[0:10] [Music] thank you sheriff our first order of

[0:13] business this evening is our prayer which will be led by commissioner

[0:16] huffine immediately following the prayer will be the pledge led by commissioner

[0:21] character those power heads

[0:24] dear lord we come before you this evening

[0:27] thankful and hopeful hopeful of the beautiful weather

[0:32] the spring that is out there the sunshine the warmth that it brings to

[0:36] your lord let that rejuvenate our spirits lord to

[0:40] serve you in even a stronger way tonight bless us and all the people that are

[0:46] presenting here this evening lead god and direct us to the lord in

[0:50] your name we pray amen amen let's address our flag

[0:55] i pray for jesus of the united states of america

[1:00] and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with

[1:06] liberty and justice wrong

[1:14] madam clerk would you switch us to the roll call screen i guess we're there

[1:25] this is now ancient protocol

[1:35] [Music]

[1:47] jimmy you have an answer it hasn't got you

[1:55] is not picking you up let me get you a fresh battery

[1:58] you better make that two batteries [Music]

[2:20] no

[2:53] must have voted so much that last meeting my battery went dude

[2:59] that sounded right

[3:02] yeah commissioner tester's uh absent

[3:10] oh yes thank you kathy

[3:16] [Music]

[3:30] today

[3:38] i think they're correct

[3:56] all right

[4:12] is this a new screen i don't think that's the same screen

[4:17] you'd actually see but yeah it's not normally the same screen

[4:22] some of it i can't see so

[4:25] we have 10 present five apps we do have a quorum

[4:30] at this time we'll move into public comment uh regarding agenda items

[4:35] uh do we have any agenda sign ups for public comment

[4:54] so our next item is elected officials and department heads are going to

[4:57] address the commission this evening regarding their fy 2223 budget

[5:05] mitch we'll go ahead and start with you and talk about appropriations

[5:08] our mayor

[5:11] i think i had mitch on the agenda mayor [Music]

[5:16] he was gonna get off the hook see

[5:25] into the courthouse with 10 arm loads full of stuff lost his

[5:29] footing and did a face plant on one of the steps so

[5:35] commissioner huffine i should have told you because we do need to say a prayer

[5:38] for mitch but he is um alive and well i spoke to him

[5:42] recently and he'll be here shortly um probably to rescue me but anyway

[5:47] hopefully to rescue me he

[5:50] and well i i think we need headgear on the

[5:53] steps so that's that is hopefully we can find a little room in

[5:56] the budget for that but he'll be here shortly so but

[6:00] in order to get going the the first thing that he was going to talk about

[6:05] was the appropriations i really don't know what he was going to say

[6:09] specifically but it's on a separate sheet

[6:14] you know these are your fire departments and your

[6:18] animal control and a number of other things

[6:21] if there are if if there's any line on here that

[6:27] you would like to have presented by

[6:33] somebody you know from the outside somebody knows

[6:35] more about it if you want to hear something about the fire departments for

[6:38] example we might ask charlie and we'll do our best to get them here tomorrow

[6:42] night to to address any particular concerns so

[6:47] mr chairman before the end of the meeting as people think about that

[6:52] we maybe could just capture

[6:56] anybody on here that you'd like to hear from specifically

[7:00] about their request

[7:04] and we'll try to get them here tomorrow night okay we'll do that mayor before we

[7:08] and so the only other thing that i would add um before we start tonight you'll

[7:12] hear presentations from various departments or elected officials

[7:20] where about their budget so all of you have received their budget as presented

[7:25] so far i have to tell you it's very fluid

[7:27] information was still changing yesterday afternoon

[7:31] at five o'clock and we'll we'll change further before we

[7:35] have a final version but directionally i think what you have in

[7:38] front of you is going to be accurate from these department heads these are

[7:44] the people that in the general fund spend the taxpayers

[7:48] money and and a few that are out of the general fund solid waste is here for

[7:52] example we'll also hear from the highway department those are separate funds

[7:56] apart from the general fund but the general fund as you know makes

[8:00] up about 42 to 44 million dollars worth of

[8:05] government spend these are these are really all

[8:10] taxpayers dollars so the

[8:14] the things you might think about when these folks are presenting is what

[8:18] they're presenting does it make does it make sense to you have specific

[8:21] questions do you feel like they're overspending

[8:24] or underspending in any particular line do they have adequate resources to do

[8:28] their job these are the folks that provide the services

[8:32] for our citizens they do the car tags they do the

[8:37] registration of deeds they do the planning and zoning all all of the

[8:42] government stuff

[8:46] i don't look too bad all right i was expecting like a

[8:50] zombie look so a good deal

[8:54] all right well

[8:57] do you want to say anything i've talked about the appropriations to the point

[9:01] that if there's anybody on here they want to specifically

[9:04] hear from we'll try to get them tomorrow and then given just a little

[9:09] address about the the presentations and um so again these are the folks that

[9:15] spend the money that you appropriate

[9:19] and so that's really what we're focused on in

[9:22] this next few days or expenditures as revenues are

[9:26] uh will be another time so anyway thank you and mitch i'm sorry

[9:32] thank you mayor thank you

[9:45] y'all

[9:51] um i know this is a lot of stuff and you just got it this morning

[9:56] um but as i've been telling all of our

[10:00] all of our officials and department heads that are

[10:04] you know coming in to speak to you all i said

[10:07] this is a process you know what you're going to hear today

[10:10] is really the initial pass at these numbers

[10:14] um and then as we move forward and you know the budget committee and the

[10:18] commission will come up with a a budget that's uh balanced and provides

[10:23] the services it needs to the citizens of washington county

[10:27] uh did you talk about anything in here

[10:30] other than the special appropriations schedule on the front

[10:34] okay what you have in here if you haven't had a chance to look at it

[10:38] is um of course the very first page there's a

[10:42] table of contents on the front first pages of special appropriations

[10:46] immediately behind that you'll see a summary of our general fund

[10:51] expenditures

[10:54] 2020

[10:58] 21 actual numbers compared to year-to-date 22

[11:03] compared to the original and revised budget in the current year

[11:07] and then the budget number that has been submitted

[11:11] from the various departments and officials

[11:14] and so you can it's a two-page summary page three um

[11:19] highlight of this is that we started last year with a a budget of

[11:25] 44.9 million dollars in the general fund and expenditures

[11:31] our budget today is 49.6 that increase is

[11:36] 2.6 million dollars for broadband and one point um

[11:42] 1.6 million alright i'm having my senior moment um

[11:47] the industrial park okay so that's what those were the big

[11:51] bumps from your original budget 449 to where you are today 49.6 million

[11:59] y'all stop me anytime if you got questions so

[12:03] one thing i would appreciate

[12:05] probably maybe at the end tomorrow evening before we get to that moment you

[12:09] know my concern is is twofold it all centers around inflation

[12:15] i'm concerned what inflation is going to do to our taxpayers and their abilities

[12:19] because i i saw in the businesses this morning they're saying

[12:23] consumers this year will spend probably two thousand dollars more on gasoline

[12:27] they're gonna they're gonna spend about 20 percent more

[12:31] on food um

[12:34] yeah the housing costs are going up interest rates going up i'm concerned

[12:38] about the effect it's going to have on our

[12:41] taxpayers and then the second thing is another kind of overall view

[12:45] and that is what what adverse effect

[12:49] will inflation have in terms i look at gasoline

[12:54] and diesel what is going to go up uh salaries

[12:58] that's the number one thing i hear from every business i talk to is

[13:03] you know their their employees are just not able to stay even with inflation so

[13:07] you know just kind of an overall view how this affects the

[13:11] county the county's budget you know the the county is made up of operations not

[13:17] unlike households you know i mean you're we're going to

[13:21] have a chat i think you are going to have somewhat of a challenge on the

[13:24] on the revenue side and on the the service delivery expenditure side um

[13:29] we've got some departments um they've gone ahead and doubled their gasoline uh

[13:34] budget for next year um uh you know as a total as a percentage

[13:40] the whole budget it's not a huge number i think uh

[13:44] 1.9 1.4 something like that but

[13:49] it is real dollars

[13:52] and so um yeah

[13:55] that's just something you know

[13:57] hopefully you all with some help from us can work through that you know through

[14:02] that uh process and so you know that's what we're here to do

[14:06] mayor thank you

[14:10] on uh in regard to that that's really a great

[14:15] segue into a lot of the things we'll be discussing today because what she said

[14:20] is so very true food you've already seen have made an

[14:24] adjustment in jail i mean just to get through this this

[14:29] fiscal year so

[14:32] what that's going to look like next year you'll see

[14:35] let's see what i'd ask the department to do refuel

[14:40] is to essentially double last year's budget

[14:43] and we'll hope we don't have to add too much more to it

[14:47] but in order to maintain consistency from the farmer's farm

[14:55] in regards to salaries uh pulled all the elected officials

[15:00] department kids together several months ago now

[15:04] talk through that a little bit um

[15:07] i asked for them and i think what you'll see in these presentations

[15:12] is what they believe they need to keep their peace

[15:17] with the understanding that we don't maintain some sort of a

[15:21] competitive wage uh we'll lose our people military lineup

[15:25] we hired people at higher prices anyway and various officers have various

[15:32] links to conversations who were trained from cbt-18

[15:37] and so uh our

[15:40] a big quality employees

[15:43] encounter we want to eat because it's very expensive to change as

[15:49] all of us

[15:52] so that those were the the suggestions

[15:57] and it is perfect for what she said because the authority ties in so

[16:03] you know we're responsible for trying to manage a

[16:06] government to provide services to the citizens that

[16:10] are paying for their services in the most sufficient way possible so

[16:14] that that may be some things that you all look for in these presentations and

[16:18] feel free to ask any questions

[16:26] have you gotten any information from the state

[16:29] the other thing i'm worried about is that with the cost of food the cost of

[16:33] gasoline cost of housing and heating your house consumers are going to have

[16:38] less discretionary income to spend and we are

[16:41] an income tax driven state now as the state said anything to you

[16:46] about what they think that that might affect our sales tax

[16:50] collections uh i have not commissioned no i i

[16:55] haven't been plugged into any of that um you know you could you know you've got

