Baldwin County Commission Regular - Regular Meeting

All right, good morning. We're going to get our work session started this morning, 9 o'clock. I haven't asked anybody to do anything yet. I'll see if our CIS director will come up and deliver our invocation and followed by a pledge of allegiance by Commissioner McKenzie.

Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, what a wonderful day it is to be able to wake up in Baldwin County, Lord God, and enjoy the beauties that you provided to us. We pray, Father, as we go into this meeting, Lord God, that you would just open our eyes, our hearts, our ears, Lord God, to do the business of this county. We pray for each and every elected official that is before us, Lord God, help Help them to be able to make those decisions that you've placed on their hearts. We thank you for all that you do for us. Pray that you'll bless us in a mighty way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in a pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, guys. All right, commissioners, we will now review our items to set our consent agenda. First up is our administrative items, CA1 through CA8. I got any questions about those?

Yeah, CA1, I know it seems like you're the one that submitted it on the County Commission Policy 2.10, the polling place. We just getting updated what the law says? Is that all we're doing? Correct. It's just one word. You want one word? Okay. Thank you.

I'm okay.

All right, we got our Archives and History item, the Historic Development Commission Board Resignation and Appointment. Have you all looked at that and are okay with that?

I guess.

Yeah, I saw where Mike Bunn was the one that recommended the person to be on the board. I'm assuming that person's got knowledge. Felicia, can you answer that question about that person that Mike Bunn nominated? Okay, well, thank you.

Any reason why Yolanda's coming off?

Okay. Thank you, Felicia.

All right. We got budget and purchasing. CE1 through CE8.

I'm okay with those.

Yeah, I'm good. CIS. Got two items there. Everything looks good to go. Yep. Y'all good with that? All right. Then we got our sheriff's office with the four items here. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good with those if Commissioner Grubin and Commissioner Underwood are.

Yes. All right.

Highway items, CO1 through, that's it, CO3? Yep.

I'm okay with those.

Yep.

Good. Personnel items? Any questions on those? Are we good with our personnel items?

I'm all right with the personnel items.

Yeah, it's good. It's good to see people getting promoted.

All right, so now we set our consent agenda. We are at the public comment section of the meeting. Is there anybody in the public that wish to address the commission? I don't have a computer anymore, so if there is a speaker list, somebody needs to tell me about it. Okay. Nobody wishes to speak in the public? Because remember, there is no public hearing section in the actual commission meeting. All right. Hearing none, we'll go to a commissioner request. I'll start with however y'all want to start. I mean, I can start.

I have none. No, I've already spoke to Roger, and so we're good.

I'm good.

I'm good. All right. How's my senior staff doing?

Well, we do have a senior staff report. We have a mid-year budget review that Beth's going to present to you guys. Kind of kick off our budget season.

That's awesome. Good morning, Beth.

Good morning. How are y'all this morning?

We're doing fine.

