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Commissioner Gordon said that the Board of County Commissioners holds public health and safety at a high standard. Chair Jacobs noted that even when the County has a hiring freeze, it does not include those positions/vacancies in the health and safety departments. He said that the simplest way to address this is to just speak the truth. He would agree with writing a letter to the News of Orange. 4. County Capital and Operating Budget Matters John Link said that relating to revenues, there is an additional $150,000 found by Segal and Associates. They received confirmation that the federal funding from the office of Justice Programs would provide $100,000 of additional monies. Also, the County will receive an additional $75,000 of additional unanticipated EMS revenue. This is $325,000 in total additional revenue. In the agenda, there is a better-sequenced version of capital projects that the County Commissioners may want to cut or delay. The County department heads were in attendance to respond to any questions. The increases in operations are fairly small and they are justifiable. Under outside agency funding and fire district funding, outside agency funding is the same as last year and there is only one increase in fire district funding. While we are not including any increase in employee pay and benefits, we hope that at some time during the year this can be included. John Link urged the Board to spend most of their time tonight on the capital side of the budget. Commissioner Gordon pointed out that the hiring freeze would save a lot of money. A. capital funding reductions Chair Jacobs made reference to his handout as a starting point for discussion to try and address the $805,000 that we still have not earmarked to cut to match the $3.1 million that the State has withheld from Orange County. This would reduce the tax rate by two cents and increase the money in the social safety net to $250,000 from $110,000. It would put some money back into things that are proposed to be cut (i.e., Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Lands Legacy Fund), and it would only involve the two matters that are not capital. Commissioner Gordon made reference to attachment 1 and attachment 2 and asked about the relationship between the two. Budget Director Donna Dean said that attachment 1 relates to the $3.1 million that the State is withholding from us next year. Commissioner Gordon said that we could cut some things in decision point 3 instead of decision point 2. Chair Jacobs said that he was proposing that we do both. The Board decided to start discussing decision point 2 —the bright yellow chart in attachment 1. The first item was Information Technology. Information Technology Commissioner Halkiotis asked about the emergency needs in Information Technology that total $130,000. Donna Dean said that one of the items would be correcting the wiring at the Whitted Human Services building. Assistant County Manager Rod Visser gave some background information about the $400,000 for Information Technology. He listed the amounts for Information Technology as follows: Network - $115,000; Desktop, PCs, printers, laptops - $70,000; Support and training for IS staff- $7,500; Legacy software system - $167,000; Document management - $10,700; and GIS - $29,000. If the Board wants to reduce the $400,000, then we would have to decide how to reduce it among the various initiatives. Commissioner Brown said that her presumption, by holding this money, is that we have accomplished through the five-year plan, the upgrading of all equipment throughout all County departments and that we are on a level that is very satisfactory. Rod Visser said that we are in outstanding shape as it relates to information technology.