County Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the work session for the Dixon County Commission. Sheriff, do you mind leading us in prayer? Thank you.

Father, we thank you for another day. We thank you for this county we live in and the folks that live here. We thank you for this body of elected and appointed officials coming together to do your business. Give us all wisdom and strength to keep the county moving forward in a positive direction. Go us throughout this rest of the week. Watch over the election days. May it be safe at the polls. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen. Everyone stand for the 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.

Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please?

Mr. Sinkins? Here. Mr. Ledger? Here. Mr. McIlwain?

Here.

Mr. Beatty? Here. Mr. Nelson? Here. Mr. Spicer? Here. Mr. Buckner?

Here.

Mr. Britt? Here. Mr. Petty? Here. Mr. Williams? Here. Mr. Grove? Here. Ms. Gray?

It's good to see you all here tonight. The first order of business is approval to amendments of the June 26th, 2026 work session. Open the floor for motion. Motion by Commissioner Gray, second by Commissioner Petty. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of it by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number two is committee reports. Any committees to report? Commissioner Gray?

Yes, I sent out that report this weekend, and I'm assuming everybody got it okay. And I just wanted to add that I asked for totals since 2023 of how many animals had actually been brought in through animal control. Since 2023, that number is 2,214 animals. But if there's any questions about what's on the report, just let me know.

Thank you. Any other committee reports? Hearing none, next order of business appointments. The first is Industrial Development Board. We have a vacancy on that. I'd like to bring forward the name of Mr. Stacy Beatty to be placed on that board. Do I have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Petty, second by Commissioner Ledger. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number two, appointment of highway chief administrative officer. I want to bring forward the name again for Mr. Jackie Hodges. He served in that position for four years. This will give Mr. Hodges another four-year term on that. Open the floor for motion. Mr. Hodges here to answer the question. Motion by Commissioner Ledger, seconded by Commissioner McElwain. Any questions or discussion? Y'all letting him off pretty easy. There you go. Move this on the regular session all in favor vote by stating I opposed. Thank you next item under new business budget amendments. All funds except schools Mr Hall.

I handed out bullet sheets for you guys to look at for the amendments there. Look at the first one. I think it's on top of your packet is general fund with highway down at the bottom. What I've included tonight is the 9-1-1 communications. That's including that section. It's a fairly brand new one that didn't get included in the 27 budget, so I'm including it there. And there's some other items there that we made some changes with, local health, budgeting, library, and miscellaneous. That miscellaneous will come back up here in just a second. The highway down there, I increased that back. Mr. Hodges had asked for more money there for the capital outlay note for some equipment and that type stuff and some repairs to some buildings and that type thing up there on the hill. So we added that back to include that in the capital outlay note also. So if you have a question on one of those items right there, that's for the general fund and highway in that number one item right there, I believe is what we have. New business number one. General fund and highway. Questions for Mr. Hall?

So is this the budget amendment already to the new budget this year?

Yes. Mr. Hall, does it affect revenue expenses?

It does affect the revenue some, yes. We don't have any revenue amendments right now, but all this right here is amendments to expenditures, yes. Now, the highway one is just in and out right there. It doesn't affect highways, but it is on the general fund expenditures.

Well, I think the question would be from expenditures, what is material in there? Is it of size? What's the largest one you got? The largest one?

Well, we have the other charges, miscellaneous is the 100,000 donation to promised land. What is that called?

I'll take care of item number three, so that's outside those. I mean, other than those, what's your major?

The 911 communications, and we get some money back on that, I think, don't we, Mayor?

They don't turn the budget in, their final cost in, until after we've approved the budget. So what we're doing is adjusting it to what their true budget numbers are from 911.

I know we're just sending this to regular session. I might have some questions before. So I'll make a motion to approve it and send it to regular session.

Motion by Commissioner Grove to move this to the regular session. I have a second. Second by Commissioner Britt. I don't want to call off any discussion. Any other questions or discussion? Hearing none, there's votes to move this to regular session. All in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number two, budget amendment, school funds, Mr. Hall.

Yeah, the appropriation resolution, we included the school education capital projects. We got the wrong amount in there. So this amendment here is for the school education capital projects from budget hearings and stuff to 17. If you look at the bottom right column, $17,585,190 is what was approved for them. And we didn't get that right amount there. I didn't go back and check that from my staff. And this here is correcting that for the school system. So that gets that amount to the proper amount for what they were approved during hearings. the question mister hall now that's just what they were that's just what they were approved in the hearing so that gets it to the right amount procreation resolution didn't reflect this seventeen thousand seventeen million none of that some of the now The $76.99 at the first column, that's the amount that was in the appropriation resolution instead of the $17,585.190. So this gets to that amount to agree with what was approved. I got you. Yeah.

Any questions for Mr. Hall? Open floor for a motion to move this on a regular section. Motion by Commissioner Simpkins, second by Commissioner McElwain. Any other questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. Opposed, thank you. Item number three, budget amendment, charitable contribution. On this, there's one limit on here. Y'all approved about 18 months ago a grant that we received to give to Promised Land. It was $100,000. That was actually presented to them in June of 25, uh the big cardboard check but they haven't needed the money until this point they're ready to have that money moved over to their account and so this is we've got the money sequestered it's time to move it out to give to them the other thing i'd like to add tonight uh you have several feet of our friends here from the dixon county health center they asked me to come meet with them back on july 21st uh they as y'all recall we uh has probably been and we did it and finished in 2024 we did the matching and funds to help build help them build an endowment we approved a hundred thousand dollars and would match what their hundred thousand dollars well to their credit they raised a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars and we increased our portion to 115 and i think we presented that check to them a few years ago. After discussion with their board, they're ready and I feel like they're in a position to do that again. We have funds set aside in the hotel motel tax fund to do the same thing that we have $100,000 set aside and match up to that amount for them. This money is to go into their endowment fund. The one where the goal is to try to get it to a million dollars. They have about a quarter of a million dollars in there now. Once you get up to about a million dollars, they'll be able to live off some of the investments and stuff of that type, but it'll give it a base amount for them. So that's also what we'd like to add and do tonight on that. Be glad to answer any questions. Open floor for a motion. Motion by Commissioner Buckner. Second by Commissioner Petty. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Number four, reimburse capital outlay notes, landfill and highway. Mr. Hall.

