County Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, we're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. It is Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Minutes of reports received and filed.

Yes, we have collectors June 2026 feet.

Okay. Commissioner's Committee liaison reports upcoming meetings and events.

We've got a We're going to do an introduction. We've got BOE this afternoon, Blue Tiger Athletic Club this evening. Okay, tomorrow learning and retirement luncheon in Wardsville.

Thursday, Jefferson City Chamber Leadership event at the city, at the police department. And then also tomorrow evening, a candidate forum at the Soybean Association. What did you mention about EOE? Do we have something?

Today at 1.15.

Is that just an E&O thing or something? That's all the errors and omissions. Is that all that is? Yeah.

I don't think we had any.

It's too soon. It's too soon for that. Because the people don't know what it is. Okay.

okay uh yeah tomorrow i've got a region meeting friday i have a meeting with mu healthcare saturday this is your parish st joseph cathedral has their christmas in july or friday this is friday uh christmas in july fish fry friday afternoon 4 p.m saturday we are doing the city of st martin's is doing the 250th birthday of the nation and the 50 years of knee camp park it's just redone knee camp park so starting at noon from noon to three They will have some ceremonies. We're dedicating their Liberty Tree. They have music, hot dogs, chips, ice cream, water, and soda. So everybody come out to St. martin's and is that that's harry's just care harry yeah they still let me out there once in a while yeah yeah knee camp park is wonderful if you haven't been out there come out and see it anyway we have that okay presentation from staff consultants and invited guests and i'm not sure which you are but we have an update on the new juvenile center

so it brought a few photos but if you guys have driven by the site on st mary's or the juvenile center it changes shape pretty quick at this stage of the job we've had steel going up and everything's leveled out down there so uh been doing well on schedule and we've had a lot of weather this spring but found a way to sequence around it and keep our end date of March intact but just if you go to the next so this this was a view just a month ago where we had Triple A's doing masonry out in the back we had A&H and DeLong's doing the steel up front and then flip to the next one kind of see over this last month how it's come out where we've got framing going up closing in the wall Really, we're starting to work inside. A lot of different trades are coming to the site now as contractors. Go to the next image. So this view is actually looking south where you can see we added that wall along there. Gets you that road going around the back. Yeah, yeah. Just a small little wall there. Then go to the next image. Shows the view looking north going down that hillside. So that is shot from that back road going around. But then last photo is kind of moving inside the building, where you see we've got interior walls going up. You've got to start to get a feel for the site. So now, really, any time over the next couple of months would be good timing for a tour, if you guys want to come by. Yancy and Jacob are on site every day. So I ask that you guys check into the trailer, anybody that does want to visit. But we've got some hard hats and vests that you can wear. over this next month we're really we're gonna be working on the roof above and as that roof is going we're gonna have all the plumbing MEP you know HVAC duct work going in on the interior so that's the main update happy to any questions you guys have on how we're going thanks for all this update

I've been meeting with NAPHOLS along with the Juvenile folks and Architects Alliance. We've been meeting every other Wednesday several months maybe we'll have six or seven meeting I can't remember where we are yeah we may relax that going forward now that we yeah I will say this about an apple so I'm always impressed with the meeting starts with safety all the time that's of the utmost importance out there is no one gets hurt on that job and so far it's zero lost

Yeah, really, this one we haven't even had a near miss. Yeah, sorry. But it is, I mean, that's why we have two guys on site full time.

So they're going around and somebody's trying to cut a corner. Yeah, they've got some pretty good site staff. Their site superintendent and project manager are pretty good.

Yes. But yeah, maybe I'll swing back by the site and reforce it after Sunday's meeting.

I think at the last meeting it was mentioned there have been maybe 11 lost days or web days.

I think 13 is what we're up to now. We haven't asked to extend the end date just with how we were able to resequence around it. So we're still holding the end date. Really, if we get the roof on kind of this next month or so, it's going to be a lot of our weather-sensitive activities. But yeah, it's been a very wet spring. I'm sure you guys are all aware. And really, where we're at on that hillside, the water goes underground, and then it just creates a pooling effect right there at our site. So we've been, Yancey's been having a good time trying to get the water out from around the building and Now that we've got foundation drainage and everything, it's flowing out now. You won't have any problems in the future.

