[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