Yeah, I laid you out the resolution for this, the reimbursement capital outlay notes for solid waste sanitation and the highway department. That has just given us the approval to go ahead and buy the capital outlay equipment for sanitation and for highway equipment. for this year and it will go back 60 days from what we a lot of the stuff's being bought right now back in july and that type thing and that's just giving us the approval to pay for those items any questions open floor for motion motion by commissioner grove second by commissioner grave any questions or discussion

Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed, thank you. Item number five, transfer of vehicle from highway department to solid waste, Mr. Hall.

Yeah, the highway department just won't make a transfer donation over to the solid waste department, and it's a Mack dump truck. They've had the use of it, and they just want to make that donation over. We want to make it legal here with the commission giving the approval to do that.

This is paper transfer. It's open for a motion. Motion by Commissioner McElwain, seconded by Commissioner Beatty. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Opposed? Thank you. Item number six, designate personal property as surplus. I want Mr. Halls here to handle that. This is two groups of two items. The first is it's all the... all the desk chairs then everything left in the old health department the new health department has purchased along with their grant all the furniture and things of that type we're going to open it up to any county government that needs to use that but our goal on this is as mr hall declared surplus we sell that whole building one money hopefully you can get uh somebody in that uh that does re resell these type things. They'll not only come in and buy it, but they'll also move it out for us, get that building cleared out. There are also two different bays over at West End office that have old furniture in there. We've had those stored probably for at least two or three years at this point. There's no further use for that. We need to auction those off too. There may be some other items as we do an inventory come up, but those are the three items we have right now to bring for you tonight. So what Mr. Hall is asking is for you to clear that surplus so he can sell it and get their money back, put it in general fund. Any questions? Motion by Commissioner Brett. I have a second. Second by Commissioner Williams. Any questions or discussion?

Are they still in no building?

No, they just passed their electrical inspection. I think it was Friday. There's some issues. They're clearing up on the pavement. But once we get the CO from the city of Dixon, they'll start moving in right away. So I think the goal is to have them in there by the end of the month.

On this one, we do have a... Did I get a motion and a second on this?

Thank you. Brett Williams. Brett. can you read my own writing okay I have proper motion second any other question discussion on motion hearing none all in favor of what was stating I opposed thank you Thank You mr. Hall yeah thank you guys I'm number seven established a three-way stop at Cowan Road and Merle Road Commissioner Buckner brought that forward his sheriff you had off do you do your study yet

I have two studies currently going, the Three Mile Island, which is on the agenda. They should be ready by meeting time.

Regular session. And the other, yeah, both of those? Yes. So we're okay to move those on a regular session? Yes, sir. Okay. We'll separate these. This is the first one's established three-way stop at Cowan-Murrell Road. Commissioner Buckner, is that your motion?

Yes, sir.

I have a second. Second by Commissioner Brett. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Commissioner Beatty, you have three island forward speed limit study. That's your motion. Have a second. Second by Commissioner McElwain. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff. Item number nine, Dedications Road, Montgomery Bell Point Subdivision. Who will be presenting that tonight? Just flip a coin.

Your real point though. It was built in three separate phases. The first phase was taken in years ago. The second phase and the third phase. None of those have been taken in. The bonds had been had been let go year. I don't know when. I can't even begin to tell you, but. They're pretty good shape. They're built out. There's not a lot to be done on them, and I think it'd just be right for the citizens out there to be able to take them in.

Commissioner Williams, that's in your district. That's your motion. Motion by Commissioner Williams. I have a second. Second by Commissioner Gray. Any questions or discussion?

Now we've got something new in place.

That was planning and zoning, and that was years and years ago. I really don't know. It's just something that slipped by them. I can't answer that.

Is that fixed now, Curtis, where they're renewed and kept up with now so no bonds are expired like that? The bonds. How did the bonds expire? What was the process and why was the reason the bonds were expired without being called?

That happened from best estimate 25 years ago. So we have no record available of it. So we got a system now that don't happen no more. Any other question or discussion? We have a proper motion second. All in favor vote by stating aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you Mr. Burke. What's your name? Sorry about the flashback. of number ten is a blitzkrieg state of tennessee has done a name in a grant for eighty nine counties the non metro counties dixon counties one of mr get a free ambulances non-matching this is free money open for promotion bush by commissioner brett second by commissioner ledger any questions discussion hearing none all in favor of upstanding uh... opposed thank you I want to move a couple of these around. There's no objection. We'll save the bigger ones to the end. I want to jump down. I want to skip 11. I'm going to take number 12 next. There's no objection. This is a policy for use of flock cameras. Y'all approved about a year ago using the purchase of flock cameras for... uh the sheriff's department uh they they have done a good job of putting a policy together but in reviewing our our policy all the commission did was approve the purchase so uh mr reagan has worked with sheriff eads to put together a policy about usage uh it's not only a policy here's office but we want to put in a resolution form where it's enforceable by this commission if there it's not used

in a manner the way it should be they would give us a little bit of a hammer on that that's it's my summation sheriff if you'd like to add anything to that no sir mayor uh has stated uh myself and brian worked on this the best practices policy makes it become not just an internal policy for us my staff and i reviewed the policy uh we agreed to it gives y'all some oversight If anything goes wrong, there's a lot of controversy. LPR technology in general is a force multiplier, and we want to be able to use and use technology to protect people's constitutional rights. And if anybody's got any deeper questions, you know, most of you got my phone number. I'm happy to sit down and go over to you exactly what the system does and appreciate y'all's consideration.