[16:59] inflationary costs which you know numbers are going up and

[17:03] that in and of itself would increase sales tax you know

[17:06] well yeah but they got a lot of yeah so

[17:10] you know food gas

[17:12] right whatever yeah yeah but i have not no the only thing i've gotten from the

[17:17] state to date is the fact that they lowered

[17:20] uh the the uh the

[17:23] comptroller or the department of revenue lillard the state treasurer

[17:28] lowered the uh they had a banner year they had the best year return in their

[17:34] uh investment portfolio and y'all may have heard some of this at ctas or

[17:38] something but you know it's the best year they've ever had

[17:41] in 25 30 years well but they've lowered their investment rate of return by

[17:48] percent or percent and a half well when they do that that drove our

[17:53] pension contribution up uh by about 25

[17:58] one thing i want to add to that i i watched that as well as you did and

[18:03] and just whereas they're changing some of the metrics in there as well uh one

[18:07] thing that goes against us a little bit we're living too long and uh and with

[18:11] with those metrics going back in there and changing those metrics uh retirement

[18:15] plans are having to last longer and that was

[18:18] well i think we're all going to suffer on that that little bit and with an

[18:22] older pool of employees because there's not as much time to get those dollars in

[18:27] yeah it's uh there's a lot of a lot of metrics that

[18:31] that were affected on that retirement plan so um that's what i've heard from

[18:34] the state today commissioner carrier it really wasn't good

[18:39] oh malone did you have a question

[18:42] well it related to the the retirement issue the tcrs

[18:47] i mean 25 is a significant increase but and i saw that in your email but i

[18:51] wasn't sure what that meant in term for the county as a whole in terms of

[18:55] dollars do you have an idea oh don't hold me to this i i ran the

[18:59] number several days ago i flipped since then i

[19:02] was just rough ran i want to say it's close to a half a million dollars for

[19:07] the general fund so that's a little south of that

[19:10] an added almost half a million dollar expense

[19:14] just tied to retirement funding the other thought and this i guess just

[19:19] echoes commissioner carriger is

[19:23] at least as long and i think it predates me but at least as long as i've been on

[19:27] the commission our revenues have been growing roughly

[19:31] and i feel handicapped without the whiteboard i mean

[19:37] but our revenues have been growing around one to one point two percent and

[19:43] that's the property tax revenues but our expenses have been growing

[19:49] really our expenses have been growing previous inflation we're experiencing

[19:54] now are expensive and growing about three

[19:57] and a half or four percent so revenue is 1.2 but expenses you know

[20:02] significantly higher but with with the inflationary pressures we're

[20:07] seeing now the problem the county has already been experiencing

[20:12] is only worse because now our expenses are going to be growing probably double

[20:17] of what they have been and so it it is an issue and one of the bright spots i

[20:23] think commissioner carriger was referencing sales tax one of the bright

[20:26] spots in the county has been the fact that sales tax receipts have been up

[20:30] significantly but none of that increase flows to the

[20:34] county's general fund correct so that

[20:38] in terms of the funding mechanism when sales tax receipts are up it doesn't

[20:43] necessarily benefit the county general fund

[20:46] thank you correct um behind that um excuse me behind that

[20:52] expenditure summary i'll start on page four are all the uh individual

[20:57] departments within the general fund um and you can see the

[21:02] particular details uh salaries benefits whatnot

[21:07] and then you'll have starting on page 75 the information for the solid waste fund

[21:12] which i think we'll hear from from lewis maybe tomorrow if i remember

[21:17] correctly and then the highway department starts on 79 which i believe

[21:22] johnny's on tap for tomorrow as well uh something i did want to run that put in

[21:27] there that i thought might be of interest to you is on page 87.

[21:31] if you want to flip to that um what that does is is actually summarizes our

[21:36] budgets and actual numbers for the general fund solid waste and

[21:40] highway fund in in various um categories in terms of

[21:45] you know where we're talking salaries and personnel benefits or we're talking

[21:49] you know other charges construction capital

[21:52] outlay and you can kind of see where those numbers fall out

[21:56] depending on which number you use as a base

[22:00] um for our budget in the general fund it's

[22:03] somewhere between 61 and 79. excuse me 61 and 69

[22:10] of your budget is um is personnel cost

[22:15] benefits and salaries and wages

[22:19] and then immediately behind that is just some errata or addenda um

[22:24] i didn't put into your pack at all the actual worksheets that the departments

[22:29] sent but if they did provide some explanation or or a

[22:34] request or some written document um to outline what their needs are those are

[22:39] on those last oh i guess what last almost 25 pages

[22:45] um which you're more than welcome and there

[22:47] they are in the order in the same order that the departments are listed in our

[22:51] general fund budget um

[22:54] one thing i also have in the office that i don't have in this packet but we'll be

[22:59] more than glad to send anybody that wants one or wants them is

[23:03] from our special appropriations we generally get a request and you know

[23:08] they may they may say you know we're budgeted us at the same thing that you

[23:12] budgeted us last year or they may have some reason or explanation for

[23:16] increasing their ask uh i'm more than happy to you know get that for you all

[23:20] tomorrow if you think you'd like to see those

[23:23] fire departments ems 9-1-1

[23:28] you know those other agencies

[23:30] libraries so

[23:35] i'll bring those tomorrow just thinking through that uh

[23:39] i don't have anything else at this point um

[23:42] we're a little early so um do you want any questions or yeah i just uh if i did

[23:48] but i [Music]

[24:03] number since last year when we did our bonuses

[24:07] okay

[24:10] well mitch we appreciate you being here and all right we'll uh we'll go ahead

[24:14] and get started with our assessor's office

[24:19] chief deputy is here with us this evening uh chief deputy mcguire's here

[24:24] glad for him to be here with us robbie appreciate you

[24:29] taking some time to come talk with us this evening my pleasure my pleasure

[24:38] yes sir and uh scott regrets that he is not able

[24:43] to attend tonight wishes you all will

[24:49] tell we'd rather see you then oh sure okay um

[24:55] well you've fall seen our budget and everything so

[25:00] if you've had if you got any questions i'll be happy to go over anything

[25:08] it looks like you have a request

[25:25] yes good question okay we need to run some new ports some more

[25:31] ports into our office but our switch that we currently have

[25:35] will not support it so whoever

[25:38] requests it has to pay for it so that's going to come out of our

[25:42] budget so that's why the additional funds and

[25:45] the reason we asked i asked for 15 is because it could not actually give us a

[25:51] figure at that time because the way the data

[25:55] the equipment and everything the shorthandedness

[25:58] uh and everything's going up so that's why we just can't i just came

[26:03] up with a figure i don't know that would be a bcti question and they

[26:08] couldn't get back with does this budget on pages 19 and 20 look pretty much like

[26:12] your normal request your year and then this is the only real

[26:19] um well we just we always break down unless

[26:22] there's a change and we always break down our changes every year to as far as

[26:26] what we're actually changing everything else should pretty much be the same

[26:30] right the gap the fuel we did double our fuel

[26:33] because we don't know um what to expect

[26:40] and

[26:42] as far as the vehicles i like we've got a

[26:46] our uh

[26:49] i say the focus it's an 07 focus it's still out of commission

[26:54] it's been out of commission now for over a year and a half

[26:57] still waiting on a chip um you know we got an o6 explorer and

[27:03] it's got a right at 70 000 miles on it or 65 000.

[27:07] so we do have some older vehicles we're just trying to

[27:10] to weed out as we go

[27:14] [Music]

[27:32] there is

[27:44] and the reason because it why

[27:48] like increases of existing employees around 33 and then about 37

[27:53] for the new position

[28:00] i don't know that we're not looking to hire two

[28:04] two new positions

[28:10] is this overall

[28:19] well i didn't have anything to do with the

[28:21] with that necessarily no i'm not saying i'm

[28:24] saying bottom line

[28:28] um

[28:32] [Music] the reappraisal program

[28:37] on the reappraisal side yes but you got to remember the cities paid part of that

[28:40] too johnson city and

[28:42] jonesboro on that so that's why everything that we have we

[28:48] as far as vehicles and things like that the fields

[28:51] feel people take out the field appraisers

[28:54] it is out of the reappraisal program can you explain that

[28:58] on the represent program the health insurance going up 78

[29:05] probably because of the new hires well how many how many deputies are in

[29:11] that department the reappraisal program all the three so we got

[29:18] should be

[29:22] eight

[29:26] it and is the new higher the new position

[29:29] is it in that program or is it over yes it'll be in the reappraisal program okay

[29:33] so we're going from eight to nine no probably ten

[29:38] it should be two two new positions okay

[29:44] but you know the the salaries are going up

[29:47] line item 33 and understood that the explanation for

[29:51] that being the two do but for the health insurance to go up 78

[29:57] that doesn't match up with we're just doing two new hires

[30:03] where's mitch he might have an answer that i have no idea

[30:09] [Music] well i mean as far as the why the

[30:13] insurance would be different i have no idea

[30:16] i mean it's not going to be here tomorrow night

[30:19] no no

[30:34] okay what time tomorrow night i think we start

[30:38] just uh yeah we start at five if you can be here uh

[30:43] and we go on to seven o'clock tomorrow night too i think or 7 30.

[30:49] one other question while we're looking at them the

[30:51] the increase in the data processing equipment from

[30:55] um 5 000 to 38 000

[30:59] is that a portion of that is a portion of that

[31:03] the fifteen thousand yes back here yes but that so that

[31:06] that's about half of it but what what's the rest of that for uh that would be

[31:10] also on the uh back here in the very back

[31:14] for a plotter and a new copier

[31:20] because the data processing equipment we have on there for 15 000

[31:24] and then we have a new uh

[31:28] a new plotter and a new copier

[31:32] so that would be a total another 18 000.

