[0:10] May board and committee of the whole to order. If you would please do the roll call.

[0:16] Supervisor Jan Kowski is excused and supervisor Barry Jikowski is absent.

[0:23] Student pledge?

[0:27] Aye.

[0:30] Oh, do you guys say

[0:34] one thing?

[0:44] Before we move ahead, I wonder if I could ask anybody currently serving in the military or all of our veterans to stand up and state

[0:52] your name and rank, if you would.

[1:01] They've taught me corporate E4, the United States

[1:03] Bank, or 59 or 63.

[1:09] Oh, Julie Maro, as the 10th Commander in the Navy,

[1:13] 97, 2000, too.

[1:19] Steve Fritz, Lance Corporal, Infantry Self-Nepel,

[1:23] and 74, 79.

[1:28] That's right. Corporal, place, the United States report. I need to read the name so.

[1:35] We owe you all of that.

[1:47] I served from 80 million to 2022 receiving the, uh,

[1:53] turning the rank of Colonel retiring as a staff judge.

[1:57] Thank you so much.

[2:06] Public notice members of the public who wish to address the county board on specific agenda items

[2:11] must register their request at this time.

[2:14] We such comment subject to the public comment ordinance in the reasonable control of the county board chair set forth and Roberts rules of order review and approval approval of the November 4 2024 minutes

[2:32] motion by splinters second by

[2:40] And a discussion corrections or amendments, hearing non-algoes in favor, all those opposed, motion passes.

[2:57] Confirmation of county executive nomination.

[3:00] Number two, nomination of supervisor Julie Moore to the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission for a two-year term expiring April 20th, 2026.

[3:10] Ocean by Oki is seconded by Latic and a discussion.

[3:18] Hearing none, all those in favor, all those opposed motion passes.

[3:26] Resolutions and ordinances, number three, authorizing and ratifying a contract for services

[3:33] for about fuel supply,

[3:38] motion by due back, second by matcha kowsky, any discussion.

[3:46] Hearing none, all those in favor, all those opposed motion passes.

[3:52] Number four, revising and updating Portage County Ordnance 2.13.1, establishment of

[4:00] speed zones. Take a motion to get a lot of the floor, motion by Matt Schkowski, seconded

[4:07] by Andrew Rockman, discussion.

[4:14] Hearing none, all those in favor. All those opposed, motion

[4:18] carries.

[4:21] Number five, resolution for snowmobile trail aids, 2025, 2026 season, motion

[4:28] by LATIC, seconded by Splinter discussion.

[4:34] Here are non-algoes in favor, all those opposed motion

[4:39] curves.

[4:44] Committee of the Whole.

[4:45] We will now adjourn the county board meeting

[4:47] and convene the committee of the whole.

[4:51] We've got several goals this evening.

[4:54] We're going to look at county debt policy.

[4:58] We're going to get a presentation by director Josie

[5:01] And Kristen, they're going to kind of lay out where we're at on debt policy.

[5:09] How we make decisions, how S&P evaluates us, and then Carl Green, who you've all met

[5:16] from UW Extension, is going to walk us through an exercise to help us kind of understand

[5:21] where we're comfortable with in terms of our debt policy and level of debt in comparison

[5:28] the other counties and looking at all the variables within the counties.

[5:34] So, Jennifer, and Kristen, please take it away.

[5:58] All right, now that we've done with our technical difficulties, I think we're ready to go

[6:02] here.

[6:05] So, we had a previous meeting in which we talked really broadly about debt and issuing debt

[6:14] considerations and things that we go through. This presentation is very focused on debt

[6:20] policy and very specific about one component of debt policy that we're going to be talking

[6:26] through tonight.

[6:29] So if there's a slight delay. Okay,

[6:39] there we go. So just in terms of just about

[6:42] overview of what we're going to do tonight is we're going to go through what is it at management policy

[6:49] why you have one. Specifically talk about financial limitations around you know that management

[6:56] policy and and why they're important then that's going to help us define that affordability

[7:00] question that is really kind of the key to what we're going to be doing tonight. We'll go through

[7:08] some different measurements, some metrics you know there's lots of ways to talk about death,

[7:14] But there's very specific ways you can measure different components in terms of different metrics to determine where you see how you fit within a debt structure.

[7:28] You know, there's...

[7:30] There's a lot of different statistics that you can look at, but one of the things that we want to get to is how do we quantify or quantify those measurements so that we know how to represent those values.

[7:45] With that, we're going to talk a little bit about SMP credit-ladening methodology, and the reason we are going to talk about SMP is that the most recent rating that the county has is with SMP.

[7:56] There's different reading agencies,

[7:57] but we will specifically talk about SMB.

[8:00] And then we'll do some other county comparisons.

[8:03] And we picked a wide range of comparisons

[8:05] that have high levels of debt.

[8:07] Those that are similar in county size.

[8:10] Those that are similar in maybe kind of demographics.

[8:15] And then we picked some real outliers

[8:17] so that you can see the difference of what those look like.

[8:21] And at the end, we're going to do an exercise or two

[8:24] to talk about her, to help you provide some feedback

[8:29] and where the affordability matrix should be.

[8:32] And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Kristen,

[8:35] and she's going to take us through the first part

[8:37] of this presentation.

[8:39] Kristen Hanson is with a financial advisor,

[8:43] and she's been assisting the county for years.

[8:47] I don't want to put a number on it,

[8:49] I guess I don't really know, but most of the years

[8:52] that I've been your finance director.

[8:59] I'm better with numbers than technology.

[9:09] So, in a past life, or prior to this, I served on the National GFOA's debt committee as

[9:20] As I stated I'm better with numbers than technology, so I served on the GFO GFO A deck committee as both an

[9:30] issuer as well as a technical advisor as a financial advisor.

[9:35] And so the GFO A deck committee is really good about creating best practices and guidance for governments to help kind of you

[9:46] with processes. I mean, there's other committees to which help governments, but for the

[9:52] conversation tonight and the committee I used to serve on. So we have included

[9:56] do I have to go backwards?

[10:01] I think the other one. Because I want to go to the

[10:05] definition. No, it's going to go back again.

[10:13] So anyway, GEPAway defines what a

[10:16] policy is and basically it helps governmental issuers guide the process of issuing debt,

[10:23] helping with the decision-making process both on the part of elected officials and government

[10:29] staff, and it articulates gurus which sends a message to the rating agencies, to your investors,

[10:37] and to show that, you know, this is one aspect of your rating, to show that your government

[10:43] that's well-managed. And so that's what the importance is of a debt policy.

[10:53] So there are

[10:54] several elements that are included in a debt policy, a debt management policy, which Jenny

[11:00] has been working very good at pulling it together, but it talks about, you know, under what

[11:06] circumstances you would issue debt, what kind of restrictions you have both legally with state statutes

[11:14] state constitution, as well as what kind of restrictions you may want as a governmental body to

[11:20] place on when and how you issue debt financial limitations, which is going to be the focus

[11:27] of this presentation, structuring practices, how you structure the debt, the debt issuance

[11:34] process, which includes the method of sale, the debt management process, once you issue bonds,

[11:41] there's all sorts of rules that you still have to follow

[11:45] and then special circumstances.

[11:53] So in regards to the financial limitations,

[11:56] which is the focus this evening,

[11:58] there are indicators to consider for your general

[12:01] debt limitations.

[12:03] One is to look at it as a measure of the budgetary impact,

[12:08] which is kind of an internal focus,

[12:10] but also look at it as a measure

[12:11] of the community's ability to support the debt,

[12:14] Which is the external focus

[12:22] and so some of the affordability measurements that kind of will help guide this discussion and you can feel free to jump in as you want

[12:31] Is that you're guided by the legal development set by state statutes

[12:36] There's the direct debt burden which is what standard impures looks at one of the kind of metrics or criteria they look at the net direct net

[12:50] direct net debt per capita. So basically how much debt you have outstanding per person?

[12:57] They look at how quickly you pay out pay off the debt in terms of principle.

[13:03] And they look at it, you know, with 10 years how much is paid off.

[13:08] We look at your debt service expenditures as a percentage of your operating expenditures.

[13:14] Some other factors is the debt service as a percent of tax levy and the three items in

[13:20] italics at the bottom are things that they also look at.

[13:24] The rating agencies all of them, including S&P, look at what your pension liability is,

[13:30] per capita and what's nice about the state of Wisconsin is because of that Wisconsin retirement

[13:35] system.

[13:35] The rating agencies look favorable on that.

[13:38] They also look at kind of your overall cost for debt service and liabilities, which includes both your outstanding debt as well as your pension and OPEB liabilities, which you have none of the OPEB.

[13:50] And then also your available reserves as a percent of total reserves.

[13:54] So there are lots of things that the rating agencies look at. There's factors that you as a governing body can prioritize, which is important to you for your community.

[14:07] But those last three are important as part of the rating process, but that's not going to be a detailed part of the conversation this evening.

[14:16] So with that I'll turn it back over to Jenny.

[14:26] Thank you.

[14:31] So as we start kind of discussing, there's lots of things that we see or notice within our budgets or our community or economy that play into whether or not we think we can afford that.

[14:46] But again, it's how do you measure it and what are the things that we know we can measure?

[14:52] So direct debt burden, which is one of the S&P metrics, and it's also what the, my, my.

[15:01] I'll also say that we need to measure, which is how much of our outstanding debt principle, what percentage of that is, a debt principle, is a percentage of our equal as well.

[15:15] So, by law, we limited to 5%, but many counties will use this as a policy, metrics, a policy example, to guide their communities, or guide their counties by establishing their own limits.

[15:31] in which they measure themselves. Now, the one thing I will say is I did a survey of my peers

[15:38] and asked for policy examples. I have green from websites, both policies and budget documents,

[15:46] to get examples. That policies aren't extremely common. If that's not because those communities

[15:55] aren't managing their debt or they're not that they don't have policies, they're just perhaps

[16:02] not written or documented, but they are evaluating them and they are assessing their

[16:08] debt in different ways. It's just that it wasn't either readily available or they don't have

[16:16] them in procedures, which is not that uncommon. I am going to share with you budget document and

[16:23] examples that I found. Keep in mind that as Chris mentioned in drafting the county's debt policy,

[16:32] I have looked at policies outside the state of Wisconsin as well. I just don't have those metrics,

[16:38] you know documented here for you as well because it doesn't make much sense in some of those to

[16:44] compare to other states because they have other rules and other regulations, but I did use those also

[16:51] as a guy and kind of doing this research.

[16:54] So the ones that I've listed are just some

[16:56] that when I sit in policy examples of budget documents,

[16:59] you can see the range from 0.5%,

[17:03] which is a percentage of the equalized value,

[17:06] or you can look at a different way,

[17:08] which is 10% of the allowable limit by statute.

