Chief Resilience Officer for Monroe County, Rhonda Haag, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
The County Commissioners met yesterday where a big part of the discussion was the different road projects and elevation projects.
Haag said, “We talked about how to fund these gaps that are popping up in these projects, and we fully expected we’re never going to get 100% grant funded projects, not for any single project. So we’re lucky to get state and federal grants to help with it, but there’s always a gap in the amount of funding versus what the bids actually come in at. So yesterday, we talked about the local Twin Lakes area in Key Largo. That’s a $22 million project. We have a little over $9 million in grants, and the aqueduct is taking in a couple, but we were short $10.8 million and we wanted to get that project moving, because that neighborhood is suffering, and so the county had to borrow $10.8 million to fund the gap. So what we discussed yesterday was for all of these road elevation projects, they’re widespread, but they’re very necessary because they’re going to help each and every homeowner on these road elevation projects. It’s going to help each and every one receive a specific benefit that they’ll have less flooding in front of their house on the roads, and they’ll have maintained access to their home. So we talked about could they help pay for some of these projects? Just like we had wastewater, we had lots of grants that help fund that, the county kicked in a lot of money, but we also had the residents help fund some of that. So yesterday’s discussion was about, well, should they help fund the capital cost? Also, could they help pay the operations and maintenance? The operations and maintenance discussion was an easier discussion, because that’s a very specific and finite benefit to the residents, because you’d have to pay the power to run the pump station and everything. So that went relatively smooth, and it was agreed upon that, yes, residents should 100% pay the operations and maintenance for any routine charges, small repairs and things like that, will be charged under an operations and maintenance assessment. Then we talked about a second assessment to help pay back the county some of its funds. We talked about whether it should be do we want to get the whole $10.8 million back, or something less? So we talked about all the different options that that meant. Of course, when you look at paying 10 million back, and dividing that amount 250 residents was pretty expensive. It was like $103,000 pay back per resident. We looked at options. You could pay it back right up front, or pay it back over 20 years and then it was like an assessment of $8,700. Nobody likes assessments. Nobody likes to pay assessments. But if we don’t, what ends up happening is just like the county had to borrow the money and then we have to pay it back, everybody in the county has to pay because that comes out of taxes. So that’s why we wanted to very carefully determine how we want to move forward with this.”
The $10.8 million is only for the Twin Lakes property in Key Largo.
Haag said, “We expect a similar gap for each and every project. It could be even bigger gaps, like for Big Coppitt, that could be even bigger gap because that’s a much bigger project. It just depends on the local bidding conditions and where the geographic area is. We were hoping the Key Largo area would be cheaper, but it’s not. What they also decided to do yesterday, we’ll come back in April for another discussion, is 100% payback wasn’t feasible, so they really focused on a 25% payback. So that would mean the county would recoup $2.6 million of that $10.7 million and so the resident prepayment option would be a $25,000 payment, but spread over 20 years, and then it would be done at $2,185 per year. It’s a little expensive, but when you compare to the decreased value in these homes if we didn’t do this road elevation project, that’s really what you have to look at. You have to weigh the benefits versus the cost.”
What would the maintenance costs be?
Haag said, “It’s very, very similar. You have to pay the assessment for every $2,131 per year. So that’s about $178 a month, I think. So those two together, then are about, $4,400. We’re going to come back in April and just discuss this more fully. But what we’re anticipating is maybe we’ll take that number and apply it county wide, rather than trying to individualize each project. So some projects might have a bigger differential, some projects might have less. But just like on the wastewater, simplify it. Everybody pays the same. We think that that might be a more equitable distribution, and then people can count on what that number is going to be, and they don’t have to worry that it’s going to be a lot more. Residents that don’t live on these road projects, they don’t have to worry that all their tax money is going to go towards paying it. So it’s really a three pronged approach. It’s grant funds funding as much as we can. County putting in our local share. We still have to pay 75% of this, $10.8 million, and then the residents putting in some funds also. Right now, what tentatively agreed on was to get 25% of it back, so about $2.7 million back.”
Have there been any cutbacks at the state level?
Haag said, “Not yet. It’s a little early in the political season, so to speak. But they’re mandated to do the $100 million a year under Resilient Florida. That doesn’t go very far. Monroe County alone could spend that really easy, the other counties too. The funds are just going to get just more and more competition every year. I’m doing the roads elevation planning for all the municipalities in the Keys right now. So in a year, they’re going to probably be applying with their own projects in the municipalities too.”
The overall cost for road elevation could be in the billions of dollars.
Haag said, “A couple billion dollars. It’s not comfortable and people don’t like it, but it helps give them knowledge and helps prepare them that these costs might be just too high. Then do some long range planning. It’s just the cost of living here in the Keys. Unfortunately, the waters continue to rise and storms continue to come, and so we have to prepare.”
Technically, the alternative is that the property is worth nothing because it’ll be underwater.
Haag confirmed, “Yeah. It is.”
The Restore grant came in at $12 million in canal projects.
Haag said the project is “going to start hopefully very soon here on the Avenues of Big Pine Key. So that’s really good news. We’re just thrilled to get that.”