I didn't have any questions. I do want to thank you for participating in our United Way call. You were a great sponsor.

Selfishly, I love any excuse I get to get out of the office and go out there.

Appreciate you having us. Thank you very much. Definitely. So if either of the other commissioners or a few staffers do want to get out there and just put your feet on the ground, make a contact with Mitch or Yancey out there or through me and we'll get you a tour.

Yeah, most days it'd be pretty easy to just pop in, just close-toed shoes, and we can suit you up with the rest if you guys don't mind.

If we get a little further along, we might want to take some press out there.

there you go just to show them see the from the road yeah yeah y'all got work to do I'm gonna be interrupting y'all every day with the tool right now it's moving well thank you very much guys kind of tie into this building and our existing

Juvenile Center we've been getting some requests on purchasing Pringer Center, so You know if somebody wants to Issue, you know give us some bids well concern because I think You know we're we're at the stage where people are going what do you do with that? What are you gonna do with that building?

Well, I think the bottom line is we're going to sell it. We plan to sell it, right? That's kind of what the discussion has been, but we don't know when for sure. We don't want people just submitting random bids right now, do we? Well, we have a couple. We want to wait at some point, and then we'll put it out there for bids, or we'll figure out how it works.

We have a couple who really need to start a fundraising campaign to raise the funds to purchase it. So maybe September or October maybe we need to get a little more serious because they've got to have time to go out and do fundraising.

So if we're ready then, I mean we can make a decision then?

Yes, but march was mentioned yes but uh it's going to be it takes moved yes it takes weather to get us the right kind of weather and and when it's ready then it takes the current juvenile facility to be evacuated and or shipped or transported whatever that is and does all that furniture come in on time we think it will so

we'll wait it's just a little too soon yeah yeah no i yeah but but yeah we have had i think three inquiries so okay

The reason I'm asking is because at times we have, if we have youth. Do you want pictures? Because at times like right now we couldn't take pictures in detention because we have youth in detention but if you want toby or i to let you know a time we we've had some spells where there's not anybody in detention for a period of a couple of days or weeks and that would be a great time if you need pictures to take them i think they would be helpful at some point yeah okay yeah i can make sure that we take some next time we have nobody okay thank you thank you okay do we have any commission comments

Bids and contracts, signing of the Knox Company sole source.

The Knox Company is the only known source of med vaults that meets EMS requirements and can be integrated with their current ambulances and IT infrastructure. The ad's already run in the paper, so we just need this.

And I have a quote here. Oh, I have it attached over here too. He wants some additional, I'll provide some additional information, so. This is related to the secure storage of our controlled substances. Obviously, our organization carries a wide number of medications that the DEA labels as controlled substances. They're currently stored in a safe in the ambulances that is tied into our IT infrastructure to gain access and some of those things. Those safes are probably six, seven, eight years old. They were before my time. Um, and they were bought from a relatively small manufacturer that was pretty niche in this environment as the years have gone on tech support for those devices have. Has kind of fallen off and we've had a few instances where. the safe has malfunctioned and we haven't been able to get into it and you know really this is the main safe in our supply area and you know we've had to break into that safe to get our narcotics out so that we can restock our folks This is a very touchy subject. It's very highly regulated with the DEA and the state agency here being the home of state government. We also have the privilege of anytime the state gets a new inspector, they like to come visit us because we have a great program that's easy for them to teach and audit and do those sorts of things. So we're very particular about our program. and with all of the issues that we're having with our currency we really need to address this Knox is very reputable company they've been in the space for a very long time if you're aware of the Knox box or the key to the city same company same technology from our other public safety partners so we're looking to get this pushed through this will come out of capital I did take a look at um at our unencumbered capital line for this year and we currently have a balance of 151 thousand sixty two dollars and twenty seven cents so uh just ask that we approve this purchase today for fifty thousand seven hundred so then we need to approve the signing of the

