[1:43] It's 9 o'clock. Good morning, everyone. It is 9 o'clock. We would like to get started on time. Thank you all for being here. At this time, I will call

[1:54] Jamie Gatti to the podium for our invocation.

[2:02] Let us pray. Other once again, we just bow before you and just say, thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning.

[2:11] others, you know, we are gathered here to conduct the business for the upcoming year.

[2:20] Whether I'll just pray that you'll be with each and every one of the speakers, may hear

[2:24] she have your speech with understanding whether I prayed for the commissioners and other

[2:31] leaders, Lord, just be with them, allowing them the discernment and understanding of what's

[2:39] being presented. I want to thank you for the many blessings that you stole upon David

[2:45] County and its citizens and Father. I just pray that you'll be with each and every one of

[2:53] us in the upcoming few days. Lord, I just pray that your protection for each and every one

[3:00] of us as no matter what comes our way, we know that we'll be in your hands.

[3:08] It's all

[3:09] Thank you, Jamie, for that.

[3:12] I would like to call Derek Waldo to the podium to lead us

[3:15] in our pledge of allegiance.

[3:24] Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

[3:28] And to the flag of which the saying is,

[3:31] one nation under the flag of the New North Pole,

[3:34] the liberty of justice for all.

[3:40] Thank you, Derek.

[3:42] At this time, I will look to Mr. Vogler

[3:45] for our ethics and conflicts disclosure.

[3:47] Madam Chair, I noticed

[3:49] that the agenda I have in front of me does not have any voting elements to it.

[3:54] Therefore, we can waive the complex disclosure.

[3:57] Thank you very much.

[3:58] Thank you very much.

[4:00] So now it is time for us to adopt our agenda, which is the schedule of the department presentations.

[4:06] Do I have a motion to approve?

[4:12] Second.

[4:14] Second.

[4:15] Okay.

[4:16] All in favor.

[4:18] All right.

[4:18] All right, Mr. Barnett.

[4:20] Thank you very much.

[4:20] You get us started.

[4:21] All right, thank you Madam Chair.

[4:26] Day, we have a good along amount of presentations.

[4:32] Everything is up here on the podium.

[4:34] So it's nice.

[4:35] We don't have to stop and reload.

[4:37] So we are going to try to keep this thing moving along.

[4:39] We know we have some schedules that we had to be mindful for today.

[4:43] What you're going to hear is a preview primarily with the General Fund.

[4:49] Of course, Johnny Lambert is going to talk to us about public utilities as well.

[4:53] We always give you a little snapshot of what to expect on the health insurance side.

[4:57] Each department has a presentation ready to go.

[5:01] Brad's going to jump more into the capital improvement in our facility needs.

[5:05] We have asked all our departments that have a facility or capital item.

[5:08] If you have any questions, they're here to answer any specifics.

[5:12] We're going to round out today talking a little bit about fire funding going into the budget

[5:16] and then we always like to give you some time for any open discussion of anything.

[5:21] that you may want to include or you may have want to elaborate on what you heard today.

[5:26] Please keep in mind we did start this off with a set of pre-budget meetings.

[5:30] I have provided you some documents this morning.

[5:33] One of those does have a breakdown of some notes from those meetings.

[5:38] We are early in the budget process. January is somewhat early for us.

[5:43] We know we got a long road ahead to get to a final decision in June.

[5:47] We did move our education partners to February as part of our work session.

[5:51] They typically come present about that for sake of time.

[5:55] It'd be easier to do with the end and trying to cram it in today.

[6:00] Please be mindful between now and the end of April.

[6:04] New items may or changes may occur.

[6:07] Things break.

[6:08] We get new information so there may be some things that will be slightly different

[6:12] about how we get to the end.

[6:14] We also know we have several unknowns which typically don't get our health insurance

[6:19] increase.

[6:19] We typically don't get our retirement increase until late March, early April.

[6:26] So we have some placeholders that we play around with, but we don't know what those final

[6:29] numbers are going to look like.

[6:31] And then I think just as you all know, in your own personal life, everything has a cause.

[6:36] So we're not really going to dive deep in the cost today as much, but just know that ultimately

[6:41] nothing's cheap anymore. That being said, let's get started and I'll take a

[6:49] liberty unless you have a question for me. I think Robbins up next.

[6:58] Good morning.

[6:59] Good morning. So first this morning we want to talk a little bit about

[7:02] revenues. The way we start to build the budget is by reviewing some history and

[7:08] looking at trends that we might want to notice. So here is a portion of the

[7:13] report that I present to you every month. So this is the revenue section comparing year

[7:20] to date December to year to date December last year. And as you can see, the majority

[7:26] of the 8.4 million dollars that we have over last year is due to property tax. We have

[7:34] some collection percentages. So at the end of December, this fiscal year, our collection

[7:40] percentage was 75% versus about 73% last year. And we have updated numbers through January

[7:47] the 5th, which was the date before interest starts. That percentage increased to 90% in last

[7:54] year at the same time it was about 86.8%. So we'll talk a bit more in detail about sales tax,

[8:03] but right here on this slide, this represents the sales tax associated with this fiscal year.

[8:09] And, you know, I've been saying for months it's flat, but right now we're looking at about a four to five percent increase over the prior year.

[8:18] So, for intergovernmental, what that represents is our interlocal agreements with our towns as well as federal and state grants.

[8:26] So, there's some differences in timing of those and just differences in amounts like some grants come up, different amounts or some are there and some are new.

[8:37] So we also had just a difference in the payment timing for some of our inter-local agreements

[8:43] especially for the Sheriff's Office services.

[8:46] So we're monitoring interest rates.

[8:49] Right now interest rates are lower than they were at this point last year.

[8:54] On one of our main accounts, we're getting 3.75% versus 4.42% on the same month last year.

[9:02] So, we're taking a look at that and trying to do our best to project interest.

[9:07] And as far as miscellaneous income, that includes our vehicle financing, and we borrowed

[9:14] about $270,000 more this fiscal year than we did in the last one.

[9:21] Since this is to focus on revenues, I do have the expenditures.

[9:27] And, again, a lot of this is just timing of entries and timing of payments.

[9:32] it's the general government difference is mostly just due to the timing of of entries for the

[9:38] fire fund. So right now at the end of December we have $1.7 million more than we did at that

[9:45] same time last fiscal year. Do you all have any questions so far?

[9:53] One question. Yes. When we

[9:55] the budget back prior to July, the budget at that point was like 93 million and something is the reason it's 95.

[10:09] I mean it's going up at because of discovery of some revenues or what.

[10:17] Those are the changes in the budget are due to grants that run over a fiscal year.

[10:23] So some of our grants especially in health domestic violence those types of agencies don't

[10:29] run the same fiscal year as we do.

[10:31] So a lot of that is carry over from the prior year and that kind of thing.

[10:36] That's the majority of it.

[10:43] So moving on, this shows sales and use tax collections from the month of July through November.

[10:51] These don't exactly tie to what I have as sales tax because we record some of that sales

[10:57] tax has to do with the prior fiscal year, but this just looks at July through November

[11:02] for the last four fiscal years. So as you can see, 22, 23 as compared to the previous

[11:09] fiscal year was a 14% increase, then we went to an 8% increase. Then last fiscal year

[11:17] in those five months, it was pretty flat, just a small, small decrease. But right now what

[11:24] But we're looking at from July through November comparing it to last fiscal year is about

[11:30] a 4% increase.

[11:32] So we're keeping an eye on that to see if there's going to be more increases, or if we still

[11:36] want a budget flat for that.

[11:38] I know we've been very conservative in our budgeting for sales tax.

[11:42] Do you have any questions about that?

[11:44] Not about that particularly, but the revenues over expenses, 1.7 million.

[11:55] If we extrapolate that out, then are you projecting, and I know we're halfway in now, basically,

[12:03] are you projecting fund balance?

[12:06] I mean, we were flat in terms of what we said, we were going to put in fund balance, but

[12:11] But we're over here at 1.7 million, so.

[12:16] And that's not really unusual this time of year.

[12:19] You start to get a little bit better picture in January, go on on.

[12:25] I don't want to say it's still too soon to tell, but 1.7 is probably not where we're going

[12:32] to end up.

[12:33] Well, the reason I asked the question is, unfortunately, for our taxpayers, many of them, they

[12:41] We saw a major increase in their tax bills.

[12:46] So the issue of the amount of revenue that comes in in property taxes would indicate to

[12:53] me that we should have some level of, because I don't think we budgeted to spend everything

[13:01] we bring.

[13:02] Is that makes sense to you that there should be some movement in terms of fund balance just

[13:09] don't that alone because it was significant.

[13:13] Yes, but the way that we had budgeted fund balance, the fund balance appropriated, which

[13:18] was the difference between the revenues and expenditures, was we tried to be pretty close

[13:23] to where we were in prior fiscal years, so we were trying to be close to where we were

[13:33] knowing that you know the closer that we budget revenues and expenditures the

[13:39] less there would be left to put in fun ballots. Well I would like to hear

[13:45] something I would like to see before our February meeting. I'd like to look at

[13:50] a historical trend of fourth quarter spending and see what what is a percentage of

[13:57] budget and a raw dollar figure, what is spent historically in that quarter leading up to

[14:06] year end?

[14:09] I don't want a terrible line item. I would like to know what we're spending

[14:15] on, how much historically we spend and just kind of see what that looks like.

[14:21] Do you want it like group like salaries and other operating a capital?

[14:26] Capital, yeah salaries if you can do you want to go? I would think three, four, five years. Yeah

[14:35] Okay, yeah, we certainly can do that now keep in mind we do have a spending cutoff that we usually have been set in the

[14:42] past couple of fiscal years in mid-April

[14:45] Yeah, I mean that's trying to kind of necessary to do not that all spending stops because you know

[14:51] You still have things you've got to pay for say yeah well there's there's there's a difference in necessity and and

[15:00] Spending to spend because we have money left in our line item. You know, I just like to see it. Sure, we can get that for you. No problem. Mm-hmm. Like just say again on the thing that Robin was explaining and I don't miss explaining anything. The 90, you know, where we have some grant money carryover. For the good of the commissioners. I'm not a counter thank goodness. I got one here to my right.

[15:29] and y'all, but I'm trying to wrap my head around when we do a budget we make

[15:38] revenues and expenditures equal. I'm not that's always been the case. Right? Right? So

[15:47] that being said, if we started out and what we budgeted that we want to spend was

[15:55] ninety three three or whatever and then now we're at ninety five three because of

[16:03] grant funds or whatever rolling forward then why not from a balancing a budget

[16:13] standpoint but why would it be incumbent upon us now if we really only needed

[16:18] to spend ninety three to then spend ninety five if we budget it for ninety three

[16:26] in expenditure, not from a balancing standpoint, but I'm just trying to follow that.

[16:33] I don't think we would spend 95 necessarily. I mean, if just as the math went through,

[16:39] I mean, and to that set of facts, we would have something coming back to fund balance to the,

[16:44] I think, the overarching point here. So, but we budgeted to spend 93, we'll spend 93,

[16:50] enhance our safety program that we're trying to implement here in the

[16:55] county. Other than that, don't have anything else in county

[17:00] managers all. Any questions? Any questions? Comments. The AI, what would it, what

[17:09] would it be doing, would it be forecasting, or what exactly, or is it, of course, on

[17:14] everybody's phone, or some app that you have downloaded and you probably didn't

[17:19] read the fine print and that app basically gives companies like Pacer AI the

[17:26] ability to track you and so if I know in a lot of our conversations about let's

[17:32] just say concerts you know hey how many people are our concerts reach in a

[17:37] wider audience in Davie County we'd be able to know that funny thing is they the

[17:44] technology is there and it's on right now so even even as we were demonstrating

[17:48] and getting demos from this company,

[17:50] they were pulling up events at the senior center,

[17:52] they were pulling up events at the library.

[17:54] So we had events, people came as far as carry,

[17:58] we had people from South Carolina coming to events.

[18:00] It just allows us an opportunity to see

[18:04] what kind of real impact.

[18:06] And it's in your phone.

[18:09] We all probably have some app that allows them that ability.

[18:13] What kind of cost would this?

[18:15] it is a population cost. I have to get it again from the rep. This was, we love it when we

[18:23] love when we get demos in August and we're like, we just put a budget together. We're not

[18:28] going to add anything new so I'd have to go back and get those numbers but I can get it to you.

[18:33] But it would be whether you put it in the Mander's office or where you split it up between our

[18:37] departments that have programs, it's based on our population.

[18:43] I mean I guess it's okay to have

[18:44] that knowledge but it's not really going to change how we do things so if it's a tremendous

[18:48] amount of money I don't see why it would really be necessary because whoever's going

[18:55] to come is going to come but that cost wouldn't be a huge decision maker for me right

[19:30] well

[19:32] and there again that the cost of the program didn't override what that benefit would be so

[19:37] Okay,

[19:42] Ed, I'll drive it for you if you want.

[19:46] Next slide, I think that speaks for everything, there's no changes here.

[19:53] The only thing that we have, there has been a mandate change there at the end that deals

[20:00] with court costs having been paid through the E-court system now and we've talked to finance

[20:07] on that as far as how to allocate that between whatever department that is such as if I'm filing

[20:14] something on behalf of environmental health then environmental health it'll be budgeted back

[20:20] to that department as far as the court calls not the legal fees and I'll but just as far as court

[20:25] calls itself but that's something that the e-court system has driven not us.

[20:40] It depends whether you

[20:49] I want to go back to a statement that you just made, Cindy.

[20:54] Okay.

[20:54] I would like to see the last five years how much money in the revenue that you just

[21:01] talked about that goes to the Chamber of Commerce.

[21:07] I mean, just be the raw dollars that were sent to them.

[21:15] Thank you.

[21:19] Any other questions or comments for Ed?

[21:25] Thank you, Ed.

[21:30] Although it's me again, I'll be much safer than I was before.

[21:34] I don't anticipate any major changes in the finance department budget at this time.

[21:39] I don't have any additional requests, no capital, and no mandate changes that I know

[21:45] of right now.

[21:49] Thank you, Robin.

[21:58] And I'm back again.

[21:59] Okay.

[22:00] Unfortunately, unlike Robin and Ed, how I got to that one, one I expected to see.

[22:10] We do have a statute change that came up this fiscal year with background checks for

[22:17] people who work with children. Unfortunately, I expect our line item, which is not a huge

[22:23] line item, but it is going to affect that budget line item about double it. Let me go

[22:30] back to the previous slides. Sorry about that. I wanted to just mention briefly the achievements

[22:34] that we've had over this past year with the Health Fair, Restaurant, and Ice Cream vouchers,

[22:40] the years of service awards program, and the holiday luncheon, you know, employs seem to

[22:45] We really appreciate that we get lots of compliments as well as comments on that so we hope to keep continuing offering those things in the future.

[22:55] We would love to do more things but we know that there's a budget to keep in mind so we won't be requesting an additional staff member, but

[23:02] just know that we won't be able to achieve other great things because we don't have the additional help.

[23:07] I really just want to thank you all for what you do, thank you for the budget that you have given us in the past and ask for a slight increase in that budget.

[23:17] We do spend it as freely as we possibly can.

[23:20] So, thank you.

[23:27] So, we're going to move Tony to this afternoon.

[23:30] There's a project underway this morning that he needed to be part of.

[23:41] Ms. Colling.

[23:43] All

[23:50] right. Good morning.

[23:52] For cooperative extension, we have no anticipated changes for the upcoming year.

[23:58] That's all I have if you have any questions.

[24:07] Colling, thank you so much for what you do. We really appreciate it.

[24:11] You're one of our silent heroes.

[24:14] You just go about your business and do your job and do it very well.

[24:20] We enjoy the work we do and we thank you all for your support

[24:22] or in being able to do it.

[24:24] Thank you.

[24:25] Thank you.

[24:25] And please excuse me, I have to head to the senior expert.

[24:27] Yes ma'am.

[24:33] Alyssa, thanks

[24:39] for having me this morning.

[24:42] I do want to let you know that our voting equipment,

[24:44] the internal batteries are due to be replaced.

[24:49] There's one, the five year that's supposed to be replaced

[24:52] this year and then the eight year should be replaced in 2028.

[24:57] But they're suggesting we do it in 2027.

[25:01] So, they're going to do it or could do it doing our yearly maintenance, batteries you would think would be pretty inexpensive.

[25:09] But this is large.

[25:14] Have any questions?

[25:16] How large?

[25:19] Yeah. We have a price tag of $34,346.

[25:28] And that's all I have? Any other questions?

[25:30] That's for total batteries.

[25:32] That's for all the batteries.

[25:33] 34,346 dollars. I wanted to make you aware of that. But that's all I have.

[25:43] Question. I mean, I know you didn't say it but any statutory changes that you see might create an unintended expense.

[25:52] So one thing that we do want to keep in mind is we only have three days now to investigate provisional ballots.

[25:59] Each provisional ballot probably takes around 20 minutes, about 20 minutes.

[26:05] We had 360 in the last election.

[26:08] There's no way we're going to get those in three days.

[26:11] Leslie and I worked from the day after election through the weekend until that Wednesday getting

[26:18] all the provisional's investigated.

[26:20] There could be some expense to bring in other people to help them at a high level we're looking

[26:25] at.

[26:26] And lastly, something that I've dreamed about since coming here and visiting downtown is

[26:33] looking at a potential winter fast, a partnership between us and the town of Mosley.

[26:40] To look at, to introduce the annual four corners, four countries, winter and snow tubing festival,

[26:50] That the more I keep talking about it and the more we talk to folks about what that looked like, the more excitement they have on their face.

[27:00] To celebrate different countries each year within the four corners of here and having us know to the event again, more of a partnership looking at budgets at a high level and seeing what is that option.

[27:13] and then could we roll something out as early as January 5th, 2027?

[27:20] Next, first and last request.

[27:24] So first, a renewed request, grants and sponsorship manager.

[27:29] Our comprehensive master plan calls for a grants and sponsorship manager

[27:32] or a business manager that functions as taking applications

[27:38] from state, local, federal grant opportunities,

[27:42] applying for those receiving those managing those funds but also appropriating

[27:48] those funds acquiring at a high-level tiered park and event sponsorship system.

[27:55] It's in our comprehensive plan. We've done the the mock-up of the job

[28:00] description had it graded and it's a goal for 4.1 within our comprehensive

[28:05] master plan. This will give us the opportunity to take the time that it takes

[28:11] or what we're currently working on with sponsorship opportunities places in

[28:15] that are one person so that they can go out and truly elicit not just here in

[28:20] David County, but outside of this David County, outside of David County to look

[28:24] at partnership and sponsorship opportunities for us as well as those state

[28:31] and federal dollars that we send to the federal government to the state government

[28:36] and bring those back to David County, which we've done a good job but we can do

[28:40] even better. I believe this request. Paul, quick question. And this would be for the commissioners to,

[28:50] I mean complete agreement with you on that. The one thing that I would just ask if it might be

[28:59] possible. If that type of position could be, we have the Ag Center that we're trying to, we're trying

[29:08] to raise up and they're going to have a need for the same thing, marketing and searching

[29:16] out of grants.

[29:18] So I would just lay this out as an idea for us in that we might, in some way, you mentioned

[29:24] the word creative, think about how we might combine that, those two organizations in some way,

[29:30] shape, or form, because even though you may even have the senior center that has some level

[29:35] of marketing, those kind of things, definitely the Ag Center and your department I think would

[29:44] be kind of appropriate for maybe a combined position which would help with the budgeting

[29:50] of that position.

[29:51] Absolutely.

[29:53] Just as we visited the Randolph County Complex last week again to see what it looked like.

[30:01] The vision really starts swirling, especially for an outdoor arena, not only for AgVents, AgTourism

[30:09] events, but things that are outside of that realm, events that could be under covered

[30:15] arena are extraordinary. I've met up with a major CEO in Forsyth County. It was very

[30:27] interested and I can say that he's one of the proprietors of the PDR of creating that organization

[30:36] from the ground up and very interested in at least taking a look and the totem and the

[30:42] appropriate time will do that but I think this is where that position this is someone who

[30:49] You can take that skill set and use it for the betterment of our organization, not just

[30:57] our agency but our entire organization, so absolutely something we can take a look at.

[31:02] For the new recreation specialist, efficiency safety and production, because of new additions

[31:08] and events such as as a new gate and operations and taking gate, extending our operational

[31:17] fishing, but also something that Derek will mention with dual staffing is vital for the

[31:23] safety and security of our facility as well as our personnel. It's so important. We've

[31:30] been working on that for the last year and a half, and we have stretched as far as we

[31:36] have could possibly go to try and make sure that we have dual staffing. And because with

[31:44] the number of people that come in.

[31:46] We have any number of rentals, general public,

[31:49] exclusive rentals, splash pad during the season.

[31:52] It is a lot for just one person to look at.

[31:56] So we try to dual up whether it's two part times,

[32:00] a part time and a full time to go back and forth

[32:05] because we want to make sure that even our full time

[32:07] are covering some of those hours in the evening

[32:10] that are possible. Developing our young adults in the parking

[32:16] recreation industry is a challenge, but the experience, the soft skills and

[32:20] leadership that our recreation specialists get are unmatched. Our EDUC operates

[32:25] 75 hours a week, 3,825 hours annually or 90 percent of the year.

[32:34] Perspective average business operates 40 to 45 hours a week between

[32:37] between 2,040 and 2,295 hours annually, so that just kind of puts that in perspective.

[32:43] Oh, hold on a second.

[32:44] I'm not going forward.

[32:48] Oh, well,

[32:51] there we go.

[32:53] My bad.

[32:54] There we go.

[32:56] Okay.

[32:57] We're guys, the capital requests.

[32:59] So first, recurring capital.

[33:01] I want to thank each one of you for staying committed to providing us with a recurring capital

[33:06] outlay.

[33:07] We have a solid rubric that our team and our advisor board work to prioritize every year.

[33:15] And we have put together some great projects, for example, the added gym bleachers, the

[33:20] new splash pad feature, dog park agility equipment, ball field scoreboard and stadium LED sign.

[33:28] We make use of those dollars and there's something else that's coming up as well that we'll

[33:34] go back to this capital outlay.

[33:36] second is the master plan capital a lot of impact here so going back to this

[33:40] master plan there was adopted on April 1st 2024 it serves as a central

[33:46] tool for providing our agency and our organization with a breakdown and

[33:51] priority for capital improvements one of those one of those major priorities for

[33:57] capital improvement plan is land acquisition for a northern district part now I

[34:01] was in year two 2026 so this current fiscal year that we end wasn't able to

[34:06] happen, but I wanted to bring it back up. Land acquisition or conservation of land

[34:11] is a major priority goal for our future park system and maintaining a part of our rural

[34:16] heritage. The area of land acquisition focuses in the northern district because it's the backbone

[34:21] of where we need to start. Those areas include the advance per metre run, parmatine, smith

[34:27] grove area. So, again, that is important that we look at the land acquisition because as commerce

[34:35] keeps coming down as we're a suburb outside of Winston-Salem. It's going to keep coming and if we

[34:40] don't find the land soon it may be out of reach in the next five to ten years. Next one. A very

[34:47] interesting project. Our company's a master plan calls for an outdoor batting cage project. However,

[34:53] after looking or indoor batting cage project, after looking at the cost, extraordinary cost that would

[34:59] would call for. It led our team to explore an outdoor batting cages option with a potential

[35:06] grant funding sources and tying a project together with an ADA resolution and enhancement

[35:12] project. I'm so sorry. I gotta lay out that thing.

