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SJRWMD FY 2017-2018 Final Budget Changes and Trends The District continues its ongoing effort to streamline the regulatory programs to make them more efficient and effective. As a result, the following improvements and efficiencies have occurred: • Increased proactive communication with applicants, targeted at reducing paperwork and requests for additional information • Increased use of electronic permitting to save applicants money and to reduce District staff processing time (electronic permitting exceeds 90 percent) • Continued to promote the use of pre -application meetings for potential applicants so staff can answer questions and provide technical support and materials prior to application submittal (approximately 50 percent of applications submitted have a pre - application meeting) • Enhanced outreach to consultants, applicants, and the public with additional and simplified web resources, training sessions, and workshops • Increased cross -training and rotation of duties for staff to enhance their understanding of all aspects of the permitting process, ensure consistency, and better prepare them to make decisions • Implemented the use of mobile technology to efficiently capture field notes and photographs while performing site inspections, reducing the overall time spent by staff on those activities Budget Variances The program budget has a 7.1 percent decrease ($889,254) compared to the FY 2016-17 amended budget. If the program variance > ±10 percent, major object variances > ±5 percent will be explained and if the program variance < ±10 percent, major object variances > ±10 percent will be explained. • The reduction in Contracted Services budget ($63,200) is primarily due to the reduction in Data Collection and Analysis Services ($90,000). • Operating Expenses will see a 45 percent reduction primarily due to decreases in Postage and/or Courier Service budget ($20,000), Freight, Moving, and Storage budget ($49,400), and Subscriptions budget ($74,824). Major Budget Items (items >$100,000 or >5 percent of total program budget) Major budget items for this activity include the following: • Salaries and Benefits — $11.31 million for 129.8 FTEs o 4.1 Consumptive Use Permitting (28.85 FTEs) o 4.2 Water Well Construction Permitting and Contractor Licensing (2.6 FTEs) o 4.3 Environmental Resource and Surface Water Permitting (75.3 FTEs) o 4.4 Other Regulatory and Enforcement Activities (23 FTEs) Page 48 pA