Any questions for Sheriff Eads or Mr. Reagan?

We have a contract for this, right?

Yeah, it's an annual lease. We own the information, they own the equipment, any updates, insurance. There's other companies that do it. Sometimes you can buy the equipment, but we still control who we... release the data to. And like I said, what it does, it looks at a tag and it looks at a hot list. That's it. It doesn't run your tag. We don't retain any of your information on your vehicle by state law. If that tag's not associated with a crime or on a hot list, then the information is deleted within 90 days. It's deleted within 90 days. Yeah, and in the policy we put, I'll file an annual report with you guys, how many reads, what the results of those were, if there was any misuse and what I would bring to y'all if we had that from... And plus, not every deputy will have access to getting into the system and placing tags in the system. It just looks at wanted list and a tag and see if it matches, and then it just sends an alert. Then there's some other verification processes before they can even stop the vehicle.

That information is not solved.

No, it is not sold. Flock does. It's out there. They sell it. There's really no information. It's a picture of your tag and the back end of the car is what it is. And it just looks at a database and says, is this vehicle Amber Alert? Is it stolen? Does this person have a felony? Warrants it. It operates through the switch at TBI. It's called NCIC. That's what it does. It doesn't run. your tag and say, hey, this belongs to Danny Williams. It just looks at the tag. Plus, we can control who we share. We typically share, allow a surrounding agency if they want to query our database. Anything beyond that, we have to approve that comes through an administrator. Let's say if California is doing an investigation, they want to look, they can't just log into the system and look at our reads they have to contact us so that's why we put a pretty strict policy in effect where it's just not floating around It does. There's too bad it's not there, so. But the information that it holds, if it's part of an investigation, it has to be put into a separate file and data system because it's under investigation. If it just read a tag, then it gets auto deleted in 90 days. Well that can be good and bad and just opens for so typically 90 days is sort of the industrial standard for holding any kind of security footage whether it's just video footage Pros and cons are, but that's the best practice that we've been advised is to not store data that's not associated with a crime more than 90 days.

Quick question. So that state law is 90 days, but do I remember correctly that we're only keeping it for 30 days?

Right now, I believe it's currently 90, but I can check on that. A little bit longer time frame. We just don't want to hold it forever. That way, if there's an investigation, your house gets broken into and we need to look, maybe we get a partial tag so we can search the database. That's the investigative side is how LPR technology, a flock's just a name brand, but the LPR technology all works pretty much the same.

And since we're on the topic, has this system, this flock camera system, has it done anything for your department yet? Has there been any wins?

We are in the final moments of installation. It can take a while with TDOT. Plus, we had a few places where we had to get permission. That's in the policy. We can't just stick a camera up. So if TDOT said this is not a good area and we had a couple – residents that we had to get written permission from them to place a a camera pole and so um what was the second part of that question i was just wondering if if oh what has it it has helped the city tremendously uh uh we've covered recovered a couple stolen vehicles for them that they passed an outbound camera so it alerted and they said hey this gold Vehicle with this tag number just passed, you know this location on 48 headed to Charlotte And so we had a deputy close They set up observed the vehicle was able to recover the stolen vehicle and the city come out and made the arrest So and I used it quite frequently in Belle Meade. It wasn't flock It was a different manufacturer, but we resolved several missing person cases and and got a couple a big we we helped Metro solve several armed robberies using using our system, but they were all they weren't just random hits. They were saying we got these suspects. Can you tell were they in this area and we were able to do that so.

Regardless, the popular belief, Burns don't have flock cameras, but two things I don't listen to is Facebook and defense attorneys for my legal advice, believe it or not. But actually, they did help one night. The J-Mart car run through it, and they caught that guy in Clarksville, the next guy using the flock system from Dixon in Clarksville. They caught him the next day.

You're right, Mayor, Commissioner Wynn. You have to have a criminal investigation going. You can't just randomly say, I want to know what Rusty Groves is doing. Let me put his tag in there. With our policy, not only are you probably going to get fired, you could get prosecuted criminally. So there's a criminal element. That's why we're asking you to adopt this as a resolution. It gives you oversight. Instead of me just deciding how I'm going to deal with it. But you're right. If that vehicle is vetted and is placed in NCIC, then any LPR camera looks at the same database. The database is generated by the federal government and the TBI, and that's the database it looks at to see if that tags. So, yeah, it's a pretty force-multiplying tool for law enforcement to use. even prevent crime because, you know, a lot of guys, if you've got ill intent on your heart, you really don't want to, you know, have a warrant on you and drive by one of these cameras because we're going to get alert. Doesn't mean 100% we're going to intercept it. But we want to make that balance between protecting people's constitutional rights and being effective law enforcement agency and protecting our citizens. And if something does go wrong, increasing our ability to solve a crime.

I promise this is the last one.

That's okay. This is probably mostly for a counselor. Okay. You brought up constitutional rights. I know there's a lot of people that are saying this is an invasion of privacy, you know, being out on the road and getting your picture taken, tags been getting picture taken. For me, if I'm on a public road driving, I don't feel like I have any privacy. We're out in public. Is there, can you give a definition as to what is the expectation of privacy?