[31:37] is that on page 100 uh yes sir and

[31:41] and does that does the car show up somewhere

[31:45] cars also on that same page

[31:50] it just it just looks a little squirrely though

[31:54] help help employ health care insurance this is about twelve thousand eight

[32:00] eighty one for four next year

[32:07] do you have any idea on that what that would be um

[32:12] well we really the only thing we would have changed health insurance for

[32:17] would have been um

[32:21] if they were if they were adding and i think you are you've got either two or

[32:25] three um folks coming on board one replace bound

[32:31] uh then and then there were two other positions

[32:34] in your budget well if we're budgeting for a new

[32:37] employee i don't know if they're taking family

[32:41] family plus one or

[32:43] i mean employee employee plus one or family or they're covered under their

[32:47] you know spouses so that that's what is probably driving that is that

[32:53] if you've added employees and they none of that good

[32:57] question because none of the departments have really done any work on their

[33:01] pension or their uh

[33:04] employee health insurance and just they just don't have that day to do that uh

[33:10] and it's just easy for us to do it based on their

[33:13] on the number of employees they have or they're expecting to have and so that's

[33:18] what's generating that is he hiring two or three

[33:22] because they were asking me they looked like a 38 percent in yeah and salary so

[33:28] and i don't know if i remember right i don't know if you have

[33:32] the stuff i said scott if you have i don't pay your own sheets i don't

[33:38] yeah i i think he's been been left and so he was feeling ben's position and

[33:44] i think there were two more okay so a total of three three three new salaries

[33:49] yes

[33:52] that the county pays for is close to 20 000. yes

[33:59] well and i i think this question is deserving of an answer and that that's

[34:03] all i am

[34:16] oh no uh well

[34:20] statutorily wise the assessor is statutory statutorily

[34:26] allocated uh one

[34:29] um deputy for

[34:32] every 4 500 parcels [Music]

[34:37] we could actually have like 14 people

[34:42] no no that's a partial count

[34:49] because of the increase in people moving here

[34:54] the the increase in sales this this

[35:06] my question is okay

[35:09] we build 600 homes and who's going to pick them

[35:14] up i'm sorry and that's a growth percentage of

[35:21] 10 and we're adding

[35:26] 20 head count that doesn't fall and maybe we're right

[35:31] in line with percentages of growth versus head count and work in

[35:35] the office that's just my question are we growing

[35:39] at the same weight you know i understand

[35:43] you can ask for you know and justify that

[35:47] but that's my question are we growing at the

[35:50] same rate or are we going at a larger rate

[35:54] count versus we are growing we are growing

[36:01] to give you and i did this

[36:05] from january of

[36:08] 2020 to today in in 2020

[36:13] there was 885 deeds that came into our office

[36:19] in 21 there was 1 338 okay

[36:24] that's how much growth so what that

[36:33] so what's happening is the growth that's not counting

[36:37] the subdivisions and everything else that's coming on

[36:41] all the new growth and everything we have been working on a skeleton crew

[36:46] for many years you know we all know what happened in nine

[36:50] we know what happened in 14. now you know all of a sudden we had

[36:54] coped everything done so we got through all that now all of a

[36:57] sudden we just can't keep up

[37:01] the the amount of growth is just unreal

[37:20] but just to see your head count grow well okay

[37:24] to give to give you an idea every county the size of our county

[37:28] has two mappers we have one that's me okay

[37:32] and i can't keep up i can't well wait a minute i can't keep up

[37:36] i mean right now mitch how much time do i have

[37:41] oh no i know i'm just saying how much how

[37:45] many hours i mean i'm coming in at six o'clock and working at 4 30 because just

[37:49] to get the job done so now we can't

[37:57] what do you mean well i mean if you're working 60 hours a week

[38:11] [Music] that's

[38:14] 80 hours so it's really not a full person now benefits i get benefits

[38:21] so that's my question the other question is

[38:24] did you have you all have a fun balance no

[38:28] no we're not a fee office

[38:35] go ahead i i realized now that i was looking at

[38:40] the appraisal piece and i thank you reference to me

[38:44] it's the appraisal

[38:51] to the proposed 924 so that's an increase of about 254 000.

[38:58] but i guess i'm seeing the expenses there the increase is going to be stairs

[39:03] but i'm not seeing the associated revenue that comes

[39:07] from the city or the town correct

[39:10] that they they build they build that

[39:24] yes that's why i stood up uh is not half it's about a third maybe a little bit

[39:30] more than that it's based on the number of partials within each jurisdiction can

[39:33] you read that number uh yeah

[39:38] the partials four the

[39:47] what is it now what are you replacing it with

[39:50] more than likely the uh 2006 explorer

[39:55] okay it's got a bad transmission and knowing where we are with with fuel

[40:01] cost and that have we looked at alternative vehicles that may be

[40:07] suitable better mileage

[40:11] and i think that'd be a question i would ask to

[40:14] i mean such as the department i don't know that's what i'm asking

[40:19] what's i mean explore it's not the most economical oh

[40:23] no we won't replace it with an explorer we'll probably get what we uh

[40:27] like the escapes what we have now okay and that was my question oh okay make

[40:31] sense

[40:37] [Music]

[40:47] so does uh mr character does that answer your

[40:50] question about the employees and stuff do i need to come back tomorrow

[40:54] no we're good we're hiring four new boys ted

[40:58] should be three three three here i'm

[41:01] i'm fine okay let me ask a question on that

[41:06] you all kept talking about one person leaving

[41:10] and replacing them and two new so is that really three new or is that two new

[41:15] positions

[41:36] well and what we did is when covert hit that's when

[41:41] when barbara left you know when colbot hit everything so

[41:45] we were down to one and we stayed because the courthouse was locked down

[41:47] and everything so all that all that traffic and everything we didn't have so

[41:51] we had a minimal traffic correctly because i was just thinking of

[41:56] the field of appraisal you do have two you got two field appraisers replacing

[42:01] being in a new map

[42:05] so was that three that would be the other three three three okay

[42:12] we talked about it but i wasn't sure which direction he went

[42:16] is the back of some of your farmers

[42:23] is that something that's required is there anything new that you all have

[42:28] to do oh no i mean it's just we have one mapper and that's it so what

[42:32] happens if he gets hit by a truck or a train

[42:36] who maps

[42:39] just just for my whole brain to get it clarified here right now you've got

[42:43] eight employees

[42:46] we have 10 employees and count scott

[42:49] employees and then next year how many employees you're going to have

[42:54] 13 13. okay thank you

[43:11] ben that you're replacing okay and then the new mapper

[43:15] so 13 13. okay

[43:20] so this year you had 11th position

[43:24] so

[43:32] so means we're going from 10 to 14 11 14. yes okay

[43:41] and that's on both sides assessor and no

[43:45] we're just talking about re-approaching yes

[43:48] the city's paid very impressive the mapper is on the right side yes

[43:56] this question was asked earlier but i don't i don't think we've answered this

[43:59] the 37 increase on the assessor side

[44:05] is one of these employees new employees going to be on the assessor side of the

[44:08] equation

[44:11] on the 37 for the deputies yes

[44:17] not my knowledge no

[44:25] i don't know if he's putting any of that in part-time or

[44:31] well now okay he

[44:34] that consists

[44:40] well the other salaries and wages was moved to

[44:44] up to deputies is what it looks like the minus 39 percent or minus minus 39 000.

[44:51] i item uh 189

[44:54] was moved to 106 deputies that's what it looks like am i correct

[45:03] no i mean down there at the bottom it just looks like we went down two percent

[45:06] we we actually saved money on the assessor side of two percent

[45:10] [Music] why was that under other salaries and

[45:14] wages before

[45:25] right that was just for budgetary to simple

[45:29] silence yes

[45:34] but i think we just had one person in that line

[45:39] so we just moved everybody to deputies so one went down one went up

[45:55] mr

[45:59] be the one buckingham in to stand tall and that's nothing against you but i'm

[46:04] just saying oh i understand

[46:11] well i just put it this way i'm doing the best i can

[46:15] and you know i stand behind the budget we do talk

[46:19] about it uh the final decision is his he is the elected official i'm not

[46:24] there's information i'm not privileged privileged to but as far as

[46:30] i'll tell you all i've set for you do i think you all do a great job i know

[46:34] it's a very hard stressful job but as far as our our department we try

[46:39] to save every dollar we can and you know that's why i don't mind

[46:43] working the the the hours and everything that i do

[46:47] and for the simple reason when when you look at hiring somebody

[46:51] you're looking at right off the bat even if you pay them thirty thousand

[46:55] dollars which as a base salary well you've gotta add

[46:58] twenty some thousand dollars worth of benefits

[47:01] so that's costing the county taxpayer fifty thousand dollars

[47:04] so and i understand that because i've sat where you are so we we

[47:08] do understand that because he's been there

[47:10] so when we look at hiring somebody it's not because we want to it's a necessity

[47:15] if if we if i don't map then we don't have any new revenue coming in

[47:20] so if i die then we don't have anybody and i promise you i've been doing it for

[47:23] 16 years you do not learn this overnight please don't die

[47:28] that's what we're trying to keep from don't take my questions wrong

[47:34] it's not a question that you're doing something

[47:37] wrong and as far as is mr him not being here

[47:41] tonight like others i mean people make plans this was it's not like

[47:45] this has been on a calendar for a year um

[47:51] [Music]

[48:03] achieve those duties faulted you got

[48:07] prepared or not prepared that's how the process works so

[48:13] thanks for coming and

[48:16] my questions my other mystery

[48:22] no and i don't take it that way but i i do um

[48:25] i take what i do with a lot of pride you know and i i want

[48:30] one of these days you know none of us will be here but we all want

[48:34] to look back somebody said you know what i don't know who rented at that time

[48:37] they did a great job whether it was being a commissioner

[48:40] whether it was doing mapping whatever we do in life do

[48:44] you want to make sure that you do the very

[48:47] please best you my question oh no i don't i don't take

[48:50] anything personally

[48:55] i don't feel that way you gotta remember i deal with i deal with people's money

[48:58] every day taxpayers when your values go up you're going to

[49:02] call me and want to know want an answer so trust me it doesn't i don't take

[49:06] offense to it i want people to know the only way you're going to learn is to to