I appreciate the opportunity to come present to y'all the FY26 Mid-Year Budget Review. And before I get started, I just want to say I thank my Lord and Savior, because without Him, I can do absolutely nothing. So what we're going to do this year, last year we took a look at a five-year view, and we looked at the mid-year dollar amounts, the collections. And what we're going to do this year is zoom back just a little bit and take a 10-year look And that'll give us a broader lens to see what has taken place in the past decade. In this view, what you'll be seeing is not mid-year amounts. You will be seeing four-year collections. So our first revenue that we'll look at is our ad valorem tax. And what you will see here again are your full year collections in our span of time the decade will be 2016 to 2025 and as you'll see you'll see a sharp increase from 2016 to 2025 there is a 134 percent increase we are projecting the increase for mid-year to be 6.1 percent so we're still on the rise but those numbers aren't quite as high Again, you will see in 2023, like we did last year during mid-year, you'll see what our Revenue Commissioner likes to call our windfall years, and that was the 23 and 24. Okay. For our sales tax, again, you're going to see some sharp increases from that within this decade, and that is a 198% increase from 2016 to 2025. And what we're also going to see is the spikes along the way, the rate of change from year to year. And in 2019, you're going to see a hefty spike, and that is due to the SSUT tax being a mandatory remittance. In 2015, the SSU tax was implemented, but it was a voluntary remittance. But in 2019, it became mandatory. And from that point, you will see in 2020 the effects of COVID and how that hit us and turned around in 2021 when everybody was traveling and spending time down here. And then things began to level out after that. And we're projecting right now that 2026 amounts to be 5.6 above last year's amount. So last year when we looked at our mid-year review, we put state and local gas tax together. And this year we're going to look at them separately because each one of them have a great standalone story of their own. So right here you're going to see a drastic increase, and that is an 81% increase from 2016 to 2025. Your biggest changes start coming in 2020. In 2019, the Rebuild Alabama Act was enacted, and we started receiving proceeds from that in 2020. And in 2020, that was a six cent tax. In 2021, it was elevated to eight cent, and in 2022, it was taken to 10 cent. And you can see from that point forward, it's pretty much been flat since then. And we are projecting this year, right now at mid-year numbers, not sure why they're seeming so high, but they are. At 11.9, I don't look for that to stay. And we'll look at the local gas tax. And this is one of the biggest stories that we're able to see by pulling out the state and local gas tax from each other. And we've seen those drastic and sharp increases within that decade. We're not seeing that take place in the local gas tax. There is only a 21% increase from 2016 to 2025. And this year, right now, based on what we're seeing at mid-year, we're actually going to be 1% less than we were last year in collections for this.

Okay?

Can I ask a question about that before you go on? Yes, ma'am. If I remember right, in 2019 when the rebuild, the gas tax for the state was passed, it was explained that it wasn't going to be that significant of a help to Baldwin County because there was some offsets from the federal government that were going to change, and I don't remember that. And it was something to do with, like, Instead of getting this, and I don't know if that was, I just really can't remember now. But what I remember was, is that the Rebuild Alabama Act was going to be something that significantly helped a lot of rural counties that didn't have, but there was something that we were not going to get anymore. And I don't remember what that was. Do you know what I'm, am I just talking in circles? You know?

Well, not specifically, but it's based on a state formula distribution. And we collect much more here than what we receive back usable here. So we're considered a donor county. A lot of the taxes for that program that is collected here go to other counties that are less populated.

Okay, but it was something to do with there was a formula that was used for here, and it was almost like that was not going to change us at all, hardly at all. It was almost going to be flat or something that this was supposed to be really a big boost for a lot of counties, but it really wasn't going to help Baldwin County, and I guess we're seeing that is what Maybe I shouldn't be asking this off the cuff. I should do a little more research on my question.

I don't want to put words in Beth's mouth here, but we can get you some data on that. It gets a little more deep in the weeds and a little more complex.

Well, it would help when we get bombarded with gas tax, that as a buzzword, gas tax, gas tax. We were collecting that much or more prior to this happening for Baldwin County. Now, I know it did a significant help for a lot of the rural counties who didn't have gas. those types of funds coming in. But anyways, okay, I'm sorry. But I just think that it was a big, big deal when that was being proposed to everybody. And it was almost like we were being included with the rest of the state and we really weren't getting...

Okay, all right. I think we are going, and it's been a while, but I think it was still that same argument, because even when I was down here in Mobile, was Mobile and Baldwin, especially now Baldwin, especially now, becoming what they call the donor counties. That, yes, this was going to help everyone, and we were helped by it. but it was the same argument as, well, most of it's still going to go out of county. In other words, we got a boost, but it was like, because there was debate about maybe we need to re-look at the formula of how they distribute it, but what it is, the formula didn't change, so our donations to the other counties just became bigger. Okay, all right. We got more, but our donations also increased. to other counties.

I just think it's worth noting that it's definitely not something that really boosted our funds here.