[17:13] So I put both numbers there, depending on how you want to think

[17:16] about it.

[17:17] So if you look at Washington County, for example,

[17:20] the policy is set at 0.5% of equalized value or 10% of the legal limit.

[17:30] And they range from, you know, the 0.5% of the way up to 2.5%, which is 50% of the

[17:36] of the statutory legal limit.

[17:42] This graphic that I can see on my screen, but you can't see it.

[17:48] This graphic is a representation of all 72 counties in where they fit kind of in that spectrum.

[17:57] They send 20, 22 data from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue County municipal revenue and expenditures.

[18:06] In coordination with the 2022 equalized value data.

[18:11] The arrow indicates where percentage county is in that chart.

[18:15] You can see that there's one outlier way to the right, which is Trumpalot County, who is just over 50%, and there are five counties between 20% and 30% and the remainder of the counties are below 20%.

[18:37] So that just kind of gives you a metric in 2022

[18:39] where everybody fit in terms of their direct debt

[18:42] and burden and what direct means is general obligation

[18:47] debt of the county.

[18:49] So this doesn't include external debt within your community,

[18:53] like your school districts or municipalities.

[18:55] This is just the direct debt of the county

[18:57] through general obligation debt.

[18:59] It also, in most cases, doesn't include

[19:02] like revenue debt or other types of debt as well.

[19:13] And if you want to ask a question, you may, this is also in your, okay, it's not.

[19:22] You have access to the presentation.

[19:25] The direct net debt per capita is looking at the outstanding debt principle.

[19:29] The total of what is outstanding debt, not just your annual debt payment,

[19:35] but total outstanding debt in comparison to your population.

[19:40] Again, there's a few examples for various municipality,

[19:44] or very various counties that have this within their debt policy.

[19:49] You can see that WAPACA has set those that they will not exceed $575

[19:54] per capita.

[19:55] We're married and county has indicated that they're comfortable $3,000 per capita.

[20:00] So it depends on your county and what your level of comfort is in terms of where you would want to settle policy limit if this is a metric you wanted to choose.

[20:15] Again, this is an example of using that same data from 2022 showing the various counties across the state of Wisconsin and the different levels and thresholds.

[20:30] So one point that I'd like to make is mortgage county is sitting right around $94, and

[20:41] you can see that towards the right-hand side of the chart, we start at about

[20:52] $10,000,000,

[20:55] going above $1,500 per capita, and I just want to point that out because there's a slide

[21:02] we talked about S&P rating methodology that I want to bring you back to why $1,500 is an important

[21:09] cut off, just so that you can see there's four counties currently above that metric.

[21:20] And again, these graphics are just demonstrating what people's actual debt looks like.

[21:26] This is not what their policies are, this is just their actual debt picture in 2022.

[21:32] Can

[21:41] you pay out ratio? Again, this is an S&P metric. This looks at how you structure your debt service schedule and how quickly you repay back that principle on your debt.

[21:52] So, Wapaka County, again, has felt that this is an important policy item and has placed in the policy that 80% of the debt will be paid off in the first 10 years.

[22:03] So

[22:16] this is a percentage of operating expenditures, this just looks at your annual debt service expenses and how they compare with your operating expenditures.

[22:26] There were a couple of counties that had variations of this policy.

[22:30] They were slightly different depending on how you read them. It's all about the policy that fits best for you.

[22:38] But again, this is looking at how much of your annual operating budget is that expenses.

[22:45] This is kind of a variation on one of SMPs, it compares debt expenditures to operating revenues, a little bit different.

[22:53] But again, what you don't want to see here is the higher that percentage becomes, it just demonstrates that the majority or a greater portion of your budget is used to pay for debt rather than kind of normal operating expenses.

[23:09] So you want to keep it on the lower end. Once it starts creeping up, that just kind of demonstrates that more and more debt that you're having to pay.

[23:24] So in this scenario, you can see that point-inch county is way past the middle, just slightly over kind of the midpoint.

[23:35] If you see where the area is kind of pointing. Again, one out there, way on the right side, otherwise you can kind of see the curve of counties.

[23:47] So why is point-inch county so different in this metric as compared to the others?

[23:52] Well, this is the reason.

[23:55] Polish County has a higher debt service experience because we are very aggressive and accelerated

[23:59] repayment schedules.

[24:02] So we pay more debt short home and over the course of our debt service schedule.

[24:10] So our outstanding debt is relatively low, but our payback is larger and more aggressive,

[24:16] which kind of places us in a different place on the graph and this one.

[24:21] So just to demonstrate what the metrics tell us, the metrics all tell us something important,

[24:29] but they are unique and individual, so they kind of work together to tell the story, which, you know,

[24:37] there's not a right or wrong metric, but they are unique and individual.

[24:44] So you might have a situation where, as a county, let's just say, for example,

[24:48] and I've seen this in policies where they said, you know, we're going to measure five metrics.

[24:54] But we need to meet like three of them to know that it's okay for us to move forward because

[24:59] in some cases you won't meet all your metrics or you won't have the ability to do so depending on

[25:05] what the metric is because of the differences between them. Does that make sense?

[25:24] But that's a list to a percentage of tax study. Again, this is a very easy one to measure. There

[25:29] a few counties in Wisconsin that have this as a metric in the policy. You can see O'Clayer County

[25:40] chose 3%, with a caveat to a school proprietary funds, and a Zaki chose a percentage of 12,

[25:47] and a half percent. Again, very different kinds of licks. I guess, I don't know specifically,

[25:55] But most policies, even though they don't state it, exclude proprietary funds because proprietary

[26:01] funds in and of themselves record the debt within the enterprise fund.

[26:07] So a lot of times when you're looking at some of these ratios, they will exclude the proprietary

[26:12] funds.

[26:13] That was the same on the earlier one when you're looking at any expenditures of debt service

[26:18] to annual operating expenditures.

[26:20] that's only looking at the operating and expenditure expenditures of the governmental funds,

[26:25] not the proprietary funds. I should have mentioned that earlier.

[26:36] So now we're going to talk a

[26:37] little bit about SMP credit rating methodology.

[26:42] So according to SMP, SMP is standing in

[26:45] pores. They're one of a few rating agencies that we go to to evaluate the county's financials,

[26:55] financial situation economy and so on to get a rating for when we move forward with issuing

[27:01] debt. Within S&P, they have five credit factors and the focus tonight, we're going to focus

[27:11] on debt liabilities. So, Christian kind of touched on them really quickly earlier but the reason

[27:17] that we're focusing on debt liabilities is these are the ones that will refer back to your

[27:23] policy. So I'm not indicating that reserves in liquidity. It's still important. It's still

[27:30] a factor. It's 20% of your overall credit score. But your debt policy is really linked to

[27:36] your debt reliability's factor of the most in terms of the debt component. So we will talk a bit

[27:47] about that in our experience on our last rating.

[27:56] So within that 20% of that fact key factor,

[28:00] there are three components.

[28:03] 50% of it is assessed for the current cost

[28:07] for debt service and liabilities.

[28:09] 25% is net direct debt,

[28:13] and the other 25% is net pension liability.

[28:16] And this is all coming from a standing

[28:18] importers initial assault metrics. Now keep in mind that there is a metric for all of these

[28:26] things, but the rating is way more than they run a metric and then they say, okay, this

[28:31] is where you fit, this is your score. There are indicators within your rating that can move

[28:38] you up or can move you down depending on what they see as trends, what they see as experience,

[28:48] how the conversation goes.

[28:53] I don't know that I'm really missing. So I just so I

[28:57] want you to think that when we have a rating, the only thing they do is they do a bunch

[29:01] of math and they say this is your score. If it was that easy and simple, I'd be able

[29:09] to replicate what they do but it's not. So I've tried to look at some of their scoring

[29:15] and get answers to how they came up with a number

[29:18] and it's just not that direct of math.

[29:28] So when we talk about current cost for debt service

[29:31] and liability, this metric itself is

[29:40] this looks

[29:41] at your current cost of your debt as a percentage

[29:45] of your overall revenues.

[29:47] So they will look at your annual debt service, pension,

[29:50] and other post-employment benefits,

[29:52] which we don't have any divided by the total government revenue.

[29:58] They do consider WRS's plan.

[30:00] The calculation, but again, even though we find it, it's state run and it's state managed. And I will tell you that because we do have state WRS as a considering factor, it's actually a very high score for Wisconsin counties and municipalities.

[30:15] Anyone who's within the WRS system, it tends to elevate your score in this category.

[30:20] So, that is one of the metrics and you can see there are six kind of ranges.

[30:27] As some people define the ranges in terms of the different categories in the different scoring,

[30:32] and then based on that metric of where you fit, you will get assessed that initial assessment

[30:40] score and from there there are other criteria that go into that measurement, but it's kind of a

[30:46] point for how they start the evaluation process. So, point each county I did put on here that

[30:52] we were 5.1, so we fit into that number one category. So, when we talk about, when the cost of

[31:00] your debt service goes up, but your revenues do not. That's going to affect this metric and it's

[31:05] going to move us on the scale. So, when you ask questions about, what will additional that do to your

[31:12] grading score, this is just to give you or demonstrate an example of how that works.

[31:18] Now, I don't know what it's going to be because it all depends on the amount and that kind of stuff.

[31:23] Once we got to that point, Kristen and I would work close together and kind of figure out what does that mean?

[31:31] What does this number mean? And we would do more assessment.

[31:35] But that's just to give you an example of how that will fluctuate on that scale.

[31:44] And then also in comparison, this is the net direct debt per capital and that's 25% of that

[31:53] 20%. Again, this is based on what we were being rated on and you can see I just told

[32:03] you a little while ago that in 2022 we were at 94 dollars. Why does this say percentage

[32:07] going is at 272 net direct debt per capita.

[32:13] Well, we would be enraided on having outstanding debt of just over $6 million, plus we had just

[32:21] provided them with a preliminary official statement that said we were going to buy all of it

[32:25] just roughly over $13 million.

[32:28] So in their mind, our outstanding debt is going to be around $19 million, and that's what

[32:33] they're based in the waiting room.

[32:35] So, when they did build calculation, Portie Choney was 272, and it fit the Metcategory 1 under the $500

[32:45] mark per capita, and that was the initial assessment that we received in that rating category.

[32:54] Now earlier, I told you one of the slides, remember that $1,500 per capita ceiling.

[32:59] Well, the reason why is you can see, as you get to the second category, it caps out at that $1,500

[33:07] per capita mark, and that's where you move to category three.

[33:12] So as you per capita cost for your outstanding debt service increases, that's how you move

[33:18] on that scale.