request form and the purpose today yes yes okay all right okay i'll make a motion to sign the knox company so source request form and approve the purchase second okay any discussion all in favor all right thank you thank you okay

new business accounts payable review ask for approval of accounts payable pending review and Harry you do have something on there okay I'll make a motion to approve accounts payable upon review and I will second that all in favor aye abstain okay discussion of network switches purchased from Huber and Associates

good morning so pretty much we're on a cycle when we go through and replace our switches and they're like any other um piece of equipment that is involved like with networking things like that they have an end of life and their end of life is coming up in 2027. so i budgeted for this year replacement of these switches it goes through there's 26 switches on this particular quote from hubert associates under contract It's around 174,000, some change right in there. I do have a quote. This will replace switches at Public Works, at EMS Southridge, at the Health Department, at the Cole County Campus here at the courthouse and in the annex. and the assessor's building and the sheriff's office. So I've talked to each one of the directors and office holders and made them aware of the expenditure that's going to happen. So by going ahead and doing this now, it'll save the county $41,000 total. I was able to go back to them a couple of times and basically we're trying to get a volume discount. from cisco so they were able to pass that along but this particular price is only good until tomorrow okay but then it's good until 2027 when you so we'll go ahead and buy the switches yeah purchase the switches and stuff like that and uh and then we'll start doing the install throughout the rest of the year this year yeah sounded like an infomercial this price is only good until tomorrow It's fact there. It's a fact.

$41,000 is $41,000? I believe so. Okay.

We talked about this last week or was it earlier this week? Earlier this week. Yeah. It's been a long week. It's already Tuesday.

It's Tuesday, right? Right. We just need to approve the purchase of it then you have a purchase agreement i do i have a have a quote and a basically a signature i need a signature for our statement of work and jill has reviewed it so because he emailed it to us yesterday or whatever and then yeah we got to briefly talk about this morning yeah we talked about it yesterday and i i'm trying to find where it was that in there it keeps our Certain things from becoming obsolete without these switches is what it amounts to.

Yeah, so when you go through and you look at it, if you don't keep your switches in support, you don't get the security patching. You also don't get technical assistance with the old switches in case they go bad. You do get basically very rapid turnaround on your hardware replacement. So we have a switch go down. So without getting way into the weeds of things, for instance, out of EMS, there's like a three, we call it a three stack switch. And so if one of those switches goes out, effectively it takes out a third of EMS devices that are connected out there to those switches. so that's part of this service which comes with the three-year service contract by the way in the price um we get you know a four-hour turnaround on on fixes so and so you know since we do deal with emergency services we do deal with the sheriff's department ems um you know some of these things are just really critical to the overall functioning of the county so I just ask that it be approved so we can get the money saved so we can get the switches in and get them installed. How long did we have the other switch set on? Seven years.

I did ask Brian yesterday how long will this last, what we're about to purchase, and your answer was seven. My answer was it'll see me through. which seems to place both you and I that maybe we don't have to make this decision. Right, I get it now. Jeff is going to be here. Planned obsolescence seems to be one of the main points with these manufacturers, right?

Yeah, it is. It's just, you know, and I actually was at a conference in St. Louis and I was talking to the Cisco rep and I said, that's my problem you know with uh devices anymore and he said well he goes it's just the nature of the beast is you know we have to constantly uh improve the efficiency of our switches and things like that so you know like i said without getting way into the weeds um but cisco switches they operate they operate on a protocol that works very efficiently within the county that allows our phones to work and our computers to work and things like that. So it's just kind of how it is. And you want to keep those things in operation. You want to keep them secure and things like that. So I just work here, right? But I would like to not have to replace all these things too, right? But I know with the departments and everything, with money being as tight as what it is, that they would rather spend their money on things like new road graders or new ambulances or what have you. The bottom line is we have a responsibility to the county and to the people we serve, right? In order to make sure their data stays secure and everything stays operational. So that's my only motivation in doing all this stuff. I'd rather not have to do it, but it has to be done.

