Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

It's off. Can you see me? Okay, I'll put it back. I think I'm putting it back. This crystal is slow today.

afternoon. It's nice to see everyone here with us this afternoon. Um I'm Lori Smith, chair of the broadband authority, and I would like to call our Tuesday, March 17th meeting to order. Um we have uh we'll just move right into our agenda. Um so, authority members, you have the minutes from the January 20th meeting. Um, if you have had a chance to review those, do you desire any additions, deletions, or changes to those minutes? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion for approval as submitted. I'll make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. And that carries. Um, all those like sign. Okay. Very good. Thank you all very much. Uh, we will move straight into project updates. Mr. Sandy. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh we have a basically all River Street updates today. And so what what we've proposed for this year is to kind of alternate between uh River Street updates uh one month, have uh Zaitel give updates the following month, and kind of alternate uh as both of those projects are continuing to move forward. Um as you're aware, the end of last year we wrapped up the Chintel projects, so we won't be having them come to to give updates anymore. uh they probably appreciate that and you guys probably do as well. Um but

progress it's it's progress. That's correct. That's correct.

We we've got one behind us. So um so I've asked the the partners here. So if you recall this project is actually a regional project that is uh actually a West Pedmont project that includes uh Franklin County, Henry County, and Patrick County with this project. And then the other partners are uh obviously River Street Networks and American Electric Power because this is a middle mile fiber project uh where uh American Electric Power is providing the the middle mile fiber and then River Street is kind of tapping into that fiber. So we've asked all three of them to come. I know um Mike has to to go to another uh visit, so he has to leave at 2:30. So we're going to let him go first and then turn it over to I think Rob. a little different than the agenda. I think Rob May will go second and then I think um the Rob and Rob show, Rob Taylor will will kind of close out the updates uh from River Street. So, Michael, thank you for coming. Appreciate it.

Hi, Michael. Good afternoon. Hi. How are you all? Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to give an update on the project. Um I know that there's been some frustration in in the timeline and I think um I think you'll see some progress coming up very soon. start to see some connections being made. I'll be very happy about that. I'm actually when Steve said that Chintel won't be coming back, I'm looking forward to that day when you say River Street and PC won't be coming back because we're done. Um,

but I've been pleased with the progress that we've been seeing in our monthly meetings. Uh, I think we're going to get to a point I've seen there's there's sort of a point in these projects where engineering wraps up and construction starts and then it really starts to ramp up and I think we're right at that pivot point. Um, so I expect that Franklin County will start to see folks being connected um in the coming weeks and then throughout the rest of the year. Um, I did want the authority to know that we have been in in continuous communication with DHCD on this project. They're because of our timeline creep. Um, they're working with us to make sure that all of the locations that we plan to pass will be passed and all of those residences can be connected uh to broadband. So, they've been a good partner. the harp to make sure that we're going to meet all of our outcomes. Um, and with that, I think I'll hand it over to the Rob show as you mentioned.

And I I think that you are at the PDC having this as an agenda item. Is it next week? Yes, next Thursday. So, we'll have River Street uh their executive team to to talk to our our commissioners and answer uh any other questions that uh from Franklin County's authority that may come up then. So, I would just open the floor. Are there any questions from authority members? Okay, thank you so much. Thank you all. Okay, so next up should be Mr. Man. Steve, is that the order you wanted to go in? Hi Rob. Hey, good afternoon everybody. How are you? I'm well. Good to be here. Good to see everyone today. Likewise.

So, uh we do we just have one slide kind of give you a progress update. Um green we're completed those areas and blue is in progress and yellow will be next. So, um, going through our Dickinson route, we have completed our, uh, testing and we're going through the data. There's actually a meeting tomorrow, um, to make sure the data is accurate, and then I'd say within the next week, we'll turn that over to River Street so they can begin their process, take a look at the data, and start their process. Um, on our Sego route, um, it's 24 miles of fiber that we've hung. working on testing right now and looking for uh late uh first quarter to um start doing our testing on that. Um if everything goes well on our schedule, we're looking for about a midyear uh date of turning that that section over on our indic route. Um where we're our tail splicing, we'll be ending that in the next couple weeks is what it's showing for us. and then by uh mid second quarter um have our testing done. So um that's that's where we are on Indicot and that's 28.8 miles. Ingramville um our test splicing having that ending mid second quarter and then our testing in the late second quarter and looking for turnover tentative date in the early third quarter of the year. So um m good progress so far we've hung 102 miles in the county. Um with the make ready work there was 139 poles that were replaced. Uh, so it was pretty pretty good amount of upfront work just to get the the sections in in good enough um standards so it could have the fiber hung on it.

And then their pop site is going along well. We we're finishing up well in progress with the uh point of presence fiber install currently. So everything's moving on. Um still got some work to do inside the cabinets and things, but it's moving on pretty well. Great. Thank you. Okay. Does any authority members have any questions for Rob? I got just what So when you said end third quarter, what month is that? Like when are you starting your year off? I'm sorry. On uh January 1st. Yeah. So So we're looking at uh October. Early third quarter. Yeah. Yeah. And then for Andy Cot that' be August maybe? Yes sir. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that.

Any other questions, comments? Okay Rob. Well, thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it. We greatly appreciate and we appreciate the partnership as always. Yeah. And just to say we are meeting with River Street weekly. Um you know we're meeting with the U planning commission monthly probably bi-weekly. So there there's a lot of partnership going on in those areas. So I think Mr. Sandy may have something. Yeah. I just wondered and I don't expect you to answer off top of your head, but I wonder if you could give us a number of the poles that have been replaced in the county as a result of the broadband project between Yeah. All of them. And again, I I don't expect you to answer right now, but

yeah, I I'll get back with you, Steve, because it it was a tremendous amount of new construction, which the tree clearing, all that. It's getting a more robust system. You know, that's part of what these fiber projects that we're seeing is it's helping our system out, you know, doing the rightway clearing and stronger, more robust pole system. So yeah, it should make it more reliable with hopefully with better poles and less branches and and trees and so forth. Yeah. So yeah, if you could just get that to me at some point, I think it'd be good information. Certainly. Thanks, Rob. We appreciate you being with us. Okay. Uh Rob or number two, Rob Taylor, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon.

How are you?

I'm doing fine. Uh so let me bring you up to speed where we're at. So here's a layout of the county for us uh by the uh serving areas. Dry Hill, Oak Level, Glade Hill, Sandy Level, and Snow Creek. Um on the left, you'll see a listing of uh things that have basically been completed, which is the uh installing the fiber tails and the uh the splicing by AP. And so again, the fiber tail is they're maining they're bringing in the main line and then they'll splice in our fiber tail that comes down the pole and then at the bottom of the pole we'll put a pedestal or a handhold and then from there run our our feeds out to the homes in in up and down the roads as a distribution off of the main line so that they provide us um they're uh completed the design of the Ingrabil splicing plan. They've installed HVAC at the Glade Hill remote, installed power and pond uh conduits at the Glade Hill remote, and began the uh RSN uh permit design review for Dry Hill. What we're going to be working on mainly in March is the construction drawings for the Glade Hill CO. That's the central office. That's where our main uh equipment will be located at for Glade Hill. We'll also complete the design for the um 40 mile stretch of what we call central office uh uh five. That's the uh there's several different routes. That's route five through going through Dry Hill. They also complete the permit design review for Dry Hill. We also will begin a LAR. So, we have a um an engineering group that actually drives the roadway using LAR type uh equipment to validate locations so that we're making sure that we're actually getting habitable addresses in there. ones that might have been overlooked or ones that are on there but are actually chicken chicken houses or barns or something else. And then we're going to

begin the construction in the sand sandy level area as well. Um my slide is a little bit different than what you're seeing. This is the a slide. Uh the slide I have here was a little bit older. The one that Rob just showed you shows that we had uh had some movement and that sego the tail testing has started. This slide is a little bit older and that was what was going to be happening but it's already started. Again, where a stands uh our understanding is they've completed in all build areas the design and permits. They've built out the main line in all the build areas. They're doing the tail splicing and that's been completed in Dickinson. We're hoping to get that, as Rob mentioned, signed over to us in the next couple weeks. Once we do, then we'll be able to do our preliminary review of everything and then start running our lines to get people hooked up in the Dickinson area. Um, AP tail testing uh is going to start next in Sego, Indicott, and Indigram or Ingramville, I should say. And then uh again, we're waiting for the turnover to River Street for the uh Dickinson route. As far as what we're looking at here is our projection on when we should be able to start seeing um some movement on our part when it comes to now this is in line with what uh a saying when they should have stuff turned over to us. Okay. So the for the um Sandy little remote area the we're um target to complete that uh in Q2 of of of this year. Uh the permits are approved. Construction drawings are finalized. Contractors been assigned. All we're waiting to do is get the final signatures uh for that to get the construction started. There's 357 passings in that area. And that's the

