The Telecommunications and Utilities Division is staffed by a manager and one telecommunication service technician with a mission to provide efficient and reliable telecommunication systems support and centralized management of utility services for County facilities.  These services are provided to the departments of the Board of County Commissioners and, in accordance with Florida State Statues, to the offices of the County Attorney, Court Administrator, Supervisor of Elections, Clerk of the Circuit Court, Sheriff, State Attorney and Public Defender. 

Responsibilities include providing non-emergency telecommunication services, installation and maintenance of cabling within County buildings, and design review of structured cabling systems for new construction.  Additionally, the division is tasked with managing power, gas, and water utility services for County buildings including connections or disconnects, monitoring costs and usage, and ensuring that accounts are identified by facility.   

Support is provided to agencies during planning and construction of new facilities, renovations, and relocation of offices.  This support includes working closely with the DCAT division on design review, scheduling and coordinating installation of utility services, scheduling and coordinating installation of telephone services, and, most importantly, working closely with the agencies to assure that their program objectives, including call handling requirements, are met minimizing service interruptions.

A total of 1307 telecommunication work orders were processed in FY2007, a 12% increase from the prior year.  Of these, 63% included help desk support, feature changes, repairs, and moves handled by the in-house service technician without vendor assistance.  The remaining 37% were prioritized and assigned by in-house staff to various contractors depending on the type of problem, equipment involved, or service required.  The work order enables us to track contract labor and material costs. 

The division is accountable for the management of outsourced telecommunication services and workmanship by providing direction, review, and oversight of all outside service providers.  County telecommunication services are provided by a minimum of four dial tone providers and five contractors as maintained via contracts or blanket purchase orders to provide a variety of skilled maintenance support to the division.  It is the responsibility of this division to ensure that the County is getting the most reliable and cost-effective service available as evidenced by cost avoidance in excess of $30,000 resulting from ongoing line usage audits performed during fiscal year 2006 and 2007.

This division is also tasked with the management of all water, power, and gas utilities that service facilities throughout the county. The utility budget expenditures for fiscal year 2006/07 were in excess of 4.1 million dollars. A complete inventory of all utility services is maintained and utility costs are captured on a quarterly basis for a four-year history of costs.  

For several years, Facilities Management has been involved with developing energy conservation measures for County facilities.  This effort involved forming partnerships with Gulf Power and Energy Services of Pensacola (ESP), developing a master performance contract with the Southern Company and the introduction of technology in facilities to allow for the monitoring of power usage. 

The master performance contract allowed for the installation of the Central Chilled Water Plant at the M.C. Blanchard Building and the Central Energy Plant at the Leonard Street Complex.  As part of the effort to reduce electrical costs, contracts were put in place that allowed Gulf Power to offer the County the reduced electrical tariff rate, Real Time Pricing (RTP) for both locations.  In addition, this division was able to negotiate new natural gas rates with ESP based on an interruptible gas rate. 

Although we experienced unusually high rate increases early in 2007 (Gulf Power 10%, ESP 1.6%, and ECUA 5.5%) we were able to avoid a substantial amount of the impact because of the contracts that have been put into place within the last few years:

• Savings on ESP accounts under contract exempt from rate increase - $81,962
• Avoided ESP costs based on previously negotiated contract rates - $260,780
• Avoided “demand charges” on Gulf Power accounts under RTP contracts - $226,858