[33:24] Everybody with me?

[33:26] Okay.

[33:27] Everybody's brought out of their mind.

[33:30] Yeah.

[33:35] So, we're going to talk a little bit more about some examples and before we get to that,

[33:40] one of the things that's going to be important is to understand that there are different

[33:44] rating categories, by different rating agencies.

[33:48] We utilize S&P, we utilize S&P since I've been with the county.

[33:53] I believe the county in previous years has used moodies, but it's been quite some time since

[34:00] we have.

[34:01] I think moody's in S&P for Wisconsin County's tend to be the most common, you know eyes, but this gives you kind of a roadmap to how ratings are compared by between rating agencies.

[34:19] Because they have different numbering and watering systems. So this just kind of gives you that roadmap of how they relate to one another.

[34:27] So, Pornage County is a AA, which is a high quality, which would be comparable to a

[34:35] moodie's AA-2,

[34:39] okay?

[34:41] Do you previously say that's the highest rating and the highest quality our size can get?

[34:48] I remember in that correctly, so in order for us to move up to an AA plus or a triple-A,

[34:55] the our scores in economy and our

[35:09] scores in management with the increase management generally were okay and financial performance were okay and reserves and liquidity and debt and liabilities we hit it out of the park.

[35:26] But our low score is economy and I just don't know necessarily what to do to increase that one.

[35:35] There is work we can do on the management side, one being said a debt policy,

[35:42] but I don't know that said in a debt policy is enough to escalate a rating.

[35:48] It's going to help it, it's going to improve it, it's going to maybe do one of those things that helps

[35:53] You know what I said, they can look at the assessments and they have certain criteria that will not you up or down.

[35:59] It's one of those things that might give us the notch, but I don't know that it's going to

[36:05] necessarily boost us in our last rating, which is what Chris and his hand in to me.

[36:10] They did indicate we could raise the rating of the county experiences.

[36:14] Significant economic growth leading to Demon, Demon's,

[36:21] view of the county's management practices material and improve.

[36:29] So that's the upside.

[36:32] There's a downside.

[36:34] I'll read that since I have it in front of me.

[36:36] We could know where the rating should the county become operational and balanced,

[36:40] even to a material reduction in its reserves.

[36:44] That's the downside.

[36:45] That would be what they would look at and to possibly lower the county's rating.

[37:01] When assuming we get to a point where we have real numbers,

[37:04] we're going to feed out of the world because we're going to take on debt, will we

[37:09] we run this debt and this rating and be able to include that in our calculations because this

[37:14] is going to change our interest rates, which will change the overall cost of projects,

[37:21] will we know that while we're planning, will we plan and then send it and find out? How does that work?

[37:28] So...

[37:30] Right when we did the rating call before you just had the last issue, Jenny had mentioned that S&P had kind of changed their methodology for rating state and local governments and change kind of the waiting.

[37:44] So, we actually are quantitative strategies group, bigger nerds and bond nerds.

[37:53] Actually, we do a credit calculator so that we can plug in some of those into the calculator.

[37:59] They haven't completed it yet, so we can at least see what the pressure points might be and where you might see things change in the five different categories.

[38:09] So, you know, debt is 20 percent, economy is 20 percent, you know, management is 20 percent, you know, liquidity is 20 percent.

[38:19] So there's, you know, all these different factors that go into, you know, the rating, but we're in the process of updating that.

[38:26] So at least we'll have some guidance, it's no guarantee, she talked about there's other factors, what we call notching factors, that they look at as well.

[38:35] You know, it's it's it's it's the data, you know, they look at all the data,

[38:41] but they also will look at kind of how quickly or how long it takes to pay up debt.

[38:46] And other other factors, they compare and we include in your offering document, kind of what your

[38:52] median income is to the state of Wisconsin's median income to what like the nation's, you know,

[38:58] average median, you know, median income is and, you know, they will kind of call those things out

[39:02] where you are compared to similar types of entities.

[39:08] So we'll have some guidance.

[39:12] Quick question.

[39:15] When all decisions are going to be made about that service for a new jail, say 130 million

[39:22] whatever, or then add into that, and a remodel cost, another 35 million, something like that.

[39:31] Those two are we in the position of take on those two projects at once, so we're going to have to do one and then five years down the line do the other, I don't know, I thought we were, we were in a good position at this point to take on both without making our ratings look like a crazy outlier.

[39:52] So can you hold that very important question to a little bit later in the presentation because I think you will answer that question once we get there.

[40:05] Thank you.

[40:21] So county comparisons.

[40:24] We've done some math.

[40:28] specifically for Polish County. So in the last presentation we had put together kind of a comparison

[40:34] of what are we today, what does 100 million dollar project or what does 100 and 62 million

[40:41] dollar project or what is 200 million dollars look like. And again, we picked the numbers

[40:47] because they gave you some parameters of to think about things. It's not because it's for a specific

[40:54] project, they're just numbers.

[40:59] And then we'd assign some metrics to the various types

[41:03] of categories, so that you could use Portage County and compare it to other counties.

[41:11] And with these numbers, in looking at them,

[41:18] so for example, for Portage County, you see I've

[41:21] to 100 million dollar projects and I show a direct debt burden of 123 million. Well, we have

[41:27] other debt than just 100 million dollar project. So we have to account for all those different

[41:32] kinds of criteria. And at the point in time that we put this together, those were the numbers

[41:36] we had and those were the scenarios we had. So I wanted to continue the same scenario's

[41:41] through it all just so we were in stringent from scratch again. It's not because these numbers

[41:46] me many things special to me.

[41:51] So this will provide you kind of the difference in the escalation and what happens to direct

[41:56] debt per capita, what the percentage of statutory debt limit is used, what that 10-year

[42:02] payout looks like, I can tell you for mortgage counting, we've always been at 100%, now I don't

[42:08] know what those other payouts would be because we haven't put anything together to show

[42:13] that yet. I did some scenarios for debt service to total tax revenue ratio based on the numbers

[42:21] that we had and carried through some of the criteria like population, equalized values,

[42:26] or all the same. S&P rating, I'm assuming they're doubly, but I don't know that based on those

[42:32] numbers because we wouldn't know until after the rating.

[42:39] From here we've chosen 12 14 counties in

[42:44] to compare some metrics to. Do you want to? Do you want me to just start talking about

[42:52] the new fill-in? Okay. So we tried to compare it to some of our neighbors. Wood County who has

[43:00] got a direct debt burden of over 116 million. They're at about almost 30% of their debt limit used.

[43:09] They have a 10 year payout ratio just over 52% so what does that mean?

[43:13] They're paying off about half of their debt in the first 10 years, meaning the other half is probably some time in the next 10 years.

[43:24] The population is very similar to Portage County.

[43:28] Their median house or their income is very similar to Portage County.

[43:32] Portage County has a slightly better equalized valve, and they have a very similar rating.

[43:41] If we look at Washera County, Washera County has almost 55 million outstanding, their

[43:48] percentage of statutory debt limit uses about 25 percent, they direct debt per capita

[43:53] is over $2,200 and their 10-year payout ratio is just under 50 percent.

[44:02] Their debt service to total revenue ratio, and that's based on 2024 because they're pulled

[44:07] from budget documents is just under 20%.

[44:10] They have a significantly smaller population than we do.

[44:15] The meetinghouse holding commas is lower,

[44:18] and they're rating a slightly lower as well.

[44:23] Managed to our county, we pulled because it's a similar

[44:28] size county, slightly larger,

[44:30] and they have about on a 30 million outstanding in debt.

[44:35] Marathon County as well, we pulled metrics, they had some larger debt issuance and capital projects.

[44:42] They're just shy of maybe $4 million that I don't see any.

[44:46] They're at about 10.86% of the statutory debt limit used.

[44:51] And if you recall early on aside, their policy is 10%.

[44:55] Well, one thing that I just want to point out with policy is the policy.

[45:00] The policy is, you know, adherence to your policy is your choice. So is your guiding tools. So not everything is going to fit me and a box. But those are the choices. Once you say your policy, you know, if you're going to go outside your policy, you need reasons. And you need to be able to say to your community. Why? So it's not intended to be

[45:27] a restrictive kind of policy.

[45:31] more guiding and tools that way. Now, in saying that I also am cautious that if you're

[45:38] going to set a policy, you'll never follow it, don't set a policy. So,

[45:57] the next slide

[45:57] for completely different counties, Calumette County, who had just under 40 million

[46:03] dollars outstanding,

[46:07] slightly smaller population, kind of a different economy, you know,

[46:13] terms of, you know, where they're located,

[46:17] the median household income is higher, their

[46:21] equalized value and comparison to their population is a bit higher than where we are.

[46:28] But again, they direct debt per capita as one, you don't just under $700.

[46:34] If we look at Chippewa County, they're at about $10, just over $10 million of debt don't

[46:41] any. No, something interesting to note on this one, there are similar in size, population

[46:47] rise, similar in size, maybe higher median household income, higher equalized value.

[46:56] But you'll see their debt service to total tax on the ratio is zero. Well, that's because

[47:02] they have debt service. However, they're not issuing any revenue to pay for their debt.

[47:08] mean that it's in the proprietary funds. It's an enterprise fund that is being paid

[47:14] paying back that debt. It's not the general government paying back that debt. That's why it's

[47:22] 0%. So county senior situation, they have evolved 45 million dollars in outstanding debt

[47:28] and it is solely with their proprietary funds. Dodge County, slightly higher population,

[47:35] $20 million outstanding debt.

[47:39] A higher equalized value, similarly rated Moody Z-2,

[47:45] and they have about $225 that per capita.

[47:54] And again, the debt service to total tax heavy is 0%.

[47:58] Because they're not using any debt service to pay for that.

[48:02] out sending debt.

[48:12] So McCowny is across county has about

[48:14] 57 million in outstanding debt. That's 7 just over 7% of their

[48:20] statutory debt limit used. They're direct debt per capita is about

[48:23] $460.

[48:27] And much higher equalized value, much slightly higher

[48:33] median household income, much higher population, low debt service to their

[48:38] tax every ratio is over 17% and you can see the rest of their numbers.

[48:45] Pupping County, part 10 million in debt, very low, a much smaller population, medium

[48:56] household income, similar, equalized value, much much lower, but that, you know, in terms

[49:04] of their population that would make sense.

[49:06] As far as we were, we were waiting.

[49:08] You can see that their debt service to total tax

[49:11] every issue is almost, is over 28%.

[49:15] You can see they've used about 19% of their statutory

[49:18] debt limit.

[49:19] And their debt per capita is roughly 1,075 dollars.

[49:26] So again, there is taking a very, very small county

[49:29] in comparison to mortgage county or other counties.