[49:09] ask questions well i think this is a new process as

[49:12] far as as far as being full of friends

[49:17] it's a learning process for all of us i think that's the key

[49:20] just to keep me grounded here just from a total assessor if we look at that 253

[49:25] and we say it's a 60 40 split that brings the county in about 151 000 our

[49:31] fortune [Music]

[49:35] and then so there are 5600 under on one side so

[49:40] ballpark 140 546 000 in new money that they're looking for

[49:46] yes okay

[49:49] now that i mean to me that's a grounding point is at the end of the day how much

[49:53] money we got to go find out yeah

[49:56] yeah i'm old-fashioned so the increase is 100

[50:00] of what they're going to spend in their office

[50:04] less than 100 correct what we're comparing this to

[50:07] are we comparing comparing it to what they spent last

[50:10] year or what we paid last year you know what you're seeing on your schedules um

[50:16] that's in front of you that 2 53 that's the commissioner i finally

[50:21] alluded to is the change in the 23 budget as it's

[50:25] sitting in front of you and the budget as it exists today

[50:30] not what we've spent the year before that information

[50:35] is in here if you want to look at it so our percentage is

[50:40] no not the total number the spin is going up but the amount of revenue that

[50:45] we will generate from the city of johnson city

[50:49] and the town of jonesboro is 30 to 40

[50:53] percent of that [Music]

[50:55] but what we're showing here in spain we didn't spend all that

[50:59] just because it was split with your

[51:02] your followers but there was an offsetting revenue

[51:07] correct but but our spend from last year would

[51:10] go up the same percentage

[51:15] because they they contributed last year just like they're going to contribute

[51:18] this year correct right their contribution doesn't impact the

[51:22] expenditure side it's all up in revenue so i mean

[51:26] these are the these are the organic dollars that are spent

[51:30] we receive the revenue which comes in at the top

[51:35] so i mean you if you look at the net you're exactly right

[51:41] i mean they don't pay half or you know a third of the bill we send in the bill at

[51:45] the end of the year for the hundred and forty thousand dollars

[51:49] i mean the debt get here for reinforcement

[51:52] that'll flow back in

[51:56] so just to ground on my question and make sure i'm right from the county's

[52:01] perspective our incremental dollars to the assessor right now as we're speaking

[52:05] tonight 140 647 thousand dollars 70 of the 250 okay

[52:17] i never took a percent to the bank i like dollars

[52:24] chief do you have anything for us thank you for your service appreciate

[52:29] everything y'all do we appreciate you being here tonight sir send our regards

[52:33] to uh mr buckingham i'll send i'll send him a postcard tell him if he would like

[52:37] to come back and see us at any commission meeting we'll be here

[52:40] and we'll be happy to have him placed on these any more questions or anything

[52:45] thank you jim i appreciate it thank you for your consideration

[52:54] i'll let you get back in your place there commissioner tester

[53:02] all right our next this uh speaker this evening is our county clerk kathy storey

[53:07] i will turn on her microphone so she does not have to go to the podium

[53:24] page 22.

[53:28] [Music]

[53:37] okay does anybody have any questions about our budget

[53:45] two percent across the board

[53:56] expense that we had um this year

[54:00] um starting in january was our postage uh

[54:06] we did not know last year that the state was going to make new metal

[54:10] and where we had been mailing out renewal decals that cost 53 cents apiece

[54:17] the license plate cost four dollars and a half a piece

[54:21] so that required us to ask for you know

[54:25] fifty thousand dollars more then i

[54:29] budgeted for sixty thousand for next year so we'll have six months of new

[54:35] medal um from july

[54:40] to uh decent and then it will go back to being a

[54:44] decal next

[54:46] next year in january

[54:49] and as far as i know there won't be any big

[54:54] new metal you know going out

[55:00] commissioner wheeler uh yes can you tell us on line 799 the

[55:06] other capital outlay what that amounts for uh yes

[55:13] right it's the credit card readers uh the ones that we have right now are

[55:18] very outdated and they're attached to the

[55:24] monitors of each of the clerks

[55:29] and we've had several occasions where because our clerk is swiping the card

[55:35] that evidently they can dispute that charge

[55:40] and say well you know i didn't swipe that

[55:43] uh and so then we have to end up paying

[55:47] our provider

[55:49] for that money and so these are uh

[55:54] a chip reader and also it will where they can sign

[55:58] their name as well and like on our documents where

[56:02] uh when you come in to apply for tag and registration

[56:06] you'll have to you know sign a title application

[56:10] and this when they make their signature it will print out on whatever it is that

[56:13] they are that transaction are doing so they won't have to you know sign

[56:18] various things other than just that one time

[56:21] and also the salesman had called today and said

[56:25] that we possibly might want to

[56:28] um get maybe just this was for 12

[56:33] or 10. i was 12.

[56:39] right he was saying we might want to go down

[56:42] two that were 475 dollars as opposed to the

[56:47] 1280 which would save us 1610 dollars so it

[56:51] would be 13 8 rather than the 15

[56:56] 14. thank you

[57:02] any further questions for this story commissioner williams are you keeping

[57:08] the office open in johnson city near lifestyles

[57:13] i'm sorry i didn't understand you he just

[57:17] oh yes ma'am yes

[57:24] ma'am i think i think we're good for another

[57:28] two or four

[57:30] [Music]

[57:38] years all right seeing no further questions

[57:50] no they yeah they don't have a fun

[57:59] [Music] you know a small amount of money goes

[58:02] into every year this office comes up they do have a they do have a dedicated

[58:08] reserve certificate of title which

[58:12] is used for you know computer supplies and whatnot

[58:16] uh i want to say that balance is somewhere

[58:19] in the neighborhood about 60 000 and

[58:24] if we keep about 60 in there how do we fund that

[58:29] how does that work well if several of several of the departments

[58:34] and brenda has some and the sheriff has some when certain fees are assessed

[58:39] statutorily there will be a there may be a uh in

[58:44] kathy you'd have to tell me what your certificate of title fee is it's a

[58:47] dollar or two dollars um that that is collected that goes in that's

[58:53] for specific items that that number that that dollar

[58:57] amount came about for and that goes into her reserve now she can use that to fund

[59:02] different items within her budget as do some of the other registered needs uh

[59:07] core clerks sheriff's office so there it's not a

[59:11] fund balance but it is a dedicated reserve um i can talk so when that

[59:17] money's moving what's the checks about i mean oh you all have to make a budget

[59:22] admit that you usually you have you have you have to move it out of here

[59:27] correct and it also tracks the balance that's in there is it going

[59:31] up now it gets adjusted at the end of the year

[59:35] money does not go in there on a recurring uh

[59:40] the fees come into the county and when we look at the revenue you'll see

[59:44] certificate of title fees those things go in as revenue but that reserve

[59:49] balance does not get adjusted to the barrier

[59:54] thank you

[1:00:01] anyone else with a question

[1:00:08] saying done thank you the story for all your hard work

[1:00:14] to keep the minutes two nights in a row too we appreciate that come on

[1:00:19] our next speaker is uh sarah lawson our clerk and master thank you for coming

[1:00:26] like sarah it's nice to be able to

[1:00:30] talk about it something new yeah do it differently

[1:00:34] yeah i'm happy to answer any questions that

[1:00:36] you all have i'm

[1:00:39] not asking for much more than last year

[1:00:45] just a couple a couple of additional funds in our legal notices those things

[1:00:49] have kind of went up over the past year so we're asking

[1:00:53] 26 for y'all that

[1:01:03] um so we're asking for two thousand dollars

[1:01:06] there to cover those increased costs for publication for

[1:01:11] service of process as part of the tax sale we pay

[1:01:15] the constables and

[1:01:18] other individuals who serve papers for us for that tax sale

[1:01:22] i'm asking for an additional fifteen hundred dollars in maintenance

[1:01:25] agreements that's just to cover additional uh costs for our uh court

[1:01:30] view document management system and our e-government delinquent tax system

[1:01:34] and those those go up a little each year and we're getting really close and need

[1:01:38] to get that little bump there i'm asking for an additional 400 in postal charges

[1:01:44] um cost of stamps has went up

[1:01:47] and we're mailing out more now than we have in the past

[1:01:50] um and uh 500 for tuition registration fees i have two paralegals who will need

[1:01:56] to be recertified this year so i'm asking for that additional funds to

[1:02:01] certify them and a small amount of salary increase

[1:02:07] no personnel increase no personnel increases i have an open position right

[1:02:11] now that i am actively interviewing for but it

[1:02:15] was given to me last year in the budget so i'm hoping to feel that soon

[1:02:22] tell us just a little bit about your salary you know we some departments will

[1:02:25] ask for a percent across the board tell us a little bit about your salary

[1:02:29] increases i did ask for a three percent raise across the board and then there

[1:02:33] was a small merit raise increases that i had put in for some of my employees who

[1:02:37] are consistently on time and do what they uh are supposed to do and

[1:02:43] show up when they're supposed to regularly i try to reward those people

[1:02:47] with an additional merit increase and i think there's a couple of those

[1:02:52] that have on the worksheet that i had penciled in

[1:02:55] that got about four percent is that what's reflected in the document

[1:03:00] we have tonight the merit

[1:03:03] it is 408 000

[1:03:07] uh if you look there on the deputy line is

[1:03:10] the extended payroll

[1:03:13] um

[1:03:21] [Music]

[1:03:29] well and i i think i had may not it may be that you have yeah no

[1:03:34] i see what it is that your budget

[1:03:39] has not done anything at the end of the year you'd have some surplus in your

[1:03:42] shower correct and the person that i i had an employee resign who was making

[1:03:47] um about 36 000 and i think the new

[1:03:51] employee i had budgeted at 28 000. okay right

[1:03:58] right because so in essence you're self-funding

[1:04:03] the pay increases

[1:04:06] yeah i mean

[1:04:09] yeah she hasn't she would have surplus [Music]

[1:04:14] just to be real clear as we go forward it's always

[1:04:17] department department for those of you not on the budget committee we have to