Our contributions are helping out rural counties.

We could go down a real rabbit hole. If you want to start getting that argument is, then we ought to start arguing about the SSUT because it's the same argument. It's like, well, wait a minute. All the money is collected here. We should keep all the gas tax here. So if the people say, you know, and again, that's not how taxes work.

I'm just saying that it was not meant to be anything that was going to be a significant boost to our revenues for rebuilding.

Do we have statistics that other counties are getting gases? Because going to these other rural counties where I'm seeing over the 30 years, ain't nothing been done. Nothing. So I don't know where it's benefiting these rural counties.

They spend it all in their own hometown, Montgomery.

Yeah.

Well, I know one thing. Butler County sure has repaved a bunch of roads in Crenshaw.

Counties I used to work in, Washington, Choctaw, and Clark, have not changed in 25 years. And same potholes, same roads. They've done one road since I've been in Clark County, and that's the Wynn Road. And I don't know where the money's going in these rural counties.

And the data's there.

It's the same we're giving them a lot.

We can get our hands on the data of what's distributed everywhere, what's collected here, what's distributed out, what we get back. All that data is accounted for, and we can provide that.

Well, I think that's something worth having as a notation in maybe our budget book or something. I don't know, or we talked about dashboards or whatever, just because, like... you know we've just we're constantly out there in the in the limelight you get bombarded about gas tax gas tax and it's like well wait a minute it didn't really move the needle here and we didn't you know we weren't the the main ones that it was intended for so okay voting on the percentages of increases go from six to ten that was in the law i forgot about that it had a gauge yeah

And you got all these, I mean, the last slide you had with all the spikes, I mean, you're spiking it almost $4 and something dollars a cent a gallon.

And we're still, we're still like, as far as like nationwide, we're only like halfway. If the statistics I looked up on the internet not long ago were right, people say, well, Florida don't have that much of the gas tax. They're higher than we are because it's maybe not the state gas tax or whatever, but we're only like, The total like out of 50 states. We're only like number 25 or something and and like the most whatever okay I'm sorry. I just it wasn't What we thought it we knew it wasn't gonna be that it's what I'm guess I'm trying to say we knew it wasn't gonna be all that when it happened because we're a donor County, right and

right so what we'll do is again as we did last year take a review of our economic indicators and that is our mortgage mortgage tax our D tax and our number of permits issued and again we'll look at the same span of time from 2016 to 2025 and we see the huge spike in 2021 and 2022 actually beginning in 2020 and your mortgage tax is going to be an orange and your D taxes in your olive green and we don't have the numbers finalized for 2026 yet, but I'm annualizing what we have for mid-year and if things go as projected and stay on the same course we're going to be significantly higher than the year before and Things change when we overlay this with the number of permits that have been issued and I want to thank our building inspection director for his help with this and provide the numbers for the building permits and one thing to note that huge spike from 2020 to 2021 the types of permits required have not changed across the years the increases are truly a reflection of growth and development only and not any regulation changes so these are true building permits being issued not any mandates that have increased or changed in any way And again, our mid-year projections showing that our building permits also will be above what they were in the previous year. So one thing that we really didn't look at last year, we're gonna stop and look at three different things that are significant for our development of our budget and changes and things that we have to address during the year. I think the elephant in the room says population. I don't think that's anything that's new to anybody, but we're gonna take a unique look at that. And we're gonna take a look at that same 10 year span and see our increase in population is 28% in this 10 year span of time. This is adding 58,000 residents. that's that's hard for the mind to kind of figure out what is 58,000 residents looking like look like so the building inspector the building inspection director and I appreciate his help with this we actually felt that the best way to show this was to look at the number of households that are created so using the national average of 2.5 three persons per household we are looking at the number of houses created each year. So I've got these years marked off in color blocks, and I just want to stop real quick. I know from here you can't see it as much, but if there's any semblance of any collegiate team on this screen with the orange and blue, that is just totally ball county numbers or colors.