breakdown between VAT 22 and Vatty 23. Um, hold on. Here we go. Next one is in the Glade Hill and Snow Creek remotes. Expect to get those started in Q2 with completion uh targeted to be done before the end of Q3. The Glade Hill remotes are approved. The construction drawings have been finalized and the Snow Creek permits or drawings are in production. Those two locations will pass 1474 locations. And here's a breakdown for the Dry Hill and Washurn remote areas. Uh we're expected to get those started in Q3 with completion um by the end of the year or Q4. The permit drawings are in production and once we get those completed then we'll go out and submit uh to VOTE for the permits for the rideways and that loc those two locations will pass 1820 passings. Now as we start to turn up customers we'll start turning up our marketing. Uh, one of the things we'll want to do is um work on getting locations inside the service areas to do a um signup days. We find that it's best if we come out into the communities where the fibers are are serviceable. So, we'll reach out to uh Steve and other people in the county to find out is there a possible fire department there or is there a local church or is there another location there that we could partner with to conduct a signup day and then we'll advertise it. We'll do direct mailings. These are examples of postcards and what that is is when we're doing the routes, we have a listing of the addresses and we'll do mailings directly to those people that we're going to have a signup day. We'll also have it on our web page and we'll try to get as many people out there as possible to sign up for the services. Again, we

don't start making money until we start providing services on it. So, it's important to us to get people signed up as quickly as possible. Um, here are is another one. They'll start sending these out when it gets close to being uh ready. So, this is kind of a primer. Hey, fiber is coming. That also lets them know if construction is starting in their area. So, if you start getting any uh calls from uh residents, what they'll probably be getting is postcards saying, "Hey, fiber is coming into your area or fiber is available." We also have a um web page um that they can go to. It's a my river.net. If they scroll down to fiberbuild, they can click fiberbuild updates, then that will bring up the next screen, the one to your right there where they can scroll down to the county, select the county, and that will actually take them to the county map. And on the county map, they can see the areas that are ready for service. Those are green. The ones that are under construction would be yellow, and any that haven't started construction yet would be blue. But they can go in there, either search for their address at the top, or they can find their address on this map, and once they click onto it, they can let us know if they're interested in service. If service isn't available yet, they can go on and pre-register, give us contact information, and when it is available, then we'll reach back out to them. and that way don't they don't have to keep checking. Um we also ask the county if possible to link this to their web page. It makes it easier if you have a broadband page that the uh people can come to your web page, find our link, link right to this map and then they can go in there, search your address. We don't have any issues with you all sharing this map out. This is a public facing map. Keeps them up to date what's going on. Um if the service is available, they can click their dot when it's green, go in there and they actually register for service, sign up right then and there. see we have any uh programs or specials that we might be having and and participate that way. If they don't have internet service, of course, then they can just give us a call. There's a toll-free number they

can call and reach out to us and our customer service reps will walk them through the process over the phone and and get everything filled out. Any questions for me? Excellent. Thank you. Any questions, Mr. Meredith? on um once a turns these over to you and you do your own testing, what's the time frame to where you'll have internet available for homes? Well, I mean as if they sign up. What what's I know you're

on a Yeah. Um so typically typically we try to get the service installed within two to three weeks once they sign up. But what happens is is once the service becomes available, we'll get, you know, instead of one or two applications, we might get hundreds of applications. And so then we got to work our way through those. Uh I can tell you that we're geared up to do as many I I want to say as many as 300 or so installs a month, right, across the whole say uh setup. And what happens is as we're bringing up areas, we might get a a a group of 50 or so installs in that one area. And then we'll focus on working those down because it's easier for us to send a crew to one area and get four or five installs done in a day versus them going back and forth across the county where they can only get two installs done. So typically what we do is we'll try to gear up the marketing to let people know, get as many people sign up as possible so that once we can turn up the services, we can start activating and keep the crews in those areas to be more efficient at getting the installs done. But it all depends on how many applications we get at a time as to whether or not we can get those done in the two or three weeks or if it's going to take longer because instead of having 10 or 15 applications, we have 50 or 60 applications. So once the AAP signs off to y'all,

what's that window before you're actually ready? Yeah. I'm not sure I'm not sure once they they turn it over to us, then I'm not sure how long our engineers are going to need, but once they they turn it over to us, then our engineers can go through review, make sure the light settings are good for us, and then start the process of of of building out the fiber that we need to start serving the customers. I I would say it's probably within according to this probably within a couple months once we get it turned over once it gets turned over. I I'm just curious because I know down in that area, Snow Creek area, they've been waiting a very long time. So just that way we have we have some from a and you're saying two more months and then hopefully things are right. That's when they start actually seeing y. All right. Thank you so much.

Okay. Any other questions from the authority members comments? So Q2 and Q3 of this year. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 226. You heard it here. I heard it here. You've heard it here. Yep. Any other questions, comments? Mr. Sandy, do you know if those postcards have gone out yet to the Sandy level to the first? I do not. I'll check and find out. I do not if they know, but um and they roughly that that's going to go out 30 days ahead of time. Is that kind of or more?

I think I think it goes out uh a little bit uh less time than that. And the reason why is because people have a tendency, you know, and or what happens if it gets too far in advance, then they sign up and then nothing happens and they get upset because I signed up months ago and and nothing's happened and then they start calling you all because I signed up and they haven't done anything yet. So, we try to send it so that it's I think less than 30 days out so that there's not a whole lot. And then we I want to say that they do multiple mailings because we know that probably the first wave is just going to get tossed and it not it's not until they get enough of those or their neighbors start getting signed up or their family members start getting signed up. That's always interesting. We've had issues where um um a family member lives maybe on the an adjacent parcel as another family member and they signed up and for some reason now this member is wanting the service but they can't get sign up in time and it it gets to be quite interesting when you have one family member has the service and the other one doesn't have it yet and uh we get a lot of calls that way. Well, my mom's got it. Why can't I get it? I know.

Well, she was she was the sign up number one and you're signup number 55. So anyway, um but yeah, we try to get them out closer to the time we're ready so that there's not a whole lot of wait time because people have a tendency that if they sign up, they expect then we should be turning around the corner to install them within a matter of days instead of weeks. Do you do yard signs at all too because I've seen those be effective.

Yes, we do. So, we typically when we go to do um uh install, we'll ask the the uh the homeowner if we can put our yard sign in as well. And so, we also will do um uh postings on Facebook where we'll take a picture with the the owner of of that parcel or that home saying they got the service and so on and so forth. So, there's a lot of marketing that happens. Uh again, um the more people we sign up, the quicker we start getting the money back that we've invested in that fiber because again, it cost us over $50,000 plus per mile to get the fiber in the ground. We want to get as many people signed up as we can. You good? Thank you, Rob, so much. We appreciate you being here and providing us with an update.

All right. Thank you. Rob, will you be at the PDC meeting next week? Yes, sir, I will. Okay. See you there. I'll be the junior person there, so Okay. I look forward to it. You're on his radar. I can tell. I Oh, I know it. I know it. Yeah. Yeah. Not a problem. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Sandy. Do you have any other matters that you'd like to bring before the authority? I do not. Okay. Um, now it's time on the agenda for any comments uh by authority members on any topic you'd like to discuss relative to our work. Anybody? Okay. Uh, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move. Second. Second. All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. And like sign. That carries unanimously. Okay. We are adjourned um until our

That's okay.

Good afternoon everyone. Uh it is a pleasure to see everyone here with us this afternoon. Um, I'd like to call the uh board of supervisors meeting today, Tuesday, March 17th, 3 p.m. to order. Um, we uh first of all, we will have our invocation by Mr. Carter and pledge by Mr. Meredith. So, if you all would join me in standing, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. Uh, my trivia for you today is St. Patrick is the one that brought Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century. That's hard to believe, isn't it? With that, let us pray. Heavenly Father, as this meeting begins, we thank you for your guidance. Give us the strength for the responsibilities ahead and the wisdom for the decisions we make today. When challenges appear, help us respond with patience, faith, and hearts that trust in the Lord as we work through our day. Stand beside us. Amen. Amen.