[35:21] Yes. Put them in your pocket.

[35:29] Alright, let's try this again.

[35:34] This ties in again a potential, another project that you'll hear from General Services

[35:40] Director Blackwalder.

[35:42] In brief, we have applied for two grants, North Carolina Ampeter Sports Grant at $10,000

[35:47] and applying for a David Community Foundation Grant for $15,000 to help cover matching

[35:53] portion of the batting cage equipment at cost. The advisory board has ranked this

[36:00] capital outlay project right now. It sits number two with number one getting

[36:03] ready to be completed. This project is likely to go to number one in our

[36:09] capital project. So we have the matching funds to have skin in the game that allow

[36:13] both these grants to say, hey, they've got a matching portion. This is a great

[36:17] project that can enhance their park system and their quality of life.

[36:25] Next, also in the conference and master plans of feasibility study, water adventures.

[36:31] Very interesting, so community feedback is consistently illuminated a sentiment for aquatic

[36:38] facilities as evidence in the 2014 comprehensive update.

[36:42] While a splash pad was specifically solid after and the 2017 needs assessment, both the 2013

[36:52] plan and our most recent plan seems to suggest that that sentiment is still a shared vision

[37:00] in our community.

[37:02] So our competence master plan noted that and the types of aquatic facilities can vary across

[37:08] the state.

[37:08] I want to stress that. However, it is important to capture the community's niche for an aquatic

[37:13] adventure in relation to the goal of developing our destination parks.

[37:18] A proposed feasibility study at $20,000 would give our organization a focus on number

[37:23] one, what our community truly desires in an aquatic facility, number two, how those

[37:29] concepts may be developed as one of our future destination parks.

[37:35] And then last but not least, I want to interrupt you just a second.

[37:38] I don't know where you're going with this Davey Youth Complex parking improvements, but in your batting cages.

[37:45] Yes sir.

[37:48] Many calls I get.

[37:50] And I've attempted to call your department.

[37:55] The citizens of Davey County are not getting access to the baseball, to the softball baseball field.

[38:06] and I'm going to assume to the batting cages because a local entity locks up the community

[38:17] field for a large portion of the year.

[38:26] And I have been part of making calls to you guys.

[38:32] And so I'm going to pay close attention to this because it's not fair to the taxpayers

[38:41] of Davey County not to be able to utilize that field.

[38:46] And you know what I'm talking about.

[38:50] And I'm just going to tell you, I'm going to be vocal about this.

[38:55] We, the taxpayers voted in a bond to fund that facility and they vote with their, and they,

[39:04] they utilize tax dollars to be able to access the whole facility.

[39:11] And so I'm not asking for unreasonableness, I'm asking for a reasonableness about people

[39:17] that want to get on those fields that cannot.

[39:22] Not everyone in this county has the dollar, the cash flow, to lock fields up for three

[39:29] or four or five months or really, honestly, it's basically the whole year.

[39:37] And we're going to have to have discussion about that.

[39:40] So I'm just going to stop right now but I'll let you go ahead.

[39:47] but I've called and there is no flexibility and that's what that bothers me a

[39:54] little bit and I don't want to see these batting cages just taken and the

[40:01] people of the community not be able to utilize them whether they're indoors or

[40:05] they're outdoors okay thank you I would I would suggest Mr. Jones that you head of

[40:13] that entity and I get together within the month to talk about this to talk about what

[40:22] are the options as opposed to where we operate as a business because you are you I will

[40:29] say this and I will say this aloud and publicly you're at a disadvantage you are at a disadvantage

[40:35] and it's where as the other entity is not because of the cash flow.

[40:39] The problem, the problem, Paul, is that the taxpayers of Davey County expect you to

[40:49] control that field.

[40:50] They should not have to call whoever it might be that has absolutely nothing to do with

[40:57] the administration of the Davey County, the Davey County Community Park to figure out

[41:02] But if they can use a baseball field or not, and you're in charge of it, we don't just

[41:11] give that power over to someone else and I'm going to be up front with you.

[41:16] It's not just David Community Park, it's Rich Park, and it is becoming a problem and it

[41:27] It needs to be dealt with an address, and yes, I'm fine with having a meeting.

[41:33] But honestly, you, you administer the Davey County community part, not a third party.

[41:42] And I think it might be a policy that needs to be written.

[41:47] If it needs to be that, I'm okay with that.

[41:50] But yeah, I understand the disadvantage, also understand the business side of that.

[41:58] We're looking at from a business standpoint, but also see your point.

[42:02] So it's something that we can look at.

[42:04] Well, I understand that you're looking at it from a business standpoint, Paul.

[42:08] But if they have so much money that they can monopolize your park, then maybe they need

[42:12] to build their own facility so that our tax payers who are paying for your park can utilize

[42:17] your facility.

[42:18] I mean, maybe there does need to be a limit to what they can do or something like that because the tax payers are funding this park from the beginning.

[42:30] Understand that. Understand that very well.

[42:35] Well, maybe an opportunity for this next piece I'm talking about. You see what's coming up, right?

[42:41] So, parking improvements. So, we not only looked at just our part. We also looked at other facilities that are county owned,

[42:50] which is the Dave Youth Complex. Explore those facilities, which was made possible by the Land Water Conservation Fund.

[43:01] With recreational perpetuity in place by OWC, if the importance of the complex isn't just for the ball player.

[43:07] It also has recreational impacts, expansion and enhancement opportunities for the greater

[43:12] Navy community to utilize.

[43:15] One of those opportunities involves an ADA parking lot expansion at the youth complex.

[43:20] While the recreation infrastructure is important, so is accessibility within that complex in

[43:26] order for the greater community to take part and discover and recreate and enjoy both the

[43:30] ball field and other leisurely quality of life activity.

[43:34] So, again, we own the county owns this complex, so that's something that we can also take a look at and understand

[43:40] while we own that, it is administered and operated through a third party.

[43:48] As far as mandates, I don't see, there's no forecasted mandates we're seeing at this time.

[43:54] However, our local state federal urge support for America's 250th anniversary is an instant nationwide.

[44:04] Finally, I wanted to take this opportunity to brief the board on two projects that are under construction.

[44:12] First being the Canterplay Tree Skate.

[44:14] I wanted to let you guys know that we are really close to groundbreaking with our

[44:20] In conjunction with our AFP State Contract Agreement, which ends on May 31, 2026.

[44:27] We have a meeting today at 2.30 to go over final design concept.

[44:30] review our project budget and form our ground breaking and construction timeline

[44:34] and air closure impacts to the park. I do anticipate they'll begin between March

[44:40] and May. The caveat to this I wanted to let you know. The caveat to this is our

[44:48] RS consultant is aware and understands that within the first year and a half of

[44:53] our timeline for our state agreement that we had to terminate our contract with

[44:59] with the original contract.

[45:00] So, there is a possibility to base upon our meeting today. In a couple of weeks, we have

[45:06] Director's Conference, so I'll be meeting with our RS Consultant as well as the G.S.R.

[45:10] at that conference. I'll be looking at, is there a need to look at a possible extension,

[45:17] which I hope to avoid, but based on delivery, manufacturing delivery of the equipment is

[45:24] going to dictate whether we need to ask for a small extension.

[45:30] And again, RS Consultant is aware of that.

[45:32] So right here, you see the sight map.

[45:35] This is in our northern wing of our park.

[45:38] So if you take coming around from on the left side bottom,

[45:41] right left corner, then around from our dog park,

[45:44] you'll see the dark, previous payment walking around

[45:49] and then connecting with a new tree skate.

[45:51] and a new boardwalk trail area will be eliminating or demoing a section that is our only outdoor

[46:00] ADA issue in conjunction with this project and reconnecting with the existing pathway which

[46:07] shows in white and other existing boardwalks.

[46:10] So, really excited about that.

[46:12] We also have a military commemoration piece on that that we're excited about.

[46:18] Mr. Bold is helping with that project as we speak.

[46:24] In the last project on time is the Lake Louise Park project.

[46:29] So I'll just give you a quick update on that.

[46:34] RFQs, we receive three SOQs statements pending out of our RFQ records and qualifications.

[46:41] We interviewed three firms, all three were very worthy.

[46:46] On Tuesday, you will see at your

[46:49] February Board of Commissioner meeting a resolution

[46:52] allowed candidate manager to go into negotiate for that contract.

[46:56] And from there, that contract timeline doesn't end

[47:00] until October 31st, 2077.

[47:03] We got plenty of time.

[47:05] So as you see here, what does this mean?

[47:08] So, once our firm agreement is executed and the county will select a firm, we'll go into

[47:14] the process of making a change request to propose removal of the new entry and parking lot

[47:21] from the development as part of the approved Lake Leaks Park Master Plan.

[47:24] You'll see that proposed 10 space parking lot and the entry coming from 64.

[47:30] Because we received state approval to use an existing access easement into Collin Creek

[47:36] that accesses the park we can now remove that. From there we'll propose

[47:42] development of recreational elements that are already designated in the

[47:46] approved Lake Louise Park site plan as future proposed elements that are

[47:50] equal and total value to the project cost of the entry and parking lot which is

[47:55] roughly around $70,000. All of the recreation elements designed designated in

[48:01] the site plan as proposed and in green will be developed by our part of agreement.

[48:07] Particle look at this as a positive or a reasonable request to remove any time you're able

[48:14] to remove gray matter and place a recreation of homeowners they're going to see that as

[48:18] a great possibility and to it's feasible because we're well within our timeline and should

[48:24] make this project move forward and get completed and have a nice enhancement piece to like

[48:31] to Louise Park.

[48:35] Change of ideas, any questions?

[48:38] Could you go back to that Lake Louise map?

[48:42] OK, I'm trying to sew the playground that's there now

[48:46] is in the orange there, where it's in the future.

[48:49] Future, foreign play surface, correct.

[48:51] That's where both the three to six and six to 12

[48:56] playgrounds are.

[48:57] But you're still thinking about putting that interactive sensory

[49:01] R towards 64 instead of back towards the playground.

[49:10] Interactive sensory art.

[49:12] That is future. That is future interactive.

[49:14] So everything in green is what's approved.

[49:17] Everything in green is what is approved through part of funding.

[49:22] Or part of funding.

[49:22] Anything in orange is not.

[49:25] We will be taking a close look because we're eliminating the tenspace parking lot.

[49:32] specific the future gathering space is an eye of an eye that we want to take a close look at.

[49:41] I won't just feel the beans at this time but I will get with you afterwards and let you know what we're looking on.

[49:47] I would highly recommend that sensory art location not be near 64 because if you're warning people who who need the sensory they do not need to be near 64.

[49:58] They need to be on the other side of that world.

[50:01] That's safety.

[50:02] Where that location is as far as interactive sensory art is

[50:08] approximately a little more than a hundred feet.

[50:13] And that is way too close.

[50:14] Way too close.

[50:15] Yes.

[50:17] It really depends on the type of sensory art.

[50:19] I guess you can have more of the cognitive pieces that can go there

[50:24] and more of the more of the audible sensory can go toward the playground.

[50:30] you can mix and match different sensory elements that would be good and that's

[50:34] something. It's a great point. That's something that we can definitely let our

[50:40] consulting firm know when we move toward the construction. Yeah I've made that

[50:46] back. Are there away from that roadway for sure? I'm really excited for this piece

[50:51] especially with what it was designated for and appropriated with Dr. Edwards and

[50:58] And Beth Edwards, we're going to keep in sync with the collection and thought and understanding

[51:06] behind why they funded the million and a half dollars of infrastructure that's already

[51:12] there and how we can move forward with it.

[51:15] Paul, one thing about the sensory art thing, I mean I don't know if it's something it's

[51:21] going to be fenced in from a safety standpoint or not or if that's part of it, but what

[51:26] What comes to my mind is that more so than what Bonita brought up is the fact that even

[51:33] if it was Fentstand or something, it's living on a U.S. highway, a hundred feet as well.

[51:43] A hundred feet the noise issue is what comes to my mind more so than right off the top.

[51:51] up. Very good point. Very good point. You know the questions? Question on your up anticipated

[52:01] Northern Davey Park expansion. How many acres are you envisioning for that? I would say

[52:09] for the future for our future park system we are looking at we're looking at properties

[52:16] that are at least 40 plus acres. Again, these are especially destination parks with

[52:24] dollars. That's a coin phrase by Mr. Brawley. You're all in destination places with dollars

[52:32] in. Absolutely. Your tourism. Tourism parks, not just for tourism, but if you live here.

[52:39] the opportunity. We have a chance. I'm going to say this. I'll keep saying it.

[52:46] Davey County sits in the unique opportunity that no other county has, and that we

[52:55] don't have a park system developed.

[53:02] When I talk about what these specialty

[53:04] parks look like to members of our community, I've been doing this for the last two

[53:07] two and a half, three years. Just speaking on it. Whether it's middle school

[53:12] students that come in, our general public, and I talk about the type of park system that

[53:18] we can have here. The glow and the look in their eyes is amazing. Now combine that with

[53:27] the issues that we're having today with conservation of land. The protection of our rural heritage.

[53:35] This is an opportunity where we can act, we ask, we can potentially act, we ask the land

[53:40] pieces we need protect, large land masses, not just for park use, but for conservation

[53:47] use, whether it's our watersheds, whether it's our economic or our fragile ecosystems, our

[53:58] animal and plant species, and we have a chance to conserve some of these areas and do something

[54:04] good with it and keep to our rural heritage.

[54:06] But having these, also having these specialty parks is now people having travel out of state

[54:13] or four or five hours away to get to some of these special parks.

[54:17] Having, having, having amenities that are, that are similar like what I, one of the parks I talk about

[54:24] is an all things roller park, having them all in one place to be able to experience, explore, learn, grow.

[54:32] who knows we may find them on the next games 10 years 12 years down the road the

[54:39] opportunity to have it here because to develop our system is what excites them

[54:44] and if you live here you get to experience those things where our our

[54:51] specialty part and revenue derived is looking at is looking at tourism that's

[54:57] where I haven't always been in favor of a resident non-rescent rate but if our

[55:01] system is developed absolutely because we want to make sure that our

[55:05] residents are gained the most benefit out of having the type of system they

[55:11] will want. And people are excited about it. And even through our assessment and

[55:16] our data the needs assessment and the comprehensive plans from 2013 to 2017 to

[55:23] 2024. What's amazing to find is when it comes to cost and how to pay for things

[55:32] We're a little bit different than what you find in the outcry you're hearing in Davidson

[55:37] County over the southward complex.

[55:40] No we're near that.

[55:42] No we're near that.

[55:43] I can explain that in further detail offline but again you're more excited about what opportunities

[55:49] we have here and we have a chance to make it our own and it takes the vision, yes these

[55:57] These are ticketed cost items, but I also understand our place.

[56:02] We have other needs too in this county, and it's up to you as commissioners to take

[56:08] those projects and ideas and visions and put them toward some fruitionable action plan.

[56:16] So you guys have a tough job in doing that, and sometimes I think I'm glad I'm not on

[56:22] on that side of the seat. It takes a lot of fortitude to be able to think about what actually

[56:30] comes next. What are the actual needs? This is one plan that you can look at and focus on

[56:35] to know that we have a great opportunity. I'm not asking for everything to be done at once

[56:40] in due time, but our northern district is the focal point.

[56:46] So Pa, I just wanted to say, first of all, I think we all appreciate your passion, just know that.

[56:53] But I do want you to consider a couple things because this is how our citizens are going to think about some of these things.

[57:01] If this place or AI, of course, we need to talk about the cost of that and spending $20,000 on a water adventure feasibility study.

[57:12] We need to think about that because this year our parents and grandparents are having to pay admission to watch their kids play basketball.

[57:21] ball. So citizens are really going to take that. They're going to be like, I said, I've

[57:25] got to pay to watch my child play ball, but we're going to spend $20,000 on a study.

[57:31] So just consider those things as we make these decisions and have these discussions. Okay.

[57:38] Absolutely. Thank you.

[57:40] I got one of the questions. Just from you as the director of our park system, I know

[57:48] the last, I think I remember this, but the last time you did a feasibility study, the

[57:53] number one thing was passive activity or opportunities for that.

[57:58] You feel like between what we've got at the park, the high school park, the Lake Louise,

[58:07] the other opportunities are passive activities available for our citizens countywide, or do

[58:14] you still think that's underserved?

[58:15] I think it's underserved. One of the things met from Mr. Rollins a month ago to look at,

[58:24] I really want to look at developing a Greenway Advisory Committee to look at starting our Greenway

[58:32] Peace. We have a comprehensive plan for that. When we talk about walking, biking, that is a major

[58:39] piece. Yes, our community residents, yes, still consider that to be passive activities

[58:45] is to be crucial. On the flip side of that, they also understand they want that active

[58:50] system that they can recreate and play here locally. So it's a mixture of both. And I think

[58:58] even with our active system in play, we can continue to build on the passive recreation

[59:05] creation piece as far as being a connectable, connectable and walkable facility, walkable

[59:10] biking facility, or county.

[59:16] So that we got ways to go.

[59:18] I think we have some ways to go, but I also understand when it comes to greenways and

[59:23] trail work, not cheap, not cheap at all, while we try to use as best much as possible for

[59:33] easements look any utility easements to be able to bring those we're looking at

[59:38] their our five mile loop from the park coming around back to the park some sections

[59:44] yes a easier pill to swallow than other sections to where you have to deal

[59:50] with utility railroad oh my goodness it can be quite a daunting task and even

[59:58] potential

[1:00:00] Or easement purchases could be in play there. They're not cheap. However, the vitality and viability

[1:00:11] of our community, being a walkable community, an accessible community goes up, which our

[1:00:17] businesses look at is where can our employees live or can play half places, both passing

[1:00:23] active take part in.

[1:00:31] Thank you Paul.

[1:00:38] Megan from Veteran Services.

[1:00:44] Good morning.

[1:00:45] I tried to balance out quality of life but informing you that I do not

[1:00:50] anticipate any changes.

[1:00:54] Megan can you tell us really quickly about the

[1:00:58] computer center that you were able to set up the grants you received for

[1:01:02] So we were able to get about $18,000 grant opened up a Veterans Computer Lab in my old

[1:01:10] office.

[1:01:10] I moved into the senior services conference room that was kind of unutilized.

[1:01:15] So I have a larger office that gives me more space to meet with veterans who are disabled,

[1:01:20] maybe wheelchair bound.

[1:01:22] And then in the Veterans Computer Lab, there's three computers set up for them.

[1:01:25] So they can come in free to utilize at any time during the day that I'm there.

[1:01:30] or just do whatever they need to do on those computers.

[1:01:34] And is it up and everything's up and going?

[1:01:36] It is.

[1:01:36] Yeah.

[1:01:37] It all happened.

[1:01:38] I think the week after new years, we're up and going.

[1:01:42] That's awesome.

[1:01:43] Yeah.

[1:01:44] I think I have it.

[1:01:44] Anybody having questions or comments from Megan?

[1:01:49] Thank you.

[1:01:50] And thank you for everything you do.

[1:01:52] Thank you.

[1:01:54] Okay.

[1:01:55] Brad, before you come up, I think we're going to take like a five-minute break if that's

[1:01:59] okay all right we'll

[1:02:05] be right back let

[1:03:52] Brad get started on his presentation

[1:03:56] all right Brad go ahead thank you so much thank you all board for letting us

[1:04:00] come in this morning and talk to you they'll come and budget I'm going to take

[1:04:04] as much time or as little time as you like discuss these projects in our

[1:04:07] department first slide we'll get into is strictly general services departmental

[1:04:13] impacts. Trying to forecast the upcoming budget year, this early looking at utilities,

[1:04:20] our service contracts that we have awarded technology we pay for, anticipate the increase

[1:04:26] of $60,000 there across those fields, just based on percentage increases, you know, water

[1:04:32] rate increases, power charges. So that's a $60,000 increase just straight to the operational

[1:04:38] budget for general services. Then we're also looking into requests a new maintenance

[1:04:43] tech position to be dedicated strictly for the detention center. The detention center holds

[1:04:49] workload, the high work order location, 82% of our labor hours for that zone and that

[1:04:58] individualist currently out there takes place at the detention center. So our departments

[1:05:03] It's broken into five different zones per text.

[1:05:07] Each tech has roughly 100,000 square feet

[1:05:10] to manage that one tech that has the tension in their zone.

[1:05:15] That's where that 82% is.

[1:05:16] We spend that much time at the detention center work orders.

[1:05:21] It also includes our after hours.

[1:05:24] We do run on-call services.

[1:05:27] 90% of our after-hours on-call takes place

[1:05:30] at the detention center.

[1:05:31] That's sprinkler heads, clogged toilets, anything of that nature.

[1:05:37] And way we're currently set up with these zones, we're not able to cross train other individuals

[1:05:43] and other techs.

[1:05:45] This new position will be dedicated to train under the current tech that's there.

[1:05:50] And then leave them at that facility, allowing me to take a rotation of the other techs to

[1:05:54] get them in and through the ditch center to be more familiar with that on after hours calls.

[1:06:00] So that is our departmental budget increase in operations and a new position request.

[1:06:07] We moving into...

[1:06:08] Brad, real quick.

[1:06:09] You're talking about this position here would be strictly dedicated to that.

[1:06:14] Yes.

[1:06:14] I just want...

[1:06:15] Okay.

[1:06:16] Like I said, right now that text in the zone now has four other facilities, but they don't demand

[1:06:22] the time this one does.

[1:06:23] This will allow for that cross-training to have a floater take to move in and out of each

[1:06:28] other zones so we can rotate move.

[1:06:33] The next slide is identify general services major impacts

[1:06:36] to infrastructure equipment. This slide highlights ballerj HVAC roofing and generators.

[1:06:44] I light it in red or the ones that we see as priorities or concerns. The middle one you have an

[1:06:51] estimated cost. The very last column is equipment age and years. So as you can tell a lot of these

[1:06:57] The pieces of equipment are at end of life.

[1:07:01] They're requiring a lot of maintenance to upkeep.

[1:07:04] So when you look at the HVAC in this building, it's 20 years old.

[1:07:10] HVAC, you know, you're looking to get 15 to 25 years, depending.

[1:07:15] But as we're in and out of our facilities, almost 12 hours a day.

[1:07:21] Random times where a lot of these systems are running 24 hours.

[1:07:24] keep the temperatures maintained as we come in the mornings or in the late evenings.