And Jessica and I have been working with Brian. This is going to be an ongoing issue regarding budget and expenditures as we go forward. So when we present the budget, you're going to see, again, a big chunk of it cost for equipment to keep us updated and secure going forward this this isn't the end or the the last piece of equipment or it cost that we're going to have they're going to just continue to increase at a greater pace than your typical inflation does yeah and i did check check with the auditor as well and this is accounted for within my capital budget expense so

I'll make a motion to proceed with the purchase No, that's the same I'm sorry, that's the savings While we spend

181 930.18 yeah and that's that would be correct but the the collector has already agreed to purchase his own so that the the amount i'm asking for is 174 763.48 that's a bargain cisco so my motion is to purchase 174 763.48

So I guess that's my question is this is this coming out of the contingency or the fees that we pay for IT services or is this a capital expenditure that's being passed on to the agencies? I think Brian said it was in your IT budget? Yeah.

Okay.

Unless you want to.

No.

I'm going to sit down and answer my question.

Can you say that one more time? Sorry. Is that coming out of the... My understanding, and what was just clarified, is that's coming out of our admin fee that we pay for IT services and not being charged...

What exactly are we... What he said was it's coming out of my capital expenditure out of my budget.

That's what I heard is it's coming out of IT's capital. Right. Budget, but it was budgeted. But then you had it broke down in each department, so I guess that's probably a little confusing. Yeah, so. I was trying not to ask too many questions, Brian. No, you're fine.

How it's been done previously was I do the expenditure and then finance turns around and then they take, they hit the budget of the, especially the entities that have their own tax.

We'd break it down and pull certain.

Now, if that's how they continue to do it, I don't know, but that's how it's been done in the past. Mm-hmm.

So basically, you've got it in your budget to pay for this, and then we can fight over whose fund it comes out of. That's right. You got it. I wouldn't call it a fight. That's not a fight. Yeah, I'm not liking it. No, let's have a throwdown. Let's go. Golf game.

Let's do it.

Not on the golf course. Let's solve it out there. I guess... I can cheat well.

i guess i think that's from and i'm assuming i don't want to put words in his mouth but from our perspective you know our admin fee for i.t services continues to escalate exponentially year over year so i guess i'd like clarification is that where these purchases are being charged back to or these capital purchases that are being charged to our capital budget in addition to the admin fee but then we probably need to correlate why the admin fee is increasing exponentially if if we're playing both sides of that fence and i'm not i don't disagree that it's not the right decision to buy and save money but

I was trying to get it paid for today and get it out every week and argue about it later. It's a good question, Chief.

So, one, the IT costs, that administrative costs, are going to continue to significantly increase.

That's why the admin fee increases. He has more staff, more things that has to be purchased to... Are you paying fully for it?

No, it's not fully allocated out. But those are things as we go through we will continue to look at. We feel like we don't have a choice on these improvements that for system security and for maintenance that we have to move forward with this. If you all are concerned that we can't go forward with continued improvements to IT, we have to all sit down and figure this out.

Well, I don't necessarily think that this goes back to we don't agree with improving our infrastructure. I think it goes back to the budget process. And each individual agency participates in that capital improvement project at the beginning of the year. We try very hard not to continue to move money around and shift prices and take money out of contingency. So this, I believe, would be the second IT purchase that would be unbudgeted for this year that would be passed on to the department so I guess that's why I'm just seeking some clarification is if this can come out of the admin fee and we can budget for that that's a lot more stable than continuing to do unplanned capital purchases I would just add so we have the I would go ahead

We have a computer fee or an IT fee that we pay and that keeps on going up for valid reasons. I don't have any issue with that. We also have the admin fee of 3% that we pay out of road and bridge revenue and sales tax. Those combined are somewhere in the ballpark of $450,000. think we need to have a general conversation about that and you know where is the best place to land on that because the more that it comes out of our budget to pay for things like this it's less that we can afford to do the other things that we got to do that it's our strict responsibility is taking care of roads and bridges so that's just my comment wherever you land you know we'll deal with it however we need to but we just need to make sure we're assigning the cost appropriately and it's the right decision.