[49:32] and seeing how the numbers kind of change.

[49:37] I was at the county in Jefferson County again,

[49:40] just choosing Jefferson County

[49:42] because they had about 46 million dollars outstanding debt.

[49:45] We wanted to give enough examples,

[49:47] where you could see some outstanding debt

[49:49] and what it does to the metrics.

[49:56] And then the last two that we included in your

[50:00] Comparison's were rich in county,

[50:01] tremble county, tremble county, kind of hit the end of the charts, and a couple of the slides.

[50:10] So they have about, this is, and this is current data. They have 68 million outstanding,

[50:15] and they are using about 39% of their statutory debt limits. There are 10-year payout ratios

[50:23] is about 68% meaning that they have a payback may than half in the first 10 years.

[50:38] And the population is, you know, as over half the size of a ported county's population.

[50:46] But again, just another way to look at those metrics.

[50:50] Do you want anything you want to add to these?

[50:52] Chris and both all the kind of metrics from recent official statements.

[51:00] So, yes, I tried to be very consistent with the timing of the data, so all of their outstanding debt is literally as of yesterday.

[51:10] You know, based on information you can find on, you know, in their official statements or in their annual disclosure filings.

[51:20] And, you know, you can see that the ratings are all very similar, but those, there's two counties,

[51:27] Manitwak, and Richland that are in just the single, what we call the single A category.

[51:32] And what I noticed in when those, when their deck got issued, is that the, there was moderate insurance.

[51:40] And so usually when we all go, when we, when we take our client's funds to market, our funds to know it's to market,

[51:46] we give the underwriter the election if they want to buy insurance, which affects the interest rates,

[51:54] but those two counties because they were on the single A category, the winning underwriter

[51:59] did actually purchase insurance so that it would have a higher debt reading. So just some

[52:04] just kind of nuances.

[52:06] So you should be proud of your ratings.

[52:21] 35.

[52:34] I'll get it by the end, promise. Okay, so what does all this mean?

[52:45] Being a debt policy and

[52:47] capital planning and why are we talking so much about that? One is because Mr. or supervisor

[52:52] Swimcher has a very pressing question, which is how much? Which we need to answer, because

[53:02] that answer and affordability is really important to how we move forward with capital

[53:07] planning. So one of the things that we're doing concurrently right now is based on previous

[53:13] meetings that we've had the capital improvement handbook has been updated. We've assigned

[53:19] some metrics. We have a KIPAA valuation team currently working on ranking projects and determining

[53:27] where those fit to give a recommendation to the county executive to say, you know, we've

[53:34] re-ranked the project. This is where the project's rank out. And this is what we need to do

[53:39] from a project side. Okay, that's all fine. I'm good. I'm the debt planning side. We need to know

[53:47] what's affordable. How much? Where do the numbers lie? Where do they fit? Those two policies, which are

[53:56] separate policies come together. They operate apart, they have different goals, different objectives.

[54:04] But when it comes to the capital plan, they come together.

[54:08] That's where we take those projects that were ranked, and we take the affordability,

[54:15] and we put them together and say, how do we make it happen?

[54:19] And that's how we get to that next step of what can we do when?

[54:23] is we need to know what's affordable and what are the projects and then we'll figure it out.

[54:30] We'll put it together.

[54:34] So, taking those two and putting them together to term in the financing plan.

[54:39] The financing plan gets layered into the capital plan and that comes back to you as a body to adopt.

[54:46] So, the big question is, does this mean we have to build your budget?

[54:51] Yes.

[54:53] But and I know that's kind of been a little bit of a headache for this board as we've talked about those into a budget because we don't want to build the wrong project.

[55:03] We don't want to cut corners. I agree with all that. My my coworkers all agree with that.

[55:10] You all agree with that. None of us want to build a project that is not the right project that doesn't need our needs.

[55:17] But we do have to build the right projects in the right order to get the achieved goal

[55:26] and we can do the projects, it just might be that you can't do them all tomorrow.

[55:32] So we have to come with a plan of how we're going to do that.

[55:36] And we need to figure out what's affordable to put together the plan.

[55:43] So,

[55:46] with that in mind, depending on what kind of questions we have before we start is our next step is to go through an exercise to help us get a sense from you where you feel affordability lies.

[56:02] And I think we've made the first determination, we've made the first decision for you.

[56:09] And when I say that, you could overrule me, but the first decision is the basis of our

[56:16] policy will start with percentage of lobby use according to the legal limit.

[56:24] Because it's already a good metric in place.

[56:26] It's the way the state measures the legal limit, so that's probably the best place to start.

[56:31] It's also the most common policy criteria that others use in setting policy.

[56:37] So I think that's the starting point, so in terms of where do we start, we've made the determination that that's the metric.

[56:47] So now,

[56:50] going through the exercise that next step, Kyle will help lead us through.

[56:56] But that's where we're going to need your help.

[57:01] So with that?

[57:04] Yeah.

[57:05] All right.

[57:06] All right.

[57:06] Well, thank you and good afternoon, evening, everybody.

[57:08] So we're going to do two different exercises.

[57:12] The first that we're going to talk about is this direct debt burden.

[57:16] So what I'm asking you to do is I will give you a single dot.

[57:22] You will come up to this first graphic on the right,

[57:27] I guess, of the other one.

[57:30] And that has the direct debt burden as a percent of equalized value.

[57:36] And so what I'm going to ask you is put your dot at what you feel is the top amount that you would want to go as a county as a county policy.

[57:50] So wherever you put your dot, you're saying you would accept up to that much debt, but no more. Does that make sense?

[57:58] And does it make sense what that graph shows?

[58:03] So you have an up to 5% your statutory limit state statutes restrict you issuing

[58:10] any more than 5% of your equalized value in debt.

[58:15] Those different percentages are what percent of that statutory limit.

[58:21] So the 50% I believe, which is the graphic on the far right, the highest one up, that

[58:28] would be two and a half percent of your equalized value or 50 percent of your statutory

[58:32] element. Is there any questions on how that graph is laid out because how you put your

[58:39] dot and how that graph is laid out is a very important issue. Yes sir.

[58:44] Thank you. Is this the time where we answer supervisor splinters question because I think

[58:52] For us to make an educated decision on this, we kind of need to know the costs or relative costs of a few projects to understand what kind of level limit we can take and then how much that's going to impact each individual per capita.

[59:06] I mean, I ran a few of these numbers and on the higher percentages and I.

[59:13] uncomfortable with how much that would cost each individual taxpayer.

[59:18] I'm not saying it's not

[59:19] sustainable but it is something to consider.

[59:34] Sorry, I think it took over. Did you want to answer?

[59:38] Yeah.

[59:42] Okay, so on this slide, but that service scenario is part of County. So this gives you, if you look at

[59:49] slide. This slide will particularly give you the today, which shows you at 3.7.

[1:00:00] 5% of your limit used. It shows you a hundred million dollar project puts you in that about 123 million

[1:00:09] dollar range of outstanding debt. A hundred and sixty-two puts you at about a hundred and eighty-five,

[1:00:21] and two hundred million puts you right in that two twenty-three, two twenty-five range. And again,

[1:00:26] these are, please remember that when we did those estimates, how many months ago they were, you know,

[1:00:32] off them, they're still rough. So, you know, just know that think about this in the scale

[1:00:40] of how that works.

[1:00:46] The other thing that can help, you know, that's, that's kind of

[1:00:52] portage county. The other thing that can kind of help when you're thinking about this is

[1:00:57] that slide from earlier, when I showed you all the counties,

[1:01:05] and others buy that quickly to do this.

[1:01:07] But I've just figured out how to press the button

[1:01:09] so I'm not going to try anything different.

[1:01:21] Is this slide, which shows you kind of the range of counties?

[1:01:30] You know, and we talked about some of those counties

[1:01:32] that are in the far end, and where their dad is,

[1:01:35] and what those parameters are.

[1:01:38] So you can kind of get the picture of the state,

[1:01:40] as well as where porters county fits into that,

[1:01:44] depending on those sizes.

[1:01:48] I think it's also worth noting that

[1:01:53] nearly 90% of the counties are at 25 or below.

[1:02:00] Today, I think it's also kind of telling

[1:02:02] in those counties that have bumped up.

[1:02:04] They do have large kind of things going on in their communities.

[1:02:08] It's not abnormal or that they kind of went up for a reason.

[1:02:13] That's probably not the normal, that limit.

[1:02:16] You know, in terms of their everyday capital projects,

[1:02:22] they tended to have some other things going on in those communities.

[1:02:29] I'm not.

[1:02:31] I don't know enough about it to speak to those projects

[1:02:35] that they're doing in such.

[1:02:36] But I do know that they've had some larger dead issues.

[1:02:39] So that tells us they have some large things going on.

[1:02:43] Just to kind of give you perspective.

[1:02:45] But in terms of supervisor, spongers question

[1:02:48] and the reason that I wanted to wait to kind of get to this point

[1:02:51] in time is this is a policy decision.

[1:02:55] And this is there's not a right, there's not a wrong answer here.

[1:03:01] The reason that the graph only goes up to the 50% is it's other

[1:03:06] And then the outlet, they have trampolose lately over, that's not typical and we can see that by the statistics, so

[1:03:21] I guess I'll stop there.

[1:03:23] Do these dollar amounts help? I thought we had one more than we could add on there.

[1:03:27] 25% there was, if you go.

[1:03:30] There's one out about a hundred and twenty three, that's a hundred million dollars.

[1:03:35] Yeah, so I'd say if a hundred million dollar project were put in set about a hundred and twenty-three million outstanding.

[1:03:42] Well, who said was that?

[1:03:44] Uh, twenty-four point eight, one about twenty-five.

[1:03:53] You start to get to see the graduation of how it affects hundreds of about just on a twenty-five percent.

[1:04:00] You're getting involved 200 billion in just under 50% and that's 200 million additional

[1:04:07] including what you had in this scene, which is that's 70 million.

[1:04:14] So that shows the limit and I'm asking you to just put your dot at where you feel you wouldn't want it to go up above.

[1:04:23] Go up to that limit, but not above.

[1:04:28] That's clear for everybody.

[1:04:32] Yeah.

[1:04:32] Who are you?

[1:04:33] Supervisor Randolph.

[1:04:37] So my head's about to explode a little bit.

[1:04:39] So I'm going to try to stay on topic, which is not nearly my strength.

[1:04:45] But I understand what we're trying to do here, like we're trying to set policy guidelines

[1:04:50] so you can make decisions within those guidelines, which needs to be done.