[1:07:29] The new projects on there would be the ballers, as y'all are aware, we've had two facilities

[1:07:35] ran into in the last two years, luckily they all hit locations that were not occupied

[1:07:41] by office space, so these buildings are identified as concerns or issues if we do have that place

[1:07:48] anywhere else these buildings have offices that are adjacent to parking with

[1:07:54] no other means of safety except a parking bumper which both of those buildings

[1:08:00] that were ran into they jump those cars or jump those bumpers and ran through

[1:08:04] the building you have any questions on the equipment and jail services we'll

[1:08:13] move forward so in October we opened it up to directors to submit their

[1:08:19] facility capital requests. These are internal elements, larger projects that we

[1:08:25] would hand on take care of outside of departmental budgets. You've seen this

[1:08:31] before in our earlier budget meetings. Nothing major has changed here. We do have

[1:08:37] an addition of a battery backup at the detention center. Everything else is

[1:08:43] something you've seen before. I know I made notes here of some directors have gotten

[1:08:48] up prior to me here in spoke. You'll see library on there. It was from

[1:08:54] carpet paint HVAC and roofing were identified. This slide has a few of those

[1:08:58] on there. If they're not on this slide they will be on the upcoming capital

[1:09:01] projects slide. Noted of what Derek spoke of at the library just to break out so

[1:09:08] you can easily understand. The roofing project, we've got it $350,000. Carpet at

[1:09:14] 90,000, painting at 12,000, in the addition to the expansion or replacement of full HVAC

[1:09:22] at an additional $400,000.

[1:09:25] So you're looking at $852,000 projects at the library.

[1:09:31] Looting to prior presentation of Paul, we've got on their batting cages.

[1:09:36] He said that would kind of coincide with another project we've got, which is to highlight

[1:09:40] it on the next slide in capital.

[1:09:42] So we have an erosion ADA issue that is the trail way that goes from home plate down

[1:09:50] the first baseline around the outfield to the aggregate trail.

[1:09:53] It's got a lot of erosion and elevation changes there that's hazard incorporating the

[1:10:01] batting cages.

[1:10:02] We would look at updating that trail system around there and limiting some erosion issues.

[1:10:12] I mean, questions on any facility director's projects.

[1:10:20] We do have some of the experts here that have requested these other department heads if you get real specific in any details.

[1:10:27] I'm more than happy to bring them up if they're here.

[1:10:29] I've got knowledge on some of the requests, but if you get into real detail, we may call them up as well.

[1:10:40] This last slide is our capital improvement project slide.

[1:10:43] You'll be getting a more in-depth details funding and prioritization I think in March or April that we used to do every year.

[1:10:53] So this is just the first glance at your CIP. All items highlighted in green are new projects that you didn't see in the prior years.

[1:11:03] Just to highlight those, you've got the Tension Mod Core Housing Unit, the Tension Sally

[1:11:09] Port Extension, the Tension Pump Station, Fire Marshall County Storage Facility, the

[1:11:15] DC Arc Stadium Light Relamp, Core House Second Floor Renovations, the Library of Moxville

[1:11:22] Roofing, and the Library of Moxville HVAC Unit.

[1:11:24] They used to want

[1:11:33] to be it for general services.

[1:11:35] I'm open to any questions, more in the detail of the projects.

[1:11:49] So I'm trying to keep up here.

[1:11:52] The module, modular housing at the detention center by implementing that and understanding

[1:11:58] that it's a short-term fix that would push out the new vertical construction to 2031.

[1:12:06] Is that what we're saying there?

[1:12:12] So any new construction, yes, any if you'd like to come up.

[1:12:17] So this housing unit is a unit that they're looking at for 21 beds, so that will take

[1:12:23] care of some issues he's got with segregation moving around.

[1:12:29] Even if new construction takes place, sooner or at 2031, is our intent to continue to utilize

[1:12:36] that my court. So

[1:12:41] this morning we had 97 inmates for 72 beds paying

[1:12:48] $40 a day for some inmates to be

[1:12:50] housed in other places. That's a good deal but that Yacken County's house in them for us. Yacken

[1:13:00] County does nothing. So even as much as having to serve a paper or a notice to come to court or

[1:13:06] I have to send a deputy up there to do that because I can county won't serve them.

[1:13:10] All they do is let them have a bed to sleep in, basically, and feed them a meal.

[1:13:18] Those costs are going to continue to rise as things go on with what I anticipate seeing

[1:13:25] in the future.

[1:13:28] But the pod would not negate the needs for a new facility.

[1:13:34] Those needs are still there.

[1:13:36] It's just a stopgap that might, as you say Terry, extend the timeframe to look at the

[1:13:42] new facility.

[1:13:46] Currently, what we've talked about doing, if you put the pod in, it's 21 beds.

[1:13:50] Currently, only 10 female beds, so I could use that 21 bed pod for females, which would

[1:13:59] to open the 10 band pod for additional mail locations.

[1:14:05] We

[1:14:07] have, when looked at the mod core,

[1:14:12] Brad, some of my staff went to Georgia,

[1:14:14] looked at one being installed and looked

[1:14:16] and it's

[1:14:19] kind of a new thing.

[1:14:20] I don't know that even if we decided to go that route

[1:14:24] and look at it, there are no, what you would call,

[1:14:28] modular units approved in North Carolina.

[1:14:31] So there would be in the conjunction with the vendor working with the state to get approval to install it.

[1:14:40] There have been three sheriff's offices that I have found that have tried modular units in the past and the state disapproved of them.

[1:14:52] but most of those units were more built like a construction trailer type unit.

[1:15:00] We're actually very modular. What we're talking about is a unit that once it's here, it's more like a stick built for lack of a better term that could be used for many years. So that could be an additional way, like he said, find a way to incorporate it into a new build, et cetera, in the future. So we don't lose the.

[1:15:28] Yeah, when we took that tour, I've got plenty of pictures. I've got some information. If you all like that.

[1:15:33] sent out the also y'all can review and see what that looks like. We took

[1:15:37] myself, Brian Whitley. We had no concerns as a facility or hookup or it's

[1:15:43] location or footprint where it was said at our current jail.

[1:15:50] What is the

[1:15:52] drainage water hazards at the sheriff's office? What's the government center?

[1:15:59] You're on this slide here. I went backwards because there's so much on the other

[1:16:03] I was still up there when you moved.

[1:16:06] Yes, so on the back side of the government center,

[1:16:10] you know, that is a pre-engineer metal building on a slab.

[1:16:14] In those areas, back there, the drainage

[1:16:16] is getting close to coming above slab

[1:16:18] and coming back into the building.

[1:16:21] This would be re-grading and re-working that area

[1:16:23] for a new drainage.

[1:16:41] Are we re-king everything for security purposes?

[1:16:46] So actually, that is a mandate that every building gets to be keyed every five years.

[1:16:55] So this is just a start, that process of keeping buildings, you know, our head count

[1:17:02] turnover takes place.

[1:17:04] We don't know how many keys are floating out there.

[1:17:07] This is just a secure, that it's not coming in and changing locks, it's just coming in

[1:17:11] re-keying the learners we have to have a new master and new sub-keys that we know that

[1:17:16] okay current employees have access older keys if they're laying around or still in pockets

[1:17:21] they're no longer useful. Okay I

[1:17:29] may have some other questions later but I'll get with you.

[1:17:32] Does anyone else have anything for Brad?

[1:17:36] There's a lot of stuff.

[1:17:40] Question, since the library carpet replacement's significant and far as a number is there

[1:17:46] where I know carpet can be cheaper in some ways but is there a better alternative than

[1:17:56] carpet for future durability or is that probably the best option or I just thought I'd ask?

[1:18:06] You know it's probably the best option with that space and large space just for audible

[1:18:11] purposes. Cleaning and maintaining you're able to clean carpets doesn't show as much

[1:18:16] wear and tear as your LVP, your BCTs. But you know the large cost and replacing that

[1:18:24] flooring out there is you've got to move all those books. It's got to be something that

[1:18:29] library's going to have to be shut down for a couple days to do half, move everything over,

[1:18:34] finish that, move back, move the non-carpeted piece over to that back says it'll be a long

[1:18:39] project but a lot of that expense is going to be just in physical moving of

[1:18:43] virtues in there. Are you considering doing like the squares to where if

[1:18:49] there's damage it's easily replaced? Yes what we've tried to transition all of our

[1:18:54] new carpet to. Maybe that can be incorporated into the health savings plan to have

[1:19:01] people trade some time as employees and come help move the book.

[1:19:20] Nobody

[1:19:20] Thank you, Brad.

[1:19:31] We're ahead of schedule.

[1:19:32] That's a good thing.

[1:19:35] Morning, Board.

[1:19:37] So I'm going to present the proposed planning development services budget.

[1:19:44] We do not anticipate any mandate changes for the fiscal year coming up.

[1:19:50] I'm not asking for any additional personnel request, however, I am going to request funding

[1:19:56] for an open code enforcement building inspector position.

[1:19:59] that was not funded in the current year due to the fact of the increased growth with subdivisions

[1:20:05] and what we got going on in the counting, just to anticipate future inspections and what we're

[1:20:13] going to do the busy just go ahead and potentially explore this and have that requested in the budget.

[1:20:19] With that, I will be looking for capital requests to replace an existing code enforcement officer,

[1:20:25] or one of the vehicles that we do have.

[1:20:27] And then also with that would be asking

[1:20:29] for a new if the position is field

[1:20:34] for the new code enforcement officer vehicle

[1:20:36] for them as well.

[1:20:39] And that's pretty much it.

[1:20:40] Is there any questions, comments or concerns at this time?

[1:20:49] Anybody having questions or concerns for Johnny?

[1:21:01] Can you elaborate a little bit more

[1:21:03] on this building code enforcement officer positions

[1:21:06] What are you sure exactly?

[1:21:10] Just to help with the building inspection.

[1:21:12] So just a higher building inspector to look, to anticipate more.

[1:21:19] We just this year growth we've got going on.

[1:21:22] It's just more of an anticipation.

[1:21:24] You know, I'd rather leave from ahead than leave from behind.

[1:21:27] If the influx, if everything wants to build on interest rates

[1:21:31] and everything really, really picks up and flowing.

[1:21:33] just to be able to do that and be able to do the next day inspections, like what we've been doing, able to provide.

[1:21:38] Stasutorily, we don't have to provide next day inspections, but we do.

[1:21:42] And just this year gross, so that way we can just pockets and specialise that to be able to kind of increase services, if it is.

[1:21:51] If we do, interest rate change, and there is a huge growth in construction, not as well as Davey County, as the surrounding counties,

[1:22:01] potentially could be looking to fill those positions and that way if we anticipate growth coming in we can go ahead and have somebody on board if it gets that way so that that's kind of what we're looking with just the way things are trending.

[1:22:13] We've kind of been in a steady incline.

[1:22:15] COVID happened. We exploded.

[1:22:18] It kind of it's tailed off but I anticipate just was seeing the trends the way things go and it really getting really busy for some of the guys out in the field.

[1:22:28] But right now, you're still able to do next day.

[1:22:32] Yeah, we are.

[1:22:32] Right now we are.

[1:22:33] We're still able to do next day inspections.

[1:22:35] Some of the ones, depending on the, there's times which we have some specialized stuff.

[1:22:41] There's times we might have to roll it over to the next day.

[1:22:44] But I would suffice it to say probably 95% of all inspections are next day inspections

[1:22:51] when they do sketch.

[1:22:52] Yeah.

[1:23:30] So what you're saying is this one is it currently resides in our budget or it did

[1:23:55] So it's not really, okay,

[1:24:00] so it's not really one of the tight positions that's in that ever fluid number of positions we have at any given time.

[1:24:07] So yeah, it is an approved head count not funded.

[1:24:12] So in looking at the budget, so the last few years with Johnny, that was a planner position.

[1:24:18] We really wanted to figure out what was the true need for the position, but we did not think a planner was the need

[1:24:26] directly so we just did not fund it so you would be you would be in essence is

[1:24:33] one of those tricky budget things if this were to make the final cut where

[1:24:36] you are you are not adding a position you're just funding a position if you

[1:24:45] didn't you're adding the money but you know and the true sense of yeah and the

[1:24:50] true sense of how we talk budget if this was the only position funded I could

[1:24:55] then if you're going to say we're not adding any new positions.

[1:24:58] Less of vehicle.

[1:24:59] Yeah.

[1:25:00] So.

[1:25:04] Anyone else?

[1:25:05] This person, let's say that housing goes the other way.

[1:25:10] Could this position be used to do other forms of enforcement?

[1:25:16] IE, if we ever tackled some type of nuisance type ordinal?

[1:25:20] Absolutely.

[1:25:20] We could structure this position and write the job

[1:25:23] description and change duties for what are being a code enforcement if we

[1:25:27] incorporated any kind of nuisance or any kind of oh goodness gracious code

[1:25:32] enforcement associated with zoning stuff right then we could incorporate that

[1:25:37] and rewrite the job descriptions to do those duties as well yes and be really clear

[1:25:42] here I'm talking about nuisance we can talk about that later I'm not talking about

[1:25:46] dogs and noise and understand we currently have if we potentially adopt

[1:25:51] ordinance to address some specific issues. Yes, sir.

[1:25:55] Yeah, we're kind of talking about the pile of junk that's right beside of different things.

[1:26:00] It could be better.

[1:26:11] Thank you guys.

[1:26:17] I read your deeds.

[1:26:18] Kelly Thunderberg.

[1:26:19] Good

[1:26:25] morning, everyone.

[1:26:27] Good morning.

[1:26:28] Thank you for allowing me this time to talk with you guys and give you a little foreshadowing

[1:26:33] of what I see as far as the registered deeds office goes.

[1:26:37] I don't foresee any changes or anticipate any major changes in the budget for the

[1:26:42] registered deeds for the next fiscal year, so that's good and my interpretation of

[1:26:48] this meeting is to let you guys know what could be coming down the pipe so that

[1:26:52] you're in a good unnoticed now. So these things that I have on the side of all it

[1:26:56] has a lot of words. I'm going to simplify it really easily for you as far as

[1:27:01] personnel changes. It does seem like that my assistant, she has told me that she plans

[1:27:08] to retire at the end of September. So while we will miss her greatly and she has been

[1:27:14] there for a long time, the plan at the end of September, as it stands now, if that works

[1:27:19] out for her, then my assistant will be retiring. And so at that time, what I would like to do

[1:27:25] would be to move up one of my deputies into the assistant position. I have three employees

[1:27:33] and it's been that way for a very long time and they are currently the assistant and two

[1:27:38] deputy level ones, right? So the deputy level one is the lowest. So at the time when Robin

[1:27:45] retires, I would like to move one of the deputy level ones up to be my assistant and then the

[1:27:51] The other deputy level one has also been there 20 years and I would like to move her up

[1:27:57] and reclassify her to a deputy level two and then at that time bring in an entry level

[1:28:04] position.

[1:28:05] So I won't be hiring any new position.

[1:28:08] I will just be promoting one within and then reclassifying one because a deputy level one

[1:28:15] And comes in at an entry level, the deputy that I already have can run the office independently.

[1:28:22] She knows how to do everything in the office, she's frustrating to every department.

[1:28:26] So that would move her up to a deputy level too.

[1:28:30] And we're talking roughly between two of the grade scales, so it's not a major job.

[1:28:36] So I just wanted to lay that out there.

[1:28:37] that, you know, this will be the first new hire for me, as well as for our office since March of 2007.

[1:28:45] We have not had a new employee in 19 years, so that will be a major thing that will go through in the next year.

[1:28:54] Provided that, you know, Robin does retire.

[1:28:56] So, you know, this is all in the future.

[1:28:58] If it happens, then I just wanted you to know that that would be my plan for personnel,

[1:29:02] would be to promote within on one deputy and then to reclassify the other. So essentially

[1:29:09] it should be a wash at the end because one will be coming down, another one will be

[1:29:14] stepping up, but then we'll have one coming in at entry level.

[1:29:20] And then the next slide.

[1:29:22] This is just potential changes that I wanted to let you guys know about. The first is at

[1:29:28] the very top involved that we do not have any plans as any capital improvements, so I don't

[1:29:32] anything there, but I did want to just let you know about some things going on in the legislature

[1:29:37] that could affect our department. And the first is fraud. You know, deed fraud is a very big issue

[1:29:43] in North Carolina, and a lot of the legislators want to be the one to get to, you know, the lawmakers

[1:29:49] to pass the bill and each cycle that they're in rally, it seems like that fraud gets brought up and

[1:29:56] and put in to the bellows and then for some reason it gets changed, but

[1:30:00] Right now, as it stands, looking at the prevention of fraud, the main things that they're looking at in bills that I see on the legislative committee of the North Carolina Association of Registry of the Beads, is that the first one is that we could potentially be required to review ID for every submitter that comes in the office. So if you are not in our office, we have what's called trusted submitters. So if a, let's say a law firm comes in and they want to electronically record with us,

[1:30:29] frequently. They sign an MOU with our office and we have it on record and then

[1:30:34] they record and so we have all their information and they become a trusted

[1:30:38] submitter. General person, Johnny, Johnny Public that's coming in off the street,

[1:30:43] they don't have to sign a MOU. They're not a trusted submitter. So for anyone who's

[1:30:48] coming in as a citizen to record something like that that's not a trusted

[1:30:52] submitter, we would have to look at their ID and potentially we're not sure yet

[1:30:58] But some legislators have said we should save it and have it and keep it.

[1:31:03] Other ones say no, you just need to check it and look at it.

[1:31:06] And this is all in the future if it gets passed.

[1:31:10] So one thing I just wanted to let y'all know is that if we do have to start looking at IDs for all potential submitters

[1:31:17] that are not trusted submitters, and we have to scan their IDs and keep the men.

[1:31:21] Then that might mean that I'll work with our vendor on the cloud storage and stuff like that.

[1:31:26] just because it's going to be an uptick in the amount of data that we keep based upon the photo ID.

[1:31:33] So that's one thing. The second thing is that some another legislator has thrown out is that

[1:31:39] in the event there is any transfer of ownership for any property that at that time the register would

[1:31:46] have to end correspondence to the owner and let them know in a written letter that ownership has

[1:31:55] change. So if that happens, then I just wanted to let y'all know, that means that we'll be

[1:32:00] write more letters, buy more envelopes, and send them more postage. And that's, again,

[1:32:05] if that happens and that gets passed, that's another idea that has been thrown out to make

[1:32:09] sure that people know that things have changed, is that if there's any transfer of ownership.

[1:32:14] And so we have questions in the Registrar Association like, well, you know, what is that? When would

[1:32:19] you do that for an easement? Would you do that for all deeds? You know, things like that. So

[1:32:22] It was a lot to be worked out, but again, these are things that possibly could occur within

[1:32:27] this next year.

[1:32:28] The second one there is certified copies of birth certificates for individuals who've

[1:32:33] had a gender change.

[1:32:34] That's a tourally now.

[1:32:35] That is they have to be put on two different pieces of paper.

[1:32:39] So when a person comes into the office, if they have a gender change, then we have to do

[1:32:43] a certified copy of their birth certificate.

[1:32:46] The first one will be the birth certificate that they were born with and the second will

[1:32:50] be the birth certificate with the gender change and we have to

[1:32:54] they put them together and provide them a two page. I just wanted to let you

[1:32:57] know that if you see an increase in our certified copy paper it is because

[1:33:01] it will be issue if that happens. I don't imagine that David County is going to

[1:33:05] have a lot of those but just again let me know that this is a new thing that's

[1:33:09] coming through the register of these offices that we're going to have increased

[1:33:12] cost for our certified paper. The Kelly Wood couldn't that cost be passed along to

[1:33:17] them? Women couldn't the fee for their certificate be different than a regular

[1:33:22] birth certificate? That is all statutorily as well so right now certified copies

[1:33:27] are $10 and we don't set those fees. Okay. Some offices have suggested that we do

[1:33:33] them front and back so that it's one piece of paper. I don't know I'm gonna wait

[1:33:38] until I get guidance from the state and vital records and see if they're gonna

[1:33:42] allow us to do front and back. That means you're gonna have to seal it on the

[1:33:46] same piece of paper, so I foresee that that will be problematic. But then other people

[1:33:51] are arguing that if you've got two pieces, then some people are just going to rip off the

[1:33:54] staple and then you're going to have different sheets. So there's, you know, is it going

[1:33:58] to say page one of two and page two of two and things like that? So again, we're waiting

[1:34:03] on guidance on, and the look at the line of office of vital records is very slow and has a lot

[1:34:09] of issues that they deal with every day while I appreciate all that they do. They're quite

[1:34:14] difficult to get answers from. So that's something that we're watching. Number three, just like

[1:34:20] with all departments, if postage goes up, then we will have our postage increase. But that's something

[1:34:26] miss Vinnie. That's something that we could we could increase our postage. Like right now when we

[1:34:31] mail things back out, if somebody who sends in a vital record request and it's you know just for

[1:34:36] an uncertified copy that costs 25 cents and then it costs us 74 cents to mail it out, we charge

[1:34:42] for the meal. And so we're not going to eat that. And so let's say that the

[1:34:46] postage goes up, then that's something we could increase our postage calls to

[1:34:49] cover things like that in the number three. And then last, this one's not

[1:34:54] mandated, but I just threw it in there. The North Carolina Association, the group

[1:34:57] that myself and all of my staff members are involved in, that's really vital to

[1:35:02] our our jobs. It helps us to stay up to date with everything. They've committed

[1:35:06] an ad hoc committee to look about increasing their dues. And so if you see that,

[1:35:11] That's, you know, showing up that subscriptions and dues or education and training has increased.

[1:35:15] It's currently $325 a year for me to be in that membership and $25 a year, so we're

[1:35:22] talking maybe a $50 increase.

[1:35:25] minimal.

[1:35:25] But I just wanted to let you guys know of what I see that might be increasing, so it would

[1:35:31] just be mainly office supplies, potentially like a $50 or under $100 increase in the fee

[1:35:38] for that association. And postage. So when someone requests you just send them something

[1:35:45] by mail you charge them for the postage. Yes. Okay. Because I knew when I had to get

[1:35:49] something from Raleigh, I had to I had to send them the envelope and everything.

[1:35:55] Yeah. A lot of law firms that are used to mailing in their recordings they will send a

[1:36:02] sort of a return envelope with a stamp on it. And some do not. So we do have a small

[1:36:08] amount that we have in postage that goes out for individuals that come in. And here in

[1:36:14] David County, I will say one way in the future to reduce postage. A lot of the counties

[1:36:20] around us now you scan in and they get their original right back. My staff, I love them,

[1:36:26] they're fantastic and they like to hold it for 24 hours because we check, check and recheck

[1:36:30] before it goes on the permanent index. We have a temporary index that you go on immediately,

[1:36:34] which means it's reported, but then we are proofreading

[1:36:37] and we are indexing and doing things behind the scene.

[1:36:40] So it really gets three different checks behind it.

[1:36:43] The ladies in the office prefer to have that document

[1:36:46] in hand for 24 hours and then we mail it back out.

[1:36:49] So on the rare occasion that a person comes in and records something

[1:36:53] and they don't bring a self-adjusted stamp envelope,

[1:36:57] then we send it out.

[1:36:59] But in the future, depending upon the budget and how things look,

[1:37:02] it could be that, you know, we do switch over to a, you record, you scan it, you immediately

[1:37:07] get your original back, and then that would decrease our postage cost.

[1:37:10] So that's something I'm looking at, and I'm really deferred to the staff ladies to, you

[1:37:14] know, when they're ready, I'm ready, you know, to cut out some of that postage, but we don't

[1:37:19] have a huge postage around any way.

[1:37:20] It's not like elections, I bet there's a lot of time.

[1:37:24] Oh yeah.