I aliance 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.

Okay. Thank you all very much. U next on our agenda, we have a very special time set up here. Um I'll ask uh Wanda Foster if she'd come forward and Mr. Andy. Uh it's that time of year um that we have an opportunity to recognize and honor Franklin County employees um who've reached important milestones in their service to the county. So, Mr. Sandy, if you would join me, please agenda.

Hello everyone. Once you get your re awards, if you could just please step out in the hallway. Um Mr. Tosh would like to get a photo and I'm going to do it in like increments of like 5 10 15. So just if you would like to come up and get your award and shake their hand would be great. Okay. So we're starting with the five-year. Our first one is Robert Atkins. Okay. Richard Childress.

Okay. Michael Ed. No, just kidding. Okay. Michael Daiquiri. All right. Jessica Dylan. Oh, there's Jessica. Hello. Pretty sweater. Thank you.

Um, Christopher Drew, Ashley Ferguson, Charles Fiser, Lita Goowens, Michael Hayy. There's Michael. Thank you. Thank you,

Dr. Heather Kickster. Kicksterson. I knew I was going to mess it up. Sorry. Derek Mason, Kennedy McBride, Jessica McFersonson. Thank you, Jessica. Melody Pendleton, Colby Plavin, James Rumley, the third.

Yes. Thank you.

Brantley Santro. Danny Salone, Alan Smith, Merca Stan, Kimberly Turner, Robert Wilson, and Denny Young. Okay, that's our fiveyear. So now we're going 10. Timothy Burton, Justin Crawford, Penny Dudley, Terry Eckerson. That's Terry Library girl. Thank you, Terry. Stephen Grantham, Teresa Williams, Rachel Hodes. Rachel,

thank you, Rachel. Sharon Mcenheimer. Thank you, Miss Sharon. Thank you. Canon Morris Cecil Nubble. Thank you, Caesar.

Who's the big one? Jenny Pekka Jensen Secco Stephen Sandy You shake I'll shake your hand Brenda Walker. Oh god, I think I went off. There you go, Miss Brenda. I don't know who this is. We're gonna put her right. We're gonna put her right there. Okay. Now, we move to 15 years. Jeffrey Dylan, Sherry Hammerstrom, I don't know where this one was at. Brandy Spencer. Thank you. Lisa Cooper.

Thank you, Lisa.

I'm gonna go just turn this this way. Justin Hilton, I'm glad you can make it. Thank you.

Sandra Lawson.

Thank you, Sandra. Peggy Pearson

so much

Jackie Wagner. Casey, right? Now we're at 25 years. Katrina Davis, Jessica Evers, Tina Franklin.

Thank you, Miss Tina.

Deborah Hall. Thank you, Deborah. Renee Ingram, I think she Michael Johnson, Angela Phillips.

Thank you, Angela. Karen Turner. Thank you, Karen. Thank you. And now we're moving to 40 years. That would be Miss Donna Kelly. Did you say 40? I said 40 years.

Thank you, Donna. Okay. You don't look 40. Okay.

Let's give our employees a big round of applause. our employees are really the wind underneath our wings day in and day out. Are there any comments from any supervisors that you'd like to make before we move on? Okay. Well, we appreciate the opportunity uh and indulging us for these recognitions. The next thing on the agenda is approval of the agenda that you've got uh in your in your book uh for today. Um are there any requests for additions to the agenda today? Okay. Hearing none, I'll accept a motion to approve the agenda as submitted.

Make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. All those opposed, like sign. And that carries unanimously. Um before we get into the consent agenda, um Mr. Sandy and I um want to um ask for clarification on the budget calendar for u March 24th. Uh Mr. Sandy, did you want to introduce any remarks on this?

No, I think we just wanted to confirm with the board that we did have that as a tenative work session for um next Tuesday, the 24th. Of course, we do have one Thursday a budget work session, but also had the tentative 24th. So, just for advertising purposes and make sure we properly notice that meeting, wanted to just confirm with the board if it was the desire to go ahead and hold a work session on that day. I think it could be beneficial for us to do that. Yes. Any Go ahead, Mr. 3 p.m.

3. Are there any questions, concerns from from board members? Okay. Okay. So, are we in consensus to keep that on the calendar at 3 p.m. on the 24th? Very good. Okay. So, um Mr. Sandy, you can move forward with that confirmation. Thank you very much for bringing that to us. Next item is uh are the consent agenda um items that you have listed um in your in your notebook. Uh we've got seven items underneath the consent agenda. Um, are there any of these issues that the board would like to pull for either a question andor discussion? Okay, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as submitted.

I'll make a motion. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. And all those opposed, like sign. You want a roll call vote on that? I'm sorry, Madam Chief. I was just moving right along. Uh, Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Jameson, yes. Supervisor Mitchell, yes. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Tatum, yes. Supervisor Quinn, yes. And Chair Smith, yes. Thank you. Thank you for keeping me in line. Okay. Next on our agenda, we will hear from Brian Cassell from VOTE. I'd like to welcome our VOTE staff that's with us today. Um, hope you're well. Good afternoon, Brian. Hey, good afternoon. Good to see you all. I'm doing well.

Good.

Good to be here with you all again as usual. Uh we'll do our beat update report. Uh looking at the previous uh 30 days, of course, we've had some snow removal this year and uh we had another event the other night. We actually had a little bit of work last night, but uh with some falling trees and the wind that was out. So, um now maintenance for the next 60 days. I'll drop to the second item. We have some milling and overlaying that we'll be accomplishing. um route 670 Burnt Chimney Road and Route 663 Dillards Hill. So, uh and I'm adding um route 636 that's not on your report. That's Wong Mill. Uh we have some the winter was harsh on our roadways and so we are having some areas that are crumbling and alligatoring and so we're uh as we find those and we repair them. Uh the plants are finally open back up and we're getting to those as we can. So, I'll drop down to uh the land development permits. I just call attention to the the number of active permits. We have 195 active permits and uh as you know, there are a lot of fiber projects going on. So, uh they're very active in our rideway and we're monitoring them with their traffic controls and so forth. And then let's see, I'll switch over to page two. Um requested safety studies uh on Route 122. We have a request for review of the roadway for posting a speed limit at from approximately.24 mi north of Route 116 Jubilee Highway to 0.1 mi south of Route 634 Harmony School Road. That zone is one of the remaining 55 mph zones uh once you leave just north of Homestead Crearyy there. And uh we've had some crashes through there, but we've asked for a safety review and um there that traffic engineering is working on that. And then we have route 1164 Village

Springs Drive. Uh we've had a request for some no parking signs. Um folks have been parking out there, especially with the inclement weather and so uh it makes that tight to get through there. So, uh we'll be potentially adding some no parking sites along there. Dropping down to our construction, of course, we've got uh several projects that are, as you see, usually Ride 220 that are currently active. Um I do call attention to the last bullet, Route 220, Virgil Highway at Summit View. Uh the flashing yellow beacon, the lights that become the future signal uh that are underway in construction with that foundation work. So that's active. On to the final page. Um these are the same the same top three are uh the same that we've had in past. I'll note uh route 635 novella we have a resurfing resurface of unpaved road and uh that's a one of our rural rustics as well as red valley 657 Red Valley. So we'll be working on those beginning late summer and certainly getting them wrapped up before uh November. So those are two. Uh, I do have a couple of other things I want to follow up on. Um, let's see. Uh, route 636, Lost Mountain. I wanted to give just a quick update on that one, and we'll be adding that one to the list going forward. Uh, currently the, uh, it's the project is progressing well. It's within the rightway phase. So, our sequence of progression goes from preliminary engineering, then preliminary engineering overlaps right away, and then once all that's wrapped up, then we go to construction. So, it's uh scheduled to advertise for July 13th or July of 27. So, um it's uh estimates good and it's progressing right along.