[1:04:53] This actually reminds me of a house renovation project my wife nighted years ago that started

[1:04:58] with what we wanted to do, got insane, and instead we set a budget, I was like, I don't care

[1:05:04] what we do, because I didn't, and we set a budget, and said, well, we can do whatever

[1:05:09] out within that number. So that's kind of what we're trying to do here. But the difference

[1:05:13] is I was deciding whether or not I needed a new kitchen but my old kitchen worked. So I

[1:05:20] could cut whatever I would cut a lot out of that budget and it really didn't matter in my day

[1:05:24] today. It seems we're being asked to come up with a number for a policy because I guess somebody

[1:05:30] has to based on our guts. Like one of my supposed to look at here I feel so unqualified to make

[1:05:39] this decision. Because you're asking me what I'm comfortable with when I look at that data

[1:05:44] and I'm not lost on data, but it also seemed that what counties borrowed didn't change their

[1:05:50] moody's radius much. So what are we supposed to decide based on here? I'm going to go up and

[1:05:56] go, I can live with the amount of projects we have, so it needs to be two and a half percent,

[1:06:02] but then that'll make us the highest tax county maybe, which has a large scale economic impact.

[1:06:08] And I'm trying to weigh that.

[1:06:11] So one of the things to point out, and just before I get too far, so Attorney Hick

[1:06:17] of your kindly pointed out that tonight we're not setting policy, we're just providing

[1:06:21] guidance and where your comfort levels and different measurements and different metrics.

[1:06:27] I will take this information back, and I will put it in some type of policy that will come

[1:06:37] to finance committees that eventually come back

[1:06:39] before this board that you get to decide on.

[1:06:43] But again, it's to help set some parameters

[1:06:46] of what guidance we need in terms of where we feel that that is.

[1:06:53] So one of the things that Chris and I

[1:06:55] were just kind of also talking about on the side here as well

[1:06:59] is when you set, when the county establishes

[1:07:04] within its quality policy on limit, a financial limitation, it doesn't, it's not one time, right?

[1:07:14] So when we have capital plans that last six years and every year we updated and it's a new

[1:07:21] capital plan for the next six years and then a new capital plan for the next six years, we are always

[1:07:27] evaluating and with.

[1:07:30] We determine within those limitations how we accomplish our goals.

[1:07:34] And if our goals are, we want to do certain projects.

[1:07:43] It might be just how we lay out those projects, how we do components of those projects,

[1:07:49] how we determine how to schedule those projects because as we issue that we will

[1:08:02] continue to pay that. So as we might hit a limit within three years we might

[1:08:11] have paid off enough that we can now issue again additional that depending on

[1:08:16] different structures and how we lay that out. But not knowing at any one time what's

[1:08:27] affordable, kind of as that ceiling is kind of difficult to do without kind of having

[1:08:36] some guidance. And I'm trying to, I know the question is what should the number be? I'm trying

[1:08:43] give you examples to show you what others have done. There's not a, there's not a

[1:08:51] formula I can put this through and say the answer is this. You know, in your personal life,

[1:08:57] you decide how much you're going to put on that credit card. And then you have to live with it.

[1:09:03] In this case, when we issue debt as a as a county, we have to reconsider it of what's going to

[1:09:10] up on that tax bill and how our community is going to pay for it.

[1:09:15] Now that doesn't mean that these aren't on necessary needs, it just means we have to think

[1:09:20] about a way to lay it out in order to accomplish those within the limitations we've set

[1:09:26] for ourselves.

[1:09:27] And again, the statutory of a limitation is 5%, you know, we've put on here up to 50%.

[1:09:33] You can issue more of that's a choice, but I'm trying to advise you in the sense of what others

[1:09:40] have done and I don't see that anywhere. So

[1:09:49] I'm trying to do the best I can to provide you

[1:09:51] with what's meaningful to help you make the decision and I can provide more information

[1:09:57] to help you get there. But this is kind of a starting point. And you know what, I'm actually

[1:10:04] pretty excited because everybody's still with me. I figured by this point, what do you mean?

[1:10:08] You all would have checked out.

[1:10:12] Question.

[1:10:15] Since I didn't get Jack members, I have to fear.

[1:10:19] Again, I'm just facing it on my tenure as experience on the board here.

[1:10:23] Trying to figure out how we get a jail that's up to standard and a safe courthouse.

[1:10:31] And I think those two projects, say the jails, 130,

[1:10:38] and the remodel of 35.

[1:10:40] So we're talking a total in my mind, 165 million, that we kind of have to do all at once.

[1:10:49] Otherwise, you wait 10 years, that 35 million will transform into 65 million, or the 120 million will transfer into 180 million.

[1:11:00] So I think with our desk service being as low as it is, we have to seriously consider doing those two projects at the same time, and that's my general idea of that 165 million's got to fit in, and I think we can fit it in, because we're an advantageous area of our paying down our debt and doing our great job in the finance department by doing that.

[1:11:28] We got us in a great position over the last 10, 15 years.

[1:11:32] But we desperately need a new jail, and we desperately need a safe courthouse.

[1:11:37] And both of those have to be almost considered the top two.

[1:11:41] I can't think of anything else on the top of my mind, at least,

[1:11:45] that would rank above that.

[1:11:48] So those are two biggies.

[1:11:50] But for getting done, we're, you know, getting paid off in 20 years.

[1:11:55] We'll have done a good service for the county, so that's just my thoughts of what I'm seeing here as far before I go up to my top

[1:12:12] Supervisor is this sort of service chief. I get a direct address is trying to do here and

[1:12:18] Get an idea of what we're comfortable with

[1:12:21] I'm not looking in as exercise for the main reason that I may be okay with spending $130 million on a new jail

[1:12:32] But I'm not okay with spending $130 million on a new human society.

[1:12:37] It depends on a scope of the project.

[1:12:40] So I may become so willing up there, but I'm not sure what the scope of the project is.

[1:12:44] So really that could be more envoy for one and a hundred percent for the other.

[1:12:48] So I get what you're trying to get to, but I'm not comfortable with the exercise.

[1:12:52] Just because of that.

[1:12:54] If I could just sort of...

[1:12:55] It doesn't commit you to establish, you know, $165 million.

[1:12:59] Those projects still need to come forward to the board and they would get approved on a project by project faces.

[1:13:06] What this is just doing is like establishing, if you're going to look for a house,

[1:13:11] what is the top dollar amount you're willing to spend?

[1:13:14] You know, often that's going to be 30% of someone's income.

[1:13:18] So what is that dollar amount that we're willing to spend?

[1:13:21] That's really what we're trying to establish here.

[1:13:23] that doesn't mean you have to spend that. Each of these projects will come individually through

[1:13:28] the county board and it'll get voted on. This just gives the window for which we can operate.

[1:13:34] The county can operate. It's finances under. So keep in mind, this is an establishing that yes,

[1:13:40] you now have to have that much debt. This is just saying this is the maximum amount that you have to

[1:13:45] have again approval project by project. Let me just I need to clarify. This is under committee of

[1:13:53] agenda. There's no action items. This is discussion only. This is designed to facilitate

[1:14:01] conversation and discussion. It's establishing nothing. There's no policy. This is not

[1:14:09] directly tied to a pending future action. It's designed to facilitate conversation based on

[1:14:17] agenda that's set forth to facilitate discussion based on the agenda and the committee of

[1:14:24] the whole.

[1:14:25] And so I just again clarify what's happening.

[1:14:30] The other thing I just want to point out to supervisors this one of it's question which I think

[1:14:36] is important is the whole main of the capital planning to the debt management policy that the

[1:14:47] wouldn't really mean much without having an identified

[1:14:51] capital plan, which again, we just went through that process of

[1:14:57] evaluating the...

[1:15:00] Involved to say we now have criteria to rank projects because they meet certain goals and they get certain scores, meaning they have a different level of importance compared to other projects.

[1:15:13] So it would still have to be demonstrated need to the county and would still need to meet the criteria for us to say it should even be a capital project in the first place to get to that capital plan adoption piece is kind of how that would work.

[1:15:29] So it wouldn't be a, you know, an automatic kind of thing.

[1:15:34] Supervisor Rendoza, then, the supervisor, Matt Chikovsky.

[1:15:37] I'm trying to clarify this in a way not to be a follow of our rules, because

[1:15:41] not saying we're making a policy or decision based off it, but is it accurate to say

[1:15:46] these sort of discussions which could eventually lead to types of policies

[1:15:50] are the sort of things that in the S&P rating, having these managed

[1:15:55] having management policies, having debt policies,

[1:15:58] are going to help us in ratings, correct?

[1:16:01] So that's a part of what we're doing here

[1:16:03] is making sure that from the outside,

[1:16:06] we look like we have criteria, not just,

[1:16:10] all right, thank you.

[1:16:11] Absolutely.

[1:16:13] I would also add that it has a board that gets

[1:16:16] as to a point where we're comfortable

[1:16:18] or have an acceptable level of debt.

[1:16:22] And so we're not really talking projects tonight.

[1:16:25] we're talking about where we want to be and what that percentage of a statutory debt we want

[1:16:31] to have as a county. And again, you know, the graph here that shows 90 percent of the counties

[1:16:37] under 25 percent. Again, I think that's a very telling number. It shows you where most counties

[1:16:44] are in the state are at. As Jenny said, we can go wherever we want here. And again, we will

[1:16:53] to ranking the projects, but we have to start somewhere in terms of death service and where we want to be as a county.

[1:17:02] And again, there is no magic number, there is no easy calculation.

[1:17:07] And really that's the rationale for the exercise tonight to just get us to think about what those guidelines might be.

[1:17:23] I'm sorry.

[1:17:24] Matt, um, supervisor, just go ahead.

[1:17:28] Thank you.

[1:17:31] We're trying on some extremely thin ice here with the committee of the whole.

[1:17:37] We are essentially going to take a straw poll, which we've been told before in the committee of the whole as an allowed.

[1:17:46] We had asked that and we're told by corporation council that we couldn't take a,

[1:17:50] drop a shop or vote. By putting a sticker on there, we're essentially doing a

[1:17:56] shop or vote. Everybody says this isn't policies, isn't a decision. The

[1:18:00] chair just said, this will get us to a point. That's a decision. And it may be a

[1:18:08] misstep, a mispoken, but we are treading on very thin ice. And I hear

[1:18:14] these points about this, and this is why this is such a grayery and uncomfortable, because

[1:18:24] I have not heard yet from one member of the public, oh wait, it's a committee of the

[1:18:28] whole, so we don't take public input.

[1:18:33] So the public has no input on there.

[1:18:35] If there were 40 people here this evening, and this was in a gender item that we were going

[1:18:41] to discuss, and I realized that may come in the future.

[1:18:43] But it should be happening now too because I don't know what their debt comes to build that area.

[1:18:53] I can justify project A to my constituents maybe.