[1:37:25] And because, you know, now we've, we're at like 68% of electronic recording, so it's, we do

[1:37:30] a lot more electronic recording than we do paper recording and then I kind of

[1:37:38] need to comment on that because please keep doing what you're doing and I would

[1:37:44] say don't worry about spending an extra $500 for post a year because you know

[1:37:51] I know we got errors in a mission's interest but I mean insurance but you know

[1:37:56] getting something mucked up and chain a title and something lost wouldn't take

[1:38:04] one case would white you know what I'm saying so it's like one minor error could

[1:38:11] cause a huge rough. Oh yeah.

[1:38:14] I do think I know a little bit about this

[1:38:16] particular office. Does anybody have any questions about the future as far as

[1:38:21] employees? I just wanted to make sure that was clear like it wasn't I'm not looking

[1:38:26] I can add anybody, I just will have a shift in the

[1:38:31] classifications and the information of the staff that's already there and then I'll hire somebody at entry level.

[1:38:37] She will have a double the period.

[1:38:41] If you bring them in, if I play my cars, I'm thinking I'll sit in May and then do interviews like in June and July to have the person start in August to have training August and then she would leave in September.

[1:38:56] It may be a month that there would be a time for anyone.

[1:39:06] I have a question about the Fraud Reform.

[1:39:09] There's a private entity out there called Title Lock

[1:39:12] that I've got some experience with and I know it works.

[1:39:16] Is there a corporate or municipal subscription

[1:39:20] available for that?

[1:39:22] No, and where the North Carolina Association stands on that

[1:39:26] is that right now, I believe we're

[1:39:29] up to 90 counties within North Carolina that all have the free property fraud notification

[1:39:34] service like we have here and it is our opinion that citizens do not need to pay extra

[1:39:42] or the title lock because what we offer in the free property fraud alert notification system

[1:39:48] is very similar and it all gets done by the indexing that we do so the answer to your question

[1:39:55] about municipalities, not that not to my knowledge there is, but I could take into it and see if there is, but the bigger picture is that the North Carolina Association feels like that that group is mainly out just, you know, to try as a business trying to get people when we offer the services for free in 90 out of 100 county.

[1:40:20] We have a lot of fraud cases here in Bogor County that you know.

[1:40:26] Absolutely not.

[1:40:27] I've been here, it'll be six years and we haven't had a fraud case.

[1:40:31] We have had a couple instances where a realtor is contacted in the community

[1:40:36] and someone will call and say they want to sell a piece of property

[1:40:40] and then when they do, the realtor will do investigating

[1:40:44] and then they'll see, wait a minute, this doesn't sound right,

[1:40:47] so the realtor will investigate it,

[1:40:49] but as far as any recording,

[1:40:52] like getting all the way to closing and recording,

[1:40:55] we've had none, so we're very lucky.

[1:40:57] It is all around us, so I stay on top of it,

[1:40:59] and I'll watch it very closely,

[1:41:01] and I'm on the legislative board and I go

[1:41:05] and I'll do fraud presentations with Lake Butero

[1:41:08] at different places so that people know

[1:41:10] to sign up for that fraud prevention,

[1:41:13] and what to look for, but mainly when you're talking

[1:41:16] about deed fraud, they're looking at places that are vacant, that the owners live out of state

[1:41:21] and it looks like nobody's caring about the properties or the foreclosures. We're very lucky here

[1:41:28] and I praise JD like now he's got a deputy that looks into all of that. So if I have questions,

[1:41:35] I can call that deputy and you know he and I can look into it but the only time there's one other time

[1:41:40] we had a recording and someone came in and they thought the dose fraudulent and it truly was just an

[1:41:45] by the attorney. The attorney had included too many parcels on the description and like the one in

[1:41:50] the middle wasn't supposed to be included and so the attorney did a corrections deed and corrected

[1:41:55] it was absolutely not any fraud. So we're very lucky and I'm going to knock on wood as I say that.

[1:42:04] Well so one thing too is that I hear a lot of rhetoric going to go over the years I was registered

[1:42:08] about why is the register of deeds elected? They're just this administrative ministerial position and

[1:42:16] And you know, there's history behind it and I'm not going to go into that.

[1:42:19] It really goes back to England and about people wanting to put, if land is your most

[1:42:25] valuable asset.

[1:42:27] And then when you think about vital records, these things are very important.

[1:42:32] That's most of your worth.

[1:42:34] That people wanted to put their trust, they wanted to pick who they entrusted with that.

[1:42:40] But also, I can't applaud the overall inner workings of the Association of Registries

[1:42:50] by being elected and having creativity and negotiating and making vendors compete and

[1:43:00] making legislative and lobbying to do things that in that standpoint you're getting people

[1:43:08] that answer to the public very frugally and it's created a good history of a product

[1:43:17] and in that case Kelly being involved in that manner is continuing that type of thing.

[1:43:25] Just like she said, free for this. We ended up free for, free for electronic recording eventually.

[1:43:33] All these things, the power of that elected group in that context has saved.

[1:43:39] It's untold what the county has saved because of that.

[1:43:43] I don't know if they would have had that kind of lobbying power just as rank and file hired employees.

[1:43:51] Thank you.

[1:43:57] Kelly, thank you so very much.

[1:43:59] My pleasure.

[1:44:02] Okay.

[1:44:02] Our tax administrator, Mr. Jamie Gatti.

[1:44:10] Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners.

[1:44:13] This morning, just real quick, as far as tank scores, there's really no anything

[1:44:23] the word

[1:44:23] I'm looking for, no requests for anything above and beyond mostly, but we do have a couple

[1:44:30] of operational requests that we'd like to discuss here this morning, or the first one,

[1:44:38] it's dealing with our mapping, and it kind of gives you an idea of how that works.

[1:44:43] you know all of us know that counties are forever changing. One parcel may

[1:44:49] become two, two may become one, one may get platted as a whole new development. So

[1:44:54] there's the boundaries seem to always be changed. And what happens is when those

[1:45:00] Underreach change, through maybe surveys or parts of whatever, they get recorded at the register of deeds, as Kelly was just kind of mentioning how things get recorded. From their system integrations are talking between the two systems, those changes or those new surveys sooner or later get to us. And what we have to do is we have to map those new boundaries. So we map them because that allows us to

[1:45:29] then assess the values of those properties. The concern that we have is around that mapping.

[1:45:37] Right now we utilize what's called a desktop topology program. Next month that program is no longer

[1:45:46] maintained. If you think back to the Internet Explorer days when it went out and the new style came in,

[1:45:53] That's kind of what's happening here.

[1:45:56] So after February, our beginning next month,

[1:46:00] that program, if something happens,

[1:46:03] we no longer have the mains to map those new boundaries.

[1:46:09] So that is the current concern that we have with this program.

[1:46:13] And so that's the reason that we've kind of brought it forth to you

[1:46:16] to think about, to allow us the opportunity to get the new program,

[1:46:22] which is that what's highlighted in the dark is the pro-parcel fabric program that will take

[1:46:29] the place of the old.

[1:46:33] And with that, that's just kind of the quick birds I view. I don't be happy

[1:46:37] to answer any questions for that part.

[1:46:41] The cost, it's a one and done, it's at 35.7 to transition to

[1:46:48] new new program and how often do you you said your your current software sunset and how long have you had that you know how it's been

[1:47:04] yeah I'm gonna say it's a long time has been without really knowing the

[1:47:10] There's probably a significant amount of time.

[1:47:13] There's not any maintenance fee type thing that's annual basis that's, you know, that

[1:47:21] can show up in that when you say.

[1:47:23] No, sir.

[1:47:24] Any

[1:47:27] other questions?

[1:47:29] So I just know that if this company's updating their aerial views, you have unlimited access

[1:47:35] to that forever.

[1:47:39] This is the mapping side.

[1:47:41] This is not the GIS or the aerial side.

[1:47:43] Brad's going to talk about another program here that we're looking at to possibly acquire.

[1:47:52] But this is just the mapping side.

[1:47:55] So once that recording comes to us from the register of DAIDs, Seth takes those new boundaries.

[1:48:01] He puts it in the system, and then it translates to GIS, which is what we see as the end-users

[1:48:07] on that side.

[1:48:11] Make sense?

[1:48:12] Or did I answer that right?

[1:48:13] Well, sort of, but on number two, it talks about, you know, allow staff to measure building

[1:48:18] through slight features unless you've got a map that's evolving to reflect that, how's

[1:48:23] that going to work?

[1:48:24] I think that's what Brent's going to do.

[1:48:25] What Brent's going to talk about.

[1:48:26] I think someone's lying ahead.

[1:48:27] Yeah.

[1:48:28] Sorry.

[1:48:29] Oh, that's fine.

[1:48:30] Okay.

[1:48:30] There's two different things what you're talking about and then what Brent's going to talk

[1:48:34] about are different things.

[1:48:36] Yes.

[1:48:37] That's why I said it's two operational requests.

[1:48:39] Yes, the first being the mapping update and then what Brett's ready to talk about,

[1:48:48] right?

[1:48:48] I'll turn it over to Brett.

[1:48:51] Righty.

[1:48:53] Yeah, the difference being, I guess primarily is the pro fabric if something, if we do not utilize that and get that then essentially eventually something will break and we will no longer be able to map in the tax office, which is not a good thing where

[1:49:11] EgoView here is an additional service to what we're already provided by the state.

[1:49:20] So once every four years the state gives us aerial imagery, they fly that over, it's

[1:49:25] provided to us, what EgoView will do is essentially take that from getting that once every four years,

[1:49:34] to essentially getting that about once every other year.

[1:49:37] So instead of, right now we're working off of 2022 imagery.

[1:49:41] So we'll pull up the map, any citizen in the county pulls up the map, the image that

[1:49:46] they're seeing is at this point, about four years old.

[1:49:52] But so, EagleView, Jayman's worked with them in Durham County, so he has a little more

[1:49:58] experience as far as personal views with it.

[1:50:01] But it is, it is an aerial photography business, essentially they would fly the county about

[1:50:10] every other year. This would allow staff to use this feature desktop or mobile remotely.

[1:50:20] We're always going to have a need to go out in the field until the day we don't do this anymore.

[1:50:26] We'll be out there in the car, you know, measuring and stuff like this.

[1:50:30] But there's just certain elements that this software does that no amount of human capital could

[1:50:38] to really bring in, even if we were to bring in five new appraisers, they can't see properties

[1:50:45] from the top down.

[1:50:50] So several of the benefits of this program is that they have the ability to integrate

[1:50:56] with our current system, so to take our current knowledge of, hey, my home is 20 by 40 structure.

[1:51:05] We can compare it to what Eagleview picks up and say hey, it's not actually 20 by 40, you know, it's 20 by 60.

[1:51:11] You know, there's an addition added that was maybe it wasn't permitted for or something of that nature.

[1:51:17] And then within their system they'll flag that and we'd get a copy of that to either review in person then or be the imagery and correct that.

[1:51:29] So our two main goals in this is we want to improve, you know, accuracy within the tax

[1:51:36] office.

[1:51:37] The more we can improve accuracy, the more y'all invest in our ability to have the data

[1:51:43] that we have be clean and concise, then we're able to, you know, eliminate the errors that

[1:51:51] are just somewhat unavoidable due to just the size of what we do.

[1:51:56] fundamentally the work we do through mass appraisal through revaluation, that's not going to change,

[1:52:03] that's state mandated, but if we can avoid any kind of inaccuracies, then that helps us not have

[1:52:10] to have conversations with the public of saying, hey, we didn't make an error here, and this would be

[1:52:17] a big step towards that. The other biggie is safety. We deal with the public on a daily basis,

[1:52:24] the vast vast majority of those interactions are positive you know people in

[1:52:28] David County are are wonderful but I don't know a single person that would

[1:52:32] voluntarily you know want to pay more property taxes so we're out in the field

[1:52:38] that's generally when you know we have our our our bigger concerns as far as safety

[1:52:43] goes whether that's you know dogs or you know going on someone's property knocking

[1:52:49] on the door, they're not there, but you know you're trying to do your work and then you

[1:52:54] surprise either an individual or an animal. So there's, there have not been any incidents

[1:52:59] in David County. They're, they're half across the state as far as just some, some concerns of,

[1:53:06] you know, hey, what are, what are people doing on my property? Do we have a legal right to be there?

[1:53:12] Currently within, you know, then with kind of law, there is nothing written in there that says,

[1:53:18] assessors have the right, you know, to go to your property, we have to raise

[1:53:22] highest and best use with the knowledge currently given to us. So I really

[1:53:28] just want to focus in on the goal is assessment accuracy and the software has

[1:53:34] the benefit of also creating safety for staff while it improves increasing our

[1:53:38] accuracy.

[1:53:42] So the cost has broken out over a six-year period. We

[1:53:47] We did receive a quote from EagleView.

[1:53:50] I'll happily pass that along to Karen to y'all of,

[1:53:54] it was roughly $48,000 a year, six years.

[1:54:00] The information you've gone on this software, I think.

[1:54:04] If I'm hearing you correctly, the difference is getting the information

[1:54:10] in a two-year block versus getting it from the state,

[1:54:14] 4-year block, is it the same information?

[1:54:19] So the imagery is slightly different.

[1:54:22] The quality of ego views is much higher, the actual science of it is it's like a 1-inch

[1:54:30] pixel where the state is, I think, about an 8-inch pixel.

[1:54:34] So the quality is much higher.

[1:54:36] We would still receive the state imagery as well.

[1:54:38] Well, we're not forfeiting anything by going this would just be in addition to, but I guess

[1:54:45] my point is the state provides you with the photographs, whatever, the imagery.

[1:54:53] Are you able to garner the same level of assessment from what you get from the state of North Carolina

[1:55:00] Is this EagleView provide you any more ability to assess versus what you already get?

[1:55:10] In my opinion, yes, the programs that are implemented along with the imagery, because

[1:55:17] it's not just the imagery, it's a program called SketchCheck, and they compare previous years

[1:55:22] to one another to see, so there's some other programs that come along with it that the

[1:55:27] States. Not going to provide. Yeah, Mr. Jones one thing that may try to help you

[1:55:34] answer that question like the state the imagery all that you see is the roofs.

[1:55:39] So what because it is a bird's eye view of that parcel. So when you look at that

[1:55:44] you don't know if that building is just an old pole barn is it a shed is it you

[1:55:50] know does it have four sides versus mine. So what Eagle View does is it not only

[1:55:57] captures that bird's eye view. It also has a beak video from all four sides so we can see the

[1:56:05] building north south or we can see it north southeast and west from every angle which allows us to

[1:56:12] say okay you know what's on the back of that house is not just a deck it has a roof so now it becomes

[1:56:21] support. So that's the big advantage is when Brett talks about the more accuracy, it gives us

[1:56:29] those different views to see or not see what's there. So hopefully that kind of helped

[1:56:36] that.

[1:56:38] So this would help you capture things. When I say capture capture amenities or whatever,

[1:56:50] or even it helps you maybe capture brick from near versus not being able to, okay, or

[1:56:58] like in the case where you came out to my house, it might, it would capture whichever part

[1:57:03] of the porch that was missing from whatever schematic we had.

[1:57:09] Okay.

[1:57:10] The imagery for this is so good that I can now tell whether or not that house has an air

[1:57:17] in the back yard, whereas right now, you know, a lot of times we can't fill from the state

[1:57:24] imagery or areas, you know, it is hard to see. You know, that the state doesn't focus

[1:57:31] in well enough to see those types, just a little things, which corrects or makes our assessment

[1:57:37] a little more accurate.

[1:57:39] Does that imagery take into consideration overhangs? Because I know if you're looking straight

[1:57:45] down on a roof on a 40 by 30 house. It's got a two foot overhang on it. If what you're seeing

[1:57:54] from up above is actually 34 by 44, which gives you an extra 200-day square feet that you can

[1:58:04] charge for as being square footage if it doesn't take out that overhang. Does that imagery allow that?

[1:58:12] Yes, that's where they'll bleak. That's where the the four sides come in because you can literally see the base of the house so you can measure across the base versus measuring the roof line and take out that extra space because it's not square footage.

[1:58:33] The

[1:58:36] $48,000 a year, approximately $300,000 for the program over the six years.

[1:58:42] Is that a contracted period then at the end of the six years we re-contract?

[1:58:51] Are you looking at this help you to reduce staff?

[1:58:58] No, at this time we're not looking to reduce the number of staff, but I mean we only have three

[1:59:04] preysers for $26,000 parcels. So this would be just a total of $20,000.

[1:59:14] Anyone else?

[1:59:15] I don't have a question about these self-wares, but

[1:59:17] the is one of your steady goals is to improve the accuracy of the

[1:59:22] assessments. And this is from Mr. Gaddy. Back when we were

[1:59:26] doing, just went through ReVow. It was my understanding your

[1:59:30] association, Ditten, was resistant to use private parties,

[1:59:37] He's read in Zillow as a database.

[1:59:41] Is that still the position of your association?

[1:59:47] We hesitate using those because I

[1:59:53] don't think there

[1:59:53] is accurate as they may seem.

[1:59:56] One or two, if you research.

[2:00:00] You may find that one or two of those, their estimates, be in the ballpark of where we are, but if you, if you look through enough of them, that's not always the case. You know, we, we compare our data with the sales that we see and that we name is qualified sales or. So that's why I think that we got it. Or we are a little better than relying on those. Now it doesn't mean that we can't just.

[2:00:33] research with them. I'll give you an example. If you look at Redfin or if you look at

[2:00:39] Rillator and if you look at Zillow, 7 out of 10 times you're going to get three

[2:00:47] different estimates. They're all over the place. I'll give you another example.

[2:00:51] The other day I was spot checking. Zillow had an estimate based on I think it was

[2:00:59] like 12 or 13 acres of land, when an actuality the property itself had well over more land

[2:01:06] units than that. So they wouldn't even assessing all the land units. So that's why I hesitate

[2:01:12] using those programs.

[2:01:17] And that's just me and Brett's got anything to say about him and he

[2:01:20] You can chime in.

[2:01:22] No county that I've worked with so far uses them

[2:01:26] as kind of edged in stone philosophy.

[2:01:36] Anyone else?

[2:01:39] Okay, Jamie and Brett, thank you very much.

[2:01:42] Mr. Lambert.

[2:01:51] Tom, we're gonna save everybody some money today.

[2:01:53] Talk about food before lunch.

[2:01:55] There you go.

[2:01:58] All right, so talk about the utility's budget.

[2:02:01] First, we're gonna start off with operation.

[2:02:03] So what I'm going over is in capital budget or budget that we do capital projects or

[2:02:09] capitals that we use in our operations budget, operations budgets, what we base our rates

[2:02:13] off of.

[2:02:14] So of course, we're going to do the same thing that we've done for the last 15 years.

[2:02:17] We're going to replace just two regular cab trucks last year replace the service truck.

[2:02:22] We won't be doing that this year.

[2:02:25] The water treatment plant, sports road, we're going to do a back loss.

[2:02:28] So I've got to be determined on this because we were waiting on cost I got this last night

[2:02:33] So this backwash line for the raw water pump boat. So what this does is when we bring this wall water raw water in from the river

[2:02:41] It brings a sand debris things like that. So we have to wash that back out

[2:02:46] This hasn't nothing has been done to this since

[2:02:50] late 90s

[2:02:51] so we want to go in and we want to remove the solids and

[2:02:56] and rebuild everything and make sure that we're still working properly there.

[2:03:02] Cost for that is $25,000, $24,000 in some change.

[2:03:07] The other thing is the Choline Ways Treatment Plant,

[2:03:09] the Robic Digester, this interior concrete rehabilitation.

[2:03:15] So what this is, is this is just a big tank that we waste out of the wastewater treatment plant

[2:03:22] that when our bacteria get too high, that we have to put them somewhere else to keep our plant operating properly.

[2:03:29] So we waste into this aerobic digester and from there we land apply or store in another basin to land application.

[2:03:39] What happens is the sulfide gas is the methane, you wouldn't believe how it eats the interior of this concrete up.

[2:03:46] So basically just pitch it and it will take it down to the rebar or whatever is in there

[2:03:52] to make it stable.

[2:03:54] So what we do is we go back in, we fix that concrete and over the years, of course we

[2:04:00] know this plant is old, they've come out now with a coating that we put on these and

[2:04:06] it's basically a rubberized coating that protects it from this.

[2:04:09] So once we do this, it lasts a lot longer than it would in the previous four coding areas.

[2:04:18] Dutchman Creek Listation there, currently out there starting this lift station up right

[2:04:22] now.

[2:04:22] This is a capital project that we've been working on probably for about the last 18 months.

[2:04:28] This money was received through grant funding through the state so it was directly

[2:04:34] allocated in the state's budget not last year but year before this project

[2:04:39] come in about $50,000 under budget so hopefully I'm getting some text messages

[2:04:47] and some calls that this will be completed today but let's say we're hopeful

[2:04:53] we're having some some issues with some some pumps and some pipes in there but

[2:04:57] everyone's out there working so but this project will be done within the next two

[2:05:02] weeks for sure. The Deadman Road water pump station rehabilitation this is our

[2:05:07] next project we'll be starting. We've completed design we've sent it out we're

[2:05:14] waiting on bids so we'll open the bids on February 19th. We're anticipating

[2:05:20] estimated costs about 1.3 million dollars. We have this funding already set aside

[2:05:25] over the years in our capital improvement project which I'll get to you'll see

[2:05:30] how we set money aside year by year but we only do these projects as we have the money set aside

[2:05:36] for them if they're not grant funded.

[2:05:40] So the new cool me water treatment plant I want to give an

[2:05:43] update on this probably large project that everybody's anticipating being done in March.

[2:05:51] This is what's remaining for completion so we're completing the chemical piping which this is a lot

[2:05:57] of piping and once you see how much of this piping goes around this plant it's really amazing.

[2:06:03] We're going to start installing the filters so this will be the large filters that all the water

[2:06:09] goes through before it becomes finished water. These have about eight foot of bed in them of different

[2:06:16] material and then the electrical tie-in. So probably for the last six months it's been a big push for

[2:06:23] electrical. We're getting some delays there. We're getting some things that we

[2:06:28] were promised that are not coming in. This is something that we're looking at

[2:06:34] close. I know there's some meetings today with the contractor, the engineer and

[2:06:40] electrical company to nail some of this down so we can get closer because what

[2:06:45] happens in this section of this project is they're testing it to make sure

[2:06:49] that it's operating properly before we come in and start that thing in.

[2:06:53] So they've got companies from all around the states coming in and doing their testing

[2:07:00] and then we will do startups on it.

[2:07:03] So exterior lighting, we cut a lot of this lighting out.

[2:07:06] I know people that drove by and seen it doesn't look lit up as much as possible.

[2:07:11] We have cut about 16 lights out around the property.

[2:07:14] We want to keep that light on the property.

[2:07:16] We've got houses right across the street.

[2:07:20] We don't want to look like the airport.

[2:07:22] So we've got a lot of that laying out.

[2:07:24] We're going to stay to building lighting.

[2:07:25] So we point down at the ground close to the building.

[2:07:30] We've still got the secondary raw water pump station.

[2:07:32] We cannot start this until we start to plant.

[2:07:34] And we're running off of the main lift station at the river and at the dam.

[2:07:38] The secondary is in the raceway.