So, if I may interrupt you this morning, Brian, you're telling me that we're not advertising until July of 2027? Yes, ma'am. Why so far out? Uh that's I guess how it came in through the smart scale. That's the money that was available and we've yielded back to the roundabout. Yes, ma'am. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. I was going to ask you about that. So, thank you for the update. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The roundabout is actually it's going to be built a little offline. So, it's going to be if you're on Lost Mountain looking at 122, it'll be sort of that northeast corner. So, it'll be in order to do that. We help that helps with the construction because it's out of the alignment and we're not stopping traffic as much. So,

and I think we're going to have to look at um speed limit from the roundabout down to um potential signalization down the corridor. Yes. Into West Lake um depending upon how that continues to evolve. Right. Yeah, we've got a lot of development activity currently proposed through there. Yes. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And uh let's see what else do I have. I think Mr. Meredith, you had asked about Boon Mill Road and I believe we're working on that. It should have been patched, but if it hasn't, we'll get that taken care of as far as the one right by the uh railroad tracks. Yeah, they I've seen it passed on the other end to appreciate that. And then you also asked about the flashing lights. Yes, sir.

To be actuated, you know, when the signal turns red in Boone Mill. So, I talked to our traffic engineering folks and there's a memorandum on that that we go by. Okay.

All right. Uh there's three criteria. One of them is the speed limit has to be posted at 45 or greater, which it meets. The other two it really doesn't. And the other two uh let me get my notes here. The it involves some sight distance. It says the drivers uh do not have a continuous view of at least two signals and that's for a distance uh as defined in the book and I think it was about 800 ft or so and so it it didn't meet that because you do have continuous sight distance through there. The last one is u we've implemented if we've implemented any other mitigating circumstances. So they pulled crash reports through there for 5 years and there were I want to say 43 45 crashes total 50/50 split almost northbound and southbound. Um to back up what we do have in place today. We have uh a sign at the top of the hill as you come up from Grassy Hill and before you descend into Boone Mill that says that it's going to the speed limit's going to drop. And then we have a 45 mile per hour posting. And then there is a yellow sign that's got a picture of a signal there warning you that there's a signal ahead. So those are things that we have in place. Back to the crashes. The majority of the crashes are angle crashes. And that's consistent with what we see with with entrances and conflict points more so than it would be about signals. I think there were 10 rear ends total where there were like 23 total angle crashes. Those are typically more severe too. They're also, like I said, associated more so with entrances. So, um, there has been a project brought up, I don't it hasn't progressed anywhere with both Franklin County and the town of Boonville about access management through there and that would be something that would be helpful to reduce those number of crashes through

there. So all that said, it kind of is the big picture. But uh at this point, they didn't recommend installing those what we call controller actuated beacons, which would be controlled, you know, just when the signal was red. It says be prepared to stop when flashing or something. So, but that's an update on that. So with the access management, uh is that something we'll get Lisa? Is she working on it? I'll get her to see what we need to do. We've had a couple of meetings with the town of Boonville. Mhm. So that's I think there some coordination that needs to take place with the uh business owners out there. Okay. Well, anything I can help with that. Okay. Please let me know on that situation.

So I believe that concludes my report. I'll be glad to take any questions. Thank you, Brian. Any of the supervisors? Um Mr. Mitchell? Brian, do y'all have an estimated construction time on the work there at um 6:19 and 220 for completion? Mhm. Actually, I do not. I don't have a completion date on that yet. I'll I'll get that for you. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I was out there today and I noticed they're making good progress, but it's I know it's inconvenient. Even some of our employees to let me know that. Mr. Tatum,

Brian, I just want to say thank you for the town hall meeting we had this past week up at Crossroads. I know the people that came out uh appreciated y'all coming out and answering their questions and and giving them a little bit more in-depth uh explanation as to what what the process was and what all was going on. I I didn't hear any negative comments when when people left. They seemed to be uh maybe not satisfied with the answers, but they understood the answers better. And I appreciate y'all coming out. It's our pleasure. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Mr. Brown. How you doing? I'm well, sir.

Can you I had a constituent call about Webster Corner Road and do you have any type of schedule when that might be started or might get to that? I know it's prior to three. It's It's actually our next one. We just were out there um last week and wrote it and we're looking at it. Uh so our consultant is doing what we call a straight line sketch. It's a it's a minimum plan type project where we just note some areas where we're going to make some improvements where we have to reestablish ditches and things like that. So, they are just getting started on that one. So, that is the next one that's following. I would say likely that would be on next year's cycle to complete. Okay, I'll pass it.

Please don't quote me on that 100% because we've got to get it drafted and developed and get it through the old approval process. We're very early on in that that sketch development. Thank you. Yes, sir. Mr. Carter, did you have anything? No, ma'am. Anybody on this end? Mr. Meredith, I told Brian I always have something for him. So, um, no, just two quick things. Um, I know you'll have to research this, but Mountaineer Lane, I think as a project's been 20 25 years in the work. I think there's one obstacle, but I didn't know we could review and see what we can help out since that's I've actually heard a day of 1995 when he was going to go in there and fix that. So, I'm not don't hold me to it, but it's something we can look at and see what we need to do and I can help you out on that.

Sure. And another one I've had um and I know you won't be able to answer this yet, but um Cooper's Cove's had a lot of patchwork and stuff done over it. And I guess it's got a lot of traffic, so I didn't know in the next year or two or what about just a repave like you've done on Boones Mill Road and Bron Brook Mill, something like that. Is that something there? because it is it takes a lot of abuse during the days and weeks, but uh it's been patched a lot and maybe it's time for a reset. So, I'll check on that to see if it happens to be on one of our 27 uh schedule. Excellent. I appreciate everything. Thank you.

Yes, sir. on Mountaineer. We've um we've had a lot of conversations in the past about Mountaineer and you know, we understand there's some challenges with it and so forth, but uh if you want to call me, we can discuss maybe some of the background if you like to do that. And I think the background, there's one building there. It makes it narrow something. But my questions is can we fix it? And you know, I go across narrow bridges. I go across, you know, if that's just a little obstacle that we could work around and help, you know, uh, I'd be, like I said, I'd be happy to talk to you, see what we can do. Thank you. Sounds great. Mr. Quinn, did you have anything, sir? Okay, Brian, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it very much. Our pleasure. And, uh, thank you all for all the hard work you're doing cleaning up from the winter. We We It was a rough one.

It's been fun. Yeah. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Okay, we will move on uh to the next item. We have Mr. Carter, our deputy county administrator with a host host of issues. Mr. Carter to cover. Mr. Sam, did you have any introduction? I was just going to say as Brian's coming, we we packed a bunch of stuff under Brian's name, but we'll call this the finance hour.

Um, so we first did, this will be our first update from Dr. Sears as part of that corrective action plan where part of that was was having him come each month and give you kind of a finance update and a finance report uh from the school board. And then um Brian also has an introduction I think. Then um as Dr. Sears and some of his staff still here, we'll get into the uh potential improvements at uh Liam Wade Elementary School and the proposed funding for that. And then uh Brian will do his regular monthly finance report and then we'll get into some a discussion about health insurance renewals. So

again, this we've packed a bunch in there for this time, but um I'll I'll turn it over to Brian now and then um I don't know if he's going to do the introduction first or or do Dr. Sears first. So I'll let you.

Thank you, Mr. Sandy. So Madam Chair, members of the board. So uh as Mr. Sandy said, you are correct. So the corrective action plan did um require a monthly financial report to the board of supervisors from from the schools. And so we have worked on that. Um the the other thing that the corrective action plan mentioned was uh the hiring of a consultant to assist in the endeavor for county finance staff but also to uh provide a supplement to school finance staff. And so what we'd like to do is we've been working with our uh consultant so an Shaver. And so um I'll let an introduce herself, provide a bio to you. uh certainly a distinguished career in uh local government and public service, public finance. And so she has prepared a basic financial statement. We'd like to she will go over that with you. We prepared and and um shown this to Dr. Sears and his staff for feedback. And so then he'll be able with the school staff to maybe provide a little extra context and support for discussion from a the first pass of a school financial report. So board members, your feedback is going to be important if you would like to see more. And of course, we as staff are going to be taking notes as questions come up. This is probably information we need to add to a future report. It' be very beneficial for for us. So this one is just a one pager. It's very basic and but it is something you would be used to seeing from uh from our county staff standpoint. So I would just like Ann if you would like to come up and she wanted to walk through this and then I'll let her introduce herself and give her all the fine qualifications she has and why we wanted Ann to work with us on this project and then we'll go from there.