[1:18:58] At maybe let's I'm going to pick a number say 130 million.

[1:19:02] But project B at 30 million I can't justify that.

[1:19:06] I realize we're looking at that as a whole, but we're cutting very, very thin ice and we are essentially taking a

[1:19:15] straw poll tonight by up there voting with that.

[1:19:19] And we've been told multiple times that that's not allowed under the committee of the whole.

[1:19:25] Very scary situation.

[1:19:36] I'll read it from my standpoint and certainly, you know, I agree there should not be any straw

[1:19:42] and struggles in terms of an expectation for a future decision.

[1:19:50] So, I agree. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I would not deem that is it.

[1:19:54] And so again, my understanding is the state intent is to try and facilitate conversation.

[1:20:01] I will obviously state the obvious and, you know,

[1:20:04] Our dissipation is voluntary and if people don't want to participate in this, I mean that's obviously a choice and from my standpoint, as long as it's clear that this is not making a decision, it's not geared toward making a specific decision or gaining a consensus on a specific decision on a specific future item.

[1:20:32] You know, as is,

[1:20:37] it's probably, you know, there's, there's some level of risk associated with it,

[1:20:43] but having discussed this ahead of time, and discussing it tonight, again,

[1:20:49] I think it's the Facility Conversation, Heartess Patient is Voluntary.

[1:20:54] It's not designed to be establishing a policy or trying to, by straw-pole gain consensus towards a specific decision.

[1:21:06] I would reiterate what Coke Council just said, this is an exercise to get us comfortable with and to understand what the playing field is.

[1:21:16] It's not binding. We are clearly not making a decision. Supervisor Moral.

[1:21:22] I realize that some of this is just the cost of doing business, but if you took like the 50% like right in the middle of that, where does that put us on that graph?

[1:21:33] like how far over a Temple of County are we going to go if we are like right in the middle

[1:21:39] like the average of all the options? So like 25%

[1:21:57] that's like a hundred and twenty three million

[1:22:11] to put us only two, three, four, five, six from the left, from the right.

[1:22:19] We're

[1:22:21] 25% of the one that's first in

[1:22:28] the two.

[1:22:34] I believe 25% is going to put us five bars over from the far right.

[1:22:40] five or six.

[1:22:43] Yeah.

[1:22:43] This is a.

[1:22:46] You know, I'm going to say, you've got to touch that.

[1:22:48] We can do

[1:22:52] it.

[1:22:52] Because Trimpo County spent that money on a justice center.

[1:22:56] And renovations to their county courthouse.

[1:22:59] So I like is that just the birth of their requirements of reality.

[1:23:04] So if you're looking at this chart, you know, like the middle of this graph is like a percent of a statutory limit.

[1:23:10] I mean, that's where people are around 8-10% in the middle.

[1:23:15] You know, so a few way to say a mortgage county was at 8-10%, 8-10%.

[1:23:24] We're at,

[1:23:31] I have to pull it up so I can read the number.

[1:23:35] Yeah, I'm size can't read the chart.

[1:23:37] 10% is like 46.6 million.

[1:23:41] So the middle of this graph, you know, if you look at the columns in the middle of this graph,

[1:23:45] You know, they're between eight and 10 percent, 10 percent for a poor-ditch county in 2024 numbers is 46.6 million.

[1:23:58] So, you know, like an accountant at Marathon who said the policy at 10 percent, you know, they have a much higher equalized value than we do.

[1:24:08] So if you know, I don't know that it, a building project, you know, for the same number of

[1:24:14] square feet is in a cost more than marathon county than it doesn't portage county, but

[1:24:19] you know, scalable kinds of things, they probably need a bigger building, you know, depending

[1:24:23] on what it is.

[1:24:25] But, you know, the cost of the type of project in a marathon county, compared to a porch county,

[1:24:31] wouldn't really be that different.

[1:24:41] Well, I'll keep answering questions while we're discussing, I mean, I can continue to provide information at some point the county needs to gauge where we're going and some of these numbers.

[1:24:56] It's hard to put together planning when we don't have guidance.

[1:25:04] That's the word. Yeah, thank you.

[1:25:08] So I'll answer any questions that help people with understanding

[1:25:12] debt burden, understand metrics, understand why we measure them, understand radiance,

[1:25:18] any type of...

[1:25:24] Yeah, I didn't do those good.

[1:25:26] Jenny, I got one question.

[1:25:28] You mentioned this $1500 mark?

[1:25:30] Yes.

[1:25:32] If we go over that $1500 mark, what does that do to our S&P ratings?

[1:25:38] Or what's the consequences of doing that?

[1:25:41] Yeah, you'll show us what it doesn't would be at $15,000 per capital or how would it go?

[1:25:48] Yes, and yes.

[1:26:04] So, again, going back to the S&P metrics,

[1:26:09] net direct debt is 25% of a 20% rate criteria. So, you know, five percent of the overall

[1:26:22] is what it equates to.

[1:26:27] So, let me look at those metrics. You can see that the Met

[1:26:32] direct debt per capita, that level 3 is it takes you to that level 3 category, and

[1:26:39] those 1 through 6 corresponds with the S&P rating. So, taking you from AAA to AA to A to B,

[1:26:50] I don't have the rating in front of me, but it drops you down as you go just in that category.

[1:26:58] So without letting it through the full analysis of Kristen and talked about it, it would definitely drop us down to that next category.

[1:27:06] So we're definitely having an impact.

[1:27:08] And then from there, you have a second part to your question, Joan.

[1:27:17] What kind of impact would it cost us, if we go above this, if we go above this, if we go

[1:27:22] over there, and what is our total debt limit at $1500?

[1:27:27] So, definitely we would have an impact in driving that potential leading downward.

[1:27:32] In terms of the 1,500, when they look at the numbers that I provided in the presentation,

[1:27:39] so for our 100 million dollar project estimate, which puts us at a direct debt burden

[1:27:44] of about a hundred and twenty-three million, the direct debt per capita is about

[1:27:49] seventeen-hundred.

[1:27:53] So that would be over that fifteen-hundred mark. You know, so

[1:27:57] a little bit lower than that would put you at your fifteen-hundred.

[1:28:04] Supervisor Splinter, then I'm going to give a brief explanation.

[1:28:07] You want? Go ahead. Okay. I think the community of the whole thing has worked well.

[1:28:17] Well, I'll go until just right to this point and I'm taking a listen closely to what

[1:28:25] man is, he's uncomfortable and I think a few other people are uncomfortable putting a

[1:28:30] up there without having the public join in, or at least give some, I don't know why we couldn't

[1:28:39] have another community as a whole meeting. I mean, we had two already this month. I mean, it's a good

[1:28:45] process, but maybe open it up to the public that we're going to kind of get a feeling from the

[1:28:52] as to what they're comfortable with, and the public has an ability to say what they're comfortable with.

[1:29:03] Before we make this the dots on the board, at least it'll be more of an open process.

[1:29:11] And the public has a chance to chime in, and then when we put this up on the board because from what I heard,

[1:29:17] You're going to take that all the dots on that board and take it back financed to figure

[1:29:23] out decisions.

[1:29:25] So that's kind of a, that's as close to a straw pole as I've ever seen.

[1:29:30] So maybe we can just pick it up at the next, we can do it in a couple of weeks or whatever,

[1:29:36] but I think it's an important process, and when we talk about, and maybe we can even talk

[1:29:42] about potential cost of our two

[1:29:45] and major projects we got in the works.

[1:29:50] So, all right, I'm gonna jump in here.

[1:29:53] So, tonight, really is an informational meeting.

[1:29:57] And we need to be able to have this kind of doubt.

[1:30:00] I logs so that we understand where the borders at and if we have a full understanding of what

[1:30:07] these graphs mean and what the level of debt and the debt policy that the county undertakes is.

[1:30:14] I certainly get maths concern. The intent of this is not a straw poll. It's not binding. We are

[1:30:20] not going to ask or vote this evening. So instead we're going to eliminate dots. We're

[1:30:30] not going to use dots tonight. What we are going to do is we're going to talk about the

[1:30:33] ramifications of those ranges of percentage of statutory debt and debt per capita. So

[1:30:41] that we all have a clear idea of what are decisions when we come to make a decision on a

[1:30:49] a particular project and the cost of that project, we have this in the background

[1:30:54] to understand what are the ramifications of that project decision. Again, we shouldn't even

[1:30:59] be thinking projects this evening because that's not what this is about. It's very

[1:31:03] hard to divorce the two, but again, this evening is an informational meeting and exercise

[1:31:10] and sure that the board understands the ramifications of his decision on debt policy.

[1:31:16] Does that make sense for everyone?

[1:31:20] All right, Supervisor Josie.

[1:31:23] Director.

[1:31:23] I just want to clarify that, you know, in terms of, you know,

[1:31:28] next steps for debt policy, finance committee is going to get a

[1:31:32] debt policy before them, and they will, you know, have something in their

[1:31:37] future that they will have to evaluate.

[1:31:39] I mean, I know you mentioned projects, but I just want to be

[1:31:41] specific that debt management policy is something that the

[1:31:45] County should have in its future.

[1:31:53] All right, Kyle, would you like to dive in?

[1:31:55] Well, I guess I would start to look at that direct burden.

[1:31:59] And can we start to ask those questions?

[1:32:03] Does it make more sense to look at it as a percent of what you're allowable?

[1:32:08] Or is it what is the total cost of that?

[1:32:10] Or what is the cost per capita?

[1:32:17] supervisor shorts.

[1:32:21] So I don't have a lot of financial experience. You threw a lot of numbers

[1:32:25] and a lot of jargon at me. So I don't entirely understand all of this. So forgive me if I say

[1:32:31] something weird right now. But how can you translate this chart over here into what it will

[1:32:41] cost a tax payer, like, what are the graphs you showed us or the numbers? It has the most

[1:32:49] direct relational value that someone who knows nothing about government or finances at all,

[1:32:58] can say, okay, I make this much or my house is worth this much. This is how this will affect me directly.

[1:33:05] What's difficult about that is that we don't still don't know the structure of that at. So

[1:33:10] You could have a three-year term, and that cost for that same amount of debt burden would be a significant more than if you had it at a 20-year term.

[1:33:20] So how you are terming the length of your debt, the issuance of your debt, is going to change or it's going to change the impact of what is the cost per taxpayer.

[1:33:34] Supervisor Match goes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this might help the conversation and maybe get us started and it's a personal opinion, so we're not taking off a poll here or anything.

[1:33:48] I pride myself in my credit rating.

[1:33:52] What's my business credit in my personal credit?

[1:33:55] And I think as a county we pride ourselves in our double a rating.