[1:04:20] make sure we're comparing apples to apples

[1:04:23] but this the 408 does include the two percent across the board and the merit

[1:04:28] raises uh it includes three percent three percent of the

[1:04:33] possible chocolate consider that cost of living increase and then um

[1:04:41] a few a few that will get a little bit more if they're

[1:04:44] doing what they're supposed to do uh since october i had a new position

[1:04:50] and i filled it and then this i had an employee that resigned

[1:04:54] and i have interviewed i've had two rounds of interviews and i haven't

[1:04:57] really found anybody that i think is

[1:05:01] worthy of the job honestly we've had

[1:05:07] sarah what what is your starting pay um that position would be uh 1733 an

[1:05:13] hour thank you

[1:05:19] thank you for being guilty and that's the cap i don't know that i would start

[1:05:23] that person out at that but that's the maximum that i would pay a new person

[1:05:26] right i just like to know what starting pay is

[1:05:30] right well starting 1350 is where i would start them if they were brand new

[1:05:34] you know fresh they get 13.50 and that's what my new

[1:05:38] employee that i hired in october has started out at and she's worked out

[1:05:42] really well all right any other questions for me

[1:05:48] all right good luck y'all thanks

[1:05:51] thank you it's good to see everybody

[1:05:55] all right our second court clerk brenda downs

[1:05:58] thank you for being here this evening

[1:06:06] um

[1:06:15] [Music]

[1:06:27] and brian the question you were asking earlier to

[1:06:30] this story we have what's called a data clerk fee

[1:06:35] and it collects two dollars on certain fees that are paid and it

[1:06:39] goes the two dollars goes into our data clerk fee

[1:06:42] what we can use that on is basically common sense anything data

[1:06:47] we had to replace a total of 20-some computers so far and we're

[1:06:52] already having to go around and replace 15 in the near future i use that clerk

[1:06:58] data money to pay for it so it's no new monies

[1:07:01] so it basically just sits there until we're able to use it

[1:07:06] yep

[1:07:14] um mitch i owe you an apology

[1:07:17] i thought i sent you this that shows the increase and what it's

[1:07:22] for basically guys i only have five little

[1:07:25] increases um i asked for two thousand dollars more in overtime pay

[1:07:30] dorian covid kind of just sat there dormant for a while but now that we're

[1:07:33] back in operation court goes past five o'clock quite a bit

[1:07:38] so that's where the overtime goes a lot of people don't like for it to be paid

[1:07:42] but if they have more than 20 hours i don't like it to be sitting there so i

[1:07:46] do like to pay it anything we don't use just goes right

[1:07:49] back i ask for a little bit additional money

[1:07:52] and travel conferences are back in session now they're not online

[1:07:58] it is beneficial if it's a conference i can bring somebody to because when they

[1:08:01] do breakout sessions one can go one way one go another

[1:08:06] maintenance agreements i'll be perfectly honest with you i just came up with the

[1:08:10] number i talked to a lot of people 9.5 interest

[1:08:14] um i don't have all my maintenance

[1:08:17] contracts in for the next fiscal year mitch has already we've already

[1:08:22] discussed the copier contract maintenance contract lease contract will

[1:08:25] go down anything i don't use in this just goes right back to general fund

[1:08:31] registration fees for the judges i have not really gotten an educational

[1:08:35] answer as to why but it increased so i'm just asking for

[1:08:40] 650 dollars more and evaluation and testing i've never

[1:08:45] had this line item go over i just sent a budget amendment request to mitch about

[1:08:51] a week ago i've never had this one go over what it

[1:08:54] is it's judges or whomever da's attorneys will order mental

[1:08:58] evaluation testing on inmates that hasn't been the problem the problem

[1:09:02] has been the interpreters

[1:09:06] you know we can have three deaf defendants in one year and

[1:09:10] this year we have had the same group of four they have been in civil court

[1:09:14] sessions criminal court and i even have to pay when they meet

[1:09:17] with their attorney if they're indigent

[1:09:21] so that one kind of caught me by surprise i thought the aoc would jump in

[1:09:25] there at some point and try to help us out

[1:09:28] i've got a polite email back yesterday nope it's on the county yes sir really

[1:09:33] just one question yes i know social security

[1:09:36] went down forty eight thousand dollars just seemed

[1:09:40] a little unusual uh

[1:09:42] let me look at that commissioner with ninety thousand and forty one

[1:10:02] you know this whole guy's drawing social security that catches our attention

[1:10:08] that's right i've got another fresh yeah it looks

[1:10:12] like it ought to be i mean based on her total employees it ought to be close to

[1:10:17] 84 000 but if you just get us

[1:10:22] tomorrow night yeah

[1:10:27] i did ask for across the board uh five percent on each employee

[1:10:32] uh the reason for that you guys and i think we've all talked about it and this

[1:10:36] carrier talked about it first thing you know

[1:10:40] inflation's what eight point some percent

[1:10:43] gas food my husband and i we go to the grocery store and it's just the two of

[1:10:48] us you have a new grandbaby jim i don't

[1:10:51] know how people with two and three kids do it i honest

[1:10:55] to goodness don't you know it's just my husband and by the

[1:10:58] time we leave the grocery store i'm one of eight i don't know how in the

[1:11:02] world my parents would do it but anyway so it is five percent across

[1:11:06] the board um

[1:11:09] hope it goes through the employees would greatly appreciate it

[1:11:13] how many of you work in your office there is a total of 30 full-time three

[1:11:19] part-time and then five night deputy clerks

[1:11:22] now what mitch was shortly saying

[1:11:26] we have a recovery court grant so deborah france falls in under the

[1:11:30] circuit court umbrella she is not paid

[1:11:34] out of my budget or any county budget it's simply a state

[1:11:39] and about what do those employees start out at

[1:11:42] brenda twelve eighty one twelve eighty one yes sir what is that about twenty

[1:11:47] eight about twenty five thousand a year twenty

[1:11:49] five thousand a

[1:11:52] year you don't want to know we're in the wrong business

[1:11:56] now mileage for one interpreter call

[1:12:01] and lieutenant foster back there can smile

[1:12:04] because he his his officers sit right there in the courtrooms and watch him

[1:12:08] they bill you for an hour regardless if they're there an hour and 15 minutes

[1:12:13] rolls to two hours they bill you for mileage if i cancel them the day before

[1:12:17] they build you a hundred dollars across the board

[1:12:20] but usually one interpreter to come for hearing impaired

[1:12:24] it could be anywhere from 154 to 200 wow

[1:12:28] yes sir one bill

[1:12:33] now foreign language the aoc does pay for

[1:12:37] that i've even went as far as having them

[1:12:39] from nashville come

[1:12:42] stay in a hotel be here all day long

[1:12:46] administrative office of the courts they pick up that one

[1:12:49] so if i had a pick interpreter versus hearing impaired i would much rather pay

[1:12:54] for hearing impaired and it's their right when i worked across the parking

[1:12:58] lot could you imagine

[1:13:01] being deaf and being arrested i mean you want to talk about official

[1:13:06] you don't know what's going on you don't so

[1:13:09] you know they're able to call they're able to have a fair trial so i mean i'm

[1:13:13] all for what it's being spent i just never imagined that was going to be a

[1:13:17] line item i was going to be asking mitch for money on

[1:13:25] [Music] time

[1:13:29] no i asked for 2 dollars more yes sir

[1:13:34] yes sir i'm all about if they can get it done

[1:13:38] get it done and i'm all about paying them if i can

[1:13:41] pay him i just don't like her to just sit there the good news is half of the

[1:13:45] employees they use it

[1:13:48] but a couple of them they they look at that as a little bit of

[1:13:52] spending money now i'm we're not talking anything crazy i think the most i've

[1:13:55] ever paid one clerk since i have been circuit court clerk has been 40 some

[1:14:01] hours i mean i'm not talking like hundreds of times

[1:14:03] [Music] they're taking time off

[1:14:10] you know they either get paid correct it's their choice majority of

[1:14:14] them like the time off

[1:14:17] the civil girls like the time off the criminal and

[1:14:20] section that

[1:14:26] inflation and always going up and people taking more time off instead

[1:14:32] and they're the girls that eat out they're the girls that eat out every day

[1:14:36] instead of packing their lunch it's interesting

[1:14:40] you have your savers and your spenders

[1:14:49] all right any other questions or comments

[1:14:53] yes brenda thank you very much

[1:15:00] dana our election administrator is here with us tonight she's got uh

[1:15:07] all kinds of stuff lined up i bet tonight today

[1:15:11] you can tell i'm the newbie in the room hi guys i'm dana jones thank you for

[1:15:16] everything you all do to our counties i tried hard to reach all of you before

[1:15:21] tonight to get my budget to you so you can see it you can see how we spend our

[1:15:24] money so

[1:15:27] this is the first budget i've done for the county i wasn't quite sure how to do

[1:15:32] it so i just went to last year's budget pulled receipts and tried to do the best

[1:15:36] thing i could to tell you exactly what i need to run

[1:15:39] my department um i didn't put any fluff in there so

[1:15:43] hopefully i haven't missed anything i am um

[1:15:47] it will be my pleasure to answer any questions you have on it

[1:15:54] looks like you've done a very good job thank you i appreciate it i was

[1:15:59] impressed

[1:16:01] i think

[1:16:17] absolutely yeah yeah i thought she'd done a great job

[1:16:24] did y'all find the page number eight okay what was it

[1:16:34] uh yes in the election you mentioned because in

[1:16:37] some of our other uh groups there is a uh maintenance vapor requirement

[1:16:43] that requirement for the election commission is

[1:16:58] so we would you know you're required to fund direct the

[1:17:15] well uh if if it's increased it does you know the next time around the next time

[1:17:20] you have two elections you'll have that same minimum number on it on any

[1:17:24] nightmare once you put it there and that's not

[1:17:28] just for the election commission it's for the schools it's for the library

[1:17:32] uh to some extent to the sheriff although

[1:17:35] it's a different calculation so just keep that in mind

[1:17:55] any questions for uh miss challenge dana thank you very much thank you guys i