Okay. Thank you so much. Good afternoon an

good afternoon. It's nice to be here with all of you. Thank you for having me. Um as Mr. Carter said my name is Anne Shver and um I come to you with quite a bit of local government finance experience. Um I'm a a student graduate of both James Madison University and Virginia Tech with undergrad and MBA degrees from those two respectively and um have have lived and worked in the Ronuk Valley um since the late 80s. Spent some time with the uh accounting firm KPMG for about four and a half years and then spent 20 years with the city of Reno where I ended my tenure there as the director of finance. I have been um owning and operating a consulting practice for about 12 years now. Um just me. So, a small practice, a boutique practice I like to say. And um so I assist local governments with their uh financial accounting and reporting needs, the pre- audit type of work, sometimes fill-in finance officer, things of that nature. Um sometimes some special projects as well. Um and so I've been very pleased to work with Mr. Carter and Mr. White in the last couple of weeks to develop something that we thought would be helpful for all of you as board members to meet your needs to get some um periodic financial reporting uh regarding the schools and the um finances that are pertaining to the schools and u Mr. Carter and Mr. White have worked with Dr. Sears to get some input from him um and so I I get a chance to meet with him today. I haven't done that previously but um I appreciate the opportunity to work with him as well. So, um, let me just talk to you a little bit about about what we're presenting to you, what we've got for you today, and then a little bit about how we hope to build this out as we continue working with this in future months. So, the financial report that you you may have in your packet shown on the screen here basically includes the school's major categories of revenues and expenditures on the left-hand side down the page in rows.

The first column of numbers is the actual results through February fiscal 26. So for the first eight months cumulative of fiscal 26. The next column beside that is the budget um as it's been amended. There have been a little bit of a change in budget from adoption. So the current budget for fiscal 26. The third column of numbers is the remaining budget. So just the math between the current budget and February year to date. And then that far right column of percentages indicates for you the um the percent of Thank you. making a little bigger. Yeah, that's good. The percent of the budget that's been recognized so far. And if everything moved smoothly for every month of the year, that would be about 67%. Now, sometimes it doesn't work that way, but you know, if we if if the year flowed kind of on a on a ratable level, it would be at about 67%. And so I'm going to make some comments about what's before you um kind of high level and we'll certainly be glad to answer any questions. I think Dr. Sears can assist with that as well. So um the first thing I'll call your attention to is that uh the very bottom of that leftmost column indicates that as of fe the end of February there's been a positive what we call change in net position. Some people might use the term surplus um of about $2 million. So, $2 million of revenues over expenditures. So, so that that's a good thing. You know, we we like that. Um, why is that? Well, I would call your attention to the percentages for total revenues and total expenditures that are in that right-hand column. You'll note that revenues are at 68% of budget. So, a little bit ahead of that 67% target, while expenditures are at 66%, just a little bit below that target. So those percentages are narrow, right? They're they're they're pretty close, right?

Really, we would say like right on the money, but you know, believe it or not, a 1% improvement on the revenue side and a 1% curtailment on the expenditure side, enough to create that positive change in net position of, like I said, about $2 million. Um, one of the things that we're going to work together to bring you for future meetings is a projection of how the year will be once the entire year is complete. we really didn't have the time to build that for this particular meeting. Um, you know, it's it's important that we really study the data that's been recorded so far, be aware of of any oddities, anything that's pending, things that that should have been reported already but maybe haven't. And so, as we move into the future, we're hoping to bring that to you. Um, I'd like to comment a little bit about revenues and expenditures that might be doing better or worse than what we might we might hope or might expect. So, let me start with revenues for that. And again, overall revenues are performing positively. However, um, that state sales tax at 57% is just a little bit concerning. I I was hoping that it might be just a timing issue, but when I looked at last year, last year's performance was quite a bit higher than that. So, and I mean, I guess it's still probably a timing issue in terms of state funding, but something we're going to need to study a little bit more and understand a little bit better. Um, probably the most significant thing on the revenue side is that federal funding at under half so far. And so, you know, that's something that we certainly want to dig into, understand a little bit more about, no, is does that mean we're not going to get all of the federal funding we've budgeted or is it just a timing issue? Are there things that that we need to do to move that along, etc. Um, I will point out that the county funding is pretty far ahead of the typical target for this time of year, and that directly relates to the fact

that the federal funding is behind. Um my understanding is that county funding is done very intentionally based on the the cash flow needs of the school division. And so with a uh lack of funding on the federal side, the county funding has been stronger year-to date than what we would typically um anticipate. Um I will say specifically $ 8.8 8 million in more of county funding has been furnished to the division so far February this year opposed to February last year. So pretty big dollar swing from year to year in terms of that funding from the county. You know for the year as a whole we would expect that to meet budget but right now it's fairly far ahead. On the expenditure side of the house, I think it's pretty safe to say that almost all of the expenditure categories are either what I would say, you know, under budget, you know, no concerns there or maybe just a slightly offbudget, but you know, not anything to totally lose sleep about. The one uh category that's little bit of a concern is that second line item, administration, attendance, and health at 77% of the budget. However, that's a fairly small slice of the overall expenditure pie. That's only about 4% of total expenditures. So, in terms of dollars, even though it's ahead of target, um you know, not a huge concern on your expenditure side for the school division, instruction comprises 70% of those expenditures. So, by far the largest um portion of school expenditures. And um with that, I think I will close my comments and see if Mr. Carter or others wish to chime in and add anything?

Thank you so much. And I'll open up the floor uh for any questions or inquiries from the board at this juncture. We'll just kind of take this incrementally. Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm curious and welcome on board. First of all, uh is there data available to compare our school systems expenditures with similar school systems in this area that we could look at that?

Um I would say yes. One thing that's kind of nice about local government finance is that most information is also is always publicly available. Um the state auditor of public accounts does um collect and compile certain data about all localities in Virginia. Um and it's and and so there there there is educational data as part of that and then certainly um information can be gathered, you know, based on request or just based on publicly available documents from other school divisions. Yeah, I I like to see comparative data to sort of see how we shape up against our neighbors. That's all I have.

Do you want to make a formal request for that information? Um so I don't know if we need to direct that to you Ann or to Dr. Sears or both.

I think all of us any of us is fine. um you know and I think I know when I was with Ronoke we had a um we had a group there including the city of Rono there were seven that we use regularly as benchmark entities. So um and I I would say you know I can suggest some comparator school divisions but certainly if if you have some in mind Mr. Carter that you would particularly want to for us to use you know we would certainly be welcome to that. I don't have anything in particular in mind and I don't want to get into the weaks too far with that either create a lot of work for staff, but maybe two or three comparisons just to see where

maybe we're weaker, maybe we're stronger, maybe where we're spending more or less or whatever. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Any other questions, comments? Okay. Uh Ann, thank you so much. We really appreciate and it's nice to meet you. It's nice to have you on the team. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Mr. Carter.

All right, that went a little bit easier. So, next item is the the Lee Wade um project. And so, that's attachment nine. Get that right. Yep. Attachment nine in your packet. And so if um I know when we had the the joint board meeting uh with the school board, county board of supervisors, of course, this project was mentioned. And so uh well, they they mentioned several projects and of course ABM um the firm that the schools are are contracting with provided an analysis of their capital needs. And so one of the or the highest uh rated need was the Leeweight Elementary School and their uh HVAC system. Uh in addition to that, they had uh presented information on uh lighting upgrades, energy efficiency uh upgrades that would be for all the schools as part of this study and their their analysis. And so uh when we were at the end of that discussion, it was really det discussed about timing and when we can accomplish some of these projects, how we would pay for these projects. And so uh really where we as staff have worked is to a point of we have of course we have the $20 million in the the financing that was completed in October. There was as part of that borrowing and intended use for school system capital. At the time there were two that that when the projects were scoped and limited to just HVAC for Rocky Mountain Elementary and Lee Wade and the intent of that was they were and we knew at the time that they were the highest rated needs for the school system. So given the uh the timing uh if you remember just recollect from that meeting that there really is not enough time to purchase equipment for Rocky Mount Elementary. Uh they would not be

arrived would not arrive in time or would be unlikely to arrive in time for summer to for the work to be completed. So then we focused on Lee Wade and so really at this point uh won't rehash all of the items because I'm probably certainly not qualified to do that that ABM presented to the boards but ultimately presented a proposal and so we've worked with uh the staff and with contract and with language and financing. So really that the contract is with the school system and so it's really for for their decision. I think from us as a staff perspective, it is a request of do we allocate funding for this project? And so in your packet, it lists the project cost just over a million dollar $4 million, pardon me, $4 million in order to accomplish the HVAC and the the the energy efficiency renovations, those items for the project. uh for uh for staff's perspective uh we worked with uh board members and so uh with questions that arrive with contracts and you see some of those in the executive summary certainly don't want to read that verbatim I know uh we've communicated some of those concerns so really at this point madam chair members of the board we're at a point of um do we want to allocate funding and allow the school system to move forward from our borrowing for this project do we have additional questions before we're comfortable with that And so really that that's where we want to open it up for possible board discussion or or board action.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Sandy.

