with storm rated and
approved doors/windows, hardening of exterior structural defects and security concerns
and strengthen the building for disaster preparedness compliance.
• Stormwater Quality Improvements: $1,000,000 -- Funds to be used for design, permitting,
bidding, administration, project management and construction of additional stormwater quality
drainage improvements that will reduce pollutants entering Taylor Creek/Lake Okeechobee
Watershed Basin & Estuary. The project provides for protection of life, health, safety and the
environment including wildlife.
Issues of Concerns:
Home Rule/Unfunded Mandates -- Our appeal to you as Legislators continues to be to help us
by avoiding unfunded mandates and attacks on home rule and all legislation that will eventually
cause harm. As a Rural Area of Opportunity (formerly known as Rural Area of Critical Economic
Concern/RACEC), we need your continued support on any front to augment our fiscally
constrained plight. Our area has fallen on uniquely difficult times...more specifically our:
• Unemployment above State averages.
• Poverty level is higher than State averages.
We seek your Support for:
Lake Okeechobee LOSOM —Thank you for including funding for northern water storage
treatment programs. We support the scientific methodology as it reduces pollutants flowing into
the Lake Okeechobee Basin and Estuary. The City's position for the new LOSOM schedule is as
outlined in the attached Resolution No. 2021-07.
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Broadband Expansion Programs —We appreciate your efforts and support with the broadband
initiative programs for telecommunications infrastructure improvements and expenses for
critical technologies needed for all levels of education requirements, telemedicine, access for
government programs and/or applications, etc.
During the pandemic, the City added solar hot spots to the City Parks with COVID-19 funding
sources for families and individuals,which proved to be a significant program for our community.
The hot spots incur a monthly expense for the City.
FDOT — Continued financial commitment to State Road 70 widening project; including SR 70
west to Highway 27 -- FDOT anticipates much needed extraordinary expenditures within
Okeechobee County, which will foster continued economic growth, traffic congestion relief and
appropriate evacuation routing.
Advertising — We encourage the use of more electronic based advertising over newspaper
requirements. As we've pointed out in the past, having a newspaper publish only once a week is
a challenge for us to get notices out and also makes it more difficult for an applicant to get their
projects properly noticed in a timely manner. The Okeechobee News is now extending the lead
time for advertisements to 13 days. We need a better alternative since this further disrupts the
flow of work.
Increase/Maintain Funding of State Programs:
• State Grant programs—
o Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) water quality grants for
resiliency, wastewater, stormwater, and water improvements. Thank you for your support
and funding of the Taylor Creek SE 8th Avenue Storm water Conveyance project.
o Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program (FRDAP) --This Florida Department
of Environmental Protection (FDEP) grant program provides matching funds for certain new
outdoor recreational projects and certain improvements to existing parks. Since, funding for
FRDAP is contingent upon an annual legislative appropriation, we request full funding of this
program. The City has successfully secured funding through this program most recently for
Cattlemen's Square and Centennial Park!
o Florida Commerce/Dept. of Economic Opportunity Programs Rural Infrastructure
Programs -- The Rural Infrastructure Fund (RIF) Grant is to facilitate the planning, preparing
and financing of infrastructure projects in rural communities which will encourage job
creation, capital investment and the strengthening and diversification of rural economies.
The RIF program is intended to facilitate access of rural communities to infrastructure funding
programs.
o Historical Preservation Programs - Thank you for continuing to fund the Historical Grant
programs. The City supports these important grant programs that assist with keeping
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Florida's history in the forefront, i.e., Okeechobee Battlefield Historic State Park, and
historical buildings including City Hall that was built in 1926.
o FDOT Grants-Small County Outreach Program (SCOP) - Please continue to allocate funds
to SCOP. The $9 million funds established for RAO municipalities allows our City an avenue
to improve our roadways though this program, which addresses repairing or rehabilitating
bridges, paving unpaved roads, addressing road related drainage improvements, resurfacing
or reconstructing roads, or constructing capacity or safety improvements.