No. So the easy answer is I'm sure this is, I know it is currently being litigated. I don't know how the courts will ultimately rule on that. I know one of the strong arguments is that you're in a public place and just like someone can stand on the side of the road and take a picture of your car, they can do that. With law enforcement, it does take it a step further because they're not just able to take a picture and they're not a private citizen, it's the government. And they have the ability to check it against records. I can't tell you how that's gonna turn out. I just don't know the answer to that. But it's certainly an issue that is much discussed flocks dealing with it all the time, and if you follow any of that, those are discussions happening all over the country. I suspect at some point the courts will render a decision on that, but I don't know.

Yes, Commissioner Beatty.

I'm going to ask you a question I asked you out in the hall, mainly because I want them to know I asked in a meeting. Okay. I was approached and said, hey, I know I got pulled over and I know it was the flock that they said my tags were out. And I went by that camera and they specifically came in, you know, and come after me. And I said, listen, I have no idea. But we were told it was just for finding, you know, criminals and felons. I don't think they're doing that. Now, this was in Ashland City. But you say that is not what they're looking for, that could not have happened.

To the best of my knowledge, no, because if it ran your tag, then it would hit that your tags were expired.

But, I mean, we don't have somebody sitting in there calling, hey, we've got this. Yeah, it's all automated. We're just too much big brother. You know what I mean?

I think it was probably a coincidence. I've seen something similar on the Facebook. You know, I don't usually get in fights with people on Facebook. But, you know, the flock safety camera is there for something bigger and more important than an expired tag. I don't, the only way they could have done that is if they found something different to me. I can tell you we're not. We're just looking, we're looking at hot list. You got to be on the hot list. An expired tag is, you know, half the time, if it's not 60, 90 days out, you're probably going to get a warning anyway, go fix your tag. So, but I'm not aware of that capability.

Thank you.

No, no, no, it doesn't check any, no enforcement, no speed.

Well, the question not is is to bring to bring forward a policy for use of flock cameras and the ask is to move this on to regular session. Is there any other questions for the sheriff?

Well, the county attorney that I've left a copy there and what it does is I will give you at least an annual report of how many reads. Were there any misuses? It puts teeth into this policy. is what it does at the end, and the counselor may be able to expound on that if needed.

Commissioner Grove just made that as a motion. I have a second. Second by Commissioner Ledger. Any other questions for discussion? Any questions for the sheriff? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff. We're going to jump down to number 15 on this one. The HVAC system at the Justice Center, it has failed. The issues with that are the fact that it's only a seven-year-old system, but whenever they were building the Justice Center, they put it in a year early because of all the woodwork. They probably put some wear and tear on it, sucking up a lot of the dust that had to be done. One of the other issues is how it was mounted that didn't have the, and I'm gonna call it a shock absorber it needed where it's vibrated. And then the last issue we have is during the ice storm when we had to get there to manage it, we could not get up there. And again, there's a technical term, but I'm gonna call it warped it. And we couldn't do anything about that. So with all that being said, we've had to place a temporary, cooler up there that's in place and now we're going to have to buy a new one the total we're getting the total price on it is going to be a half million dollars The good news is that we have money set aside in the Justice Center fund that actually is a half million dollars. So we don't have to go to fund balance or do anything like that. There's funds available to take care of this. But even though it's an emergency purchase, we needed your approval to move forward with it because you can't have court and have people working there without air conditioning. When it failed, it was over 90 degrees in there for a couple of days. uh we had to move forth the temporary on that but what we're requesting is to allow us to amend the budget get out the justice fund to uh repair that budget to prepare that air conditioner be glad to answer any questions yes

There was some question about how it was put in.

They went back to it and felt like we couldn't do that because of the age of it. But the part portion we are going to try to get back that we're exploring is because of the ice storm and our lack of access to it is trying to make a portion of that claimable and get insurance money on that. Good question, thank you. Any other questions? Open the floor for a motion. Motion by Commissioner Gray, second by Commissioner Petty. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote stating aye. Aye. Opposed, thank you. I'm gonna go down and add you item number 16 that came to our attention that I left off. It's funds that are budgeted. The Sheriff's Department, the jail, their fire alarm system has failed. They have been doing a fire watch for about six months now, I believe, Sheriff. We have funding inside the Capital Works Fund that we've had set aside to do work on anything that came up. Well, there's money budgeted to take care of this, but I'm going to let the sheriff explain exactly what needs to be done there.

Thank you, Mayor. Just briefly, I'm not an HVAC, but... I can tell you this. It is the portion when I first come into office after about the first couple years, we had to replace part of what I call the old jail, which is the 94 model. We got that and the other held. It's 16 years old. and it's not just like what you would think is oh smoke and the fire alarm goes off it's a fairly complicated system and there's a computer system with it and so if there is smoke detected in the building it will reverse the airflow and start pulling smoke out of the building and so that's why it's critical tci could have a real big problem especially we've had a written plan but you know after a certain point they're going to I want to know from us, and part of the delay has been us moving around trying to find out and get the best purchase price for this repair. And so I kind of hate to spring it on you and the mayor and everybody. Well, we've had some discussions about it. I think he may have mentioned we had something down the road a few months ago. So that's what this is, is to get the rest of the building, which is a lot larger building, uh then it's the 2010 edition i believe that's what they refer to it and so uh asking y'all to approve that so we can stay in compliance with uh with the state and and make sure we're running a safe operation what's your total amount on that sheriff oh let me

You have the amount to do it, and there's also a service contract of $16,000 a year. That'll go in the sheriff's operational budget. We're just talking about the portion to actually put it in as a one-time contract.