[2:07:41] As Davey County and his utility is very lucky to have two raw water pump stations.

[2:07:46] There's not many water plants out there that can say that they have that so we're lucky for that. We're going to keep it

[2:07:52] This will be what we've run in situations like hopefully we don't have this weekend

[2:07:58] We're power outages are probably going to be pretty widespread so what we'll do is we'll run this off the generator

[2:08:04] That's at the plant instead of having an off-site generator so we cut costs by by running

[2:08:10] off of one generator instead of having an off-site generator

[2:08:14] Of course, all the interior elements are going in now, flooring, middle work, doors, furnishings, et cetera, network, county IT's gaita.

[2:08:23] So we'll have about two or three different networks coming into this. We'll have our skated network coming in.

[2:08:28] That will be totally isolated from the county when we went through. I know I haven't seen IT here yet. I know they're postponing until this afternoon.

[2:08:35] But you're going to hear him talking about cybersecurity. I'm sure a lot of safety things.

[2:08:40] We went through a lot of this. They told us we need to be separated from the county network

[2:08:46] Totally that way of something has to the county our water system isn't affected

[2:08:51] It's something has to water the county isn't affected

[2:08:54] We think that we've seen some of this stuff in Winston-Salem for side county and other counties

[2:08:58] This is how it kind of works. So we won't be totally separate from that

[2:09:02] Of course paving cleaning up mechanical testing training and operational testing

[2:09:07] We've got on here

[2:09:09] In March of 2023, so the revised contract is $51,520,912.

[2:09:19] So we have changed 1.4% to date and change orders.

[2:09:25] So that roughly adds up to about $600,000 in the New York Times for his whole project.

[2:09:32] I can tell you about $270,000 of that was pavement alone.

[2:09:35] So not a lot of changes in the project, we're pretty excited about that.

[2:09:41] It's unheard of to do a project in this size with a 1.4% increase right now.

[2:09:47] Let's hope we hold that number.

[2:09:50] We plan on it, but again, we're proud of that 1.4%.

[2:09:57] So we're saying final completion March 20, 23rd.

[2:10:00] Again, I've done some of these projects.

[2:10:01] I've looked at the schedule.

[2:10:03] I'm going to be the bearer of bad news and say if they hit that March 23rd deadline, I'm going to be very excited, but I don't see it happening.

[2:10:12] I've broke that news to Brian, and again, that's my opinion.

[2:10:21] But I've talked to Brian about this, I've talked to others about this, I would rather be 60 days late on a project and have a successful project.

[2:10:28] And I would try to rush things and be on a schedule that we've been working on this with

[2:10:35] Moxville and everything else since 2018.

[2:10:39] So I don't see 60 days hurting us, but again, I'm not sure of that.

[2:10:45] That's my opinion.

[2:10:47] I would prepare for that, but let's see.

[2:10:52] So capital improvement, this is what I talked about.

[2:10:55] But as you can see, we have backed off our CIP plan a lot.

[2:11:00] So this all rolls into our rates rate increases.

[2:11:04] You know, in January, 2024, we had ref tell us come in and did a rate analysis.

[2:11:10] We also had them come back in in April of 2025.

[2:11:19] And the reason we've done that June of 2025, the reason we've done that is because we're

[2:11:23] getting closer starting this plan. So in this capital improvement plan, you see water

[2:11:30] and sewer extensions replacement. We still fund that replacement program. We're putting

[2:11:34] $200,000 a year into a different part of our budget. Once we get enough to do these projects,

[2:11:41] we'll look at the engineer, we'll look at the system. I know there's been a lot of questions

[2:11:45] with the new development. Are we expanding the new development? No, love utilities does not

[2:11:50] expand a new development. We expand the current and what's best for the system.

[2:11:55] Okay, so we have to look at how our system works. A lot of talk about fire

[2:12:00] suppression, you know, this system wasn't designed for fire suppression. We have

[2:12:06] really focused on that in the last 10 to 12 years, but we have to start at these

[2:12:11] plants and up size these lines to get this water out to be able to provide that.

[2:12:17] You know, we've changed a lot in our ordinance over the years, so we have to start.

[2:12:22] So we look at our suppression and we look at the health of the system.

[2:12:27] I can't expand a 12-inch line down 801 from one side of the county to the other with nobody

[2:12:35] on it with no usage because then I'm going to become and have water quality issues.

[2:12:40] Then we're sending letters out monthly to the state.

[2:12:43] We're flushing this line daily to try to move water when we were looking at the scenario

[2:12:48] of building a water treatment plant versus tying on to Davidson water.

[2:12:54] We would have to flush about a mean and a half gallons a day through that line on coming

[2:12:58] down 64 just to keep us in state compliance.

[2:13:03] So it was either use it all or use none.

[2:13:07] We have to look at several different things.

[2:13:09] So replacements aren't to new development.

[2:13:11] That's basically them and we require them to do several things.

[2:13:16] We require them to have fire flow, no lines less than six inch.

[2:13:20] And it doesn't matter if they have to go back 500 feet or 10,000 feet.

[2:13:24] They have to meet certain hydraulic conditions

[2:13:26] that we require in our system.

[2:13:30] Skate upgrades, that's continuous, that's skate computers.

[2:13:34] Just to give you an idea, one of these computers at one of our plants,

[2:13:37] you're probably looking at about $15,000 for the computer itself that doesn't

[2:13:41] include any outside. Every site I have from water tanks, listations, anything

[2:13:46] like that, they have some type of skated there. It may not be a computer, but it's

[2:13:50] skated. It's antennas that's moving this information around. Renovate and

[2:13:56] replace PP and V. So what that is pumps, pipes and valves. So this is the money

[2:14:02] that we will that we've put in this fund over the last five years to renovate

[2:14:07] Devon Road pump station. Again, this pump station has been in since about 1975, it's

[2:14:13] seen its useful life. It's time to upgrade it. So sports road water treatment

[2:14:19] explains and you can see we'll start designing that, not this budget year, but

[2:14:23] next budget year, and we've got that pushed out. Again, we need to see how the

[2:14:27] system reacts to this new plant. I'm not saying our engineers aren't the smartest

[2:14:31] people in the world and they are but it all changes once at histograms so we

[2:14:37] want a year to see how the system reacts to see how it reacts selling

[2:14:41] mocks for a million gallons of water a day we need we really need to step back

[2:14:45] and just make sure that what we have said is right and then cooling the

[2:14:53] nutrient removal as you all know I know several of you have been on the board

[2:14:59] for me.

[2:15:02] I've had something in my budget for this for the last 10 years. I don't know when they're going to do it. It's in my permit. I know at some point they're going to come to me and they're going to say, you have to meet high-rock, neutral removal, come July. I don't know when that day's going to be. This has been an ongoing thing that this has been about. So we've got it in there. We're showing them that we're somewhat ready to move forward.

[2:15:29] with it, but you have to give us the limits to meet before we can decide what we do.

[2:15:36] And then Kool Me Clarifier Rebuilds, we're rebuilding one of those in this current budget

[2:15:41] and we'll be rebuilding one out in about 2048.

[2:15:46] Any questions on any of this?

[2:15:47] I know I'm kind of going fast and don't want information, so.

[2:15:51] I have a question, Mr. Lambert.

[2:15:53] I think you, at least maybe I didn't hear.

[2:15:56] I think you jumped over the demolition of the cool me water treatment plant.

[2:16:01] Yes.

[2:16:01] From a liability standpoint, what is the rationale for not doing that for six years?

[2:16:07] So what we've done is we have this currently in the project as an ad alternate and that

[2:16:13] was the price that come back, but this area is fenced in and for a liability purpose will

[2:16:20] probably move that back. But we want to make sure that everything is in okay with the with the

[2:16:28] new plant and we've got a solid foundation before we start tomorrow.

[2:16:36] There's been some some questions

[2:16:39] about what do we do with it? There's been some questions about who gets what? So there's a lot of

[2:16:48] history in that plan. There's a lot of things that people want. So we have to

[2:16:54] decide as a county is, you know, we're going to have to remove asbestos. We're

[2:16:58] going to have to remove the leads. We're going to have to move a lot of pumps and

[2:17:02] motors. But mainly Terry, this is just a concrete structure that we're going to

[2:17:06] remove that not the top or foot off.

[2:17:13] Like I say, I'm just looking at it from six

[2:17:15] years of a building standing there. Yeah. Nothing good. And that probably will come

[2:17:20] closer again we set our rates on this so I'm trying to keep that rate low. I'm trying

[2:17:30] to keep that so if we have to push that out until we get some of these other projects

[2:17:34] that we have to do done. Okay. We will.

[2:17:40] Anything else? Any more questions on that?

[2:17:45] So let's

[2:17:46] talk about that. Rate increases. So this year our rate increase will be 5%. As you can

[2:17:53] see in the top, given how much operation maintenance and capital calls have risen, these

[2:17:59] rate increases are still lower than what we are seeing in industry and in North Carolina.

[2:18:04] That is not for me.

[2:18:05] That is from Elaine from Raft Ellis when we're going back and forth in some emails and I'm

[2:18:11] questioning some of this, I'm asking her, what are we seeing, what are we doing?

[2:18:17] She's telling me we're going to see a lot of double digit increases in water and sewer this

[2:18:20] year.

[2:18:21] I know some of our local town of Moxville, they did a double-digit increase last year.

[2:18:30] I have not asked them about their increase yet.

[2:18:32] We're still early on, but I'm going to say that you're going to see a lot of utilities

[2:18:37] in the state of North Carolina with water and sewer rates 10% above the island choice.

[2:18:43] We're seeing prices four times in the amount that we've seen two years ago.

[2:18:49] last year we had a reduction in our budget. This year we're going to stay flat, we're just a little above that, we're going to have some cost increases.

[2:19:00] We're doing some things, we're working with partners to try to save some money to try to do some different things for a couple of years to see how this goes but we're seeing prices increase quite dramatically from chemicals,

[2:19:14] Arx pipes, just everything, so we're looking at a 5% increase across the world.

[2:19:25] February 1st, again, utility looking at revenues,

[2:19:31] Maxwell will be put in an additional 350,000 gallons a day in sewer into the

[2:19:37] Columbia wastewater treatment plant. So that will take them roughly around 600,000

[2:19:42] gallons a day. They're contracted for $750,000 a day.

[2:19:50] We will begin selling them water.

[2:19:53] They have a bulk rate for water that's currently about $4.20 or $1,000 a gallon.

[2:20:04] So those

[2:20:04] revenues will come back to help us pay for a lot of this debt service that we have on that

[2:20:17] good thing for you all to stand up and be able to take credit for because doing small

[2:20:23] rate increases of the two and three percent over the years has allowed you to stay well

[2:20:29] below the national and state average of the rate increase. So take all the credit in the

[2:20:36] world for that because you've done a great job of being able to keep those smaller increases

[2:20:40] through the years to be able to be where you are now.

[2:20:43] Do

[2:20:47] they have any questions?

[2:20:48] Do they have anything for Johnny?

[2:20:55] Thank you, sir.

[2:20:56] Thank you all.

[2:20:56] Thank you, sir.

[2:20:59] Okay.

[2:21:00] So we are ahead of schedule.

[2:21:02] It is time for what we had scheduled for a lunch break and our lunch is here.

[2:21:08] I did was not aware what we do have a couple commissioners that need to get out earlier this afternoon.

[2:21:14] But I'm going to be really transparent.

[2:21:16] I want to run to the senior center fair for just a moment.

[2:21:19] So, um, I would like to say 30 minutes, but I think we better do 45, so we'll still be ahead of schedule.

[2:21:28] So, um, is that going to mess up Rodney, Joseph, Cameron, is that going to mess you all up if I do all that?

[2:21:36] Okay.

[2:21:37] So, let's say we'll be back here at 12.45.

[2:21:42] Okay.

[2:26:11] I mean,

[2:26:15] that would be my opinion since he was here at his appointed time.

[2:26:19] So let's go ahead with safe and healthy community first and then we'll circle back around.

[2:26:25] We'll ring you.

[2:26:26] Hey,

[2:26:42] you're out.

[2:26:43] Good afternoon.

[2:26:45] The first thing I just wanted to say is we're looking or I'd like to add two additional telecommunicators

[2:26:52] to help offset the peak time,

[2:26:55] SIS primary call-taking,

[2:26:57] SIS on on-scene tack channels.

[2:26:59] We are requested now to monitor

[2:27:02] the on-scene channels more and more.

[2:27:05] That is a safety aspect.

[2:27:06] It is a, let's say a best safety practice,

[2:27:11] so to speak, to have your communication centers

[2:27:14] monitor and that.

[2:27:16] And I'd like to put in a dedicated training coordinator

[2:27:18] to ensure consistent training, up-to-date training,

[2:27:22] and then to help staff develop throughout specific goals.

[2:27:28] Those are kind of the three positions that I'm requesting this year.

[2:27:34] And the next thing I want to kind of talk about,

[2:27:36] you kind of can join with this, is priority dispatch,

[2:27:40] AI skills lab specifically for training.

[2:27:44] Now this is from, this is eligible for the E-901 fund,

[2:27:48] So it doesn't come out of the general budget, but I wanted to bring this up.

[2:27:52] I've got to play with this tool a little bit.

[2:27:54] Some of the surrounding counties, Wilts County uses this.

[2:27:57] This is phenomenal.

[2:27:58] This is kind of a tool that we can use to replicate real call scenarios for

[2:28:03] practicing.

[2:28:05] It is very neat.

[2:28:07] It brings up.

[2:28:08] We could program it to actually do a type of call.

[2:28:11] So for example, someone's having chest pains.

[2:28:13] It's a real collar.

[2:28:14] If the telecommunicator asks a question more than once,

[2:28:18] It will be like a real person.

[2:28:19] You've already asked me that one time.

[2:28:21] It is very neat.

[2:28:23] It is something our new telecommunicators, as they are getting certified, would benefit

[2:28:28] tremendously on this right now, it's just kind of us sitting down with them, coming up with

[2:28:32] scenarios in our heads, practicing those type of calls.

[2:28:36] But this is something that is self-generated through AI.

[2:28:40] They can sit down with the headset on.

[2:28:42] It will plug in real-type call scenarios.

[2:28:44] You can change it to a male collar, female collar, difficult accident, to give them some real-life

[2:28:51] Availability and that actually comes from the eat and I want fun through state fundings

[2:28:55] And then I like to outsource our

[2:28:59] QPR

[2:29:01] To get our quality assurance for our fire and police calls. We've been doing this with medical

[2:29:06] Since about October of last year. We've gotten great feedback on this. This is a third party that pulls

[2:29:14] our calls, medical calls, they QAIM, it is completely neutral, it is an independent person,

[2:29:21] they send the scores back about how well the telecommunicator did and what they need

[2:29:24] to do corrections on, and then we as a staff address that directly as, so a training person

[2:29:30] would kind of take over this duty to get this information back to the staff, they can pull

[2:29:35] out what they're struggling on, maybe it's their flow through the call protocol to work

[2:29:41] on that and so this would be something that we would get from that and that's that's kind

[2:29:47] of what I'm going to put in here. Try to keep it short, sweet.

[2:29:52] what's your cost on the ASK heels?

[2:30:00] And the outsourcing, the QBR. The outsourcing is going to be about, I think, five to six in general. And then the AI source is going to be around three, if I remember off the top of my head from the quotes I got. The 3000 a year. Yes.

[2:30:19] And it would be a locked-end or that situation. I can get those definitive quotes later on when I got those back. I thought that I was looking for JD.

[2:30:30] I thought that the system that Steve Jarros got for JD could do that.

[2:30:39] We've not discussed that.

[2:30:41] Are you talking about the flock system?

[2:30:44] No, his.

[2:30:46] Okay.

[2:30:47] Yeah.

[2:30:48] Oh, no, that's, I think that's more for specific field law enforcement use.

[2:30:53] Now, I would be happy to talk to JD to see if that would be something we could incorporate on that.

[2:30:58] Absolutely.

[2:30:59] Yeah, I'll definitely follow up with him on that. I mean, I've been through his virtual thing and it is neat.

[2:31:07] Because I know it has a lot of the quality that you're mentioning.

[2:31:13] Anybody else?

[2:31:16] How much, I mean, approximately what's the position that you're asking for?

[2:31:21] You don't have to go into fringes and stuff because we...

[2:31:24] No, so I do know that I would be asking for two entry level telecommunicators, which would be about 36 the entry level as well

[2:31:32] we start out now at that scale. The training person probably would be an internal, we'd have to look at a step or a grade of what that would be once we get to that process, but I know the two TCs would be an entry level position.

[2:31:46] But would that be three total positions or just two?

[2:31:50] Well, two to start out with and then based on what an internal then yes it could develop

[2:31:56] into a third to replace that.

[2:32:00] Don't you already have someone who has the title of training officer?

[2:32:04] Well it's a supervisor so they perform two functions, they supervise a shift plus they try

[2:32:09] to coordinate our training and what I'm trying to do is separate those two to actually give

[2:32:14] them more dedication to the training and then the supervisor have more

[2:32:18] dedicating to actually own shifts.

[2:32:23] If that person who's already named that did not receive this position they

[2:32:27] would be entitled to a pay cut because their responsibilities were less

[2:32:32] incorrect.

[2:32:33] Uh, potentially.

[2:32:34] Yeah, that's something we'll have to review.

[2:32:45] I guess the only...

[2:32:46] The only...

[2:32:49] What would the...

[2:32:50] What would the dedicated training coordinator

[2:32:53] to bring the process that would bring more value than the use of the AI.

[2:33:03] Well, somebody would still have to kind of oversee the AI input of what we need to focus

[2:33:09] on in those skills, build that data in there, that program to set that up, and that person

[2:33:14] would be responsible for department-wide skill labs, or department-wide use, or individuals

[2:33:21] us that come back when we do our quality control to see if there's an individual that is lacking

[2:33:26] in a certain, that person would be the sole dedicated person to range that training specifically

[2:33:30] for them through the skills lab.

[2:33:46] They would just really basically be sharing some of this outsourcing

[2:33:51] with your employees. Right.

[2:33:55] Taken the data we received from the outsourcing and then implement them.

[2:33:59] We still have to do the internal. We get the information on the outsourced, but we are the ones that

[2:34:03] still have to disseminate that directly to the staff.

[2:34:09] How is that being done now?

[2:34:11] Right now it's done between me and the supervisors.

[2:34:15] When we get this feedback, we give it to the staff.

[2:34:18] We review it with them on the calls.

[2:34:20] And then we go from there.

[2:34:22] The training person would be specifically dedicated

[2:34:24] to that reviewing and setting down 101

[2:34:27] within to make sure everything is processed out.

[2:34:34] Is that happening like on a daily basis?

[2:34:37] They're their cues are done weekly so we've received that data usually on a

[2:34:42] towards the end of the week and then we see if we have any non-compliance and

[2:34:46] the way to review those non-compliance is with the staff that they'll buy.

[2:34:57] Anyone else have anything for Rodden?

[2:35:02] Thank you sir.

[2:35:03] Yep.

[2:35:04] Thank you.

[2:35:06] Jason?

[2:35:18] I'm Jared and board thank you for opening this.

[2:35:24] Some of the stuff that we're looking at as part of personnel requests, we're looking

[2:35:29] at a new position for the community paramedic, which is going to go through and help support

[2:35:34] with the functions of the AMS, along with adding in the possibility of doing telehealth

[2:35:39] programs.

[2:35:41] Versailles County is actually going to partner with us and other AMS agencies on an app called

[2:35:47] Pulsera and it will give us that capability to do the telehealth when we go out to Dr.

[2:35:52] Barb, homes to do visits and everything, so there are several things that's going

[2:35:56] to go on with those.

[2:35:58] Future positions that we're looking at is looking at adding eight paramedics and five EMTs and

[2:36:04] with that breakdown of the four paramedics and two and four EMTs for the eastern side of

[2:36:09] the county.

[2:36:10] And then another four paramedics for a QRV if we go through and able to get something on

[2:36:14] at Northwest Corner, when a QRV, but that quick response to the people, be able to cut

[2:36:19] down on treatment times until a transport truck's able to come in. And then working along

[2:36:24] with the CHS, we're looking at work to come on an emergency medical transport, and that's

[2:36:31] the reason for the fifth EMT in there, to be able to transport, Medicaid, Medicare patients,

[2:36:37] two doctors offices that's not requiring an ambulance from the convalescent service.

[2:36:44] So the, that, when you say future, you mean how far into the future?

[2:36:52] I agree with Mr. Barnett when we had our discussions and all, we don't need to, we've

[2:36:56] got to have places to put people so when we go through and have places to put on, that's

[2:37:00] when we need to go through and really get those individuals out and in.

[2:37:04] So the eastern side, I mean the coal volume's increasing, we had 956 calls that just came

[2:37:08] out of David Medical Center on top of the regular calls that we're going through and having.

[2:37:12] so we'd need something over there but also I know that we're looking on that

[2:37:17] Northwest corner to add in the station five over there so we're trying to

[2:37:22] go through and prepare and get everything in line and so you all know that

[2:37:26] when we start making these steps then we know that that's the person mail that

[2:37:29] we need to go through and add. So that's your question. Like if we had if we had a

[2:37:35] building for the Northwest side then we'd probably be less future more immediate

[2:37:39] media being next year but not having a facility in place there's really not

[2:37:44] any direct need to budget for it until you cross that bridge. I know that's

[2:37:49] something that we've talked about and we don't want to not inform you of that

[2:37:55] same thing on the that me to run side as we see their development growing you

[2:38:03] you guys know a lot of a lot of households and facilities are going in over

[2:38:08] there. It's the matter of time.

[2:38:20] So, you're adding another community

[2:38:24] paramedic. We already have community paramedic. Yes, we're going to add an

[2:38:27] additional cause as we're trying to get through and restructure because I've

[2:38:33] got two, I've got two administrators that have recently retired or retiring and so

[2:38:40] we're trying to divide the workload out so we're looking at how to go through and

[2:38:43] structure and Greg has been vital in a lot of our growth and special in that

[2:38:48] community paramedic side. So we're wanting to go through and add some one LC on

[2:38:52] over there because of the growth of the program and looking at that

[2:38:56] restructure for. So we would have we've got Kathy and someone right now who

[2:39:03] just want to try to add an additional because if we do restructure and we move

[2:39:07] and have Greg involved and it's kind of hard to go through and have him doing a lot

[2:39:11] of the stuff that he's been doing with along with the rest of the day.

