County staff race to fulfill voluminous state data requests; committee will monitor answers

County staff said they are working under a tight schedule to compile multiple data requests from the Florida Department of State team, and they asked the newly formed liaison committee to review materials posted to a county SharePoint site and be available while the state team conducts on‑site work. Lede: Tom Besler, the county’s chief financial administrator, said the first request from the state arrived April 11 and asked for line‑level budget data — what staff characterized as more than 40,000 line items — plus positions and salaries, county contracts, grant details, and service‑delivery metrics. A second request came July 11 asking for revenue detail, and a follow‑up with further questions arrived July 30; staff said they were preparing responses in advance of an on‑site visit that the state has scheduled for August 11–12. Why it matters: The state requests seek detailed financial and operational data that staff say will take significant effort to assemble. The committee’s role is to review the material staff posts, provide citizen perspective and be present while state staff work on site. The requests and the state’s use of the information could influence later recommendations or findings. What staff described in the meeting: - Scope and volume: Staff said the state has asked for line‑item budget detail (described in the meeting as over 40,000 lines), position lists and job descriptions, contract documents and payment histories, grant awards, hours worked by department and other operational records. The state has asked for records back to fiscal 2019 in many areas. - Budget scale: Staff described the county’s overall budget as large (the meeting discussion referenced roughly $12 billion in total budgetary activity across funds), with an operating budget in the $4–4.5 billion range and a capital program in excess of $2 billion; staff cited a multi‑hundred‑million-dollar water project in South County as an example of capital work currently underway. The sheriff’s office was described as a large component of county expenditures (discussion referenced a sheriff budget figure in the hundreds of millions). Staff said those are county budget figures and noted that constitutionally independent offices maintain separate ledgers and may or may not participate in the state’s requests. - Data access and technology: Ramin Khuzakinari, the county’s chief information and innovation administrator, and other staff discussed using a county SharePoint portal to collect and host documents for submission. Committee members asked whether the state will have back‑end or read‑only access to systems (for example, the county’s Oracle ERP); staff said they are seeking clarification from the state and currently expect to upload responses through the state’s portal and to place copies in the county SharePoint site so committee members and the state team can access the same files. - Privacy and security concerns: Staff acknowledged that some back‑end tables hold sensitive personally identifiable information and that appropriate safeguards and access controls will need to be applied. The committee discussed the county’s responsibility to follow data‑security and privacy rules when granting access or sharing extracts. - AI and automation: Committee members asked whether the state will use AI tools to analyze the data. Staff said they have asked the state to clarify whether an AI agent will be used and, if so, what agent and what security considerations apply. Staff recommended the committee not deploy its own AI agent for the responses and to coordinate with the state on tools and access. - Constitutional officers: Staff explained that some elected constitutional officers (sheriff, property appraiser, tax collector, clerk) operate as separate legal entities. County staff said those offices may have been invited to participate in the first request but that the recent targeted requests appear primarily focused on county financial systems; the county does not control the internal ledgers of those independent offices. Logistics for committee members: Staff said committee members will be given access to the county SharePoint site where the responses and supporting documentation will be posted. The county encouraged members to review the posted materials and be available during the state team’s on‑site process; staff said the committee should avoid unscheduled off‑record communications that could raise Sunshine Law or public‑records complications. Staff asked the committee to identify any additional materials they want staff to prioritize — for example, a chart of accounts with short descriptions and a high‑level budget rollup by major department — and committed to uploading a set of summary budget presentations and an organizational chart so the committee can begin reviewing the county’s fiscal structure before the state team’s visit.