Sorry, Mayor. $429,756.24. There's funds inside the 171 Capital Improvement Fund that's been set aside in this year's budget that will cover that.

This is the 94th...

no this is this is the 2010 part of the building the 94 one we uh i think 22 we replaced a portion of it and was able to get a match but this system is outdated they can't you know order parts maybe you might find one on amazon if you're lucky and so we you know we were sure and had engineer look at and go yeah you can't fix this you're gonna have to replace it so But it seems like, I don't know.

I mean, we got a new middle school we just had to spend a half a million on for air conditioning. Now a new courthouse we're spending a half a million on. Now this is a half a million. It seems like we need to get better contractors or something. I don't know. I mean, I know it'll last longer than what we're doing. I don't know what we're doing wrong, and I know you have nothing to do with it. But, I mean, it seems like in the last six months, that's about like $1.5 million we've spent on stuff that shouldn't be gone out yet to me. I'm not talking to you, Sheriff. I mean, you arrest people. You don't fix stuff.

Any other questions or discussion? Open the floor for motion. Motion by Commissioner Ledger. Second by Commissioner Gray. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff.

Thank you, Mayor.

Number 11, let's go to back that. Contract for solid waste disposal. Our contract is expired with waste management. Mr. Reagan and Jackie Fayette, our solid waste director, have worked on that. It's been quite frustrating, to say the least, but we've come up with, I think, a solution that's manageable. It's not perfect. But we're paying $36 a ton to move garbage now. Waste management came back initially wanting to increase that to $54 a ton. So you can imagine what that does to a budget on that amount. We told them that was unacceptable. We started trying to find other ways to do it. And at this point, I think we're, Mr. Reagan, if you'll take this and we can double team this as we go forward.

Yeah, so we they did not give us the revised rate and again we have a 10 year contract that we had. So the rates that we had predated COVID and everybody knows what happens happened to prices post COVID. But coming into the end of our 10 year term, the contract provided for a five year renewal option subject to the parties agreeing on the terms and just probably three months ago. I don't know exact, but it was pretty late in the process. Waste management came to Jackie Fayette over at Solid Waste and presented the $54 price. As the mayor said, county pushed back on that and said that that was not gonna happen. They came back with, we had a meeting with them. They offered a rate of $48 a ton for a period of five years with a fuel surcharge and an annual increase based on CPI or something equivalent to CPI. Again, not something that the county could do budgetarily. And so the discussion with waste management was whether we could get it to a three-year term. They refused to do a three-year term. and said that and so the next ask was if we're going to have to do a five-year term can we do it where we phase it in and so we start at a lower rate to get to the ultimate rate over the five-year period what waste management came back with was a five-year contract that would be 40 44 48 for one two and three year four years four and five the adjustment would be based on the CPI equivalent and the fuel surcharge increase which again could be significantly higher than the 48 again was not something that budgetarily, I think, worked for the county and continue to press on that. Where we are today with waste management is they have offered, based on the pressure that the mayor has placed on them, to do it at $40 for year one, to do a three-year contract, $40 at year one, 44 for year two and 46 for year three, flat rate with no fuel surcharge or escalations each year. What that does for the county, it's still not optimal. It's not the rate that certainly we would like to have. But it gets us a shorter time horizon to be able to hopefully take advantage of some other providers that solid waste is aware is coming online with capacity. One of them is by county. Another one is a group out of West Tennessee that I think are growing their capacity and will be hopefully in a place to be able to do that in three years and give some competitive bids to hopefully get a better rate for the county going forward. But that's where we are today. This 10-year contract expires at the end of August. So we're on the cusp of that expiring and needing to go into another contract period. We did look at if we exercise this option and do it for three years with waste management, we can, I think, justify that without trying to do competitive bids at this point. We're not aware of another company right now that has the present capacity to do it. We do believe that waste management will not offer these same rates if we seek bids on it. And by looking at some of the other counties around us, Rutherford County being a very recent one that's out there, they're at $50 plus per ton after competitively bidding it. And so just from a piggyback standpoint, uh we can certainly look to that as a basis and as long as what we're getting is equal to or better than that which this certainly would be and so i think that's the ask is for this to be moved along to the regular meeting and then certainly any information that the commission would like we can provide that be glad to answer any questions mayor didn't they in that place if you're gonna close down four years and you're supposed to be cool one isn't in