Okay, and we can dig into this much deeper. My high-level response is we are not fully allocating all the administrative costs that we should be. So if we go to a full allocation of administrative costs, the other big funds are going to get hit for more than they currently are. Which ones are those? Rodenbridge, Sheriff, and EMS. So admin is still absorbing, the general fund is still absorbing cost that we're not passing down if we did a full allocation of all the cost. So if we get to a day that we're truly fully allocating cost, your funds are going to get hit more than they currently are.

okay I'd be curious to see that I mean at some point I think we need to look at that well isn't there a study that says it should be 11% versus 3% the indirect cost study comes up and I can send it to you from what we do it every other year so I can send you guys those numbers and then we can show how much it's the admin fees and the computer fees like what you guys are paying what those are showing well

I mean, we understand how you all are continuing to get hit. Administrative costs continue to go up and, you know, it's IT and other things.

I think there could be a misunderstanding of what administrative costs are. What fits between the quotes? Are we talking about $180,000 worth of equipment here, but somehow we call it administrative. Is that right?

I think we're mixing the two together.

Well, I mean, okay, why do the administrative costs go up? Why? Well, it's because equipment costs more.

And Brian's had to have more staffing because of security issues.

Staffing to me is administrative. Equipment, for us to sit here and say, look, our administrative costs are too high, but we need the equipment. That's like saying yes and saying no. uh so i i think we get into the weeds here a little bit uh and if it was once three that doesn't mean three is the magic number forever i i get into fights with with department well when i'm involved with a charity that raises money and we make $50,000 from a golf tournament, but we have to pay for the greens fees to make that happen. Some of the definition of our administrative costs and our greens fees that we just got involved with to raise $50,000, your admin's too high. We don't want to give to your charity because your admin costs are too high. so we don't have the tournament. On Monday, last week Monday, you had, Mr. United Way, Boris, and God bless you for doing it, you ran into some administrative costs because you paid for the green fees for the golf tournament, right? Should you be criticized for that? No way.

I'm just adding to the conversation that Eric brought up. The computer fee, that's a separate thing from what I'm calling the admin fee. That's the 3% that's charged out of the revenues. It doesn't go up. The admin fee, 3%, stays with the revenue. So as revenues go up, I guess it does. But it's the IT fee that is increasing, valid reasons. I just think we need to make sure that we're covering things. Anything that comes out of our budgets, planned or unplanned just adds to that much more than we can't do.

So I guess, and I don't want to appear that this is a bigger issue than it is. I'm just asking for clarity because the way this was explained to me was, is that this purchase was in the IT capital budget for the year. Okay. if it's in the IT capital budget, then why I don't understand how that mechanism is then divided out to the individual departments to pay out of their capital budget. And if that's the choice that we want to make moving forward, that's fine, but then I need to know at budget time that this capital expenditure is in the IT budget and it's going to impact my budget so that I can manage effectively. Now, again, at the end of the day, we have money in our capital budget. If you're going to tell me that I'm going to spend $24,000, that's fine. I'm just trying to bring this forward so that we don't continue to end up in these situations.

So what happens when we bill it back, the money just goes back to the IT budget? So why not just budget it to their capital instead of IT from the get-go? And we're kind of...

I think individual directors ought to know that costs have been incurred by the county that rightfully should be allocated to them because they're getting the switches that we're just buying now some switches are landing there some are landing there so it would only be fair to recognize that. It's not like the commission just wants more switches and we'll buy whatever switches are needed. No, if we buy them, we, the commission, You get yours, you get yours, and there's accounting for that in each place. Does that make sense?

But I think then we should budget it to each department. If we're going to hit them for $24,000, we're going to public works for $38,000 or whatever the numbers are.

For your planning purposes, you'd like to know ahead of time. So put it on your calendar. In seven years, you've got to do it again. Aaron said that.

This is a budget area where we need to improve.

Okay. I don't think either one of us can speak on why it was done this way. We'd have to do some research to know, but we can definitely look into it and let you guys know.

