“Improving coastal and inland resiliency is crucial for the future of Okaloosa County,” said Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners Chairman Trey Goodwin. “We are thankful for the governor’s leadership in allocating funds for resilience planning and mitigation projects.”

Completing the vulnerability assessment will allow the county and its municipalities to be eligible for implementation grants through the Resilient Florida program.

Okaloosa County is among 40 counties selected to receive funding through DEP’s Resilient Florida Planning Grant Program.

Okaloosa County also received a Watershed Master Plan Grant from the Florida Division of Emergency Management in the amount of $200,000 to develop a Watershed Master Plan for the county.

Development of this plan may result in an improvement of the county’s Community Rating System (CRS) score, which would result in reductions to flood insurance premiums. The county will undertake both planning efforts over the next 12 months.

DOMES is comprised of representatives from Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton counties. Over the past year, the board, which meets monthly, has been trying to get a new space for the Medical Examiner’s Office, which has reached capacity. Two major considerations for where to have the new space have been operational logistics and cost.

In June, plans for a new facility in Santa Rosa County were unveiled. The proposed facility, located on Commerce Road in Milton, would be 29,000 square feet and cost $24 million. The current medical examiner’s office is 4,000 square feet.

For several months, this location was floated as the future home of the medical examiner, but other counties hesitated or put forth their own ideas. Walton County presented a site in Mossy Head, but Dan Schebler, DOMES director of operations, said the operational cost would be too much. Escambia has presented several sites, but the DOMES board has not entertained those locations with the same vigor.

In November, Santa Rosa County Commission took the step of purchasing the Commerce Road location for future county use, should DOMES abandon the Santa Rosa site plan.

Aside from the Santa Rosa, Walton and additional Escambia locations, there is also the option to stay at their current location and renovate.

DOMES met with representatives from Sacred Heart to explore options at the medical examiner’s current location, which is in the basement of the hospital. Schebler said they were presented with two options. One was essentially the same space they have with the added space of a hallway.

The other option was an open space they could start from scratch. Both options are 6,800 square feet, according to Schebler. Right now, Schebler said during the Dec. 14 meeting, DOMES is trying to determine how they could use those spaces if either is selected.

When speaking with architects and Sacred Heart, Schebler said he got the impression that they can’t use both spaces at same time. This new space would be for the morgue as DOMES currently has its administrative space in a separate location.

The main issue with the Sacred Heart space options, from the standpoint of the board, is that while certainly more cost effective than building a new facility, there are concerns with respect to operations. The question of how long before they would outgrow that space popped up.

“You could spend $3 to $4 million renovating the 6,800 square feet to put autopsy stations in and another million for this other space, it would buy you 10 years, just one space, maybe it buys you your construction time,” Schebler said.

DOMES currently pays $14 a square foot for their operational space in Sacred Heart and $17 a square foot for their administrative space. Schebler said the hospital typically charges $22 a square foot for tenants.

For Craig Coffey, the Okaloosa County’s deputy administrator and DOMES representative, that price wouldn’t be bad for regular doctors who charge their patients various fees, but the Medical Examiner’s Office doesn’t exactly have that option. Coffey feels that building a new site may be a better option.

“The reason you buy a house is so you aren’t paying rent forever,” Coffey said.

In July, DOMES representatives met with state Sen. Doug Broxson to discuss options for how the counties would pay for a new facility. The suggestion that came from that meeting was to have every county pay equally for the first half of the costs ($3 million per county) and proportionally for the second half. There were some commitments from several counties, but the four counties couldn’t settle on one cohesive plan.

Broxson said if DOMES and the counties can figure out a plan on how they will fund the project, he will go back to the state and ask for further funds. Previous state allocations included $250,000 for Santa Rosa County and $500,000 for DOMES.

With the legislative process beginning, Schebler said he wants to be able to go to Broxson and the other regional representatives with a plan by the end of January.

In lieu of legislative timing, Schebler suggested a plan to bring forth should things not progress.

“We can take the interlocal agreement with the capital funding back in with a $3 million buy in from each county and whatever the local commitment is, I will go to the state and ask for matching funds,” Schebler said.

Coffey said his main concern is getting something done soon, mainly to avoid potential financial issues.

“I am concerned for our county and our taxpayers that if we drag this out, we could have staffing issues and service issues,” Coffey said. “If we don’t act within this legislature when all our planets are aligned,… there’s millions of dollars our taxpayers would have to make up that we would normally get from the legislature.”

Talks about a new facility have been going on since 2018, Schebler said. DOMES could potentially be forced to get a “coalition of the willing,” as Coffey called it, where three of the four counties agree and move forward with a plan, leaving the other county to make their own agreement with the medical examiner’s office.

With new commissioners in some of the counties following the midterm elections, it may only complicate things.

Deposits on those services also increased, as did the minimum fees for all water and sewer connections.

Inside city limits, the base fee for 2,000 gallons of water increased from $10.78 to $11.32 and the base fee for sewer increased from $20.05 to $21.04.

Outside city limits, the base fee for 2,000 gallons of water increased from $16.17 to $16.98 and the base fee for sewer increased from $30.07 to $31.57.

City staff noted the council would begin renewing the fee schedule each year with the aim of actualizing costs for various city departments on a more regular schedule.

City manager Tim Bolduc said the water department saw the highest fee increases.

“Most of it is pretty small changes. The biggest change is in the impact fee section for water and for sewer. Hopefully, those fees will cover material costs and anything in addition to that.”

He said the city commissioned an internal study to set the rates at a reasonable amount.

“We brought it up not even to the actual cost but just below what we thought we could handle within one year,” Bolduc said.

The fee rate increase passed the council on a 5-0 vote on Aug. 22.

The highest price changes included increasing the price of a water connection inside city limits, which doubled from $2,000 to $4,000 per hook up. Water connections outside city limits also doubled from $3,000 to $6,000 per connection.

Sewer connections inside city limits are $500 more per connection across the board under the new schedule, with rates varying from $1,520 to $2,660 up from $1,020 and $2,160.

Outside the city limits, sewer connections increased between $750 and $1,290 per connection. What previously ranged from $1,580 to $2,700 will now cost between $2,280 and $3,990.