[2:39:22] Um really by adding that community paramedic we need to add a vehicle for that

[2:39:26] oncoming one um because of the going through with the workload that we've

[2:39:30] Greg still got a vehicle and then try to have the two working a day so one of them's

[2:39:34] actually be replacing him on some of those roles. Um so what about the two vehicles

[2:39:40] that that came off the road with your retirement? I've got one of them actually

[2:39:44] be in a supervisory vehicle right now. So that's what Andy's was. And then one for that

[2:39:50] branch guy, then what I'm looking at is some of the restructure that we're looking at because

[2:39:55] let me may or may not know that I'm retiring this year. So we're trying to go through and get

[2:40:00] positions and everything in line. We're looking at some of Mr. Barnett and the admin team has done some

[2:40:06] discussions on how we're going to restructure EMS. So if we're putting if we're able to put in

[2:40:11] someone in an assistant role in that vehicle would go to them. So all the vehicles

[2:40:17] were still accounted for and so that's that's kind of what we're doing out of

[2:40:21] there. So I didn't ask for a supervisor vehicle because we've already got

[2:40:24] that that's 2016 QRV that they're in. And so the tire I guess is the tire

[2:40:32] that's been supervisors have been driving. That's rotated to Logan. So because

[2:40:39] one he ended up on JD we ended up getting that one that was a 2013 equipment

[2:40:50] replaced what we're going through and looking at on this is we're looking at

[2:40:54] replacing some of the monitors I have six monitors that is at the end of life

[2:40:59] and the problem that we're running into is the new like pay 35s is the name of the model

[2:41:05] and everything they take different batteries different cables different pads so

[2:41:10] if I go through and start changing out the like current monitors that we have

[2:41:16] we're looking at the logistical I think we're going to be seeing the logistical

[2:41:19] problems I don't want some like showing up with the wrong monitor with the wrong

[2:41:23] setting cables and all that so we're looking at replacing all of them so that way

[2:41:27] we're all in compliance and we don't have those accidents or anything that comes

[2:41:30] up the life pack CR2 AEDs last year's budget was able to go through and purchase

[2:41:37] These are the AED's that's in all the public access buildings of the county.

[2:41:42] So what we're doing with those is that we get everything back up the standard

[2:41:46] and those were approaching end of life.

[2:41:49] So that puts it there.

[2:41:51] So we're looking at this, we're actually looking at different things

[2:41:54] whether doing a lease program over six years to pay for all this

[2:41:58] or we're not paying for them all at one time, coming out of it.

[2:42:03] Joseph, can I ask you a question about that?

[2:42:05] Do we? Is there any grant money available for those AEDs for like nonprofits, churches?

[2:42:16] Does that question make sense? It does. AED Supercenter or an AED, there's different ones that have the grants and everything out there.

[2:42:26] just I'm whenever they've got them running and applying for them, but there is different

[2:42:32] ones for non-profits and all.

[2:42:34] Does the nonprofit have to do that or do we do that as a county and then?

[2:42:39] Whoever's getting whoever's needing it would be the one doing the request for.

[2:42:43] Do you be the resource person that they would contact?

[2:42:47] They can reach out to me and I can help guide them on that.

[2:42:51] Because our church is really, we have a lot of smaller mid-sized churches out of it.

[2:42:56] We were at Calvary West this past weekend on this past Sunday, but you know, they have a lot of resources.

[2:43:03] We have a lot of churches in David County that don't necessarily have those resources, but they do need, they do need those.

[2:43:11] So good if we can use our skills to help them try to find those.

[2:43:22] That's not a problem. We can help with that.

[2:43:26] If you look in the other part of the equipment we have ventilators in there, whenever I came in in 22, in the 22, 23 budget was able to go through and get several ventilators, so we've gone on all the trucks.

[2:43:38] There to the point now that we need to start thinking ahead of how to go through and replace these because the ventilators we have have CPAP, so it helps a lot with the respiratory.

[2:43:49] It's cut down on a lot of the event skills that we've had to go through and do so now we're looking at trying to update them and get and stay with the right and the same service that we're already providing.

[2:43:59] The IV pumps with those are similar to what the hospitals have with their smaller.

[2:44:05] They're we're able to program on the medications that we need to go through and give by just hitting the button and say everything's pre-programmed so there won't be any mistakes as far as medical.

[2:44:15] stuff as far as medications being administered wrong or anything like that, so you're not

[2:44:19] going to give them too much or too little, so it goes by that, so that's something new

[2:44:24] that we're wanting to go through and add in to the agency.

[2:44:29] Technology, we're looking at safety.

[2:44:31] What we have now on the trucks is computers in the front with the big monitors that stick

[2:44:36] up, so sometimes it's hard to see the mirrors and all this other, and we've kind of watched

[2:44:39] with the fire department's done with Cameron in the Fire Marshal's office as well by using

[2:44:44] and the iPads so we're looking at being able to take and make it smaller and that's got

[2:44:49] the CAD terminal on it so they can check and route on the scene and see what they're needing

[2:44:52] to see.

[2:44:53] And then also putting the different iPads in the back of the truck so that wouldn't be mounted

[2:44:58] in stationary.

[2:44:59] the other one.

[2:45:00] We've able to go through and actually help as far as getting names and addresses correct on the first time by scanning the driver's license and all. So that's going to help with the billing company and as far as helping with the revenue because there's a lot of times misspelled names is the date of birth's wrong. Different things and sometimes it's by hitting the button's wrong, but this would actually be able to scan it and get it medications while scanning the meds that they have and be able to put into our reporting system. And I'm

[2:45:29] also help with the telemedicine part when we start going out like whether, like if

[2:45:34] it gets icy, that way we can actually call into the hospital. Doctors can see what's

[2:45:38] going on and also we've got different ways of moving the agency forward. The Dale Rugged

[2:45:44] Pro set up, this is what the community paramedic already is using because they've got, they're

[2:45:48] doing their computer and the truck as a desktop in their office and it stays with them and

[2:45:54] every week while the time.

[2:45:59] Any questions?

[2:46:02] I have a question on your out. Fleet, have you taken delivery of all the ambulances that

[2:46:07] we had back ordered that had been back ordered forever?

[2:46:10] No, well we've got the one we've got the one in remount right now.

[2:46:15] We have done a, a, we put in a letter of intent on three and those would become

[2:46:23] available this year. So that would give us three ambulances. We've been

[2:46:28] Mr. Barnett and the admin teams have been working on the plan to get through and get all that that's where to lay

[2:46:35] So if we've got our name in the hat for three

[2:46:40] Why is it not on here?

[2:46:43] There's part of them as part of the plans that we had had looking at getting those. I mean it was it's

[2:46:49] I can defer to Mr. Barnett

[2:46:52] Because they'd come in this year for us to consider

[2:46:57] We're taking delivery in 6.30.26

[2:46:59] with if they stay on schedule. Now that was one time that was October, one time

[2:47:05] that was in November, so we have to wait for those opportunities to come up. But

[2:47:10] we're hoping before this year's out, we'll have something in front of you.

[2:47:14] We'll just add them to the budget if they become available.

[2:47:18] By way of fun balance. And with ambulances, you might be another two years

[2:47:26] out before you can get back in the groove to get them. This would bring our fleet. We have

[2:47:33] several vehicles over 100,000 miles, right? We have some over 250,000 miles. Yeah, we've

[2:47:39] got two, so we've got two 68, two 18. Now, we've been lucky. We've only, I mean, we have issues with

[2:47:45] our vehicles. Anything mechanical. We don't have issues. We had one in an accident here recently,

[2:47:50] But our older vehicles are lasting, but lastly, I mean, we've had not this fiscal year but last fiscal year we had a situation transporting someone in a vehicle when it broke down.

[2:48:02] Luckily, it wasn't a major medical emergency, but we don't need that type of attention.

[2:48:08] We had that this year didn't we just have that recently have a

[2:48:12] truck there then what's the patient not with a patient okay patient what it was

[2:48:15] already dropped off yes okay so if it says 6 30 26 is that in I mean that

[2:48:23] date obviously is within the context of the current budget was that money

[2:48:28] allocated for those three during the current budget it wasn't allocated it was

[2:48:33] Because it was, we put in the request so that we could bring it to you so that we could

[2:48:39] get on the list.

[2:48:41] We don't want to miss out an opportunity if there's one available.

[2:48:45] This is why we build up fund balance and if we don't, I mean, I can tell you somebody

[2:48:49] else will jump in and take them.

[2:48:52] So what is the optimum number of ambulances here at the park?

[2:48:57] Right now, 12.

[2:48:57] because of the convalescent service and the 9-1 service so that the three

[2:49:03] that we spoke for would give us take care of the 16's that have the 278-268-218

[2:49:09] on the mileage now the 21's and all is already at 170,000 we need to go

[2:49:17] ahead and be speaking for the next round I've got a letter in already yeah we need

[2:49:22] We need to get on the list.

[2:49:28] Question about the retirements, the reorganization, I guess that's the right term.

[2:49:38] So when you go back and look at this new community paramedic, what does the reorganization

[2:49:47] along with the community paramedic look like as far as positions?

[2:49:51] Just one more position?

[2:49:52] right now with the community what we're looking at is the community

[2:49:55] paramedic program in the combo lessons service was following following with

[2:49:59] the specialty services division so that would be that that individual will be

[2:50:03] over the combo lesson and the community paramedic so you're taking you're taking

[2:50:08] two of the three parts of the EMS under one individual so with the other

[2:50:14] stuff coming up then you would still have the the director spot working in

[2:50:18] assistant, the director, and then somebody, as far as an office assistant,

[2:50:22] because when you take 20 years or more plus of experience, you can't put that

[2:50:27] on a brand new person and then go right into that same role so you've got to

[2:50:30] divide everything out.

[2:50:33] And most of the conversation that we've had

[2:50:35] about the reorganization would take place this year. If we can get everything

[2:50:40] administratively lined up which we've taken several important steps, we really

[2:50:45] hope to have more ready in February, you know, we could be looking as early or late March

[2:50:51] or April.

[2:50:55] I've gave Mr. Barnett a succession plan for myself so we, because as you all know, I've

[2:51:00] gave my heart and soul to this organization and I want it to be in good hands and make

[2:51:04] sure that the island took care of the board took care of, so we've got everything.

[2:51:08] So we've got a plan in place.

[2:51:10] I mean, everybody on the admin team knows how that's going to go through more.

[2:51:17] The truck that was in the accident, how bad was it damaged?

[2:51:21] The estimates are coming back anywhere from $25,000 to $5,000 to fix it.

[2:51:25] Is it still on the road? Did I have to come back?

[2:51:27] No, it could still be driven. I was just trying to get all the estimates and everything done.

[2:51:35] $5,000 to $25,000.

[2:51:37] From $2,500 to $5,000.

[2:51:39] Oh, okay.

[2:51:42] The bumper's paying for itself because that's those big bumpers on the front.

[2:51:52] Anything else for Joseph?

[2:51:57] I will ask this and I'm sure we'll see it that these equipment requests do you have a dollar figure of what those I've got a few of them the ventilators are around 7000 a piece the IV pumps are around 3000 a piece.

[2:52:19] So, I mean, that's the big things.

[2:52:22] The life pack monitors and the AEDs on the six years,

[2:52:26] I think we'd end up paying,

[2:52:29] let me find it, I get it right here, I'm sorry.

[2:52:37] With the monitors, with the finance and everything,

[2:52:39] would be $245,282 a year for six years.

[2:52:44] That would take care of all the monitors and all the AEDs,

[2:52:47] along with the services that come out

[2:52:49] and do the management of them and upgrades.

[2:52:52] You wouldn't have to buy monitors

[2:52:54] for about 15 years.

[2:52:56] Then you said the ventilators worked.

[2:52:58] What now?

[2:52:59] 7,000.

[2:53:00] 7,000 times.

[2:53:02] One per truck?

[2:53:03] One per truck.

[2:53:04] 7,000 times 12.

[2:53:06] I've got it right here.

[2:53:13] The monitors are about 60,

[2:53:15] 61, 62 piece.

[2:53:17] The ventilators,

[2:53:19] total of all of it together,

[2:53:20] is going to be about 94,

[2:53:22] because that's about,

[2:53:22] I thought it was 70, 76,

[2:53:24] somewhere up in there.

[2:53:25] and then for the IV pumps will be about 36,000.

[2:53:33] As you can see, the truck itself isn't cheap

[2:53:36] and there's nothing cheap in the truck.

[2:53:39] Well, that's because it's critical.

[2:53:42] And it has to be available so they know that.

[2:53:45] So they can charge us whatever they want to charge us.

[2:53:47] But we have to have it.

[2:53:48] So thank

[2:53:53] you.

[2:53:54] I think you're very much.

[2:54:02] Marshall Webb.

[2:54:03] Happy

[2:54:09] new board.

[2:54:12] How are you, sir?

[2:54:13] I'm well busy.

[2:54:15] Yes.

[2:54:15] So as far as state or federal changes that are going to impact the Fire

[2:54:19] Mortals Office, it's been brought to you guys attention earlier this year.

[2:54:23] The 2024 FireCode has been published. We are not allowed to use it as of right

[2:54:28] now. Chief State Fire Martial has not signed off on the use of it so now my group

[2:54:33] is taking the time and going to the trainings. I think our next trend is probably

[2:54:37] going to be April 16th. We'll be going through a code of vision changes on things

[2:54:42] we can expect. Why is that a big impact? It's going to make us a lot busier. We've been told

[2:54:48] there's things like food truck regulations. We'll be having to check those probably annually or

[2:54:56] depending on where they lie with inter jurisdiction so we could have some folks coming from.

[2:54:59] Winston-Salem over to the Davey County, ARC. I know we have food truck week, things like that. So

[2:55:07] trying to make sure that we're staying on top of that is going to be big so that we regulate the

[2:55:11] code the correct way and don't use old technology or old information to enforce the code by law.

[2:55:18] Administrative code is going to be the same way. We don't anticipate very many changes with it,

[2:55:22] but I'm sure there'll be something in there. There's just some of the things that we're going to

[2:55:27] have to be looking at doing. Plans of view may take us a little bit longer to get through or just

[2:55:31] some of the key points there. Take away.

[2:55:36] So my personal request, again I'm coming back to you

[2:55:39] request full-time squad personnel. This is just to get another full-time staff member currently.

[2:55:45] Our model is we're back staffing with part-time. And that was doing well for a while, but the

[2:55:51] problem we run into now is a lot of the bigger municipal areas are paying a lot of overtime and for

[2:55:56] what they come in. We're competitive with pay. I don't disagree with that at all. We're right there

[2:56:01] with the rest of the fire departments here in the county, but when they can stay at their full-time

[2:56:04] job and make $1,000 working a 24-hour shift. It is their full-time job, especially to get callbacks.

[2:56:11] So if we could keep that two-in-two out, that safety method when we reach the far ground with

[2:56:16] the associated fire chiefs and jurisdictions, I'd really appreciate the support there.

[2:56:22] Yeah, and then also the investigations and emergency management operation. The other full-time

[2:56:26] person would allow me to increase staffing during emergency operations, as you know, we're probably

[2:56:33] going to be looking in the head into that this weekend and another full-time person

[2:56:36] who would help me out.

[2:56:39] Can you make sure you got that full, I'm sorry.

[2:56:41] If you got that full-time position then your part-time positions would really only be

[2:56:46] if you had a full-time or out or would you still have a regular rotating spot for a part-timer.

[2:56:53] So I'm happy to report that Scott 81 just recently went its 10-year anniversary

[2:56:57] and when myself and Lana got hired we worked different or 10-hour shifts.

[2:57:02] So, Monday and Friday's would be available before time.

[2:57:05] Okay.

[2:57:06] Unless the board or Mr. Barnett requested a different schedule.

[2:57:09] Okay.

[2:57:10] Thank you.

[2:57:11] Yep.

[2:57:11] Admin support.

[2:57:12] We put in for this last year.

[2:57:14] Again, I still see a huge need in it.

[2:57:17] I'm not going to say or say that I necessarily do two full-time jobs of one person, but the duties

[2:57:22] of both have become a lot.

[2:57:25] There's been some things put on my plate and I take those very seriously and I want to stay

[2:57:30] on top of them.

[2:57:30] I couldn't do it without supporting my staff and the staff here at Second Floor, IT, and all my other colleagues.

[2:57:37] But I'm invited to be there all the time when I need to be away from the office, answering phone, scheduling fire inspections.

[2:57:45] Those things are getting done, but we have missed a couple of opportunities here recently where we just, we weren't there.

[2:57:53] I also think that position would be beneficial to all of our fire departments in the county,

[2:57:58] because that person may be able to keep them informed of things they might miss

[2:58:02] because a lot of our chiefs work other jobs. I think you could definitely be a

[2:58:07] robust you know what that looks like definitely communication between myself

[2:58:11] and the fire chiefs things that I'm not able to send out immediately I could

[2:58:15] definitely have that information related to this person and again having that

[2:58:19] constant person there in the office you know they're running calls no

[2:58:23] investigations no firefighting duties it's not say we might not hire a person like

[2:58:27] that, but Mayor with Munis for Mayor with our works, our RMS and the inspection process.

[2:58:38] Capital requests, you know, some of these are a little bit redundant. I think the biggest

[2:58:42] one Brad hit on it earlier with his is the building for FMEM storage. I know there's been

[2:58:48] a lot of names put on this and I know there's been some questions for folks that are, you

[2:58:53] know, talking with me about it here and there. I think this is a huge need and I think

[2:58:58] this it was built yesterday could be a place where people go, people know where to go if we're

[2:59:06] bringing resources in it's big enough to house folks it's big enough for anything that we're

[2:59:12] going to need it for. We're structuring not around Hurricane Helene but here again we're getting

[2:59:18] ready to have a you know another significant event that may impact our county and people need a

[2:59:22] place to go we need to stand along the EOC currently we share our EOC with Joseph as a training

[2:59:28] facility as well as our EOC and we do make it work but in a very, very long time ago but I think

[2:59:35] it is time to start thinking about how we get some of these free things where we're going to

[2:59:39] store them and again this isn't amazing if county folks colleagues I've talked everybody who's got

[2:59:45] a storage need will help facilitate that the best that we can and I know there's been I know there's

[2:59:52] been a question just regarding you know an all inclusive building why do we need sleeping quarters

[2:59:58] or stand alone.

[3:00:00] You see, versus a training room, go to any county and a lot of their EOCs are flipped, which

[3:00:06] ready? We turn on the switch, we turn on the lights, we get our IT folks in, data rooms, breakout

[3:00:11] rooms, able to have conversations privately, versus out in the open with the rest of the EOC

[3:00:17] staff, just a huge need. Orge, I think it speaks for itself, there's just a lot of things

[3:00:22] we've kind of had to turn away here lately. I've got about 12 trailers set outside right

[3:00:26] now and have been for a very long time. And those cost impacts a lot or tires. When it gets hot,

[3:00:32] they start melting, they start degrading and we have to replace them.

[3:00:38] Airpacks, a lot of these things are right here going into the firefighting component.

[3:00:42] Airpacks are 10 years old. We've got a little bit of life left in them, but I definitely want

[3:00:46] everyone to start thinking about what that looks like. An airpack, if you were about just alone,

[3:00:50] They're about $15,000 and we're not looking at anything extraordinary just the basic firefighting stuff

[3:00:56] So bottle filling station. I'm happy that we have one currently

[3:01:01] But I did get it on a donation are very limited calls to the county when we got ours

[3:01:07] Just getting close time from the placement on it

[3:01:11] Radio's

[3:01:12] It is just building upon kind of a plan that I brought before you before

[3:01:17] I'm very close contact with Tony and Nathan about these radio

[3:01:20] and what we're going to do for the future.

[3:01:23] Starlink Kit, Tony has built a very robust Starlink Kit

[3:01:26] in the Portland Reggiers meetings.

[3:01:28] I've asked it if they want to build one for themselves.

[3:01:30] Definitely reach out to Tony.

[3:01:32] We have played with ours, and we've got ours up in the air,

[3:01:35] and got it connected, and he has built a very, very good

[3:01:38] robust system.

[3:01:41] Two new FM trucks.

[3:01:42] So I know trucks are a big need.

[3:01:44] With inspections come more wear and tear, especially

[3:01:47] with all the inspections that we are doing

[3:01:49] and the places that my guys are having to go.

[3:01:51] Currently we have a 2011 and a 2014 Chevrolet truck,

[3:01:55] I believe, and we got those kind of second hand

[3:01:59] from Brad, they fit the need,

[3:02:03] but they are getting some high mileage on them,

[3:02:05] and we are having to do some replacement on that.

[3:02:16] I think that's it.

[3:02:17] Yeah.

[3:02:18] Anybody have any questions for Cameron?

[3:02:20] I do.

[3:02:22] If you were just going to step one,

[3:02:26] get a storage facility for all your equipment. How many feet would you need?

[3:02:31] I would still shoot for that 50,000 square feet, 28-foot tall, high rack storage,

[3:02:36] and then a place in the middle to where you know ultimately we could put our trailers and things

[3:02:41] like that and

[3:02:49] then the old hospital ground is where I would project it to go. We already own that

[3:02:53] property.

[3:02:59] Anyway I want to put you on the spot just a tiny bit can you really quickly tell us some

[3:03:07] of the things you've done this week to prepare for this weekend because I know you've been

[3:03:11] We're adding some resources out.

[3:03:12] Why do you get several other people up here?

[3:03:15] If I'm missing anything, just a brief.

[3:03:18] There's been a lot of planning.

[3:03:19] There's been a lot of wood ifs.

[3:03:20] I think our county, our leadership, colleagues sitting here in the audience, fire department

[3:03:24] personnel.

[3:03:25] We've all been trying to figure out what direction to take.

[3:03:28] I know right now there's a lot of screaming on Facebook about us not doing anything, but I

[3:03:32] can assure you guys that everybody sitting in this room has got anything to do with anything

[3:03:36] in this county is doing just that.

[3:03:39] We are preparing, I've talked with Suzanne, I've talked with Mr. Barnett, you know,

[3:03:44] Joseph's the same way. Fire departments are preparing an upstaff and I think

[3:03:47] that's going to be a big thing. Joseph's upstaffing, I'm upstaffing, you know,

[3:03:51] this weekend. Upstaffing, getting resources here. We've put in for several resources,

[3:03:57] resource requests. We've gotten all of those best of my knowledge. I do need to

[3:04:02] check Web BoC for a couple of them. We are monitoring and checking the weather

[3:04:08] They're constantly, people are calling me constantly, checking on those things.

[3:04:12] We're looking at how we're going to be resilient through all this.

[3:04:15] Power outage is a big thing right now.

[3:04:17] Sheltering is a big topic right now, and we are working through all this process.

[3:04:21] So, Sheltering Resource Request and just keeping everybody who needs to be up up to date right

[3:04:25] now.

[3:04:26] We're also communicating with our municipal, so most of them have most of the data information

[3:04:29] as well as how we're preparing.

[3:04:32] I know that you've taken some cuts and things like that to our fire department, so if they have to have overnight,

[3:04:40] they lay their head down for a second and things like that.

[3:04:43] So for the fire department said no, have sleeping quarters, we have tried to facilitate that.

[3:04:47] We are trying to keep some things in because at the end of the day, we have to kind of get everybody taking care of.

[3:04:54] So, but we have been able to fulfill all those requests.

[3:04:56] I'll be working in the very near future with Susanne about, you know, what that looks

[3:05:00] like over at the government center, and then we're preparing for other things as well.

[3:05:05] Okay.

[3:05:06] Thank you.

[3:05:06] I had real quick that public utilities, general services, and 911 are all already in talks

[3:05:14] of having additional staff here over the weekend in place, just in case any of their roles

[3:05:21] need to be expanded.

[3:05:23] Absolutely.

[3:05:23] and we are very grateful for all of you for doing that. Hopefully, hopefully we're over

[3:05:30] over prepared. I hope so. Thank you, yes. Thank you.

[3:05:38] Ms. Suzanne.