Well, I think the reason we do is so GR is not just getting hit by it when you have our other funds for the other departments. And I understand us billing it back to them where it belongs, but I just think we're moving the goalposts. in the middle of the year i don't think this is something new about it to take a chunk like that it's it is a significant chunk this time of year i mean i don't mean to speak for you but is that kind of did we know about this we've got it so so yeah so i i planned for it but i also have moved it up to save the county money so i mean you can wait

budgeted for 27 and but it's going to cost thousands more so pick your poison i mean that's what you i mean that's what you want to wait you're going to wait right till 27. i i don't think that's what any of us are saying oh okay what are we talking about then we're talking about when they're going to get billed because it's in your budget for this year if we knew we were going to spend it this year already then how did they not know it was going to come out of their budget

that again that was all we're down i know you just do this part you let us take care of paying for it so i don't think we're picking on you at this point and you didn't say cost down which i appreciate it i don't know that's a great practice but

I mean, we're all trying to do what's best for the county. No complaints about anything in what we're doing. It's just making sure we know ahead of time how we're allocating funds and we can plan for it. You know, $13,000 or so, whatever it's coming out of our budget, definitely something we didn't plan for. Can we take it? Yeah, yeah, we can absorb it. No big deal. But I think just in general, these types of conversations... just need to maybe talk more ahead of time but maybe you don't know you don't know the prices are going to go up it's tremendous i mean there's just so many things that we react and we can we're flexible enough in the county we can do these things sometimes on short notice and make a decision to move on and save money that's ultimately the goal so but we just didn't know that ahead of time just a general question about you know what each fund should have to cover and what should come out of you know the general computerization fund for the county or it or whatever and you know we're paying an i.t fee too so all these things roll into the conversation in my mind so maybe it's a budget time discussion thing i think i think so jay was kind of leaning towards

Yeah, I think this is, again, it's a budget process improvement, an area we can improve that, you know, the money set aside for the IT budget, a lot of times we don't know when we approve the budget exactly where those dollars are going and what they're for, but we can work with Brian and the other departments to try and figure out a percent or how much of those would then be transferred or reimbursed by the other funds so we can put a transfer or budget those dollars in going forward. But are these costs going to decrease? No, they're going to only increase as we go forward. So do we? GR pays for it this year and then it comes out of their budget next year? Jessica and I just quickly talked. I mean, we could do that. I don't know that that's the best practice.

Well, we pay for it, and then in 27, we could internally invoice them. We could, but we don't want to get in the habit of doing that.

I mean, is this... Is this something that can be all wrapped up in our IT services that we pay? So yes, there is an admin fee. Yes, there is a capital piece for whatever our percentage is and it lives in one GL line and we can budget for it because it's what's told to us X you owe this much for your IT services for the next year.

I think that if I were you, I would argue that let's break it into two lines. What's equipment I'm going to need next year? What's the admin services I'm going to need next year? There shouldn't be a lot of fluctuation in the admin side of it. Now on the equipment side, the IT expert might come to you and say, you know what, you're looking at a $50,000 cost next year, but if you want to take it this year at 41 or whatever and save nine, are you in for that? And you'll say, I'm in. I'm just making this year look tough, but I've already pushed some expenses from last year into this year. Over the two-year period, I'm ahead of it.

And I think that's ultimately where it goes back to because as Jay said, those IT, the administrative fees, whether they're administrative or they continue to expand. And I don't think as department heads we have a lot of understanding of what is included in those fees. So when these sorts of situations come up, it's very hard to correlate why we feel like we're taking a double hit. I agree.

So how do you guys want to do these ones?

Well, let's put our heads together after the meeting, but we'll have an answer for you when you book it.

Okay. Good news is we got it budgeted and we saved the money. I'm sorry for that controversy. I don't think you are, Brian. Okay, so yeah, I guess we'll figure it out. If we need to have more discussion, we can. Because I know you guys have certain practices you all don't want to get into. Here you got the auditing background and stuff, so if there's a way that this seems easier, less confusing,

Well, as I said, I think it would be different if Brian was coming to you and say, hey, I've just decided to hire four more assistants, expanding my staff by four, and we buy it. And then all of a sudden, the cost for those four people is allocated to different areas. And they go, what's up? That's what I call admin. If you'd hire double staff and then throw the cost everywhere. That's one issue. A second issue is when you come to us and say, hey, I can save you money if you spend it now and you'd have to be spending it next year. That one is unarguably easy to

and you're not asking for that first one which is four more people i'm just making this up yeah but the cost next year could actually be higher it'll be dramatically it'll be dramatically higher than the figure this year so by waiting not even taking into consideration the $41,000 savings, the cost is going to be higher. Nothing gets cheaper.