[1:18:00] appreciate it done a great job we appreciate you being here

[1:18:05] all right our next uh speaker is a mr rusty sales

[1:18:10] and i think he went outside for a moment

[1:18:15] he thought you was going to be longer dan that's what it was

[1:18:18] you know yeah

[1:18:20] what page is this on what page is an ema on pitch

[1:18:25] ema

[1:18:29] [Music]

[1:18:42] [Laughter]

[1:18:48] page 40

[1:18:51] departments

[1:18:58] good evening commission good evening rusty

[1:19:03] uh one thing i do need to share with you all on his budget

[1:19:15] [Music] okay

[1:19:20] we have an agreement once we get a grant that helps pay for some of those

[1:19:25] administrative costs 68 000. that's about 62.50

[1:19:34] we take his total spin during the year to track the 62 and then we split that

[1:19:39] with the city of johnson city so

[1:19:42] uh mr if i go back to your you know questions a minute ago if if his dollar

[1:19:48] spin goes if his spin goes up a dollar uh

[1:19:52] it's 50 50 so he just ground here he's at 36.9 okay

[1:20:01] and actually on that 36-9 i guess you're speaking to the increase overall

[1:20:07] um we administer a homeland security grant

[1:20:12] um we're getting another homeland security

[1:20:15] grant that will be coming in for cyber security

[1:20:18] those grants are roughly um about 147 000

[1:20:24] and we're under the assumption that the the cyber security grant that comes in

[1:20:28] will be about the same we've never taken an administrative fee

[1:20:32] uh there's a maintenance and administrative fee that we can take uh

[1:20:36] from the federal government on that so the administrative fee would roughly be

[1:20:41] seven thousand dollars it's five percent of that grant

[1:20:45] that we can apply to what what the increase is is basically i

[1:20:49] want to hire a full-time employee admin person

[1:20:53] right now it's just myself and my operations officer

[1:20:57] in our office and with the uh addition of another

[1:21:00] grant coming that's going to be a lot more tom administrative wise

[1:21:05] uh that will be applied to that so if we are awarded the other

[1:21:11] grant which uh they haven't done the funding notice a funding opportunity yet

[1:21:16] we're expecting that to come out about the next month or so

[1:21:19] um washington county will be my office will

[1:21:22] be administering that grant as well so we have the potential of getting about

[1:21:28] fourteen thousand dollars that we can add to that

[1:21:32] um increase

[1:21:34] in budget based on that five percent taken off of

[1:21:37] both of those grants for administrative fees

[1:21:40] so basically the cost to the washington county would be around eleven thousand

[1:21:44] eight hundred dollars after it split with the city

[1:21:53] we actually don't know yet this is something that's came down to

[1:21:57] the department of homeland security uh it's brand new they just told us about

[1:22:00] it this year it's along the same lines as the homeland security grant that we

[1:22:05] get now for fighting terrorism um

[1:22:09] going to be a district grant which means the upper eight counties in northeast

[1:22:13] tennessee um

[1:22:16] we're not sure how they're gonna spend it yet and the reason for that is

[1:22:20] the homeland security grant is split up per district so each district in the

[1:22:23] state gets a certain amount of money every year towards this homeland

[1:22:27] security well with us being 147 000 we don't know

[1:22:32] it's not a whole lot you can buy on cyber security for 147 000 for eight

[1:22:35] counties so we don't know if they're going to

[1:22:39] use it and purchase it from a state level or if they're going to try to

[1:22:43] administer it down to us it's still all brand new so

[1:22:50] i i wish i could answer the question but i can't and that's why i i struggle

[1:22:55] with some of this okay so so you get a grant

[1:23:05] us 30 um so we're 70 000 good well

[1:23:09] if you spend that hundred thousand dollars on something new

[1:23:14] then that head count that money doesn't cover that account that's just a true

[1:23:19] increase to the county by heading here right

[1:23:23] so the grants that you're writing they're not funding anything that you're

[1:23:28] doing now taking cost out of your budget is just increasing your

[1:23:34] buds we're not we're not actually writing the

[1:23:37] grants it's we're not hiring a grant writer we're the admin we administer the

[1:23:42] grant which means we do the purchasing uh we keep up all paperwork we go

[1:23:46] through the audits and all that so

[1:23:50] historically too if i'm not speaking out of turn we we

[1:23:54] had a full-time admin up until

[1:23:58] 2017 and um the admin that we had left this

[1:24:03] is when we were still on the city side we hadn't switched over to the county at

[1:24:06] that point the city didn't let us hire

[1:24:09] the admin back and obviously kept that portion of our

[1:24:13] budget in the general fund

[1:24:16] um when cobit hit

[1:24:19] i was allowed to hire a part-time person so part-time person doing this kind of

[1:24:25] work at 12 an hour it's kind of hard to keep

[1:24:29] um that's why

[1:24:32] the administrative side of this is it's a lot it's a lot of paperwork i mean for

[1:24:37] myself as the director my i do

[1:24:40] the grant and i've been doing it since ness hired me but that's one of the

[1:24:44] things i want to push off to this person so i can do

[1:24:49] more developing and moving us forward with

[1:24:52] emergency management and looking for more grants

[1:24:56] that will actually benefit the county on hazard mitigation side and things like

[1:24:59] that

[1:25:02] progressing

[1:25:05] on that these ramps they're really kind of peculiar but they

[1:25:09] come every year we're still spending off the 20 19 grand so

[1:25:15] it's been late but

[1:25:17] they've been specifically allowed for any personnel

[1:25:22] it is the cure fire protection police protection some

[1:25:28] of the split these grants like most friends that we

[1:25:33] see have an administrative administration opponent

[1:25:38] i can be

[1:25:40] used for administration well rusty i've been talking about

[1:25:45] he's born all over the world himself and let all of the money go

[1:25:52] but it's right now

[1:25:54] and in its recent assumptions you know my perspective

[1:25:59] we're servicing seven other counties with a lot of effort

[1:26:03] that you know

[1:26:06] so

[1:26:14] you know focusing on our dna operations stuff

[1:26:17] like that and use what's allowed in those grams

[1:26:38] we have one grant that we have the 625 is an

[1:26:42] empg grant that's an annual grant um that's that's something that the

[1:26:46] federal government gives us as operating costs the homeland security grants are

[1:26:51] three-year grants uh for example we're we're i'm currently spending 2019 and it

[1:26:56] closes april 30th of this year and then i'll start on

[1:27:00] the 2020 grant and it'll close april of next year so it's a three-year recurring

[1:27:05] grant that's how that works and we're under

[1:27:07] the impression that the other one will work the same way it'll be a three-year

[1:27:10] grant commissioner carriger

[1:27:13] one of the rest of his comments got my right to thinking and this is for mayor

[1:27:17] mitch who do we have that monitors our

[1:27:20] computer systems for hacking um

[1:27:23] bcti okay

[1:27:27] yes yeah okay now do they do for agencies uh well they each party they

[1:27:34] they absolutely monitor everybody that is in the county system

[1:27:38] yeah except for the sheriff uses a company called bird consultant okay

[1:27:43] there's some overlap there between

[1:27:52] uh you you i see you've got to raise in for the

[1:27:56] director and the part-time are not part-time i'm

[1:27:58] sorry other salaries and wages does that include a raise for the other employee

[1:28:03] yes my current operation yes and what percentage was that three

[1:28:08] or three okay

[1:28:21] rusty sir

[1:28:25] i know you hired a part-time person would you

[1:28:30] and this person be a full-time person right yes sir

[1:28:35] but the part-time person didn't stay in the budget right it just combined into

[1:28:38] one position as a one full-time person correct yes

[1:28:42] so i had 16 roughly 16 little 16-5 i think is what i had budgeted for

[1:28:48] the other part-time person and that's going to roll into it it's just going to

[1:28:50] roll into one full-time person so

[1:28:54] okay you all need somebody full time

[1:28:59] there's a lot of

[1:29:03] you have a lean mean operation and i i see it all the time and i guess i'm

[1:29:07] fortunate to do that and i commend you on a job you do and thank

[1:29:11] you and all that you've done for us through cove it and

[1:29:15] i just y'all do a great job

[1:29:18] appreciate that sir

[1:29:21] anything else for rusty rusty thank you very much we appreciate

[1:29:26] you coming sir thanks for watching thank you have a good evening

[1:29:34] director hodgin is here with us tonight i don't see director wheely here

[1:29:40] director hodgins here with us

[1:29:44] from the health department

[1:29:47] you'll be on a roll here this week direct crossing you'll be here

[1:29:51] this week next week yes sir we may even schedule a meeting

[1:29:56] the next week god look forward about three or four

[1:30:00] pages of page 46 where the health department

[1:30:33] and we don't have that reason i'm pointing that out

[1:30:37] we don't have that final grant number yet so those numbers will change but

[1:30:41] it's 100 percent uh

[1:30:43] funded grant so that if

[1:30:57] [Music] this is all new to me i mean this is the

[1:31:01] first time i've done this the last time we did this last year i was brushing the

[1:31:04] seat and i was hip deep in kobe's vaccine and

[1:31:08] leaned heavily on my regional office to get me through this process and on with

[1:31:12] getting back to putting kobe vaccine out there

[1:31:15] so i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have

[1:31:34] any questions for director hodgin on his budget i know he's a lean mean operation

[1:31:38] up there i'm just curious about

[1:31:41] the communications uh it's a net reduction in that we

[1:31:47] missed bcti in our last year's budget so that was a significant amount of

[1:31:51] money that we ended up picking up um elsewhere in this year's budget but i

[1:31:55] put that back in for next year but it's a net decrease when we switched

[1:31:59] our carriers over

[1:32:06] all right direct production we appreciate you coming and thank you so

[1:32:09] much sir appreciate y'all thank you thank you

[1:32:13] thank you thank you yeah director wheelies here with us as well

[1:32:17] dan if you want to come on up glory and we'll talk about ems

[1:32:22] and uh i guess you'll be our last

[1:32:28] last slot of the night

[1:32:35] thank you sir

[1:32:45] all right

[1:32:50] [Music]