Thanks, Brian. And and I think I would just add that um there were some changes made to the contract um as as late as the end of last week and that was relative to a substantial completion time uh April 3rd or August 3rd or 4th. I think there was liquidated damages that was added to the contract. Um and then there was um the initial um mobilization uh percentage was decreased from 30% to 25%. And I think those were the the the three significant changes that were made to the contract from what you originally saw. So, as uh Brian said, there's um the contract would be for four just a little over $4 million, and that would be to do

all of the um HVAC work and and the the work covered in the contract plus that also includes the energy and efficiency improvements with uh with ABM. There is a guaranteed energy savings. Um I believe that number was like 110,000 a year, something like that. it's in the contract. Um, and so just wanted to point out those recent changes and I know Dr. Sears is here and and maybe a few of his staff. I think I think it was before the school board last evening and uh I think was approved. Is that subject to the funding allocation?

So just wanted to few more updates from what Brian had said, but um yeah, the other information is in your packet.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sandy. Um I definitely uh would like to open the floor up for discussion. I would um also a offer some predicating uh information basically just in um you know my followup with individual supervisors over the last week or two. Um I and I may if I'm speaking incorrectly please let me know. I think uh we have been understanding that Lee Wade um had a sense of urgency for completion um in regard to getting this approval up in front of us here in March in order to be able to do this uh school this summer when the students are not in session. Um and then um just some again this is feedback and we can discuss where we are on it but then that we would um consider you know getting this project solely done perhaps as an example with ABM and see how that goes. um see where we end up on the other side of that and then perhaps the board of supervisors in consultation with the schools would work forward on next steps for Rocky Mount um and and the other two schools that were listed in the initial bundled contract. Do I have that right, Mr. Carter?

Yes, ma'am. That's correct. Okay. So, I'm going to open up the floor for discussion from supervisors um on the um what we're looking at today is to whether to approve um the little over $4 million draw down on the borrowing um to execute ABM uh for Leewade Elementary this summer. Madam Chair, I just I would just add that one of the other reasons we thought about delaying some of the other schools was the potential of the 1% yes sales tax which help which could help fund some of that other work that we know is necessary.

That's a good point and that's uh very questionable at this point unfortunately. Um, we're talking about the potential for the general assembly to act on allowing localities, which many of our regional localities have the opportunity to go to referendum on an additional 1% on sales tax that would be restricted to school construction and renovation only for Virginia schools. And um it was thinking we were thinking it's pretty much going to be a slam dunk but because the last two years the Senate and House have approved it and it was vetoed at the governor's desk over the last two years. Uh and we were expecting the same we were expecting the governor to approve it this session. However, um the Senate now is moving it into budget committee which is a worrisome sign for me. Um but we're going to keep our advocating strong. Um uh we really think that um this could be an option to help keep pressure off the tax rate for our citizens if we had a dedicated it's almost a user tax to some degree when you think about sales tax. You know a lot of folks that are coming into the county um you know are sharing some of that burden. So we'll see where that goes. But that's what Mr. Sandy was in large part referring to. So Mr. Jameson I'll open up to you sir.

I've got I've had some concerns and talked to Steve. He sent some questions back to ABM. Uh I don't I think this is a bad contract. I mean, far as construction industry goes and looking at it, you know, the modernization is a big problem with me. Before they touch it, according to contract, the way I read it, the more before they even come set foot on the project, they're going to build us with 25% still a million dollars. and he listed uh they listed procuring equipment and time slots you know to move it equipment up in production all um I don't see that in construction end of it all you need to to procure equipment is a PO number to them

and they're not going to be build till that stuff is shipped equipment is shipped then they're going to have 30 days to pay for it from that point and for me giving the county giving them paying them equipment it's not even on site before it's even ordered. We shouldn't pay a dime till it's on site and pay for equipment at that point. Um there were other issues. I raised most of these questions. I think all the board members have seen it before, but there's a lot of things in it that I I'm wondering if it's covered. It's questionable. The contract list, it mentions uh a duct detector in the GM rooftop unit. It goes on list in they're going to supply 13 more smaller uh RTUs for the classrooms. It notes in this contract that smoke detectors by others. I didn't that's the only thing I've seen in the contract pertain to any fire alarm work at all. So I mean is that covered or is it going to be an extra cost the county needs to consider? uh the boiler, the fuel tank for the boiler, it says that it will be pumped and the fuel will be pumped and disposed of by third party. So, I'm assuming they haven't got that covered and I don't know who other is unless it is a county. That probably be another extra cost we need to consider looking at it. Um the asbestous hazard material, I don't know, Steve, maybe you can answer that. has it the whole job been abated? Well, I'm thinking about where they're cutting holes through the roof and the new curbs going in and all like that. If we do run into it, I you know, they exclude it and rightly so. Any contractor is going to do that. But if we do run into it or they run into it during construction, will that delay the job? It's possible it could. And the way I read their

contract, they could build us for a delay on that. Do you have any comments, Mr. Sandy?

The fuel tanks, I don't know. He was talking about it a while ago, but there may be some other EPA concerns there. I don't know. I've got I've got no problem. We need to do this work, but I believe that we could save a substantial amount of money if this thing goes out to bid. Now, I know we got a problem with the uh equipment at the boilers and all that at Lee Way. What I would suggest, we take the money now. We not fund this project. We take uh we hire us a contractor to go in to evaluate what's there, report back to us what repairs need to be made to carry this job over till next summer and give us time to put job out for bid and get competitive prices. Now, the engineering, we're going to have to hire an engineer to do it. He may come up with a different design. I don't know. But I believe this job is inflated enough that we could take care of the engineer easy enough and bid it out and still save money on it. Uh I in my mind, we've asked questions, we've asked for schedule values, and they're not going to provide that the way I understand to the contract signed. And I can't prove what I'm telling you because I don't have the numbers there in front of me. But I I would say I would not sign this contract the way the contract is written. The other thing that I'm looking at, we need this kind amount of money, $4 million. We need to make sure it is being competitive to save any money as far as taxpayer money out there. We owe our constituents that and I'll shut up.

Okay, Mr. Jameson, thank you so much. And thank you. I I just want to take a moment and thank you for all the research and the due diligence that you've performed um on this contract on behalf of the board. It's been very informative and helpful to us in our decision- making. Mr. Tatum, did you have anything? Mr. Carter, I'm going to think about it a few minutes and see what the rest of the board. Understood. Um, Miss I would just say that oftent times since being here, I find myself in these positions that um well, and we talked about it a while back about uh the work of and just for an example, the work of the planning commission

when it comes up to the work of the board of supervisors and and and when you read the staff summary, you we're being asked to either we're going to fund the school's request or we're not. And this contract is through the schools, not us. Um, I agree with everything Marshall says and I trust his expertise on it. However, it is a school contract, not a board of super, you know, it's it's not our we don't sign and we don't, you know, I guess get into the weeds of it isn't isn't the right wording, but to me, it's a decision of either we're going to fund the school's request to do it or we're not going to fund the school's request to do it. And I just leave it at that.

That's correct. That's correct. Uh, and yes, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, Madam Chair. Um, what I'd like to add to this, I I agree 100% with what Marshall said. I did reach out and talk to him a little bit about this contract being construction. Um, I think it could have been handled better with some time. Um, and I know we got put at the last minute. With that being said, I think anything moving forward, we need to have the appropriate time to do it the right way. But also I think about at the end of the day if we don't address this and get it taken care of if that steam wine it busted would have hit a couple students what will we be faced and I don't want to put a price on a kid a student I do have my reservations and I agree with supervisor Marshall with everything. I just I think my my opinion is um moving forward we don't get in a time crunch like this happened where we're making a last minute decision. But on the other hand, I don't want to see nobody, no students, staff, anybody to get hurt. And this might be a situation where this should have been addressed years before now. We need to get it taken care of. We need to move forward cuz then next year we're talking about two schools. You know, let's go ahead and this is just my opinion. was get this taken care of, but was prevent us making was was keep us from making uh let us have time to make logical decisions in the future that we all feel comfortable with and we are being very uh respectful of the taxpayers's dollars. So that's where I'm going stand on mine.