So I have a suggestion. So I've been listening to all this stuff, and like I said, I think all these discussions come from a good place. But in my previous life, what I used to do in business was I would get together with a business owner and would say, you know, you've got this many computers, this many switches and stuff like that. And you know, we're going to be on a seven year cycle. So you might as well plan in your budget, you know, so many dollars per year towards the purchase of those capital expenditures. Because it's not like, you know, I think we've gotten stabilized. Commissioner Hilscher, we're like this, right? I think we got stabilized on adding a bunch of stuff now. And so now I think we're able to basically take the inventory that we have, um give that a total and then turn around and say listen we know there's going to be at least a hopefully just a three percent escalation in costs over the years and then the departments can plan for it that way so like for instance uh i can't really do anything about the services because you know when you have all of the different services we have in place when it comes to security and things like that i'm kind of at the mercy of what the market has

I was just going to suggest, what if we find out here in a month or two that our cybersecurity insurance cost has just mushroomed way up here? We have to have cybersecurity insurance. But we would allocate it to all the different departments. And they might say, well, that's going up too much. And we would say, tough. We have to pay it. It's out of our control, too. It's out of our control. And that's an admin that gets pushed around, you know, admin expense, administrative expense. You could say, gosh darn, that would hurt. Do you really need to do it? Yeah, we had to pay for it. Right.

Mr. Otter, I mean, is that something we can do? Yes, but I hate to speak out of turn because I don't know the exact figure. Who are the three biggest departments that probably incur 70% of our employees? That's the Sheriff's Department, EMS, and Public Works. And it may even be greater than 70% of the employees.

But I don't think they're arguing the hit is... We budgeted this. What Brian's saying, we budgeted it, but we didn't. It's like, okay, hey, Sheriff, you guys got to write a check. Well, we knew about it.

You just didn't. We're switches budgeted in 26. No. You have money set aside for things. You just said the switches you planned on purchasing in 27. You said next year.

What I said was this year I have the switches budgeted, but if you wanted to wait until 27, I could do that too. It's just going to cost more.

One of the improvements we have to make is these budgeted capital improvement items we have to know what it's for and where it's going and we put in higher just dollars for those and we didn't get that even though i have three hundred and forty thousand dollars budgeted for i.t capital improvements that x is coming out of the general fund wise coming out of road and bridge and EMS and and the sheriff that's that's where we've got to make improvements so that we can share with the the big department heads with their own funds of what that piece is going to cost them so if you had the expense budgeted do you have the revenue budgeted from the other no I don't think we do because i didn't know and maybe i didn't ask the questions of these dollars are going to end up being allocated out that's where some of the improvements in the budget process need to come from thank you thanks brian yeah

I think it's a pie after this. The sheriff's not here for it, so even better.

Okay. Any other discussion on this issue? No, not right now. Whatever. Unfinished business. I... I want to bring up our time capsule that we will be placing in the base of the statue here probably the end of July and since you know this was our Cole County 250 committee Cole County needs to we need to put some things in the time capsule from Cole County so you know we can do a proclamation but We need to think about what else we would like to put in the time capsule. We could put some of Brian's IT stuff in of 50 years or 100 years. They'll look at that and they'll say, was he flying a kite or something? Or it's going to be so archaic. But anyway, kind of start thinking of what anybody would like to have in the time capsule. okay uh anything else i would entertain a motion yes i don't know if you talked to any about the united way golf tournament i did not last week i was at it i i well i i did thank everybody yeah i know earlier you did but Come on, come on, come on, come on.

