Public Infrastructure Fiscal & Business Administration

Department Description

The Department's mission is to provide management, leadership and direction to meet the County’s and Public Infrastructure’s mission and vision by achieving organizational goals. Fiscal and Business Administration is responsible for organizational development, financial management and staffing required to carry out the policies and directives of the County Commission for the provision of water, wastewater, reclaimed water, solid waste, public works, engineering services, warehouse and residential street light services to the citizens of Pasco County in a safe and cost-efficient manner. Water, Wastewater and Solid Waste/Resource Recovery systems are self-supporting enterprise operations that are funded through user fees and system revenues.

Core Services

Branch Administration

The Assistant County Administrator for Public Infrastructure and team handle administration for over 1,000 FTEs that provide service to the citizens and customers of the various departments within the Public Infrastructure Branch. This office is responsible for Branch Management, Strategic Planning, and large-scale policy development and implementation.

Fiscal Operations

The department manages all finance and fiscal related functions for the Branch providing administration and support of nearly 50 budgets (Operational, Non-Operational, and Capital) Funds, including:

Water & Wastewater Unit Funds
Solid Waste Funds
County Transportation Trust Fund
Stormwater Management Fund
Special Assessment Fund

Warehouse Operations

Warehouse Operations are a self-supporting, stand-alone function within the department. Our mission is to provide support for the multiple departments not only under the Public Infrastructure branch but also the departments under the Board of County Commissioners through the facilitation of goods, materials, and tools from suppliers. The acquisition of goods, materials, and tools by the warehouses allows for bulk purchasing that ensures economic efficiency and management of the time the goods are on the shelf to minimize the outlay of funds invested in the inventory. Utilization of Public Infrastructure Warehouse Services provides for the safeguarding of the goods, materials, and tools used by our customer base.

Residential Streetlight Services

The Streetlighting team administers the residential subdivisions, which can be initiated either through an annual petition process from parcel owners and developers or can be directly created by the Board of County Commissioners (BCC). The administration of streetlights includes petition processing, coordination with the power providers, coordination for successful petitions, public hearings, and coordination with the tax collector.

Budget Summary

Funding Sources

Goals and Objectives

Debt Financing & Credit Rating

The Department is responsible for maintaining at minimum an "A" Bond Rating. The Public Infrastructure Branch has maintained a level exceeding the minimum to provide the lowest cost of borrowing possible. As indicated in the table below, On 10/13/22 Fitch reaffirmed the AA+ rating assigned to Water/Sewer debt and upgraded its outlook on the system from neutral to positive. A number of factors contribute to this result, including strong management, customer growth, and improving credit profile.

Water / Wastewater Affordability

In this comparison of monthly residential water/sewer bills based upon FY 2023 rates for the average residential usage level of 6,000 gallons per month, Pasco County remains nearly 4% below the median bill for surrounding utilities pictured in the chart below.

Invoices and P-Cards

The Department is responsible for Accounts Payable operations for over 40 budgets supported by the branch and processes over 20,000 invoices and 7,000 procurement card (P-Card) transactions annually.

P-Card Processing Time

The Department goal is to process all P-card charges in less than 3 days after charges are posted to financial system. This is to ensure the prompt submission of all charges and prevent the need for card suspensions due to past due status.

Invoice Processing Time

The Department strives to process all complete and accurate invoices within an average of ten days from the date of receipt to ensure the prompt submission of these invoices and prevent vendor delays resulting from past due or default status accounts. Additionally, this effort is to support the maintenance of a positive relationship with Pasco County vendors and contractors.

Invoice Exception Rate

Efforts are made to maintain an Exception (Rejection) Rate of less than 8% when processing all complete and accurate invoices to ensure that correct information is entered into our finance system and to prevent erroneous payments resulting in delays. Additionally, this effort is to support the maintenance of a positive relationship with Pasco County vendors and contractors.

Municipal Service Benefit Units (MSBUs)

These units are often established for either maintenance or capital project purposes to apply an annual assessment for those that benefit from these projects and/or services in a defined area. This division currently administers seven units that assess thirteen different cost structures across benefiting areas.

Safety Industry Standards

Safety Training

Safety training is a vital step to ensure PCU employees are trained in hazard recognition prior to completing tasks.

Utility Site Visits

Identifying safety and health concerns in PCU’s facilities, plants and lab increase overall safe working environments for PCU employees.

Warehouse Services

To measure customer satisfaction and engagement, an annual customer service survey is administered to all warehouse customers. The survey measures warehouse performance in meeting customer demands and requirements. The survey is scored on a scale of 1-5. After multiple years of exceeding the goal of 4.0, the team raised the bar to 4.2 and once again was able to exceed it with a response of 4.4 in FY23. The mission of Warehouse Services is to provide support for Public Infrastructure operations and maintenance personnel. They accomplish this by acquiring, stocking, and issuing the materials, supplies, and tools in a cost effective manner. The warehouse is routinely audited where inventory counts and processes are reviewed, management values the importance of inventory control.

Inventory Accuracy

A measure of quality that Public Infrastructure Utilities Warehouse Services is measured on is the accuracy of the inventory. This is defined on how closely the official EAM inventory records match the physical count of the inventory done on an annual basis. Any item that does not match will need an adjustment in EAM. The minimum allowable goal for adjustments is 2.0 per warehouse or a total of 6.0 for the three warehouses.

Inventory Efficiency

Inventory Efficiency is a measurement on how well the warehouses are managing its assets and how quickly the assets are moving out of the warehouses. The more efficiently the inventory is moving, the less the carrying costs and risk of stocking obsolete inventory. The minimum goal is to have 85% of all stocked inventory on the shelf no more than 120 days. The target goal is 90%.

Residential Streetlight Services

The service provided by Streetlighting team aligns most closely to the following Pasco County Strategic Goals:

Goal 2.1 – Improve public safety response initiatives and service delivery capabilities to increase resiliency in out rapidly growing community. Improve alignment towards the strategic plan strategies that ensure a robust building pre-evaluation, prompt response capabilities, coordinated recovery and mitigation efforts that affects the citizenry of Pasco County.
Goal 1.2 – Plan, build, operate, and maintain a safe, resilient and efficient multi-modal transportation and roadway infrastructure system.

Residential Streetlight Area Audits

Chart of existing streetlight service area audits

The program is currently in the process of auditing approximately 20,600 lights and 17,200 poles within 269 Residential Streetlight Service Areas to identify variances of actual streetlight fixtures/poles in the field compared to the inventory billed by the Power companies. In addition, the audit is ensuring all lots within the streetlight area are being assessed and properly adjusting if needed.

LED Lighting Conversions

The department is in the process of upgrading residential districts to LED for those power companies that are willing to do so. The conversion from sodium vapor lighting to LED lighting contributes to enhancing, improving, and maintaining public infrastructure. This upgrade will provide for energy efficiency, increased lighting, and long-term cost effectiveness.