[1:34:01] I would like to see a debt policy that doesn't drop us into a single rating that will keep

[1:34:08] us at a double rating. Does that make sense? Is that a good starting point for conversation?

[1:34:16] I guess I would ask what's the impact of that?

[1:34:24] Because if you're not sure, that's not a good

[1:34:26] thing to hang your head on as a policy. And I do realize what the impact is on it, because as we go

[1:34:32] for future debt issuances, whether it be roads,

[1:34:35] smaller debt issuances, than a project

[1:34:38] where we're not talking about projects tonight,

[1:34:41] as we go for smaller debt issues,

[1:34:43] are cost to do business gets higher,

[1:34:45] because if our rating drops are interest rates go up,

[1:34:48] and then we're paying bond insurance,

[1:34:51] so all of that moves on.

[1:34:53] So I do understand what affect our rating drops,

[1:34:56] it's just like a personal credit score.

[1:34:58] As your credit score goes down,

[1:34:59] you're gonna pay highest in higher interest rates.

[1:35:01] But by point is, what is the financial impact of that?

[1:35:06] It's an unknown.

[1:35:09] So if we're saying we're going to hang our head on it,

[1:35:12] being a single, going to a single label,

[1:35:14] what is the financial impact of that?

[1:35:16] Maybe it's a lot, maybe it's not a lot.

[1:35:19] But not knowing that is to me the concern

[1:35:22] of making a decision based on an unknown.

[1:35:26] But again, if we make a decision on a debt rating,

[1:35:30] on a debt level of 180 mill, let's almost throw a number out there, 180 million, and

[1:35:36] it drops us to a single rating, we don't know if that's going to drop us to that.

[1:35:42] So they're directly proportional.

[1:35:44] Well, but you're not, you don't have to go up to that rating.

[1:35:47] You would have that decision at the point of any single or project that pushed you to that

[1:35:52] point, I guess.

[1:35:59] The other thing I would add, you know, when we're talking about debt and debt metrics, is to take you back to this slide here, which shows the five categories that were laid in on, where debt is one factor, correct, so it's 20% of our overall rating.

[1:36:17] So, this can kind of give you the information based on those criteria, so you might lean towards certain metrics related to debt, but the other four categories that are, you know, debt specifics still have an impact on the rating, that tie back to the devil.

[1:36:42] So just assigning those types of criteria just within the debt section as I'm going to guarantee that

[1:36:48] doubly or whatever just I wanted to point that out from that criteria and the other thing

[1:36:55] is just to bring you back to the slides where I did kind of show the two categories which are

[1:37:06] We can calculate the third category is a little bit more of a mystery, but these two categories

[1:37:14] we can relatively easily calculate or replicate in terms of what it takes to jump to that next level,

[1:37:24] in terms of impact on debt.

[1:37:30] The cost for that service and the net direct debt per capita in terms of where that, where we'll push you in terms of having an impact on that rating.

[1:37:41] So I don't know if that's how pull or not. Supervisor Latak, did you have a question?

[1:37:47] Yes, thank you. At a primary meeting, I remember something about our total debt limit was roughly 410 million, was that correct?

[1:37:57] 466.

[1:37:58] 6.

[1:37:58] 4K.

[1:37:59] And at that time, I think there was something where you would see that we don't want

[1:38:03] to go over 50% of that out.

[1:38:07] So, that correct.

[1:38:09] Legalee, you can, but again, according to our data, we have shown one county that went to 50.18%.

[1:38:20] Right.

[1:38:21] And the only part of that is they know we all want to keep this bond

[1:38:25] and they have with double A, but if we don't borrow what we need and get the right projects

[1:38:32] done, a great bond rating doesn't do this any good.

[1:38:35] Okay, true.

[1:38:39] Supervisor Medine.

[1:38:41] You could go back to that last slide you had that showed the categories for factors.

[1:38:51] The five categories?

[1:38:52] Okay.

[1:38:55] You know, you're going to be...

[1:38:55] For S&P ratings, you mean?

[1:38:57] Yes.

[1:38:57] Okay,

[1:39:02] the management, oops, the management set in there, does that, is that evaluate management

[1:39:12] of finances, or does that a broader category does it evaluate the management of our entire

[1:39:19] infrastructure?

[1:39:20] I'll call it.

[1:39:23] What?

[1:39:24] The words of those, that things go bad.

[1:39:25] Hold on.

[1:39:27] I want to read something to you.

[1:39:39] Yes.

[1:39:39] That's what it is.

[1:39:44] So management, which is 20%.

[1:39:47] The initial management assessment considers three subfactors.

[1:39:51] Budgeting practices, which is 35%, which considers your revenue and expenditure assumptions

[1:39:56] and budget adjustments and updates.

[1:39:59] It also includes long-term planning, which is 35% which considers long-term financial

[1:40:03] amp-capital planning, and then policies which is 30% investment management policies,

[1:40:09] debt management policies, and reserve and liquidity policies.

[1:40:14] So, can I just say that?

[1:40:17] So when it talks about budget factors, and it looks at that, and even though reserves,

[1:40:21] it's its own policy, so one of the criteria that they'll ask about when we have a reading

[1:40:26] call is, are you using your reserves to balance your budget?

[1:40:30] And if so, what reserves are you using and how are you using them?

[1:40:36] They will ask about revenue sources and the different types of revenue sources.

[1:40:46] And how close you are in terms of estimating your revenue sources?

[1:40:50] Like, what percentage are you within?

[1:40:52] They will look at,

[1:40:55] I'm just trying to give you the practical examples of what that means when we talk about budget factors.

[1:41:04] For casting, then we'll address are you forecasting the current mirror in the next year,

[1:41:12] or you do have a 10 year projection of what's going to happen in the county,

[1:41:18] both expenditures and your revenues, and that we don't have.

[1:41:23] So, those are some of the additional criteria that they will look at in terms of your policies.

[1:41:34] That wasn't all inclusive, it was just to give you a sense of what they're asking.

[1:41:47] Is there any questions on the impact of the debt burden as a cost that we could answer?

[1:41:57] Supervisor Merissum.

[1:41:58] Thank you.

[1:42:00] I was actually looking forward to having some kind of collective idea of what our tolerance is for debt.

[1:42:08] tonight because it actually then allows our staff to provide the information that we

[1:42:13] need as a collective body to do the work. But what happened tonight is we have

[1:42:20] personalities that get in the way of actual progress, again, and it completely

[1:42:25] tracks, completely of our being attacked. That's not right. Excuse me, supervisor

[1:42:33] But Supervisor Marisi has the floor.

[1:42:38] Well, the discussions got to be pertinent to the agenda item too.

[1:42:42] I agree.

[1:42:44] To your point, I think it is difficult to gauge where the board is at in terms of understanding

[1:42:50] on debt policy.

[1:42:52] This isn't an attempt to make a decision.

[1:42:54] This is really to gauge for ourselves where we're at.

[1:43:00] We need to make a decision and we need data and we can't do that without the body actually having all the information available.

[1:43:07] The whole point of the committee of the whole is to gather that information to have a free and frank discussion about where we would like to see the vision of the county move forward to.

[1:43:18] we are not allowed to do that if we don't actually have the information available to

[1:43:23] kind of check the temperature of the entire committee, the entire body. We've been in this

[1:43:29] discussion for the past, at least for me, for the past nearly eight years now of how we're going

[1:43:35] to proceed and how we're going to move forward. We've tried committees of the whole that have failed

[1:43:40] in the past. We've actually tried being told what to do by past administrations of how we're going

[1:43:47] do this and it failed miserably and those people have been removed from the board by the

[1:43:53] electorate. So now we're at the point where we actually have an opportunity to get the work done,

[1:44:00] to check the pulse of this body by just throwing some numbers out there. Does it mean anything?

[1:44:07] No. Is it a pole? No. But what it does give us, it gives us a range of tolerance of how much money

[1:44:13] we're willing to spend to actually accomplish the task that is the biggest task of this generation.

[1:44:17] This generation right here is going to build and put our community into so much debt, but

[1:44:25] we know we have a responsibility to our community for public safety, but also to our

[1:44:33] sheriff's office for their safety, for our judges for their safety, but we'll be prevented

[1:44:39] from doing that tonight because of some misnomer of a straw poll.

[1:44:44] I don't think that is fair to our community.

[1:44:47] I don't think that is fair to us as a committee and I don't think it's fair to our staff

[1:44:51] to not actually be able to get this work done, we're on the cusp of doing it.

[1:44:55] I applied you, Mr. Chair, for actually generating these discussions over a course of...

[1:45:00] Many months and many weeks of hard work with UW Extension and our staff are actually getting it done, because this is what we've all wanted to do, and this is what we're prevented from doing outside of this building, unless we're in committee. We can't have quorum outside of this room, but we can have this discussion here and now tonight if we choose to.

[1:45:24] I highly recommend that we actually do do this work and we actually get this work done get staffed the tools they need at least a

[1:45:31] temperature and

[1:45:33] move us forward so we can get this work done and

[1:45:36] Supervisor Jikowski if you feel I attack you I am very solar and I apologize for that perceived attack

[1:45:44] I do think we can have a meaningful discussion about the ramifications of these particular ranges and I think is a board

[1:45:51] We need to get there

[1:45:54] sooner or later we have to make this decision and I would rather see us make this decision well and

[1:45:59] form than not actually understanding the ramifications of the decisions we're making and what

[1:46:06] that means in terms of debt service and what that means and to for the tax bill of county residents

[1:46:13] Supervisor, I'd track your jersey.

[1:46:18] I just wanted to add to the conversation and just because I've heard it a couple times.

[1:46:27] Having a tolerance for debt or setting metrics or measuring your debt in a certain way doesn't limit your capacity to accomplish your goals and your projects.

[1:46:43] It might change the timing of when you have certain accomplishments, but it shouldn't

[1:46:52] negate completing those tasks.

[1:46:56] It just provides that you have to have a better plan to do them.

[1:47:02] It shouldn't mean that you can't do them, and I just want to just mention it again because

[1:47:11] I know when we look at projects of the past, there has been quite a bit of conversation about, you know, building to a budget in a negative way,

[1:47:29] but that was due to the choices we made about that project.

[1:47:34] So, not all budgets are bad, I guess this is what I'm trying to say cautiously.

[1:47:46] Supervisor Splinter, then supervisor Medina.

[1:47:50] I agree with supervisor Maurice, off to the point where we're accomplishing a lot, but at this point,

[1:48:00] or you're trying to get a gauge of we're representing a lot of public here, I don't think

[1:48:07] is that hard to schedule a committee of the whole meeting, open to the public comment and

[1:48:15] zoom it in on what level of debt for the county is the public comfortable with.