It is a tough decision, but I think we need to look at if at the end of the day if a student or teacher would have got hurt there, what would we been facing? And that's I wouldn't want that to be my kid. Sure. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Quinn, do you have anything?

U I'd like to briefly explain my position regarding this proposed $4 million contract. And first, I want to be clear that the situation we're facing today is not the fault of the school board or the school system. For more than two years, my two years, the board of supervisors has placed significant financial constraints on the school system, making it difficult for them to conduct the kind of long-term capital replacement planning that any organization needs to properly maintain its facilities. In addition, the school board briefed the board of supervisor leadership in August regarding the ABM work plan. At that time, there was an opportunity to raise concerns and insist that this were be competitively procured. There was also an opportunity for our board leadership to inform the rest of our board so we could address the issue early and pursue a transparent procurement process. Unfortunately, our board leadership did not take either of these actions. So, we are now being asked to approve a $4 million contract that was not competitively bid. The Virginia Public Procurement Act makes it clear that public bodies should obtain goods and services through fair and open competition wherever practical. The reason for this is simple. Competition protects taxpayers and helps ensure the public receives the best value. When competition is removed from the process, taxpayers lose the benefit of market pricing. Based on my experience reviewing projects of this size, I believe the lack of competitive bidding on this project may be costing Franklin County taxpayers somewhere between$1 and $2 million. This situation reflects a failure of planning and leadership and the taxpayers of Franklin County should not be expected to pay for that failure. I cannot in good conscience support asking our citizens to shoulder that level

level of potential over overpayment. For that reason, I will not be voting to approve this contract. However, I believe we should use the moment to establish a clear expectation that future contracts of this size be competed through a formal RFP or invitation for bid process whenever practical, consistent with the standards of the Virginia Public Pro procurement act. Our citizens citizens expect us to be responsible stewards of their taxpayer dollars and competitive procurement is one of the most basic ways we fulfill that responsibility. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Further remarks, comments. Okay, Mr. Jameson, please.

Nick, to address what you're saying. It's school contract. We're being asked to pay for it, though. That's the way I look at it. And Mike, we could get this. We if it work out like I was talking about what I proposed, we could still go in this summer with a contractor and take care of that. Then the work's not going to start till the summer either way. is either turn it over to B&M and pay the price or pay a contractor. And like I said, I think we can go in there with a a decent contractor and take care of any problems and let them look at it and evaluate it. That's where I stand on and and I agree with uh Dan as far as the savings. It's somewhere in there. Anytime you're promised a fixed contract and guaranteed return on a on this energy savings, you better know they got theel covered. You know, anybody would Nick is sort of like me and you both have dealt with a cattleman up in Floyd. Won't call no names. When you go to buy them cows from him, they're good cows. they they've been given their shots and all like that, but you're going to pay somewhere between two and maybe 5 cents, 4 cents a pound more for that cow. But then he he will ask you to an option to buy it back. And when you sell it back to him, you going to get a couple two three cents more than you going to find at the market than you can sell them at the market for. He's got our money up front. And that's what I look at this contractor doing. The savings we're going to get back is our own money. that we build on up front.

I'm done. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Jameson. I I know that we've got some representatives from ABM here. Uh is the board interested in having ABM come up and uh respond to any of your inquiries or comments? Is that something you all would like? My question, Madam Chair, would be more I remember when you and I first heard this. When was that? It's been about a year ago. So, but I don't understand why this didn't go to procurement and h and to Mr. Quinn's comments on it wasn't my job and I wasn't leadership. I was just the liaison. It was not on me was I present that to anyone.

Yeah. So, I'm just confused as to if this doesn't didn't go out to procurement, how how can the schools award a $4 million contract if it did not go out for procurement? I'd like an answer to that question, Mr. quarter, please. So, um, so we did, um, work with the schools a little bit on that. And now, to be clear, this was the school systems procurement process.

It was not county staff, but however, in working uh, late fall last year on this process and trying to understand where we were, uh, we do know that this was procured uh, cooperatively and if you remember, we do that for several things on the county side, fire apparatus being particularly one of them. due to the cost and so it was through a source well contract which is a national cooperative procurement option. Would we have been able to to issue an RFP and receive it cheaper? It's an option but a lot of local governments use cooperative procurement vehicles. Source well is one big one. Uh Omega uh is another uh that is a national uh cooperative procurement. The HGAC is the fire apparatus. Houston Galveston area consortium is what that stands for. So from Virginia Public Procurement Act, it was competitively procured because we procured it through a cooperative procurement vehicle and the school system utilized that option. Uh but that doesn't preclude you from issuing your own RFP uh at a later time or at a different time to do. But just want to make clear we were in compliance with Virginia Public Procurement Act utilizing a cooperative procurement vehicle that local governments try and utilize to save on the cost of issuing an RFP and reviewing and having a panel of employees review that may not have expertise to review those RFPs. So then if you don't then you have to hire another third party to review from subject matter expert standpoint. uh and also the timing. Usually your RFP process is at least three months time you advertise, interview and then it comes back for approval. And so all of those are factors that usually go into that procurement process. And so I'm assuming the schools went through that that same mindset and that same analysis and and decided that this cooperative vehicle was uh advantageous for them.

So and in piggybacking on Mr. Mitchell um any um being expeditious about this last year was basically a vehicle that managed by the school board and the school system. Um our role as as the fiscal um elected body is to fund. Correct.

Um so in regard to some comments, there was no failure of leadership on this board. uh if things got deferred for reasons that were worked in behind the scenes could have been I wasn't the chair then can't speak to that but um I just want to make sure that we're understanding the roles that are in play here and that this board did not do anything um that would have precipitated a delay. Okay, Mr. Tatum.

Yes. Uh I guess my question is for Mr. Sandy. Is there any way possible if we decided not to approve this uh uh contract here but decided to hire a contractor, put it out for bid like uh Mr. Jameson said, would there be any way possible that that could be done this summer before school starts in in August? No, I don't think there's any way to to do the full project. I think what Mr. Jameson was suggesting was a contractor to fix some of the major issues maybe to get it to to get it another year. Um, and I don't want to speak for you, but I think that's what you were referring to. But to do the complete project, no, we would not have time to get it done this summer to Okay.

to do all the bidding process and get all that work done this summer.

I I guess my question there is I I feel like I I agree with Mr. Jameson. I feel like there could be some real savings if we did put it out for bid. But I guess my question would be, would we see enough savings to justify losing another year in the project? And would we see the savings? Because inflation is real. Machinery goes up, labor is constantly going up. All this equipment is going up. This same project's going to cost more next year than this year. Would we see enough savings to take that risk? I don't know. I don't know that anybody can answer that. But, you know, that that's my question.

So, as a followup to Tim's comment, and I agree with a lot of what Marshall said, but if we delay it, there's no guarantee we're going to save a million dollars on this contract. and and I think we're inserting ourself into the school systems process, which is not our job. Thank you, Mr. Carter.

Do you all um do you would would you like anyone else called up to address the issues? Dr. Sears is here, ABM's here, um of course our staff. Um in lie of that, um if there's no desire for that, um I would open up um a recommendation of a motion. um on this matter. Madam Chair, yes, Mr. I'll make a motion that the board of supervisors approve the use of $4,73,610 from the 2025 borrowing for the necessary HVAC work and energy efficiency improvements at William Wade Elementary School as outlined in the ABM agreement. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Is there a second to the motion?

Second. Thank you, Mr. I'm going to get your name. Mr. Mitchell. Okay. Um, so is there any further discussion before we place a vote on the question? Okay. Hearing none, Madame Clerk, if you would be so kind to do a roll call vote, please. Supervisor Mitchell, yes. Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Jameson, no. Supervisor Quinn, no. Supervisor Tatum. No. And Chair Smith. So, y'all are just going to make me be the time vote breaker, aren't you?

Yes. Yes, you are. Um, this has been a tough one for me, I will tell you. Um, I'm going to I'm going to vote a no on this one. The motion was not carried.