Camden still has 20 years of life in it, but the issue with it is if Republic is another waste hauler, they have to close their midpoint facility that's in Murfreesboro near Las Casas, and they have to start moving waste out of there. They'll have to carry it somewhere, and the issue with that is they'll carry it to West Camden, and if they do that, it will shorten the life from 20 years down to about three years. then what's out there in the world of garbage? and I even know about it, as Mr. Reagan said, there are other providers that are becoming available. We could, what happened 10 years ago for y'all around, you may recall, waste management came to us and wanted us to renew with them at a lower rate, but we talked with the controller's office at the time, as I recall, and they would not let us renew with them because we had no option to go forward, and so the waste management offered us renew with them versus we re-bid it and waste management is the only ones to bid that moved us from somewhere around 30 a ton up to 36 a ton at that time if i recall correctly so the good news about the one we're coming out of it did give us the renewal option that buys us some time but there are other providers uh in particular the one at by county that's stewart houston county near fort campbell We know from knowledge we have a work in this deal that they will have capacity available for a lot of us and it'll become more competitive. But the fear is if we weren't piggybacking on better rates than that, if we go out and bid, Republic's not going to bid on it. It's going to just leave us waste management. So we feel like the best deal to do is negotiate this versus throwing it out there and then the $54 a ton number comes back. because that's totally unmanageable. We can manage for a couple of years as presented before we have to take a critical look at it, but I know that's been the campaign theme of the year. the $10 fee. I've had that discussion several times, and this will be the last time I ever have it, so note that at home. As we recall, we did the $10 fee 16 years ago. It made sense simply because when somebody was out running for office, we heard clearly, and we being me, that we know you have to do something on revenue, but don't hit property tax, because we'd hit property taxes under the previous two mayors pretty quickly. So we came up with three options, met y'all in March of 11, gave you three options, the commission picked the $10 fee. You know, again, because, I'm married to it because I was the mayor. I'm fine with that. I'm putting on my tombstone. But at the end of the day on that, it's made sense at the time. I understand the economy in Dixon County has changed over that period of time. And again, I have people trying to get me to upend the $10 fee. I have to defend two and a half, $2.6 million. That's what we need to fund the landfill. So no matter where the next commission decides to get it, I'm fine with it regardless because I want to write you a check one way or the other no matter what the vehicle is to get it to you. But my suggestion also is we worked very diligently with Dixon Electric a year ago because they were going to pull the billing under from altogether. That would have put us in a situation that we would have probably just July 1st of this year, we would have started a new billing system. And I did not want to do that because if we did, we'd be laying at the feet of a new mayor. and a new county commission for them to figure it out so i think we bought ourselves enough time between what we've done with dixon electric and what we're doing on this contract we're the new commission at least you know five new members and new mayor my advice on solicitor course is about tuesday september 1st after breakfast sit down start having that conversation because there's other ways to do it there may be a better way to do it but i did not want to do it during a period when we were overlapping administrations because A new mayor, a new commission will have their hands full regardless, and that's not a bomb I want to stick in y'all's hands. So all that being said, I don't even know what we're talking about now other than negotiating that contract on here. But that's where we are. That's where we came from to get where we are today. I think this is the best option right now, but it's everything. It's the will of the commission. So with all that said, I will answer any questions or have Mr. Reagan answer any questions y'all have.

I agree.

Motion by Commissioner Groves, second by Commissioner Ledger. Any other questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of abstaining, aye. Opposed, thank you. Next item is Agriculture Center Barring. We're on item 13, I believe now. We have only two items left. Item 13, Agriculture Center Barring. As we know, that's a project we've been working on for some time. We have now received information from the architect who's drawing the plan together, along with some assistance from Bell Construction who did who did basically a construction plan, not construction plans, but a construction analysis on the cost of this. The figures come back. It started at $13 million. It's been valued engineered down to $11 million at this point to complete the Ag Center. That gets it up and operational. We've taken out things like completing the kitchen and some other items that can be added later on through either grants or fundraising. But that's what it comes out to be on that. The payment on $11 million is about $885,000 annually to pay that off on a 20-year period. I figure the interest at 5%, it's actually a little less than that. It's about 4.55 is what we've been quoted on that interest rate. But that's what it takes to move that project forward. I'll be glad to answer any questions y'all may have on that.

What stage are the plans at at this point?

At this point, all we have is the architect plans, which are basically some sketch drawings of that type, and then Bell Construction has put together a list of what their estimated cost on this, and that's where that figure comes from. Of course, that will have to be put out to bid, but we ask them to go high so we would have room to move forward on this.

to go ahead and get the money and fund it. Yes. And let everything else fall in for the new move.

Because if we don't have the barn in place, then we have, there's no need to move forward on that.

What, and I know we've talked about this before, but with the school barn, and you may want to include these together, but Are you gonna give us, I know in the past you give us a spreadsheet that shows 10, 20 years out, you know, that we don't have to raise taxes. We can borrow this amount of money. Can you go through that again?

No, I'll be glad to share that with you. I worked on it again today because several of you contacted me and answered that question. what we're able to do and where we are today using our projections out to 2035 is that we can borrow 27 or up to even 28 and a half million dollars for schools we can borrow 11 million dollars for the justice center and that does not require any tax increase in fact it leaves us in a position in two years We could borrow $12.5 million for some unknown project that's not been specified and still not have to raise taxes. So in essence, we can borrow $51 million, which I'm not advocating tonight, but we could borrow $51 million without raising taxes. So I think that the ask will be tonight for the 11 million for the AgCenter and then the 28.5 for schools.

Do you mind now?

I did the revenues at 2%. We've had an average of 3% growth since back somewhere in the mid 2000s, but I did it down to 2% in case there was a bad day show up and something happened to Connie, but we can't foresee. No, roughly $65,000,000. whenever we took office we had 80 million dollars in debt but you consider on 80 million dollars debt we had a budget that was about 50 percent of what we are now we've also almost tripled the value taxable property values in that time so in relative measurement We're in a lot better shape today, even barring money than we were in 2010, because we had an $80 million balance, and since I'm carrying y'all a trip back through history, whenever I got elected mayor and everybody showed up in my office on the first week, mayor candidates get prepared for that. after about a month you have to throw your hands up and we have to throw our hands on say stop until we get the bleeding stop and get some of these things underway where there'll be no more barring and as you may recall those who around it was two I think two years in we were able to borrow six million dollars for the schools we called it project cooperation because they had some needs on some work on deferred maintenance. And we had to stretch to get that done. But that was the biggest bargain we did. The next thing we held the fort until we came back and did the $40 million barring that built Burns Middle School. And then the barring we did to do the Justice Center, the $25 million on that, that's your two largest barrings that are outstanding that make up to $65 million. We have some smaller capital outlay notes, but as you all know, those are rolled all the time, buying vehicles and things of that type. So in the bigger scheme, that's not that much money in a relative terms, but a lot of money to me. We're in the best debt shape we ever are. I did y'all a debt presentation somewhere back in March, but I think that's what Commissioner Williams is referring to, showing you the ability of what we could borrow and what good credit and financial shape we're in. The state controller's office and the bond companies use different standards. It goes back to the fact we have over 40% unreserved funds in our general fund. You can borrow up to 8%. It's recommended that your borrowing not exceed 8% of your total taxable properties. If we did all this borrowing, we'd only be at 5%, be considered excellent. So there's credit measurements out there that we're in good shape moving forward on this. Yes, it's kind of like we're the rich folks and instead of buying a Yugo, we can buy a Lincoln Continental now if they even still make those.