[3:05:48] I saw a few slides earlier

[3:05:51] that said I do not anticipate any major changes. I can't say that. I know what our major changes

[3:05:58] are because we don't have a state budget or any clear guidance yet on what the future is

[3:06:03] going to look like. The three things that I do know for sure are up on your screen. It's

[3:06:08] the impact that it says, the food nutrition services. For about the past 50 years, the

[3:06:15] federal government's paid 50% of our employees salary and fringe. But that's changing effective

[3:06:22] October of 2026. So they're asking us to pick up an additional 25% of that cost. So we would

[3:06:29] be paying 75% of our salary and fringe for seven staff members working in food and nutrition

[3:06:35] services. That's about $187,000 or just a little over. And then for domestic violence,

[3:06:42] our Davies Center for Violence Prevention got noticed that our VOCA grant was also reduced

[3:06:47] by about $13,000. And this time for the first time I believe they're requiring $11,000

[3:06:53] county match. And then senior services got notified that PTRC is cutting their

[3:07:00] funds by about $8,000. We run about 190 meals a day for probably 350 plus days

[3:07:08] out of the year. And our contract is up for renewal and the meal costs have gone

[3:07:15] up by a dollar. So if you factor that in with mileage and everything we're looking at

[3:07:20] about an additional $78,000.

[3:07:24] I do have a couple of wild car situations.

[3:07:26] We don't know how this is going to impact us in the future,

[3:07:29] but it's impacting us now.

[3:07:31] You've probably heard that the state transition

[3:07:34] to healthy blue together or a tailored plan

[3:07:36] for children in foster care.

[3:07:39] You're going to hear it call a couple different things.

[3:07:41] But in the past, we worked with partners' health management,

[3:07:45] and they've been able to work with us in two to three days

[3:07:47] time frame to get children placed timely. Right now with the new state plan is a minimum of eight

[3:07:54] days turnaround which means everything that happens in that eight days is county cost up front

[3:07:59] but they're under contract to pay us back but we've just not seen it yet but I feel like they're

[3:08:05] under contract so it's supposed to come back to us. The second piece of this is there's a current funding

[3:08:12] freeze on one of our codes to get reimbursement from the state. Unlike on the

[3:08:17] health side we have stop-work orders. So if there's a funding issue they will

[3:08:23] issue a stop-work order. When you can't issue a stop-work order for child welfare

[3:08:27] so they just put a freeze on the code that you use to receive reimbursement

[3:08:33] for your services. That's an additional county cost. And until the state budget

[3:08:37] approved, I think that's going to continue. You'll see a lot more expenses for DSS right now,

[3:08:44] but hopefully that will be remedied once the budget is approved. And so finally, basically,

[3:08:50] we're just asking to maintain our approved base budget from 2526, and we're only asking for an

[3:08:58] additional 25% for DSS. Brandon, I've looked at her budget. We think we can figure out how to cover

[3:09:05] the 13,000 but we're going to have to make sure that our current budget is

[3:09:10] maintained including the staffing levels because we had a staffing change and I

[3:09:15] think the offset and cost is going to help us cover that piece of it. I think

[3:09:19] we're covered there and senior services they got a sizable donation a few years

[3:09:25] ago for meals on wheels so I think we're going to figure out how to cover that

[3:09:29] cost the next couple of years our increased cost for a couple of years with that

[3:09:34] foundation money instead of having to ask for additional money from the county.

[3:09:44] If that doesn't work out, please do ask for that because that's something we

[3:09:48] definitely want to make sure is in place. Absolutely. We don't want our seniors

[3:09:52] to go without. Absolutely not. Brent and I have crunch numbers he and his

[3:09:55] team have crunch numbers and so I think we figured out a way to make this

[3:09:59] work.

[3:10:04] Anybody having questions or comments for

[3:10:06] Susan.

[3:10:09] Thank you. Thank you.

[3:10:13] Sheriff you

[3:10:24] can go ahead to the next one, ma'am. That looks

[3:10:29] different than it did when I made it. Thank you all for opportunity to speak. I think the first

[3:10:37] slide is just showing you very quickly what our preliminary numbers look like in the three primary

[3:10:44] categories you usually see from us. 26,141 piles answered, which was a slight drop.

[3:10:53] In actual cases open, criminal cases, 3400, which was a slight drop, but the numbers

[3:11:00] arrested and booked into our detention center went up slightly.

[3:11:05] Again, preliminary numbers.

[3:11:09] So what are my budget pressures for the coming year?

[3:11:11] here. You have actually seen this slide last two years. I just use it again because it's

[3:11:18] the exact same budget pressure has over the last couple of years. Personnel cost is directly

[3:11:25] related to recruitment, retention, and office performance. There still is a major move to

[3:11:34] recruit from each other, agencies recruiting, etc., agencies offering incentives, etc., to

[3:11:43] recruit salaries going up has become a very competitive market and that continues. That is not

[3:11:51] changed.

[3:11:54] Biggest operational problem for us in the future is the general operational cost

[3:12:00] increases. I think you've heard that all day today. It costs continue to go up

[3:12:05] for everything. Vendors are moving to different pay models for my world and I

[3:12:14] think a lot of your other agencies here or other departments. It's moving to a

[3:12:19] lease product. You can't purchase anymore. You can only lease. An example of that is

[3:12:25] tasers. Axion, who is the company that owns taser now, they have moved to a solely lease

[3:12:33] model. You can not buy taser. The last time we upgraded any of our tasers, we bought

[3:12:40] refurbished. But what Axion has done in their model over the last couple years is you have

[3:12:47] to turn everything in when you sign new contracts with them. So they've eliminated the used

[3:12:54] to market there's nothing out there any more to get parts or used ones or repairs on what

[3:13:01] you have so I think not in this budget but just as an example when we go back and have

[3:13:09] to read do tasers or upgrade our tasers again I won't have a choice but to go to their lease

[3:13:15] model and then I'm trapped by them from now on. That's where we're going to take tasers away from

[3:13:20] officers, and I don't envision doing that.

[3:13:24] And then of course, as we've been talking about for several years, the detention center

[3:13:30] is a budget impact.

[3:13:33] And it's a major budget impact all the way around from capital to just daily operational

[3:13:39] costs.

[3:13:40] That has not changed, ma'am.

[3:13:45] So can I say something?

[3:13:47] Absolutely.

[3:13:47] And in discussion with a couple of other of our commissioners, you know, we're talking

[3:13:58] about the pod, the pod, $8 million, Brad brings forward an employee.

[3:14:08] We know very well that, and I don't even say it on streaming that somebody's going to

[3:14:15] at some point, and make comment. Now, my whole point throughout this process has

[3:14:21] been that the taxpayers of Davie County are not going to accept the tax

[3:14:25] increase to build a jail, okay? I don't disagree with you. And I know you don't,

[3:14:30] but here's what I would say to those including us on this day. If we can find a

[3:14:37] creative way to build what we know we're going to have to do without

[3:14:42] without piece milling this thing, and I know you've said this for years and so have

[3:14:48] others. We probably need to start that discussion, but I can tell you if that

[3:14:55] discussion will not be within the context of tax increases

[3:15:00] Do it. We'll not be, we'll be kind of a non start, we'll be a non starter, but I just believe if we can find dollars to piecemeal, we should be able to find dollars maybe to put this thing together. We won't, we won't have this discussion between, we won't have a solution between now and end of the month, but I really would like for those of us that seem to be able to find money in some way shape or form to do necessity.

[3:15:29] to begin the discussion, to find this money.

[3:15:34] So we don't have to keep piece milling this thing together.

[3:15:39] And I don't know if that's, it is, obviously,

[3:15:42] you agree with 100% of what I just said.

[3:15:44] But I just want to put that on the record,

[3:15:47] say, hey, it's time for us to begin to have discussion here

[3:15:51] within the context of what I just said.

[3:15:54] And that's one person, but so go ahead.

[3:15:59] I would say I would say Mr. Jones and I do agree with you. I would say that and I think

[3:16:08] I've told all of y'all this in public and in private conversation that one of my tasks

[3:16:14] is sheriff is to present to you what we are and that's what I'm doing. I think we're

[3:16:22] in that position just like you said at some point we're going to have to do something just

[3:16:26] What and how are we going to do it?

[3:16:29] Well, and I want to say this too, if the state legislature can find $90 million to build

[3:16:35] a jail in Cleveland County, they can help find money to build what you need here today.

[3:16:42] You would think they could.

[3:16:44] I do not.

[3:16:44] I'm not blaming that on our legislators.

[3:16:47] I'm just saying the system needs to focus, and not just Cleveland County, they've found

[3:16:52] funds.

[3:16:54] Oh yeah.

[3:16:54] Yeah.

[3:16:54] multiple counties and we'll take care of building schools. That's our job but

[3:17:00] we need you know Brent made the great point that you know this the justice

[3:17:05] system it runs all the way through the system from from from Davey County to

[3:17:12] Raleigh and there needs to be some coordination there to help us and I think we

[3:17:21] We all know with who we're streaming that we have worked those processes and asked

[3:17:28] for those funds and we have tried multiple times and multiple ways to get additional

[3:17:34] funding for a jail and have not been able to do that yet.

[3:17:39] Well, hopefully we will be able to figure that out and Mark has a great point because we

[3:17:43] are spending a lot of money keeping it going and piecing it together and trying to band

[3:17:49] they did together, but also, I think a point that the average citizen may not think about

[3:17:55] and that I do think about is the benefit that a new detention center would be for the

[3:18:03] employees who have to work there for their safety. That has to be taken into consideration

[3:18:11] to you because they, um, the conditions that they're having to deal with now, we sure

[3:18:18] do thank them for being there. Don't we share?

[3:18:20] I am blessed with great employees and I say this often, uh, that is the hardest job in

[3:18:27] this county unless you've worked out there and been out there and stayed out there.

[3:18:36] You have

[3:18:37] I agree with Mark. We definitely need to hopefully find some solutions to this man.

[3:18:45] One comment and one question. Yes, ma'am. Oh, sorry, excuse me. Yeah. I hope I don't look like a man.

[3:18:52] But anyway, to piggyback on what Mark said and I've said numerous times and we've talked

[3:19:00] about is that, you know, we know by statute you are deemed the head jailer. Right. But after you

[3:19:07] get past the statutory thing, you know, the whole criminal justice system and

[3:19:13] department of corrections and all these things are a state ran kind of

[3:19:18] entity including the court system to everything else and it seems like this

[3:19:25] is something that state money is ought to be helping to pay for. I won't go on and

[3:19:30] on about that. But the general statute says that you, the county, the county is

[3:19:37] responsible for building and maintaining a county jet and I I don't disagree with you. I just I know what you're saying. Yeah, because that you say one thing, but then it's kind of more of an unfunded mandate.

[3:19:49] But my budgetary logistical question is this we put eight million into a pod and I think you and Brad described that it's not like it becomes obsolete.

[3:20:04] It can still have some it doesn't look like the pod thing not knocking that you're looking into it

[3:20:27] It doesn't look like the pod thing is gonna satisfy this thing for any foreseeable long term

[3:20:32] I don't believe so. No. And I'll give you an example of what what we're presenting or what we're

[3:20:38] showing you was just an option to look at.

[3:20:43] That's my responsibilities to give you all the options

[3:20:46] that might be out there or other ways or as you're talking about non-traditional ways in this term I

[3:20:54] use quite often to do this. But there are things in that number we're giving you that are

[3:21:02] not true cost. For example, a pod sits outside the current control system or even in a new jail

[3:21:11] if you still utilize that pod, it's going to sit outside of what you build and the control center

[3:21:18] and how that new facility would be built to manage inmates, which means there may be additional

[3:21:28] personnel needs, etc., that you wouldn't need with the new facility just because you're

[3:21:35] outside of how you would manage those inmates or control those particular inmates in that pod

[3:21:40] sitting over here by itself, so to speak.

[3:21:43] those are all things that are planning things if you decided to actually look

[3:21:49] at the pod thing or move forward with it to push the construction of the other

[3:21:54] part out on the road somewhere that we could find funds. Again I think Brad and

[3:22:01] Brad and I and my staff just are presenting you ideas and things as we move

[3:22:08] forward or look at these projects you know and you all know we have blue prints we had plans to go

[3:22:18] out and went back to my previous slide the cost of the world and what it cost to do things just

[3:22:28] just torpedoed that basically, so that's where we're at.

[3:22:35] So other things that might impact my budget coming up,

[3:22:42] I am subject to a lot of the unfunded mandates that you speak of,

[3:22:47] I mean, and things that implicate me.

[3:22:52] So in 2025 there were 1755 new laws or new bills presented

[3:22:59] it in the house and send it. Only 94 of those actually got elected in the law. Amazing

[3:23:05] isn't it? But 30 of those directly impact the sheriff's office.

[3:23:11] One of those, for example,

[3:23:13] is a separation allowance. I think that's a learning curve. I would say to y'all that

[3:23:21] 26, 27 are going to be really and truly learning years for us. And I think for the whole county

[3:23:28] I think just listening to some of your directors this morning talking about AI and technologies

[3:23:34] and those kinds of things, I think we're all in a new learning curve, so to speak, to

[3:23:40] see where we're going to end up and how those things might end up.

[3:23:43] Your point of statement you made this morning about staffing levels, I think all those things

[3:23:48] are a new learning curve for how technology can impact that, reduce that, or reduce costs

[3:23:55] for those types of things.

[3:24:01] Separation allowance changes the formula that's

[3:24:04] been in place for as long as I've been a law enforcement officer. It allows

[3:24:09] people to work longer and not retire which may impact your county's budgets,

[3:24:14] not just mine but the county budget overall, health insurance for example.

[3:24:21] That

[3:24:22] still remains to be seen how that's going to impact it okay.

[3:24:26] Aurena's low. I'm sure everybody's heard the discussions about that. It is a

[3:24:32] possibly going to be a nightmare. I don't intend to ask for any people.

[3:24:38] I had some captains that really pushed to ask for additional people but

[3:24:44] again my thought looking at it as a whole is it is a learning curve.

[3:24:50] I don't know how these things are going to impact it, or technologies we're looking at are going to impact it, and I need the time before I come to you and ask for additional people to know and have those facts in hand to show you that.

[3:25:07] Arrhena's law may impact us, I have no doubt it will impact us in December.

[3:25:15] Part of that law went into effect this past December, it is already causing us some heart

[3:25:22] aching heartburn, but this coming December, the second half of it goes into effect which

[3:25:29] which would require magistrates and judges if they have even an inkling or a thought that

[3:25:36] somebody might have a mental health issue or that kind of thing that before they can

[3:25:42] release them, etc., they have to be sent for mental health evaluation, yes, who gets

[3:25:48] to do all that, your deputies, they get to take them to the hospital, stay with them, do

[3:25:54] Without

[3:25:58] being there yet, just guessing what that's going to impact and listening to the

[3:26:05] criminal justice systems, rumor meals, so-to-speak, that may tremendously increase the amount

[3:26:13] of time and effort and funding that's going to be needed to handle that with deputies.

[3:26:20] So the other house bill that really may impact us is that illegal alien enforcement act.

[3:26:29] It basically just makes us spend a lot more time to check people, make sure they're legal,

[3:26:36] et cetera.

[3:26:37] And then requires us to bring them over to see magistrates and judges that we currently

[3:26:46] don't do.

[3:26:46] So, it's an impact of manpower and manhours, okay?

[3:26:51] That's an example.

[3:26:53] Administrative rule changes is another example of how we get impacted.

[3:26:58] I have on there sunrise and sunset, so out of the blue, this is just one example of

[3:27:04] what happens to us.

[3:27:07] The governing boards for law enforcement in the state decided to change the rule for qualifying

[3:27:14] with a handgun or weapons and they decided to use something, the nautical, whatever that the U.S.

[3:27:22] Naval Observatory discovers for sunset and we cannot qualify and we have to provide proof for

[3:27:31] everybody that qualifies that they followed that sunset rule based on the Naval Observatory.

[3:27:38] So, that changes when we can qualify for night fire.

[3:27:43] We can't qualify too late, so as that changes there are nights that we totally lose the

[3:27:49] ability to train somebody.

[3:27:52] Now have to also have a night, well they don't call it combat course anymore.

[3:27:58] They call it something else, but we have to do that at night now.

[3:28:02] That's required, which extends the amount of training you have to do at night.

[3:28:09] But yet, I'm limited to a time frame at night.

[3:28:12] So where you used to be able to qualify day and night in one afternoon even, now it's

[3:28:18] going to take two days, well, I got to pay people for two days, I got to pay instructors

[3:28:22] for two days.

[3:28:24] I still have to figure out the schedules to keep people working while these people are

[3:28:28] qualifying, et cetera. That impacts our budget. And that's an example of a non-funded mandate.

[3:28:41] That's really all I have. I'll be happy to answer or try to answer any questions you might have.

[3:28:48] Jeff, I want to go back to this detention center and the cost and some points that have been made.

[3:28:53] So,

[3:28:55] if we were in Fantasy World and had $40 million today to start building this facility,

[3:29:02] we could get it built in two years.

[3:29:04] Would we need the pod, or would you be self-contained in that $40 million design?

[3:29:14] If we're in Fantasy World and you can start today, he can go out to bed.

[3:29:19] I think actually we'd have to have our blue prints updated at this point, right?

[3:29:26] We've gone past the time where our blue prints are still good, so you'd need to update those.

[3:29:32] So you'd start that process, you'd probably look in that construction six months from now or going out to a bed if we have to do that.

[3:29:42] If you could do that, no, I don't think you need the pod.

[3:29:46] But during that two years, I'd still be functioning just like I am, having the house, people,

[3:29:53] other places, transport them, move them around.

[3:29:56] But that is kind of becoming...

[3:29:59] This is not just...

[3:30:00] This me, this is other sheriffs that are dealing with this, too. I just got an email or all the sheriffs got an email from the Bunkham County Sheriff. He needs to house 90 people somewhere. And he's looking for anybody that would give him bad space. It is a fight.

[3:30:21] My direct and wild called Gacken to ask them to house some males. They're only housing females for us. They told her no.

[3:30:29] We have not been able to find anybody that has extra bed space to house males because I'm over

[3:30:37] capacity now on both male and female. So that answered your question, sir. It does but if, again,

[3:30:46] if we were in fantasy world, and we would get an eight million dollar discount, so to speak,

[3:30:50] if we went ahead and didn't kick the can, I think that's something as a board we need to really think

[3:30:56] about because, you know, you capture, it was already been presented by Brad that we need

[3:31:02] an extra person basically to run, keep what we got with, you know, tape and bail and wire

[3:31:09] together. And, and that didn't count. That's just personnel cost. That didn't count all

[3:31:15] the operational costs and inefficiencies. So, again, you know, and as Commissioner Jones said,

[3:31:22] And, you know, no, we need less criminals.

[3:31:25] I think we can all agree with that,

[3:31:27] and nobody wants to spend their tax dollars

[3:31:28] to maintain this group.

[3:31:30] But, you know, that's the way it is.

[3:31:34] So, I am going to be in favor of looking at this sooner

[3:31:40] rather than later, just to capture some

[3:31:43] of these parents' savings, so.

[3:31:46] Okay.

[3:31:47] Sheriff Orbrad, either one question,

[3:31:49] And any kind of example is we're thinking through this of a major band-aid expense in the

[3:32:00] last few years that had to be done out there.

[3:32:05] Well,

[3:32:08] I'll get, there's one on your CIP right now, which is the grinder, the pump station.

[3:32:15] Right.

[3:32:19] Yeah, the smoke eight, how much was the smoke eight, that's the one I was trying to remember.

[3:32:24] We had through

[3:32:29] design and construction. They went in and found that the losers that were initially installed that we thought were

[3:32:35] sufficient the news on come back and replace those. They were horizontal instead of vertical

[3:32:41] And then we've also got the generator

[3:32:44] so that's

[3:32:46] 385 for that

[3:32:48] So in the last couple of years we spent me and looking at another meeting with pump station

[3:32:53] so

[3:32:55] anything else after those

[3:32:58] that may be jump out at you in the next two, three years that might be major. I

[3:33:03] don't know anything can happen at any time. Well, if we follow our pattern over the

[3:33:07] past 10 years, I will promise you before the end of this year something is going to

[3:33:12] break and when we go to fix it, we're going to find out that it is just yeah

[3:33:18] exactly. You're looking at probably holding at least 250,000 of jail

[3:33:25] That's it. If the cavalry was coming, we could maybe Bob and leave and maybe

[3:33:31] defer some of that. Maybe. I mean, you're not going to have a choice. Yeah. Yes.

[3:33:42] Anything else?

[3:33:45] Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Before you bring Tony back up and

[3:33:51] that's you want to bring Tony up because that's our last public safety. I do want to

[3:33:56] throw one more thing out there. This is some the chair and I've talked about

[3:33:58] earlier in the fall. We neglected to put on one of the slides but she

[3:34:02] We probably will see during the budget process, we had talked about looking into bringing in support services for public safety.

[3:34:09] Clinical services that they can use if they are in high stress or those hard to deal with situations that sometimes they run across.

[3:34:21] So I don't have any figures today, but I just wanted to just remind you of that that you may see it later in the budget process.

[3:34:29] Tony?

[3:34:42] Afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners.

[3:34:44] Hope you all are having a wonderful afternoon here

[3:34:47] before this weather sets in.

[3:34:51] So I'm Tony Scarlet, and I'm going to deliver our IT budget summary.

[3:34:58] So for technology, what's new?

[3:35:00] So our first bullet point is our cybersecurity and infrastructure.

[3:35:05] We have a couple of unfunded cybersecurity projects out there.

[3:35:09] initiatives that we like to move forward with. These would one particular initiative we have found would be quite useful towards making our staff more productive and during their day, which literally translates to man hours saved.

[3:35:32] We are also dealing with some end-of-life critical infrastructure reaching not only end-of-life,

[3:35:39] but end-of-support.

[3:35:41] And this is above and beyond our normal computer rotation program, which is a five-year program,

[3:35:47] where we rotate out older machines that are no longer supported, no longer secure,

[3:35:52] and we replace them with new machines.

[3:35:53] We have an increased demand for onsite support of our critical systems so we will be requesting

[3:36:05] a service vehicle this year to accommodate that.

[3:36:11] With our GIS mapping, our current GIS system, it lacks formal administration,

[3:36:22] it lacks the

[3:36:23] not having that formal administrator, it's putting that system at under risk.

[3:36:33] You would get the next slide.

[3:36:36] So we're actually going to ask for a GIS administrator, which would be an upgrade of our current GIS analyst.

[3:36:45] and I'll get down just a bit maybe into the weeds on this. Our prior CTO came up

[3:36:53] through the ranks of GIS. In the background he saw the need to bring in someone

[3:37:01] that he could train up an analyst. And in the background he was literally that

[3:37:08] GIS administrator long after he had taken a position of CTO. That was it. That

[3:37:14] was his, that was his forte and that's what he did, he did it well and God rest his soul,

[3:37:18] he was great.

[3:37:21] Now with the, with the volume that we have, this system has no formal administrator,

[3:37:28] no formal owner that can protect the data integrity updates to this system, upgrades to this system,

[3:37:38] one of which is happening today, as we speak, and with all of the access controls in place

[3:37:44] and helping to ferment that cross-departmental function and coordination.