[1:33:12] you go ahead

[1:33:20] i'll put this one to that record in a minute

[1:33:26] uh thank you all for letting us come tonight um dan wheely i'm the director

[1:33:29] for washington county mess this is miss laurie kemp she's our

[1:33:32] comptroller she's supposed to keep me in line so the same thing

[1:33:36] inaccurate um

[1:33:40] so this year in our budget obviously we're expecting

[1:33:45] increases in fuel and supplies and

[1:33:48] insurance and everything else that everybody else is expecting

[1:33:52] which in our budget we've budgeted um to cover those expenses um with increase in

[1:33:57] revenue based on call volume and additional funding we've received

[1:34:02] through reimbursements um but we are asking for an increase in

[1:34:07] revenue or funding this year from the county

[1:34:10] and the cities you all know we get part of our funding from the city and the

[1:34:14] county um we're asking for a pay adjustment for

[1:34:19] our staff if you look on page two of the handout

[1:34:24] comparing our paramedics and emts to other public

[1:34:28] safety entities sheriff's department john pearl fire

[1:34:32] department john city fire department um we're about 25 percent under where we

[1:34:37] should be on paying our staff um we've gotten here um over the years by trying

[1:34:42] to be competitive with other ems agencies in the region

[1:34:46] at the same time other public safety entities have

[1:34:50] increased their wages and their rates we're struggling with staffing much like

[1:34:56] many others we have people leaving ems all the time

[1:35:00] to go to other jobs go to eastman go to

[1:35:04] you know call centers go to just getting out of

[1:35:07] the ems field altogether so it's very hard to recruit and retain

[1:35:11] quality staff so you know we're not going to get to a

[1:35:15] 25 increase overnight and we didn't get

[1:35:18] here overnight so we're not expecting to get out of that overnight

[1:35:21] but we do have a plan over the next uh four or five years to to try to do pay

[1:35:26] rate increases each year to get us where we need to be

[1:35:30] with that we still have to give our cost of living adjustments and our merit

[1:35:34] raises so we don't just replace

[1:35:37] a wage adjustment a cost of living adjustment with a wage adjustment

[1:35:42] so we are asking for 256 500 additional funding next year

[1:35:47] that is to cover the

[1:35:50] 2 000 wage adjustment for all staff and our 3 percent cola raise um we are

[1:35:57] budgeting to cover our three percent merit raise we're budgeting to cover our

[1:36:02] coal arrays increases in fuel increases in medical

[1:36:06] expenses 14 increase in health insurance

[1:36:10] all of those increases are in the budget for next year

[1:36:16] we're asking johnson city to match that that 256

[1:36:21] request is going to johnson city as well

[1:36:28] happy to answer any specific questions then on an hourly basis what are we

[1:36:33] increasing or starting from hours it it's hard to say because we have

[1:36:40] five four different hourly rates so we have 10 12s and

[1:36:44] 24-hour shifts and so it will change their hourly rate different for each one

[1:36:51] so it's really hard to okay it's about a four percent increase

[1:36:56] for each yeah

[1:36:59] today we have eight and we've been running with

[1:37:02] six to eight for almost a year

[1:37:05] it seems like when we hire and get down to five or six one or

[1:37:09] two leads

[1:37:12] 118 full-time staff dan is it true that

[1:37:18] there's more licensing licenses being retired than there is actually being

[1:37:23] uh ems people completing school it is in tennessee um so

[1:37:27] national association of ems

[1:37:31] came in and did a study couple years and they did a presentation stadiums board

[1:37:35] and said that you know tennessee was in dire straits because we were retiring

[1:37:39] more licensing every year than we were issued

[1:37:42] they're just not getting people interested in the field

[1:37:46] we're doing things to try to recruit and get interest into this field we do a emt

[1:37:52] class at david crockett high school so when those seniors graduate they can

[1:37:56] test for their emt license right out of high schools

[1:38:00] we have about six or eight each year graduate from that last year we

[1:38:04] graduated six um and we weren't able to hire any of

[1:38:07] them because they all went on to nursing school or to the fire department

[1:38:11] so um you know pay is not everything but pay is something it is a

[1:38:17] big issue you know people can um on the hour people can go to

[1:38:22] mcdonald's and you know hobby lobby places like that

[1:38:26] start making more on the hour than we start people out at and they have to be

[1:38:31] licensed and they have to be at least an emt basic i mean for us they can only be

[1:38:35] an empty basic for a little while and then they have to go on to school to get

[1:38:38] their advanced empty repairs

[1:38:49] it is right now we start an emt basic out which has to have a semester of

[1:38:53] school be licensed we start an empty basic out at eight thousand three

[1:38:58] fourteen uh johnson city fire starts and a fire

[1:39:02] recruit out at 31 000 and they train them

[1:39:06] they start them out with zero training and they provide them six months of

[1:39:11] training so that that's what we're trying to get you know so at least we

[1:39:14] can compete with the fire departments and the sheriff's department and police

[1:39:18] departments and things um you know realistically we compete

[1:39:22] with nursing at a certain level our

[1:39:24] paramedics go to school for um

[1:39:28] five semesters um graduate you know they're not they

[1:39:32] don't have an associate's degree they just have a certificate paramedic but it

[1:39:35] takes them five semesters to do that so two and a half years

[1:39:39] of schooling um and we start them out at almost

[1:39:42] twenty thousand dollars yes less than associate degree rn can take so it's you

[1:39:47] know it's a different job and we're not

[1:39:49] saying that paramedics should make what rns make but

[1:39:53] we have to get a little more competitive than we are

[1:39:58] so on the public side we split it with the city either lane

[1:40:03] balance of more revenue um yes so we we build four services billy

[1:40:09] insurance for um services we generate about 75 right

[1:40:14] at 75 of our total budget is through patient revenues

[1:40:18] and then the rest of it is through appropriations from the city and the

[1:40:21] county and fountain jungle

[1:40:31] then just a question or two i mean it looks like the bulk of your

[1:40:36] expense increases as you discussed on the payrolls right just trying to raise

[1:40:40] those pay to payroll benefits but 20 000 on

[1:40:44] utilities just percentage-wise that's a lot what what's going on there well the

[1:40:50] current budget is well this is based off of last year

[1:40:53] it was under estimated there so we kind of catch up so it was just core

[1:40:58] budgeting for

[1:41:01] forecasting

[1:41:17] since last year we do have a dispatch center now that

[1:41:20] operates 24 hours a day and we'll have a little more utilities

[1:41:24] associated with that and if i remember right we ride off of

[1:41:29] over a million dollars of bad debts a year we do yes sir so that's that's a

[1:41:34] real drag on over the service

[1:41:39] so we i mean we pursue collections but at some point

[1:41:42] we write that off and we write off a lot of bad debt through contractual

[1:41:46] adjustments that are you know with the government they pay what they

[1:41:50] pay and you tell them about the va

[1:41:53] well i just forget it forget it

[1:42:01] [Laughter]

[1:42:12] or educational level

[1:42:19] to be an emt they have to be a high school

[1:42:23] graduate to currently in the state to drive an

[1:42:27] ambulance even as an emt you have to have three years of unrestricted

[1:42:31] driver's license so they can't they can operate in the back but they can't drive

[1:42:35] the vehicle until they're 19 right now there's legislation in the state

[1:42:39] this year to try to reduce that to 18. but right now

[1:42:45] they pretty much have to be 19 before we can hire them

[1:42:54] i mean yeah that's true there's days that call volume exceeds

[1:42:58] resources um we i think in the last 12 years um that

[1:43:04] i've been [Music]

[1:43:05] we've called for mutual aid twice you know

[1:43:09] we we have a convalescent division that will stop transports on that side to

[1:43:14] move those units over and you know not to say that sometimes

[1:43:18] services aren't delayed because we just run out of trucks but

[1:43:23] you also can't always you can't staff for the what the

[1:43:26] once or twice every 10 years that you have that

[1:43:30] you know school bus wreck and you can't you can't budget for that

[1:43:39] they do yes and we have very good relationships with

[1:43:42] surrounding counties and if we do um you know you'll remember the school bus

[1:43:46] wreck about 10 years ago greene county came and helped us

[1:43:50] sullivan came and help us so we do have a mutual aid request for other counties

[1:44:01] what a great job ems does dan and we appreciate the service you always do for

[1:44:06] our community we sure do appreciate that we've got a

[1:44:09] great staff that works very hard and provides excellent care for our

[1:44:13] community and sure we appreciate all the support the

[1:44:17] commission gives us as well [Music]

[1:44:23] thank you all right if there's no more questions

[1:44:25] we'll uh

[1:44:30] thank you very much again let's go all right that'll conclude our

[1:44:35] budget hearings this evening unless there's any old business that we

[1:44:39] would like to

[1:44:47] these discuss uh

[1:44:49] there anyone on this list that you'd like to see

[1:44:53] present tomorrow night edition

[1:44:59] mr mayor i only had one question and it was about the soil conservation thing i

[1:45:03] don't know that we need a presentation but i noticed

[1:45:06] the request this year was zero or have we just not heard from them yet

[1:45:10] oh on the 18 000.

[1:45:14] we haven't well but and the mayor and i haven't talked about

[1:45:18] this uh yet so it all building sort of fluid

[1:45:24] when you look at soil conservation budget

[1:45:27] and going back to the discussion of grants earlier

[1:45:30] two or three years ago they started funding a position with a

[1:45:36] a grant national national soil conservation resource

[1:45:41] association that grant going away

[1:45:45] and they're bringing this perk but they want to bring on this person in their

[1:45:49] full-time capacity

[1:45:54] we appropriated the 18 000 last year because that's what they'd

[1:45:59] asked for the year before um

[1:46:02] until we get some further clarification from the soil conservation folks on what

[1:46:08] they need that 18 for since we're now funding i think three positions over

[1:46:13] there or three and a half then uh that's why i left it out of you

[1:46:17] okay thank you i was just curious

[1:46:23] any direction for many of the people you heard today that didn't communicate with

[1:46:28] them directly as to staffing

[1:46:32] of their own budget anything that caught your attention needs to be individually

[1:46:37] addressed

[1:46:42] okay

[1:46:45] the uh volunteer fire departments on this sheet

[1:46:49] have asked for two hundred thousand dollars each that's not unusual we've

[1:46:53] seen that for multiple years in the past last year we funded them with a slight

[1:46:58] increase from i think 130 to 132.