It does.

And our goal, as y'all know, we've talked about it on this goal on debt service. We have it up to a portion now. The goal is not to have to go back in there and get additional money to pay debt because we're telling old people, let's keep going. That's exactly what we got saddled with by the 2010 jail that was built. we the the county approved that to build a 15 million dollar jail but we set aside no money for debt service and we set aside no money for uh personnel thus we had to find two and a half million dollars we got two and a half million dollars out of general fund budget and then raised ten dollar fee to pay for the landfill so it came the ten dollar fee came from lack of planning on the jail that was built that we opened in 2010 and the staffing on that. So that's where the $10 fee is, and that's over there financing that at this point. Trip down memory lane.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the money that we borrow for the jail, that's gonna fall off, what, in about another five years?

And that's why we know we can take home this debt where we do the debt projection. We can see when that's falling off, and I'll be glad to share the spreadsheet with you again. And it puts us in a situation, because of the school borrowing, we're always gonna get it done in 31 or 32, but the school's plans have changed, so we're in a position with all this borrowing excluding the 12 and a half million it'll be 2035 before we can borrow something big basically and i'm talking about building a number another school because here on the county general side with all the work that's been done with the justice center redoing this building ambulance service the historic buildings there's no other buildings that need to be added to Dixon County government in the foreseeable future. And I mean 10 to 15 years. This building has space to grow into. So does the Justice Center where the line sheriff it is. Probably the next thing you're going to see, but the sheriff apparently doing a great job. We're not keeping a lot of people in jail. At one time, we thought we were going to have to expand the jail space, but you seem to be holding a pretty steady number. So that would be the next county government side. But in my estimation, looking at the sheriff's numbers, that's no earlier than 10 years from now. So I'm telling a long story to get all of it. We've taken a high level look at this all the way down to where we've thumbed through every line. And again, we can move into the school bar and our friends back there are on that. But these have always walked hand in hand. You couldn't, we couldn't abandon what schools has to do. And I know there's been some modifications on that. And again, I won't get ahead of ourselves. I'll be glad to answer any other questions.

On the operational expense, what's your thoughts on when we open the Ag Center, if we're going to have to raise taxes for operational expenses?

I don't foresee that. And again, next mayor, I'll figure it out. But what we've done is used McNary County as an example in their budget. I foresee that the county will have to subsidize that for a three-year period until the operational gets full because the rents and the activities there will be able to pay for operations. That's what's being done in McNary County. You're probably looking at somewhere between a $450,000 and $500,000 annual budget. That's the revenue that needs to be gained from what's going on out there. That's occurring down in McNary County. After that, after a three-year period, it should stage up where it won't be that much every year. It should shrink down to the point where it's a pay-as-you-go deal. It can't just sit there. It's going to have to have a manager and people out there working because you're going to have to keep activities going on there. or the revenue situation will not work on that. The debt service is being paid by the taxpayers through debt, but the operation will be paid through revenue over time. It depends on how y'all decide to do it. Again, I'm gonna get in some lawyerly stuff over here, but it's set up, in my view, it's set up kind of like the landfill, because I know a lot of people get confused that we're putting tax money in landfill. No, there's no tax money going into the landfill. Sanitation the only thing operating that is commercial tipping fees than the $10 fee There's no property tax sales tax that goes in there. Thus. That's called an enterprise fund I would recommend that we set it up as an enterprise fund that's a business into itself That it we're not subsidized we tax dollars that it has to raise and do its own money from that if there's additional monies on that and It could be set aside to do other improvements and basically build their own fund balance like the landfill fund does or the highway department does or any of the others that we have separate. That'd be my recommendation.

If I remember right, when we did the $10 landfill fee, it took the place of about a 26-cent property tax increase at that time, which would be a lot more now with today's tax structure.

Because the pennies have grown, I think the initial worth of a penny back in 2010, I'm looking at Don Hall, but I think it was $89,000 today. Now it's over, it's 233,000. So the actual pennies will go down, but it will generate two and a half million. It generates the same revenue with less pennies. So whoever's got a calculator out there and wants to divide 2.6 million by 233,000, it's not like 11 or 12 cent property taxes is what it requires. I did that without a calculator today.

Indirectly. It was around two and a half million dollars at the time, but what it did was the $10 fee.