Roger had something to do with that. No, Roger had something to do with that.

So I'm just letting people know that these are Bowdoin County color palette. Anyway, so 2016 and 2021, this six-year span, if you can see the chart, the graph there, you'll see that the incremental change from year to year is pretty close to the same. And the average households created with the population increase in this span of time is 2,000 per year. Now what happens in 2022 is a phenomenon because that's the reason I've got it blocked off by itself. And it was by itself over 5,000 households created in that one single year. And what that did is that raised the bar for every subsequent year after that. So 23, 24, and 25 now average 2,500 households a year being added to our population. So our next significant thing that we're dealing with is we've actually been able to experience real blessings with our interest rates being significantly high in 23, 24, and actually in 25, but they're on the downward trend. And we just want to make you all aware. that that does affect things as we go forward and looking at that from a revenue side we'll go look at some one particular instance on our um expense side that's kind of haunting us And that is just the continual increase of property insurance. In 2024, you'll see a huge spike there. And that is because we had a 45% increase in premiums. Yes, we added. Yes, we deleted and took away. But the absolute majority of that was just the premium increase. Leveled back off in 2025, but we turn around in 2026 and the total bills that we should be paying, our next bills coming up, our annual bill should be close to $2 million. And what that is, is that is the addition of the corrections facility and that is running about 500,000 standalone. And so that's a 48% increase. It's what we're looking at right now. We don't have the final bill in hand, but this is what we're projecting.

What was it before the new tower?

We were running about $1.3 million.

No, I meant just the jail. You said the jail alone is about $500,000.

I don't know what we paid in the jail by itself. I know the total bill was $1.3 million. We're now at $1.9 million.

Well, rates went up significantly, didn't they?

Yes, ma'am. That's where 2024 hit, and they were kind of leveling off, and then we had a lot of additions.

Do we insure all of our vertical construction, or are we self-insured on some?

Okay.

I was just curious. I know at some point in time it might be, if it's not something that humans occupy, that is it worthwhile to...

I actually tasked our risk manager to kind of go through and look at that. We can always, I can see where, you know, it wasn't like a, it wasn't an elevated project, but I can see where we were on that.

If it's anything to even, you know, be concerned about just because of, you can be insurance to death.

Yeah, if you, and that was a member of a, The first thing we got accomplished was actually having that list.

We don't even know how many buildings we had. Yeah, I know. They kept cropping up. Oh, we own that building.

Which, you know, Jared finished, and now we're kind of working on making sure that it's truly up to date, and that's one of the things that our facility, our risk manager, was looking at to see what we really truly need to ensure. One of the things he came across was that we actually were – I forget what they called – I can't remember what he exactly called it, but there was some property that wasn't being, it was like an agreed value or something. I don't even remember what it was. It was done years ago, went back, and we were actually over-assuring those properties. And he's had CRS come back and put a more proper value on those buildings.

I'm just speaking from when I talk to people who own properties in certain areas and they're like, it's cheaper for us to just put the premiums in the bank and, you know, like if a hurricane or something, because of wind coverage and different things like that. But I don't know. I just think that might be something we might ought to consider on some of our buildings that aren't, you know, crucial.

We definitely can. That's one of the things that, She's about to get to in her conclusion. Sorry, I'll quit interrupting.

I'm going to make a recommendation just for the sake of time because I know we've got two executive sessions and you've got to finish this up. We'll save our questions for actual budget time if that's okay with you.

Yes, sir.

And just get through with this presentation because, I mean... I know you're pressed for time, and I don't want you rushing through this.

I'll quit asking questions.

I'm not asking you to quit asking questions.

I mean, it's just curious to me because we don't get this information every day.

All right, so here's a summary.