[1:48:25] not us, we can do it too, but at that meeting, I'll put my sticker up on the board,

[1:48:31] where I think what we need to get some major project done, and you can start the meeting with

[1:48:41] Jennifer, Jennifer, here's the expert. We're all, some people can tell you how I go out and

[1:48:46] how to go ahead and how to change the truck engine and whatever else. We've got all kinds of

[1:48:52] disciplines, but you have given one that we rely on saying, okay, to get these, you want

[1:49:00] two major projects done, I hate to keep saying it over again, the jail and the courthouse.

[1:49:06] But if you want this done, this is the level of that you're going to have to be comfortable with,

[1:49:10] and then you make a decision, with public input, then we can, we can say we've done this in an

[1:49:18] in transparent way and the public was involved and we all represent about 2,800 people and we

[1:49:26] can kind of make a good decision that way. I don't like doing it when it's not open to the

[1:49:32] public and it's not open to the public but it's not open to public comment. I think the public

[1:49:38] always has a right to say three minutes anything. I will quickly point out that a committee of the

[1:49:48] The public is more than welcome to attend. We are not making any decisions, Mike, and, again,

[1:49:58] I don't know how to get this point across, but as a board, we need to work collectively.

[1:50:04] You don't represent 2,800 people or whatever the number is. You represent the entire county.

[1:50:10] All of us are elected to represent Portage County. We're not doing anything under the table,

[1:50:16] We're not trying to not be transparent, we're trying to get collectively as a board to a place where we're comfortable with a certain level of debt and what the ramification of that debt is for county taxpayers.

[1:50:32] Beyond that, we will then look at projects and see how those projects fit within that debt and what limitations they are.

[1:50:39] Once we as a board agreed to take on those projects, then we turn those projects and the debt service and the phasing and the strategic planning for how those projects move ahead.

[1:50:52] We turn that back over to staff.

[1:50:55] Director Josie, did you have a comment?

[1:50:59] Oh, yeah.

[1:51:02] Again, I actually think this is a useful conversation that we're having.

[1:51:10] I can understand supervisors, supervisors, concerns, but just because I would really like to know how my fellow supervisors are, what is, what is their perception right now tonight of what kind of debt we can, we we reasonably have to consider we're here to represent the public.

[1:51:39] You're going to go to the citizens and ask them how much they want their taxes to increase.

[1:51:45] I don't think so.

[1:51:46] But I do know that they like having public safety and that when we raise taxes, we have

[1:51:53] a safer community if it's spent well.

[1:51:55] But I'd like to know what the feeling of the board, other board members are.

[1:52:04] That's it.

[1:52:05] So maybe as a starting point, do you have a point that you're at?

[1:52:12] I do.

[1:52:14] I do as a matter of fact.

[1:52:16] Dave, if I would ask you procedurally.

[1:52:19] I mean, it's no.

[1:52:21] We're not going to have a roll call,

[1:52:22] I'll say, you know, in lieu of putting a dot on there,

[1:52:26] tell us where your feelings are, so I mean,

[1:52:30] Again, I think to chair Rezers comment, there's I think some good conversation and my suggestion is, let's not devolve and to say that we're going to take votes on what every supervisor's comfort level is on the debt scale. The point was we're getting away from that.

[1:52:53] And if at some point, this is a counterproductive conversation.

[1:53:01] Again, I think the intent is to bring this information to the board,

[1:53:06] and hopefully the board understands the ramifications

[1:53:10] or what these ranges mean, or how we compare with other counties,

[1:53:14] and what that actually means.

[1:53:18] Beyond that, I'm not sure how much further we can go this evening.

[1:53:24] Supervisor Randasa, then supervisor of magicalsky.

[1:53:28] This might be for corporate counsel.

[1:53:29] Is there a reason that those of us who want to put up the DM stickers,

[1:53:33] just put up the DM stickers, and those who don't don't.

[1:53:35] Because I trust corporate counsel is judgment on this stuff.

[1:53:38] That's why they're hired.

[1:53:39] I do not have a law degree.

[1:53:40] If he says it's okay, I believe in that it's okay.

[1:53:43] And I think that'd be a good way to end it.

[1:53:45] And if somebody doesn't want to put it up, don't put it up.

[1:53:48] Again, this is just a discussion.

[1:53:49] But I completely agree that having some idea when we leave here, where people feel, would be

[1:53:57] beneficial.

[1:53:58] Like, it doesn't, again, it's not concrete, we're not, this is not setting up the template.

[1:54:03] But otherwise, I'm going to walk out of here as I often do, having no idea what most of these

[1:54:07] people think, and I don't know how we're supposed to find that out.

[1:54:12] At this point, my suggestion is to not do that, we've moved beyond that at this point, so

[1:54:17] would, you know, as the discussion has developed tonight and I'd say we're beyond that at

[1:54:24] this point. So I'd recommend against it. Supervisor Jakowski and Supervisor Medeen.

[1:54:31] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Mr. Rand as I'll just hit on ahead here. He has no idea.

[1:54:37] And sometimes we all have no ideas on some of this stuff. There's one person in this room that's

[1:54:44] and expert on public finance.

[1:54:47] Well, maybe two or three.

[1:54:48] I guess I should apologize.

[1:54:50] One, that's probably employed by this county.

[1:54:53] And one kind of employed by this county through extension.

[1:54:56] And the other one hired by this county.

[1:54:58] So I guess we employ almost a little.

[1:55:00] But those people are experts.

[1:55:04] And that's who we need to look for to tell us

[1:55:07] what debt is comfortable to them.

[1:55:10] a range and what impacts those are going to have for each of us to sit here and try to

[1:55:20] be experts in county finance county debt is is ridiculous the informational part that we

[1:55:28] got tonight is great it shows us what where other counties are at so if they come

[1:55:34] to us and say we're going to be at that if we're going to pick a number of be here it's

[1:55:40] to take us to $1,700 per capita, we don't what effect that has or kind of what effect that

[1:55:45] has because it's kind of still a mystery magic ate ball. But we will know that then.

[1:55:53] I would like to see Director Josie working with our financial advisors to come up with a couple

[1:56:00] scenarios of debt that are a tasteful to them palatable to them. And then it's going to go through

[1:56:09] finance. And if you want to have a committee of the whole show up at finance, each

[1:56:13] every one of you can show up at that finance committee. And you know what, if you see

[1:56:17] that number range and you don't like it, you think it should be higher or lower at that

[1:56:21] point of time, what a great place to do it. That's why we have the committee system.

[1:56:27] And that's why we have the system that brings it to the county board. If somebody from

[1:56:30] the public at that point of time sees it and says, oh my god, they want to take the debt

[1:56:34] a 200 million. I can't deal with that. They have the opportunity to come to that committee meeting

[1:56:41] and speak.

[1:56:44] You know, we talked about taking the temperature of the room. That's a straw poll.

[1:56:49] That's on fine lines of taking a vote. And we've said things like, put it in a policy plan

[1:57:01] and then bring it to finance. That's not what the committee will hold is designed for the

[1:57:06] Media whole is to disseminate information, have a discussion,

[1:57:11] not make decisions.

[1:57:13] So let's get this in front of finance.

[1:57:15] With what our experts come up with,

[1:57:18] if our finance committee doesn't feel that that's right,

[1:57:20] that they want to adjust it at that point in time,

[1:57:23] that's their preview.

[1:57:24] That's why they have a finance committee.

[1:57:27] If you're certain that finance committee

[1:57:29] and don't like it at that time,

[1:57:30] you have the opportunity to speak.

[1:57:32] If you still don't like it and pass this finance,

[1:57:34] you have the opportunity to speak about it here at the board. But let's do it properly.

[1:57:44] Does the board feel like they have adequate information to understand financial limitations

[1:57:55] of a debt policy or measurements and metrics that are part of a debt policy?

[1:58:06] Okay, so check mark in one area.

[1:58:09] I'm sure you're ahead.

[1:58:10] That's a struggle.

[1:58:13] Again, in terms of asking director Josie or Carl or Kristen to come up with one or two or three numbers,

[1:58:25] the decision is the boards.

[1:58:27] The only thing is on there to bring us the information and the ramifications of those decisions.

[1:58:32] the decision is the board, the board sets the policy. So I think we need to be cautious about

[1:58:37] over-stapping one direction or the other. We shouldn't be forcing staff to make a policy decision.

[1:58:44] We should be asking staff to inform us to make the best decision as a board.

[1:58:52] Supervisor Latic. Thank you. One word is, you know, we can set a higher limit. Doesn't mean we have to

[1:59:02] Correct.

[1:59:03] That's correct.

[1:59:07] All right.

[1:59:08] Well, we are a supervisor, Medean.

[1:59:11] Technical question might help.

[1:59:13] Can you get those charge back up or are they lost forever?

[1:59:18] They're posted on the way.

[1:59:20] They're available too.

[1:59:21] They're posted on the web, but I wanted to refer to one.

[1:59:25] Which one is it?

[1:59:26] The one that you showed the outstanding debt limit.

[1:59:29] And then each of the four or five categories along that.

[1:59:34] to support the county? Yeah. Which is maybe the third or fourth one. I have a question

[1:59:39] at one specific area of that. That might help me to make some decisions in the future

[1:59:46] on what we're talking about.

[1:59:49] It's the first one under county from Arizona.

[1:59:57] See you

[1:59:57] I thought I'd mess it up.

[2:00:00] It's like talking about force of act. Yeah, other way.

[2:00:08] It's the first one, Andrew. Yeah. Okay. That. Maybe I'm just reading that. But, but that's a very bottom line. It shows S&P double a caps. Is that correct?

[2:00:23] I indicated when I went through those that that's what I've curating is. I don't know what it would be if we. Okay.

[2:00:30] adjusted yeah I don't I don't know it's it's I just was to what I current population equal

[2:00:35] as well throughout I don't know what I'm waiting would be thank you

[2:00:45] I have what I

[2:00:47] need all right I think this has been a useful conversation I think we did it to get

[2:00:55] her as a board I

[2:01:00] think we still have more work to do as a board before we're ready

[2:01:03] to make these decisions and looking at what's in the capital improvement plan and looking at

[2:01:09] a debt policy.

[2:01:10] But again, we'll work with Director Josie.

[2:01:14] The next step would be to bring something to finance committee.

[2:01:24] I'd like to thank everybody for their patience and participation in this evening.

[2:01:32] I'm now going to adjourn the meeting of the whole and move back into the regular county board meeting.

[2:01:42] Next meeting date, December 17, 2024 at 5 p.m.

[2:01:49] Take a motion to adjourn.

[2:01:51] Motion by Rindazzo, the seconded by due back, we stand adjourned.

County Board Meeting & Committee of the Whole (Updated Packet)

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