Before we set up the enterprise fund, the funds that were, the landfill was having tax dollars used over there. So what we did, we took the tax dollars out, moved them over to the debt budget, and the jail operational budget led us with a two and a half million dollar, roughly, fund need to be be raised and that's where the ten dollar fee the hundred and twenty dollars here came from using about twenty to twenty three thousand electric meters I guess what I'm confused is that the tipping fee brings in what four million a year I don't have that figure in front of me mr. Hall would and if it brings in four million a year what are you doing the other million and a half But the total budget, again, is around $6 million. And I'm sorry, I don't have the budget in front of me tonight. don't either but just recall the the increase and we did an increase about a year and a half it was about two years ago uh that was somewhat controversial with the commercial haulers uh the ten dollar fee has never been increased we're raising the same amount of money we were raising in 2011. uh the increase has been done on commercial haulers so uh proudly uh ten dollar fee in 15 years has never been increased uh we've not had not go back taxpayer but the commercial tipper fee has raised the rest of it so that's the only two places really your funding come from you know i think the ten dollar fee is absolutely a good deal i mean i've been ridiculed for it and i think it's a good deal i mean everybody's got trash everybody got a meter that's getting paid for their trash you know but what i didn't understand when that the tipping fee brought in for me and the operation cops doing that i just wondered there's such total operation cost that that just was just what the ten dollar we already had a commercial tipping fee before we had the ten dollar fee we just replaced the ten dollar fee took the property tax out put the ten dollar fee in and that was the wash well you're still confusing me murray i don't know if you get them if he's four million and and the ten dollars is two million that's six million right and that's what it costs what you're generating revenue out there that's what we're the cost to run the land okay so you operating cost is two and a half million no okay operating cost is almost six million okay i'm sorry okay well i probably said it wrong okay we're gonna have two more weeks to debate this and to ask you any questions so i'll make a motion move this regular session Thank you. Commissioner Grove made a motion to move the AgCenter forward, seconded by Commissioner Dawson. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed, thank you. Item number 14 and our last item is school borrowing. We've had Mr. Haley, Dr. Suttle and a whole bunch of other people show up over time. We started this discussion, I remember me and Commissioner Britt sitting in a hot library about three, four years ago on this very same discussion. So we are here. Commissioner, board member, would you like to speak

Unless you have questions, that's related to last month.

Hang on and we'll see what the questions are. After hearing the discussion of the last two meetings and some individual conversations y'all reached out to me, the consensus or the nearest consensus I can come up with that your wishes are, you'll be able to express them publicly here. I meet with commissioners one-on-one periodically. I cannot meet with them as a group. That violates Sunshine Law. But we've met with several of you individually since then. There seems to be a consensus about where we are because of what the discussion you already had on our debt service funding, allowing the commission to have some latitude. It's to borrow $27.5 million dollars. for basically the Charlotte school and the request is to let y'all get the remainder out of the school's fund balance to do that. The only other discussion that came up in this was that some interest shown in the south side, the industrial side on Highway 46 south. There have been some questions and the neighbors let it be known. uh ironically from some of the earlier conversations i had with them they now let it be known that they did not want an industrial property there i heard them loud and clear and i think you have too so our other suggestion is that some conversation is that uh we include that and add that to the 27 and a half million uh for a million dollars we borrowed 28 and a half million sell that 54 acres to the schools for a site somewhere in the future needing one south of the interstate The million dollars we basically borrowed from ourselves, we put back in the hotel, motel tax where we got that from. That would have us seed money for the next industrial site we need to be. And I'm sure the neighbors who are upset about industry will certainly enjoy having children nearby. It's fun to watch them grow up and be a part of their, be their outside family. So I think that's a good offer we can make. With all that, I'll answer y'all any questions or y'all like to hear from Mr. Haley. Or we can do both. Open the floor for any conversation you may have.

I don't think I'm going to say we borrow this money. This is for the Charlotte Middle School and a million dollars for the property. And it's earmarked for that, correct?

Yes. We can put that in resolution. Yes.

I guess my question would be is that even as that site have y'all even studied that site to see if that's a good location or or is that even I mean from a location standpoint it is a good location as far as.

the studying of the dirt work and the grade work. We've talked to our architect, you know, about the lay of the land. We feel like from a location standpoint, and I talked to Mr. Grove and a couple others along the way, that in time when our population does pick up in schools, that, and we discussed that and so do in Charlotte also, that it would be a site for an elementary that would bring some overflow down from Stewart Burns. It actually accesses Stewart Burns and Centennial both for overflow. Bring your Oakmont school down and that frees the Oakmont building for your Dixon Elementary. Gives you two flex buildings in town. I think that was part of the initial presentation I gave you also.

the 27 and a half million. I know we went back and forth on Charlotte, but y'all were thinking that maybe 30. It could possibly be.

Our projections are closer to 30, and I think what I was alluding to more during the regular meeting that has been the work session was it seems that everything points back to your reserve funds, that reserve fund is limited and typically it's from a budgetary standpoint. I, for one, like the way it's been budgeted over the past 12, 14 years. Once the commission understands it and the board understands it, and if we do it that way, it works well, but our one-time expenses come out after the audit every year. So we don't necessarily have that growing unless we don't spend on expenses. I do feel like personally that we can probably manage that the bidding process. We've gone through largely the same process you have for the ACT Center. Our architects have done what they could without getting into large-scale expenses as far as drawing plans. And we've done some budgetary numbers on it from the same process y'all used. And there's some variation in those numbers, but they range anywhere from the mid $27 million to the $30 million range. it'll boil down to what we choose to do as far as some of the finishes and we have to cut some or we may come back and ask for a million or two from our reserve fund at that point in time but it wouldn't require more debt service from the commission did that answer your question yeah i believe the first meeting ever come to four years ago we was talking about charlotte middle school

i think it's time to get it done i mean the other schools are getting older while we're still talking about the charlotte middle school so i'll make the motion move it forward that earmarked money and that million dollars to go to charlotte to the thing to move to regular session it was that second commissioner ledger any questions discussion any questions or discussion

Hearing none. All in favor vote by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's all of regular new business. Any other business from the commissioners? Hearing none. Announcements? Any announcements from the commission? On this, remember the next work session, I think it was said initially that it was on a Monday, but it will be on a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. So I want you all to make note on that. The final announcement will be the next work session meeting will be on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 7 p.m. in the Buford L. Booty Reed Jr. County Commission Chamber.