So we're going to summarize all this, wrap up all this information. I know it was a lot of information, so we'll just put this all in just a few phrases. Our major revenues are growing, but at more moderate stable rates. and the rates of growth continue to normalize. We're getting back to a place where this is average. Next point, Baum County continues to be the place that people want to call home. And because of that, we were presented with both opportunities and challenges. And one of the first one of those is rates of revenue growth are significantly offset with the increases in residency. And along that same line, the service and infrastructure needs of increased population are growing at a greater rate than our revenues are. And for our interest rates, they're on the downward trend. And this is something that's helped fund our growth of fund balance. And this is actually slowing. Our fixed cost is increasing. That's the kind of point to that. So what does this mean for our path forward? And it's a little bit of a long statement, but that's okay. It's a great one. It encompasses what we're needing to do as a commission and as staff binding together with a concerted effort is to develop a strategic budgetary focus, knowing that revenues are slowing while demands from population growth continue to outpace those revenues to meet those demands. So that's kind of a tricky place that we've got to navigate. And our first recommendation is to stabilize our current position. Let's continue our efforts to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This is going to take for our departments and everyone to take a deep dive and look and see where we can cut and be more efficient. We started that with using that word last year during our budget. And second is pause on our shorter term plans. So our fund balance and excess from general fund has supported many short term projects in the past few years. But what we're recommending is when we shift that support over to our 30Q program, that will kick our debt service funding a little bit further down the road, and we can utilize what funding we have on hand. Again, continuing that budgetary focus is center on larger, longer-term picture. We have a building health index that is in the beginning stages of being put together. If we wait upon that, we can utilize that to make longer-term facility determinations and not be just throwing darts at what we're doing right now. And lastly is enhancing revenues, and that is reviewing our existing sources of revenue and even exploring other resource options to meet population growth demands. And that will be it.

Any last questions for Beth? Yeah, this is just a small part of our budget. We haven't even addressed personnel and all that kind of stuff yet, so... Yeah, you're right. We need to definitely focus on what you just said, getting every department to see what they can be slim on this go-round, but we'll see. Thank you for your presentation. You're welcome. Looking forward to our budget deliberations coming up. All right, Brad, what you got for us?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would recommend the Commission adopt a motion to adjourn this work session and convene an executive session to discuss with your attorney the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation, controversies not yet being litigated but imminently likely to be litigated, or imminently likely to be litigated if the government body pursues a proposed course of action. I'm an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Alabama, and this exception is applicable to the planned discussion. And after the vote, Mr. Chairman just announced that we will not reconvene the work session, and we'll see everybody at 10 o'clock.

Commissioners, you've heard the attorney's request.

I'll make a motion we go into executive session.

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

Second. Excuse me. I'm getting executive session mixed up with second. Motion and a second to go into executive session as ordered by our attorney. Any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. We will not reconvene this meeting after we're going to terminate and start back at 10 o'clock. Hopefully, if not, we'll start back at 10, 15, 10, 10. Whatever time we start back, we start back. Okay? Okay. Good morning and welcome to our June 2nd commissioner meeting. We're going to get started this morning by having our invocation done by Pastor Richie Nobles with Crossroads Church. And after that, we will get skipped Commissioner Gruber to do the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, Pastor. Yes, sir.

I just want to say what an honor it is to stand before you guys today. We know that the Bible tells us in 1 Peter that we're supposed to honor everyone. And honor is something that sometimes we don't remember, but that God gave the ultimate price to give to his son, and that price puts a value on everybody's life. that it's an eternal value. And we just want to remind all of you today, our church is currently walking through a very dark day. Had tragedy hit our church on Sunday. But we know that the days that we live in are evil. So we have to make the most of every opportunity. The Bible says, be careful how you live. And I just wanna thank you for your service to our county. I thank you for your service to mankind, to humanity, and that each one of you, I know two of you personally, but each one of you, I know your heart for where we live and it doesn't go unnoticed. And as a pastor, I just want to thank you for that. And let's pray together. Lord, as we humbly bow today under the mighty name of your son, Jesus, I want to thank you that today we, we're pausing to make the most of this opportunity. We don't consider this light. We don't consider this just routine. But God, we truly believe today that you are in control. And the two words that Jesus spoke, the most important words ever spoken to mankind is when he looked at those around and said, follow me. That command is still active today. And I want to thank you that we live in a county, God, where you're first, and we follow your guidance. We ask that you would continue to guide, direct, give strength in the days that were weak. Lord God, give clarity in the days where things seem foggy. And Father, we trust you in every area. And it's in the wonderful matchless name of your son, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor.