[1:47:04] um so as it stands now in a request for 200

[1:47:08] 000 so

[1:47:14] if we were in a smaller budget committee you probably wouldn't be

[1:47:19] in line to receive that do you all

[1:47:23] have any feel for that would you like to hear

[1:47:26] charlie's or whether they are in request

[1:47:31] i'll just say this i've seen this request

[1:47:34] probably for seven or eight years

[1:47:39] i would say that they don't expect to receive it

[1:47:46] and of course i think in the aggregate that's about 4 500.

[1:47:51] sorry it's a couple hundred thousand dollars

[1:47:56] that's what we don't value them but it's you know that is a huge increase

[1:48:00] yeah with the risk for next year's economy

[1:48:04] we've just got to be i think very fruitful with the taxpayers money yeah

[1:48:08] really do well agree

[1:48:10] [Music] and so

[1:48:13] at some point whether it's

[1:48:17] the budget committee budget committee or it's the full commission or whatever

[1:48:21] he needs to wrestle around with what we're going to

[1:48:26] contribute to the volunteer fire department

[1:48:29] mr maryland if i may i mean to that end your opinion or direction is it better

[1:48:36] for us to ground them full commission or is it

[1:48:40] better to ground them in the budget well and when i say

[1:48:49] because this is different i mean in past years

[1:48:53] five people have heard what you just heard tonight

[1:48:56] we make the record you know put it together

[1:48:59] sort of prove it and change it until the very end and then present it to the full

[1:49:04] commission as a recommendation

[1:49:07] so the exercise of this year is to be on the front end

[1:49:13] regard to these departments that you've heard the office holders

[1:49:18] as well as appropriations or any other expense

[1:49:21] license because as commissioner pierrot says

[1:49:26] several times this evening the um

[1:49:30] the number is bigger as it's on paper today

[1:49:33] our taxpayers

[1:49:36] are having to pay

[1:49:39] higher costs for everything just like the county is

[1:49:43] so you know at the end of the day this

[1:49:46] group needs to come together and decide how to balance that

[1:49:50] and [Music]

[1:49:53] so you know this is an opportunity to get it on the

[1:49:56] front end i mean rather than wrestling around with it

[1:50:00] two days before we gotta have it complete

[1:50:04] i think one thing i think we ought to add to the a couple of things really but

[1:50:07] first is during this budget process we're going

[1:50:10] to get a report back from ctas evaluating

[1:50:14] two options to potentially provide

[1:50:19] some personnel support for fire so we may want to

[1:50:24] hear that before we decide anything final on any of this

[1:50:28] that could greatly impact it if we were moving forward with that we certainly

[1:50:32] wouldn't probably be able to consider a lot of this

[1:50:35] second thing i wanted to though say is also these volunteer fire departments

[1:50:38] really do work on these budgets and they can support they usually we didn't we

[1:50:42] haven't seen any public safety yet this year but usually we see

[1:50:45] a packet from them with their you know they they show us what they're raising

[1:50:49] money-wise they give us their full disclosure

[1:50:52] so and then how they built the budget that they're they're asking for they

[1:50:56] have asked for the same yes general increase for several years in a row

[1:50:59] which many years in a row which they've not

[1:51:02] gotten but a couple things to keep in mind when

[1:51:05] we're talking about volunteer fire departments are

[1:51:08] that they have for a decade or more struggled with

[1:51:11] um it's harder to get volunteers um

[1:51:15] the way we live today you know people don't volunteer to come sit at the

[1:51:19] volunteer fire department on the weekend anymore

[1:51:22] people don't work right in the community where they can

[1:51:25] you know drop what they're doing on the farm and go fight the fire

[1:51:29] so they're struggling with volunteers they are also struggling with

[1:51:32] fundraising so where they

[1:51:36] they're not raising as much money anymore

[1:51:39] with the same even if they use the same fundraiser so we do need to keep that in

[1:51:43] mind i want to be fair to them and point that out but

[1:51:47] but at the same time we do have another uh

[1:51:50] a pretty big report coming probably sometime in april

[1:51:54] uh that we may want to consider too commerce wheeler is the offer committee

[1:51:59] considering

[1:52:04] we have we have one of the things the blocks that you all have talked about

[1:52:08] before um and our committee's continuing to look at this money being

[1:52:12] sort of set aside is a pretty significant amount but it wouldn't cover

[1:52:17] anything that would be in these budgets because this this would be things like

[1:52:20] turnout gear hoses that type thing

[1:52:24] um the

[1:52:26] the arc of money in keeping with the idea that we want to do big one-time

[1:52:31] projects what we're looking at is is and see tess has actually kind of weighed in

[1:52:35] on this a little bit too so far in just private meetings but

[1:52:39] they'll weigh in if they don't weigh in their

[1:52:41] report they will be willing to step up and weigh in a

[1:52:44] little bit if we ask them to but uh is to come up with a project or

[1:52:50] maybe a couple projects that would be aimed toward lowering the

[1:52:54] iso ratings for as many folks as we can in the county

[1:52:59] it obviously whatever we do will also help the volunteer fire departments but

[1:53:03] the real aim is to find something that's going to lower

[1:53:06] the iso rating for the as many again as many people as we can which which goes

[1:53:11] to mr carriger's point of helping our taxpayers have lower insurance costs

[1:53:17] yeah so just before we leave i'm going to advocate in just a second for our

[1:53:21] policy of our departments because as mr wheeler and

[1:53:27] the fundraiser over the last two years for them has been close to zero because

[1:53:33] um the bean dinners and the barbecues and the other stuff that they've done

[1:53:37] you know where certain gatherings really were

[1:53:39] to get you know as close as either

[1:53:44] also several years ago the state

[1:53:47] fire marshal came deal with a

[1:53:50] ruling that

[1:53:53] was almost directed at volunteer firefighters with respect to self

[1:53:57] fireworks so the number of our volunteer fire departments had sold fireworks

[1:54:03] they came here with the school where essentially you had to have a sprinklers

[1:54:09] i mean it was ridiculous absolutely but

[1:54:13] you know the groups of the town figured out a little bit of a walk around so

[1:54:16] they're doing some of that but that was that was a huge deal for

[1:54:20] them due to commercial wheeler's point they have really been

[1:54:25] restricted so if you think about it

[1:54:29] these volunteers fire departments serve to protect our community

[1:54:35] at a much lower rate if

[1:54:39] we had to have a fire protection service with him that would be multiple millions

[1:54:45] of dollars and

[1:54:47] the commissioners [Music]

[1:54:58] in my mind i'm wondering i'm wondering if the business model

[1:55:02] will volunteer fire departments needs to be challenged city has to look at two

[1:55:06] things first whether what the cost would be in the

[1:55:10] flash benefit um and if you paid firefighters in each

[1:55:15] station so the cost is well over five million dollars that the county would

[1:55:19] have um and they were looking at other things

[1:55:22] around that whether or not it would also create the need for a county fire chief

[1:55:28] and and other things that would additionally raise that cost

[1:55:33] secondly they were looking at the program that the county's

[1:55:37] initiatives can initiate on its own and that is combining ems

[1:55:43] and then has been very cooperative with volunteer

[1:55:47] fire departments to put a couple of ems folks into

[1:55:51] the fire hall be there 24 7 answer the phones and

[1:55:56] begin to move a fire protection vehicle to the city

[1:56:00] so that volunteers don't have to come to the station sometimes passing the fire

[1:56:05] on their way just to go back so where is it implemented that's worked

[1:56:10] great um

[1:56:13] it hasn't worked great in every station for various reasons so

[1:56:18] cjs was also looking at what that model might do to help us to reduce uh

[1:56:25] response times that fire

[1:56:30] that's what you'll expect to see in there before

[1:56:33] uh not a lot of detail as to how the individual environment departments

[1:56:38] operate with respect to purchasing throughout

[1:56:43] the year and the punishment stopped turning out

[1:56:46] either has a light that's the suits the air packs and all

[1:56:49] that stuff that you use it has a timeline light after a certain amount of

[1:56:52] time it has to be replaced [Music]

[1:57:05] their other

[1:57:10] subsidy comes from the the benefits of federal travel

[1:57:17] um they are as a group

[1:57:21] we're independent organizations you've ever been around the entire house they

[1:57:26] each have a very unique character and um

[1:57:32] i mean he is achieved and

[1:57:35] you can't just say hey are you volunteer fire departments here's how we're going

[1:57:39] to do it okay that would not be a good meeting no

[1:57:43] sir so

[1:57:46] they all have their own way [Music]

[1:57:48] and they're all very effective at what they did

[1:57:52] but um one of the things that i haven't seen in

[1:57:56] any of this yet we're going to replace radiators for those times

[1:58:01] we replace radios in police departments and

[1:58:06] others in the past that's coming out another year or two alan tells me

[1:58:12] that you know that's fine

[1:58:15] okay nobody wants to see anybody wrong okay

[1:58:19] thank you thank you thank you mayor

[1:58:25] i know we're going to talk a lot about expenses tonight tomorrow night but

[1:58:29] definitely will come time we'll need to talk about revenue

[1:58:32] i guess there's where the rubber meets the road sometimes

[1:58:36] so definitely we need to make a not to put revenue on our list

[1:58:41] and have some revenue recommendations and get some things solved

[1:58:46] all right anything else is there anything we want

[1:58:50] to add to our agenda for tomorrow night

[1:58:56] we can do that

[1:59:01] all right we have a motion to adjourn made by commissioner

[1:59:06] davenport to adjourn second by commissioner carriger all those in favor

[1:59:10] of germany signify for saying hi all opposed side

[1:59:15] we're jeremy

March 23, 2022 Washington County TN Commission Budget Hearings

Transcript