[3:37:52] Because GIS, if you look at it, that's pretty critical to a lot of our departments,

[3:37:58] from 9-1-1 to development services. Our mapping, our folks out there

[3:38:05] in the Registered Deeds office, that's becoming more and more involved all the time and we

[3:38:12] foresee that, that just expanding. If we can get this GS administrator position, should

[3:38:20] the county itself grow to the point that it needs an analyst again on the back end, we

[3:38:25] can address that at that point. So one that basically is loading addresses

[3:38:32] that type of stuff in maps.

[3:38:36] We're also asking that our admin assistant be turned into a full-time position with our increased,

[3:38:44] we have increased vendor volume and procurement activity across all departments.

[3:38:49] The current role is insufficient to meet the workload demands and the accuracy that's required for that workload.

[3:39:00] This, currently, if, say, a phone call comes in in the afternoon, somebody just wants an update on a ticket.

[3:39:08] Well, we have to pull somebody off one of our more highly paid technical staff off of a project.

[3:39:15] And as you know, people generally don't multitask the contact shift.

[3:39:19] So this person has to go into this contact shifted mode.

[3:39:23] speak with this person, deal with this situation, what have you, that could have been dealt

[3:39:28] with at a much lower level, then the contact shift back to where they are.

[3:39:32] They've lost how much time trying to, you know, in that period of time doing the contact

[3:39:39] shifting.

[3:39:42] This position would greatly help with that first level, first touch, kind of support where

[3:39:50] somebody calls in, again, perhaps they're asking for an update on ticket or perhaps they

[3:39:54] need to be reminded that they should put in a ticket or they're just literally wanting

[3:40:01] an update on an issue that they're having and this person can actually read off the

[3:40:08] notes of that trouble ticket and let them know what's going on and it prevents a lot

[3:40:14] of that loss time from that.

[3:40:19] Marketing conditions right now.

[3:40:21] So generally in IT, we figure some more in the neighborhood of 7% to 10% year over your

[3:40:28] costs for hardware and software.

[3:40:30] That's just how pricing goes.

[3:40:34] Currently there are three main manufacturers of memory chips in the world.

[3:40:39] Two of them are dedicated purely to AI basically because they get 10X on their margin for

[3:40:44] AI is sucking up basically all the memory that's available out there.

[3:40:49] The consumer market still exists, so that has made an artificially high pricing for memory

[3:40:57] out there in the market, and just like a bell curve, eventually this will peak off because

[3:41:03] demand will eventually meet supply.

[3:41:06] Currently it's astronomical, but just like in most instances we've seen in the past, we'll

[3:41:12] encounter higher lows.

[3:41:14] once we reach that curve, start down the other side, we're not going to end up back where we were, we're going to end up a bit higher.

[3:41:21] AI is literally consuming all of the memory that's out there.

[3:41:28] In the past several months, I've seen RAM go from 100 bucks a stick, because 700 bucks a stick, and that's a drastic increase.

[3:41:38] So as a the specific impact as a result of that we have projected that this year we could see up to and perhaps even more than a 30% increase in the cost of our compute.

[3:41:54] And so that wraps up my presentation.

[3:42:01] And I would be glad to answer any questions you all may have.

[3:42:04] I have a question for you.

[3:42:07] On that cheery note, the GIS coordinator or manager and minister, thank you, is there,

[3:42:21] Mr. Gatty presented their mapping needs, is there, synergy here, is one person can do this

[3:42:29] for you and for the tax office, are they totally siloed?

[3:42:34] There is overlap there.

[3:42:37] There is definitely overlap and I realize they have a vendor that does their thing,

[3:42:45] but there's definitely overlap in between the two and there can be more of that.

[3:42:50] And part of our aim is to encourage those that enter,

[3:42:55] We're an interim departmental corporation and overlap with that.

[3:43:01] We looked out at other counties around us, comparably sized counties, and in every case

[3:43:08] we found that they do indeed have a GIS admin, may not be called that, may be called coordinators,

[3:43:14] GIS coordinators, GIS manager, but all of our counties out there generally they do indeed

[3:43:23] have a G.S. administrator and what normally transpires is when you get into the G.I.S. business,

[3:43:29] you start out with an admin. You start out with an admin. You build out the

[3:43:33] Esri environment. You get, you know, you get the, you get things going. You get your, uh,

[3:43:38] you get your maps and all going, um, and then you hire on an analyst once you grow.

[3:43:44] Right now, we're kind of reversed and we're looking to address that.

[3:43:50] question Tony sort of to Tony and Jamen but it but it's not I mean it's not

[3:43:58] where you well do you foresee it where the two could be missed and or totally

[3:44:04] want or how common or uncommon is that yeah and you're going on what pretty

[3:44:11] much always see a hybrid situation as opposed to a completely just single

[3:44:18] single source of of fact. But I mean there's a function I guess that that

[3:44:25] tax mapper has specifically germane to tax mapper versus GIS analyst or

[3:44:34] yes those are those are completely those are completely separate yes there. You do

[3:44:39] have indeed Jayman has his folks and that's what they they do with in in their

[3:44:44] part of RGIS desktop pro is they do that that tax parcel mapping and stuff and

[3:44:51] Danny has an analyst in an entirely different area but yes indeed that's

[3:44:58] were the circles kind of crossed.

[3:45:00] You visualize this position of being something that your current analyst could move into? Absolutely. I

[3:45:16] mean, logically, of course, this is not my expertise, but it really does seem, I don't think we're all might be kind of thinking the same thing that that could be able to combine, be able to combine in some way for a county our size. Um, so for 9-1-1, who does your mapping route?

[3:45:37] Right. That's one of our functions.

[3:45:39] is to update those maps as needed.

[3:45:44] You also do utilities.

[3:45:45] So we get clarity again.

[3:45:47] You talk about combined what?

[3:45:49] The tax position, or at least part of those responsibilities.

[3:45:55] Some of those, but I mean, make sure you said,

[3:45:58] just so we're all on the same page,

[3:46:00] that tax mapper is enough of a uniqueness into it.

[3:46:05] Right.

[3:46:06] Yes.

[3:46:06] It's not like we're going to like get rid of a position now those are those are two completely different

[3:46:14] positions.

[3:46:28] Oh

[3:46:33] RGI's administrator would absolutely still be handling the analyst duties there, but the focus would

[3:46:40] shift from these perhaps a bit lower level priorities up into this higher level zone to make

[3:46:49] sure that the system itself is taking care of and properly maintained.

[3:46:53] And at the same time, still handling those lower level responsibilities.

[3:46:57] Again, if they expand and grow, and this county just explodes, then we may need to drop back

[3:47:03] and look at actually hiring somebody to fill that particular seat and analyst and seat.

[3:47:08] I'm going to ask another question that may be uneducated, but just from observation, Danny

[3:47:16] helped me quite a bit recently with some stuff, but we ran into some issues, and this

[3:47:23] is not a finger point and thing, this is asking if that's something that would be able to

[3:47:28] reconcile easier this way, like with maybe the updated nature of math players, different

[3:47:36] things being loaded and all that, or is that strictly just a low-in function?

[3:47:43] And it really, when it comes to math lawyers,

[3:47:48] you have sometimes you have analysts doing

[3:47:49] that.

[3:47:50] Sometimes it's actually the sys I've been, the actual admin himself doing that, so there's

[3:47:55] kind of an overlap right there, and it depends on how complex what you're talking about

[3:47:59] is.

[3:48:00] Like if another department had a person that provides information, is that person, is that

[3:48:06] going to give them more, I don't know, freedoms the right word but is that going to give them more

[3:48:11] administrative capability to address something that might be quasi data entry or adding it and

[3:48:18] maybe quasi administrator rights. I'm just, I don't know if that makes sense.

[3:48:25] Is he put them a level authority where they can fix something?

[3:48:29] right and again that would be that comes with that system ownership they would

[3:48:35] then have the ability to work with said person and if need be make that

[3:48:42] call there could be some efficiencies we're absolutely where you were talking

[3:48:47] about efficiencies for sure

[3:48:53] anybody else having

[3:48:54] thank for Tony thank you sir thank you ma'am y'all you all have a great day

[3:49:02] All right,

[3:49:07] we're going in our day with one of our favorite topics for our funding

[3:49:13] Just wanted to get up early jump on this discussion normally

[3:49:16] I know one of the conversations we typically run into in May is we're having a discussion in May

[3:49:23] So moving it to earlier part of the budget

[3:49:26] Just to go through a quick break down. I think a lot of you are on the board

[3:49:30] but you know historically from 2010 to 2019 we were paying around 135,000 to each of our fire

[3:49:40] departments and in 2020 and 2021 we did increase that slightly to 136,000. So I think we've made

[3:49:48] significant inroads in our fire funding from a county standpoint if you look from 2021 to this

[3:49:55] fiscal year in 2026 where we did, if there's one thing about revile, I know it's not a favorite

[3:50:01] topic, but if you're going to have an increase in your fire funding, that's the year to do it.

[3:50:05] And I think we took advantage of that.

[3:50:08] And so we made a pretty significant increase to our fire departments, up to 315,000 for our

[3:50:16] base level, nobody likes to say smaller departments, but our base fire departments, we know we've

[3:50:21] made that jump to 315,000, which from 2021 is a 132% increase.

[3:50:29] So with our current model, you all know we have a 4cent wide county tax.

[3:50:35] If you look at our fire districts, we take the revenue of that 4cent and we give to

[3:50:41] each fire department what that generates.

[3:50:44] As you know, it varies, some don't generate a lot and some generate a whole lot more.

[3:50:49] So, therefore, the ones who don't generate up to our amount of 315, the general fund does

[3:50:55] subsidize the difference.

[3:50:57] That can equal up between 3 to 4 cent each year that we bring that funding up.

[3:51:05] Question that the chair had with myself, finance and tax was, what does that look like?

[3:51:12] So, just wanted to give you a snapshot this year.

[3:51:16] When you look at our base departments, we'll point out that county line and

[3:51:24] Sheffield also receive funding from Ardell County, so that's partly why their

[3:51:28] number looks a little bit weirder than you might think, given the size of those

[3:51:32] districts. But for our districts, if we had to tax to get to the 315 mark, as you

[3:51:40] see as low as an additional seven cent as high as 28 cent, even though that's slightly

[3:51:44] skewed with the Ardell County numbers, but just to give you a snapshot of how we get

[3:51:51] to the 315 for these particular fire departments, I did not include the three that are primarily

[3:51:56] in other counties because it's a little bit different.

[3:52:00] And obviously slightly way different on the funding when you look at those three, they're

[3:52:04] still important, but I think for our discussion, it's a different, it's an apple to a pair.

[3:52:10] compare to apples to apples with these departments.

[3:52:16] So, you know, whether or not we want to discuss this now,

[3:52:19] or we want to discuss this through the budget process,

[3:52:21] you know, there were a couple of things that, you know,

[3:52:23] I think over the last year that I thought

[3:52:25] were pretty good discussion topics for you all to discuss.

[3:52:29] One thing I wanted to point out, you know,

[3:52:31] the four cents been in place.

[3:52:33] The four cents is older than me.

[3:52:36] It was put in place in 1981.

[3:52:37] one.

[3:52:40] The second bullet point, I think we know the answer already, because the individual

[3:52:44] fire decks taxing districts just are not going to generate across the board to 315 that

[3:52:49] we currently, so that last thing I want to do is go backwards. I know we've talked about

[3:52:55] as our del county departments, you know, they do get money from our del county, and we

[3:52:59] still fund them at the same level that we fund our fully in county departments. Do we want

[3:53:04] a factor that into our conversation to spring.

[3:53:08] We've looked at new funding models.

[3:53:10] I will tell you the difficult part of looking at some other counties of what they're doing.

[3:53:16] They're coming from the individual fire tax district and changing models.

[3:53:20] So it makes it a whole lot easier to use their funding models than to take our force and

[3:53:27] try to change to match them.

[3:53:29] We looked at particularly Johnston County, you know, they were taxing individual departments

[3:53:37] as low as 7 cent up to 12 cent.

[3:53:39] And basically what they did is they merged on a, I wouldn't call it an average, but

[3:53:44] they took and made a county-wide tax so that they didn't have any departments go backwards.

[3:53:51] And it worked better for them, it works well, it's very difficult to apply that to what we

[3:53:56] do here without financially hurting the departments that we have.

[3:54:02] I know we've had discussions on do we want to place caps on some of our larger

[3:54:06] departments, place a cap on that four cent revenue and then maybe shift

[3:54:11] that around to the base departments and then lastly you know do we want to

[3:54:15] start looking at creating some type of capital reserve kind of like Johnny talked

[3:54:19] about in utilities where you have a set amount of money every year whether

[3:54:23] that you're paying yourself to bank it down the road

[3:54:26] or you're paying yourself to look at individual purchases

[3:54:31] each year.

[3:54:32] The only thing that I don't have on the list

[3:54:34] that I should have included also

[3:54:35] was the idea of looking at maybe a fire commission.

[3:54:39] Right now by law, you all serve as the fire commission.

[3:54:43] Other counties utilize that fire commission

[3:54:45] to make those tough recommendations for you to then review

[3:54:49] and make the final decision.

[3:54:50] The final decision always lies on the county commissioners,

[3:54:52] even if the fire commission makes recommendations,

[3:54:55] just like our other boards and committees do with us as well.

[3:54:59] So those are kind of the things that I know from last budget

[3:55:04] up until literally last week that we've talked about.

[3:55:09] When looking at fire funding, obviously,

[3:55:11] I think at the core, we're gonna go into this budget,

[3:55:16] not going backwards, 315 is the amount that we establish.

[3:55:19] We've not gone backwards ever.

[3:55:21] We've maintained funding, but we've never gone backwards, and I don't anticipate unless something dramatic happens that we're going to make a recommendation to go backwards.

[3:55:32] But I would say at this point, there's any feedback that you guys want us to look into deeper through this spring.

[3:55:40] We will do so.

[3:55:42] If there's any mentality right now that you really want to see, try to make it to the end. We'll also look at that.

[3:55:47] That's just one to throw that out there.

[3:55:50] I do know that a couple of you are close on time,

[3:55:53] so we may not get too deep in the conversation today,

[3:55:55] but that's just kind of where we are,

[3:55:58] so we're looking for any feedback.

[3:56:01] As I would like for us to consider,

[3:56:03] and we don't have to make this decision of course today,

[3:56:05] but I would like for my fellow board members

[3:56:08] to consider this, because we have tossed this around

[3:56:12] for a while, and for several years,

[3:56:14] We have been the designated fire commission even though in my opinion we really have not acted as such

[3:56:21] I think that it's time for us to consider forming a true fire commission that is not just the five of us

[3:56:27] To work on these ideas and bring us recommendations. That's what a lot of the other counties

[3:56:32] Or have done that are revamping their funding mechanisms and that's really the hot topic in County Commissioner world in our area right now

[3:56:41] also I'd like for you all to be just be thinking about that possibility.

[3:56:51] Quick question about when you saw things Johnston County or wherever and we're

[3:56:56] saying not going backwards but keeping in mind we're not going backward but does

[3:57:05] that mechanism give us something so you don't have basically two tears and you've

[3:57:11] two tiers and then you've got obviously tiers within the other tiers if you

[3:57:18] wanted to break it down so how does that model just in a nutshell does that

[3:57:25] address like certain metrics to come up with funding? So they they have metrics

[3:57:30] that they play into their funding they also have formulas that they use the

[3:57:35] count the the individual departments that were getting a higher tier still got a

[3:57:40] higher tier. So the lower tiered ones came up but they were still that gap.

[3:57:48] The Johnson County formula is pretty complicated. I don't that ours have to be that

[3:57:52] complicated. Brown and I looked at it it has a lot a lot of information that

[3:57:58] they include that in our district can change but especially call volumes and

[3:58:03] things like that that can change so much. So if you if you're if you base it too

[3:58:08] much on that, you're going to be ever changing, but I think our formula could be a little less

[3:58:15] complicated than theirs was, but it can address something where you've got just big a gap

[3:58:23] between the second tier top people and the lowest part of the second tier versus the first

[3:58:29] Yeah. That kind of guy. Yeah, but he didn't, I mean, you're not, you're not directly asking this, but he didn't level it out. Yeah. You still had a difference.

[3:58:38] He didn't level it out, but I mean, I think the reality is we got to look at some type of base, but in and of itself is this base from one department to another one on kind of on the other end of the spectrum is the same, actually inherently fair there.

[3:58:57] to anyone

[3:59:04] else have any input on that?

[3:59:12] Anything else, Brian?

[3:59:13] Well, really, we're at the point of the meeting today where we kind of open the floor.

[3:59:18] Before we do that, I would like to take a minute to thank all the folks that helped put this meeting together.

[3:59:24] Karen, Robin, Cindy, all our department directors, moving into this idea of having each one of them present.

[3:59:31] We started in 1st part of December and we kind of asked them to get us their presentations by last week and everybody was able to do that.

[3:59:41] So I think it's come together quite well.

[3:59:45] I probably some feedback that we could tweak a couple things if we decide to do this format going forward.

[3:59:51] But I think, you know, ultimately you had an opportunity to hear and ask a lot of questions from our folks.

[3:59:58] I'm sure there'll be more questions.

[4:00:00] It's between now and the end of the process. But, you know, we still have to factor in the revenue side of the equation in both the general fund and utility fund. I got at least two pieces of homework. I got a five years of four quarter spending and five years of travel and tourism funding. So is there anything else? I guess this could be part of our open discussion too. Is there anything else from a standpoint of information that you all would like?

[4:00:29] for us to pull.

[4:00:35] I have three pages of notes that I'll have to

[4:00:37] middle back through. I know all of us have some notes. I think we can get them

[4:00:42] to Ryan and you can just send answers to everybody if that's okay with

[4:00:46] everybody.

[4:00:52] Okay. Really this point floor is y'all. Well I know we're a little we

[4:00:59] have some people that have somewhere they need to be so unless you all have

[4:01:03] anything else we can just do our closing comments and that way we can just

[4:01:08] put our thoughts together and that if that's okay with the rest of the board.

[4:01:12] Richard, you want to go first?

[4:01:14] I'd just like to say thank you to everybody that's worked so hard on what we've got here

[4:01:19] in front of us now.

[4:01:21] You're the ones that keep it running and you're the ones that we work for as well.

[4:01:28] I do have some questions that I'll ask later on, but for now I think I'm not enough to digest.

[4:01:35] Yes. Okay. Thank you.

[4:01:39] Yes.

[4:01:43] I'll echo what Richard said. Thanks everybody for putting

[4:01:46] this meeting together or obviously when the dollars start coming in, we're going to have

[4:01:52] more questions. I will tell you this. I made it very clear to Mr. Barnett and others. We

[4:01:58] re-evaluation, the taxpayers of Davie County extremely hard, a lot of taxpayers in Davie County.

[4:02:14] Some it didn't. But the dollars are significant. So we have to look at those not the top and bottom end.

[4:02:25] I'm not going to, I'm not going to, as one vote, support anything that's going to increase

[4:02:35] taxes further on citizens of the baby county.

[4:02:37] As a matter of fact, I believe in this budget cycle, depending on how we follow Robin and

[4:02:43] look at the potential for putting money in fund balance, that that money should be given

[4:02:48] back to the people in in some way shape or form. By rolling back taxes we certainly I think have

[4:02:59] to take a close look at spending. I don't believe we can include if you look at the cycle of spending

[4:03:07] over the last five or six years it has been it has been significant and so I just say that to say

[4:03:20] As one person, I'm going to pay a close attention to spending and secondly, to the possibility

[4:03:28] of rolling back taxes to help the citizens of Davey County that were hit hard in ReVal.

[4:03:35] So, and of course, that would be all the citizens of Davey County.

[4:03:41] But I do appreciate all y'all do.

[4:03:44] I just feel like I want to be up front with you as we go into this budget

[4:03:48] exactly kind of what I'm going to be looking at as an individual commission thank

[4:03:55] you Madam Chair. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate all

[4:04:02] the work we went into this lot of work lots of needs obviously we just got

[4:04:08] I prioritize those and

[4:04:12] it's incumbent on us to make

[4:04:17] the most of what we got, but

[4:04:20] you know this, we got some big ticket items, but I don't know that checking the

[4:04:28] can which is that's what we would be doing on a couple of these things would make

[4:04:33] sense, but I definitely agree with Commissioner Jones, I will not be supporting any

[4:04:41] tax increase or for any of this because you know we're we should be able to make it on what we

[4:04:47] have I think at this point so with that we'll appreciate the work and we'll look forward to keep

[4:04:55] shipping away at it so thank you thank you everybody for all the hard work very good information

[4:05:02] that was extremely informative when you did that breakdown of what it actually cost for the

[4:05:08] fire departments in reference to whatever that was added in to make them become full

[4:05:13] or whatever you would want to use, hold whatever the term is.

[4:05:19] I'm going to echo what Terry said or Commissioner Renegar about.

[4:05:25] We need to take a close look before we kick cans any further, but let me take that and

[4:05:36] say that first and foremost I want to make sure we take care of the employees. So I don't

[4:05:45] want this mismessage in any way. We're not trying to talk about cutting the cost of living,

[4:05:53] doing any of that stuff for the expense of doing anything. But what I would say is I want every

[4:06:03] effort possibly made to trim away things that we truly don't have to have right

[4:06:13] now. So we can first take care of the employees and second look at other projects

[4:06:20] that might need to be done. And thirdly tied into what Commissioner Jones said

[4:06:25] is that if we've missed the boat on how close we were to revenue neutrality look

[4:06:30] at that. In worst case scenario I want to be able to go out and tell a citizen that okay,

[4:06:39] there was X amount now that we can say above revenue neutral but at least that's a

[4:06:45] creating to fund balance in a way that can help pay for a major project not to be spent

[4:06:52] on additional projects and additional ones and so forth. Thank you.

[4:06:59] Thank you all very much. I concur with everyone. This workshop was very well put together. Thank you for all your work. It moods along smoothly. I absolutely think this is the year that we

[4:07:12] sent our belt a little tighter just like our citizens are having to do. There's been a lot of mention of the increase in cost of supplies and products. And so all of our citizens are incurring that cost of living increases. So we need to do our best to make sure that we're

[4:07:28] spending their money in the best way possible.

[4:07:31] Cutting out any kind of fluff, I know we have a lot of wants but we need to cut it down

[4:07:37] to our needs and but yet take care of our employees but most of all make sure that we are supplying

[4:07:43] all the essentials that our citizens need and deserve.

[4:07:47] And I think that we can make that happen but if you all have any questions I would ask

[4:07:53] if you get them to the staff as quickly as possible so they can be working on them so that

[4:07:58] that they can get all that information back to us

[4:08:00] and as I'm sure as we go,

[4:08:02] we'll have even more questions

[4:08:03] and that way we won't bombard them.

[4:08:05] Cause sometimes I'll bombard them all by myself.

[4:08:08] So if anybody has anything else

[4:08:12] I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

[4:08:15] Go move, Mr. Schof, Commissioner Pointexter,

[4:08:19] I'll in favor.

[4:08:20] All right, thank you all very much.

[4:08:22] Be safe this weekend.

Board of Commissioners Workshop

Agenda

Transcript