I feel like I'm talking to just three and the rest of the people in the room. So we had a great turnout, 21 teams. Our total, our net is going to be around $14,000 compared to last year's about $10,700. That's after administrative expenses. After administrative. I would argue a little bit. Administrative is my time doing it. That's free. So we have zero administrative fees. Now, expenses to do business is another story. All puns aside, great turnout, fantastic event, good weather. Everybody that worked on the team doing this did a phenomenal job. And I thank everybody. It's not a public works function. It's a county function. Just, you know, me being the director kind of leading the ship, I guess it kind of originated with us, but it's really turned into a team event.

There were quarters office. We had Tracy from emergency management. We had Brian, it was, I'll tell you what, I really do. I want to thank our employees who worked because they worked. Oh, yeah. It was, and the weather was wonderful. So, you know, I had talked to the bishop.

but so 14 that doesn't include the raffle one thing I do want to add in is we had those the iPads that CDW was gracious enough to give us instead of other prizes they gave us those three of those those iPads so we gave one away with the raffle the golf tournament we want to do one at the raffle Richard Teresa did I believe.

Yes, she did. She bought like $200 worth of tickets. Yeah, raffle tickets.

But we have two more and we talked about doing one of them as just a raffle for all county employees and then another one as people that contribute to the employee withdrawal, you know, the pledge cards, maybe draw from those names too for the third. entertain any other ideas if you got them but that's the direction we're gonna head with those other two again that was a great gift that CDW gave that Brian secured so really blew us away with we had a lot of support I mean Huber we had the Bulls it was it was we had a lot of good participation 21 teams up from 15 or so last year so yeah just keep on growing these things and people are aware of it.

Yeah, Teresa had already told me, she said, now you're not going to be in the office, but you're still going to be working, helping on this, aren't you? Yeah. I said, yes, ma'am.

And a whole sponsor, the service department, they gave us their leftover signs and we needed those instead of having to buy them. And so, yeah, I appreciate that a lot.

here to help yeah so okay well you you have my campaign signs out people are you running i'm doing it right in campaign so no so anyway thanks for letting me the opportunity to talk about it at this meeting today so so then while we're talking about fundraisers sheila did you want to say anything about the school back to school fun

drive did we have that get approved or yeah i'd like it all support if i can get it um i made a suggestion i know that that we've had some we we have a lot of success in our fundraisers that we ask our employees to donate to or take part in or whatever toys for tots and united way i thought of another thing that that is particularly for employees by employees And I would like to do a school supply drive, totally volunteer participation for our employees' dependents, whether it be children or grands, that they have to buy school supplies for. It's not mandatory. I'm not going to pressure anyone. I sent out an inquiry just asking for feedback last week. Out of the feedback I got, I had five nos, 14 yeses on participation, one undecided, and then three that I didn't get answers from. So it seems to me that overwhelmingly, the majority of our directors and supervisors that did get the message were supporting this. um i know that nobody is going to want to come up here and say yeah i'd like to receive some of the school supplies but it is a great need school supplies are terribly expensive there are churches and stuff that do some of that but not everybody can get to those events or can get there early enough because i know like in our area school supply drives people are lining up hours before the events the school supplies are all distributed when the event starts so again voluntary participation i i have ordered these pencil little marker things like schools use on their bulletin boards my intent is to put the The sex, age, grade, and school for the children that somebody tells me they have a need for, school supplies for, on the back will be a number that no one but me will know who that number correlates to. I'll keep a spreadsheet, be very discreet about who can get to me, who hasn't asked, and then who gets stuff distributed to them. so again voluntary participation it's something I would like to do just and I could do it on my time I don't have to do it on County time but I think it would be a great help to some of our employees it's hard to believe that Yeah, school supplies is, I mean, I know that Walmart has some big sales going on just this week already. People are, it's on their radar because sometimes the expense is so big that they're having to buy it in increments before school ramps up. So I'll send out another announcement, if I may, and just kind of make it available to everybody.

I'm fine with it.

Thank you. Okay. Anything else?

I think so. Pursuant to Section 610.021 of the revised statutes of Missouri, the Commission will go into closed session to discuss the following personnel issues under 610.021, subsection 13. Second. Roll call, please.

Sam? Yes.