Please join me in prayer.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

and good morning and again welcome to today's meeting looks like we don't have any rain outside so that has been a constant nag for us for the last couple weeks but uh... i'm sure you will be begging for that rain in july and august the comeback so count your blessings as we have them now so um first up our order of business is our adoption of the may 21st 2026 regular meeting minutes do i hear motion mr chairman i'll make a motion that we approve the may the 21st 2026 regular meeting minutes i'll second it we have a motion by commissioner gruber and a second by commissioner underwood to adopt the May 21st, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Hearing no further discussion, all those in favor, signal by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Next up, we have Commissioner Gruber with our financial report.

Okay, Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we pay the bills totaling $5 million $541,558.70. And there is 798 invoices and distributions in that total. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second to pay the bills. Hearing no discussion, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. Next up, BA2. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we do the ratification of interim payments as allowed by policy number 8.1. I'll second it. In that report, there's 1,242 invoices and distributions totaling $5,812,650.42.

I'll second that. We've got a motion and a second to ratify the interim payments as allowed by Policy 8.1. Hearing no discussion, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Next up, Commissioners, we have our consent agenda.

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we approve our consent agenda. Okay.

I have a motion to approve our consent agenda. I hear a second.

Second.

We've got a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion on consent agenda? All right, hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. I don't think we have any presentations. We don't have any public hearings. We do have another staff recommendation.

Yes, sir. I do need a request that the County Commission approve a waiver of conflict of interest of Adams and Reese's representation of Hancock Whitney in the connection with the Baldwin County Commission Emergency Line of Credit RFP and have the Commission authorize the Chairman to sign such a waiver if necessary. They have not won the RFP, been awarded the RFP, but we do need to grant the waiver if they happen to win the RFP.

I'll make that motion.

And I'll second the motion.

Okay, we got a motion and a second to adopt the conflict letter that you were talking about. So a copy of that will be given to our staff to be put in the file. This is an other staff recommendation that wasn't listed on the agenda. So any further discussion on that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. We have GA1. It's a letter of support for Prodisee Pantry North Project Construction of Food Distribution Facility and Resource Center in Stockton, Alabama.

I'll make a motion that we approve the letter of support.

And I'll second that. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion passes. Any people, anybody here from the press? Commissioner comments. However order y'all want to start in.

Well, I'll go first then. I just want to say thank you to the staff again for putting this agenda together. Thank you, Commissioner, for a great work session and a regular meeting today. Just want to say my wife's here. She's wanted to come with me since school's out. So she wanted to ride with me and get to see what's going on. But just tell everybody have a good summer. Be safe. Thank you.

Ditto. Amigo

Yeah, what she said, she's passed it to you.

Oh, okay. All right. Again, thank you, staff, you know, for getting the agenda together and put this all together so we can hold this meeting today. And, you know, we celebrated last week Memorial Day, and there was a lot of events out there that, you know, that were very, very interesting. And they were very somber. And some of those, even with the rain that was there, chances of rain and everything, you know, I think a lot of them still got taken off and they held them anyway. So anyway, I want to just, you know, my condolences go out to all those family members that lost members of their family in those times. So again, thank them very much.

Did you, don't have anything?

No.

I don't either. So it'll be very simple. Thank you to everybody, as everybody has already said. It's gonna be not a record, but... about to adjourn the meeting at 1015.