Ashley Chandler
Community Newspapers, Inc.
County leaders and staff attended a two-day planning event March 13-14 to kick off this year’s budget and planning discussions.
The winter Strategic Planning Session is an annual planning event the county holds each year.
County commissioners, department heads, staff and some special speakers come together to discuss important topics in the county.
Public Information Officer Sabrina Robertson and Director of Strategic Advancement and Economic Resources Brandy Carvalho both attended the two-day event.
“It’s an interesting day and a half because we feel like we have our entire … work lives truncated into, you know, 10 hours. On the one hand it’s very overwhelming, on the other hand it’s like, I live all this, but I live it in a 40, 50-hour work week,” Carvalho said. “It’s an environment that’s more conducive to conversation, and that helps all of us.”
Robertson and Carvalho say the planning sessions provide great opportunities for commissioner discussions, who aren’t allowed to talk about government-related topics outside meetings due to Sunshine Law.
The two also said it’s a great chance for the public and staff to learn more about what could happen this year and what happened last year.
They said topics included the county budget, a Vision 2050 recap and future comprehensive plan updates to transportation, trails, conservation and infrastructure.
“It’s a great opportunity for the public, and the staff that comes – I don’t know of another opportunity where we talk about such a wide-variety of things that are really important and set a lot of direction for the staff,” Carvalho said.
Topics were divided between the two days, with day one, the longest day, seeming more budget and capital-project heavy according to staff – focusing on capital projects and discussions over the past year.
“The board did ask to set up a workshop to go more in-depth over the larger planning of capital projects and investments,” Carvalho said.
Day two focused on more updates from last year and the county’s “summary of consensus” – a summary of the two-day event.
“It really does set the stage for the budgeting process. Even though they’re not voting on things, it gives us … direction,” Carvalho said. “We always say we can do anything, we can’t do everything.”
County staff also delivered the strategic plan update and annual update to county leaders at the session.
“As an employee and a citizen, just knowing that the commissioners and the staff put this much thought and planning into the short-term and the long-term, it gives me a lot of confidence that we’re … focused on being strategic about what we’re going,” Carvalho said.
Carvalho said pretty much everything is in the annual report and strategic plan.
Robertson said, “I would definitely encourage (the community) to look at the annual reports so they can see how their tax dollars are allocated and what we’ve achieved over the last year.”
“Nothing is happening without people having the opportunity to hear about, respond to it and give their feedback on it,” Carvalho said. “The more people that do that, the better.”
Visit nassauclerk.com/watch-meetings to listen to a recording of the session.