• Rural and Family Lands Protection Program:
o An agricultural land preservation program designed to protect important agricultural
lands through the acquisition of permanent agricultural land conservation easements.
o The program is designed to meet three needs:
• Protect valuable agricultural lands.
• Create easement documents that work together with agricultural production to
ensure sustainable agricultural practices and reasonable protection of the
environment without interfering with agricultural operations in such a way that
could put the continued economic viability of these operations at risk.
• Protect natural resources, not as the primary purpose, but in conjunction with
the economically viable agricultural operations.
Issues of Financial Concern:
The City is opposed to any new stormwater and water quality rule requirements that may be
imposed on new development in the future. It is our understanding there is an effort by FDEP
called Stormwater 2020 where a new water quality bill could be submitted that would require
strict pre vs post development water quality criteria on any new development. This could
severely impact our ability to grow commercially and in our residential areas making it more
costly to develop a piece of land.
Exemptions—State Mandated
Our City has always been cognizant of taxpayer affordability. Our request,which parallels the 'no
unfunded mandate' statement, is that there is no mandated tax exemption, or at least there is
no legislation that echoes the 'one size fits all' philosophy. Any legislation proposing additional
tax exemptions should give the local jurisdiction the authority to initiate.
Local Business Taxes
The City requests that our legislative delegation not support any actions to remove or alter the
current Florida Statutes allowing counties and municipalities the authority to levy local
business taxes subject to certain conditions. These local business taxes are currently used by
local government to provide resources for a variety of services, including public safety and
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economic development. In connection with the Business Tax Receipt (BTR), the City performs a
number of inspections including health and safety review.The BTR provides a registry of business
activity that can be monitored for appropriate zoning, land use and Code compliance. A number
of legislative initiatives through the years has been brought forward that restricted or would have
repealed the authority of local governments to levy the local business tax; negatively impacting
resources for providing services and future bonding needs. No legislation should be enacted that
eliminates or further restricts the use of the local business tax. The City of Okeechobee revenue
loss is estimated at $70,000+.
Communications Services Tax (CST)
The City requests that a solution to declining and inequitable Communication Service Tax be
considered.
Legislative and technological changes which have occurred over the past few years have resulted
in an erosion of CST revenues to the state and local governments, diminishing the reliability of
the revenue stream for operating and future bonding needs.These changes have also resulted in
like services being taxed differently depending on the service provider or method of sale, causing
the very discrimination the Communications Services Tax Simplification law was intended to
prevent.
In light of the fact that any changes to the CST revenue stream not carefully conceived could
cause serious financial harm to local government, legislation aimed at reforming the
Communications Services Tax should:
• Be developed through consensus by a working group comprised of local governments,
the communications industry and the state;
• Allow the CST to remain a locally-controlled revenue stream;
• Be carefully crafted to stabilize the currently diminished local government share of CST
revenues and augment revenues by eliminating certain loopholes that have been realized;
• Remove competitive advantages by providing similar tax treatment to similar services,
regardless of the technology utilized nor method of delivery;
• Provide transparency, such that the tax can easily be recalculated by the customer and
audited by DOR.
Support for Other Local Agencies and Initiatives:
The City of Okeechobee supports the legislative initiatives of each agency below:
• Okeechobee County
• Okeechobee Utility Authority
• Okeechobee County School District
• Chamber of Commerce
• Florida League of Cities, as appropriate
• Treasure Coast Council of Local Government
• Treasure Coast Regional League of Cities
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• Career Source Heartland
• Central Florida Regional Planning Council
• Indian River Lagoon/National Estuaries Program
• Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program
Contact Information:
City Council Members:
Dowling R. Watford, Jr., Mayor
Noel Chandler, Council Member
Monica Clark, Council Member
Bob Jarriel, Council Member
David McAuley, Council Member
Gary Ritter, City Administrator
(863) 763-9811
Email: gritter(c�cityofokeechobee.com
Phone: (863) 763-9811
Cell: 863-610-1562
Address: 55 SE 3rd Avenue, Okeechobee, FL 34974
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