So um I think at this juncture um Mr. Sandy recommendations on next steps. I think at at this point we have the option that uh maybe supervisors or Jameson recommended was that maybe the school board looking at a contractor that could help mitigate some of the immediate concerns at the uh at the school. Otherwise, I think it's looking at going back to maybe packaging it together as a multiple schools again and as I said earlier, looking at the 1% as a potential source to to to help fund all those improvements. Yeah, I um you know, my vote really it's it's my hope that um we could do something in with more immediacy uh to address something to get us through that can be done this summer perhaps um for safety purposes uh as a priority um for our students and our teachers. uh with the understanding that you know with adequate time to do you know RFP design and build those types of things you know I think is what the board has been struggling with I think the immediiacy of this project has caused a lot of angst in what to do and when to do it um so I think what we ought to do at this point uh Mr. Sandy did you you feel that you ought to um reconvene with Dr. Sears at this juncture or do you want me to interface with uh the board chair of the school board or all of the above?

Yeah, I'll certainly have a conversation with Dr. Sears about some possible next steps. Okay. All right. Well, thank you all for your deliberations in this. Mr. Mr. I I would just add that I think over the next month as we're budgeting the the CIP, it's a great chance for us to determine what their budget will be for the summer of 2027 and give them that commitment now so they know they're not wasting all the work that goes into doing an RFP that they can that they can count on that money's in the bank for next summer. they can do a good process and we can get a couple projects done because in my mind there's no doubt this project has to be done and there there several others they're critical projects we just need the the proper planning ahead of time to competitively bid them.

They are Mr. Quinn and I appreciate that point Madam Chair but but I would add to that it is and I'm all for RFPs to get it but there is there's no project on the county side of the ledger that can do $4 million without a borrowing. So we have to take the borrowing to do these and it's through the 20 million. I mean to say that we could the total for that Rocky Mountain and Liam Wade was 10 million.

We can't just say okay here's you another 10 billion in capital in the upcoming budget. It's going to have to be a borrowing that has to come through the county side of the ledger. There's no there's no quick fix to that. So un unless we're going to say all right here's $10 million to go fix Rocky Mount Liam Wade which that's 10 cent on the tax rate. It'll have to be through a borrowing that has to come across our desk. It can't just be this is a this is a school deal coming to the county for funding and to meddle in the weeds of their contract is not our place.

It's our job to pay for it. And I agree with everything Marshall said says. I get it. They got to line it up. We got to pay for it. But to say that we're going to have $10 billion worked into their budget for this summer, that's not going to happen. a $10 million increase just on the capital side of their budget that it will have to come through us through a borrowing. That's just how it's going to work. That's my only comment.

Well, and I would say I mean I think we all need to remember uh not only on our side um on the county side, but on the school board side um both bodies um we have been very um we've been unable to, you know, appropriately fund capital for for decades, I would say. And I'm starting to hear, you know, a lot of of us talk about, you know, the days come where we've got to stop kicking that can down the road and we've got to be more deliberate um in our capital planning um because this stuff's only going to cost us more and more money and and have safety issues that will continue to evolve over time. So, I think that we're very serious and intentional about what needs to be done. um even if it's you know if during budget we discuss as an example um you know a dedicated funding stream for school capital projects um we've got to start somewhere and I I sense that this board's not interested in kicking that can down the road but we also to Mr. Mitchell's point, um, to assume that we can turn over $10 million this summer is not going to happen. We don't have the capacity to do that. So, uh, without major decisions being made in the interim and not knowing where the if the 1% comes through and the referendum is successful, that's a different discussion. So, um, anybody else, everybody fine for next steps?

I'm just going to add one thing to it. I think this is going opportunity for both boards to work together. Absolutely. Absolutely. The expectations um so that when it is brought to us, we feel comfortable it was we're say doing the best for taxpayers. That's what we're really here for. So um I'm just going to say that it's just got an opportunity where we're not in this situation of questioning the process.

Absolutely not. And you know, as an example, um on Thursday, you know, we have invited the school board to come in, um and we're going to make this an annual thing where we spend uh hour, hour and a half with our school board to review budgets. Um not just turn a number over during our pro process um to the schools and say this is the number we came up with. We're going to really enact uh in-depth discussion and questions so that we jointly and collaboratively can discuss you know school system on approximation $100 million budget give or take um it's you know the same as the county. So we've got to be good fiscal fiduciaries um of the taxpayer money and I think that's why this discussion has been so um it has been very direct and it's been very informative I think to all of us. So in terms of the collaboration, Mr. Meredith, I think that we are, you know, going to take steps forward to ensure that we've got that good solid relationship with the school board and the school administration so that because we are we're spending taxpayer dollars and that falls with us and so as we work collaboratively to make good informed decisions, that's where it's got to start. Okay, Mr. Carter, would you like to proceed with your monthly finance reports?

All right.

All right, Madam Chair, members of the board. So, we will try and speedily go through the finance report. Uh, but if you have questions, please feel free to stop me. So, uh, we are through February and so, eight months of the fiscal year. As we've heard previously, we would expect to be roughly around 67% of the budget this year uh through this point in time in the year. So, and revenues are looking appropriate uh for the most part. A couple of things are a little below, but a lot of that is timing. Uh things have been invoiced that maybe have not been received at this point. So, overall, our revenue though is still at 69.1% as a total for our general fund. So where we would expect it to be a little ahead of that expenditures likewise are under a similar u similar trajectory. We're we're at or below 67%. The only item that is above that is your transfers and that would be anticipated. We usually transfer those school system debt, other funds during the years. It's not a concern for us at this point. Uh, one thing that um we'll mention again, I'll talk about a little bit later is the funding from the county. And so if you notice, it's on this line here. We have approximately $7.9 million left to transfer to the school system for five months remaining in the fiscal year. There is absolutely no way that that money lasts for five more months.

And so we'll talk about a little bit more about that in a minute. And so uh but from a percentage standpoint, expenditures are looking good, but the expenditure budget is only as good as the revenue that you bring in. And if you don't bring in the revenue, you don't have enough to pay those bills. So, uh to graphically break down a little bit of revenues, you can see again we're trending a little ahead for the month of February, which is a good sign. It it's tight just given the peak that we receive in collections in November and December. for break it down by category. Uh property taxes, you can see we have an increase. Uh roughly a little more than half of that increase is because of the per public service corporation taxes that we receive through Mountain Valley Pipeline. So that's a a kind of a one-time increase. That'll even out when we compare next year. So when we look at normal growth, we're probably a million million and a half is what we're seeing in our property taxes. And so other local taxes, you can see barely some growth. And the same with state revenue. We're actually a little below state revenue through February than we were last year. Real estate tax, uh we are a little behind from where we were last year. Uh but we are just 2.9% of the budget. Uh we still had a better month or a decent month in February. I don't know that we're concerned at this point. I think what we are seeing on some of these is you continue to see some higher delinquent tax collections. So when we look at it overall, we're still okay from a totality of the budget. Um, so again, we're marching toward that that June 5th due date for the first half of real estate for the year, and that would be where you see the peaks in in May and June. So, personal property tax, uh, it is a little below almost $200,000 below year-over-year on actual, but you can see percent of budget, we're at 101%. So, if you remember, we were anticipating adjusting personal property downward in order for the MVP to switch basically revenue categories. And so looks like revenues of personal property

came in stronger and so that's a good sign for us and that's helped us uh when we do our next year budget planning. So local sales tax year-over-year 155,000 uh 2.8% growth which is is which is solid. Uh we are at 70% of the budget so we are ahead of the budget uh which is encouraging for this point in time of year. And of course, we have received the February tax collections. Well, the February receipt, which were for the December collections, your Christmas holiday shopping period. And so, we're we're confident on where sales taxes are going at this point in time with our local economy. Meals tax saw another uh month, a little below for the month, but overall for the year still 4.3%, about $46,000, and we are ahead of that benchmark we would anticipate of the budget. We're at 69% of budget. And as you can see, we it's a seasonal tax, so we're going into the warmer months where we'd anticipate higher collections. Occupancy tax is the same. We had a good month in February of collection, so we're at 6.3% year-over-year, a little over $19,000, but well ahead of that 67% of budget we would anticipate. Expenditures, we have a high month in February, and so uh the uh a little bit higher than we have. You can see that spike there. Uh and the reason for that is the school transfer. So last year in February we transferred about $1.5 million. This year we transferred $3.8 million to the school system for operations. And so that's causing that that differential in the peak for the most part other than just general inflationary items in the rest of the county budget. Uh categorically to show you can see slight increases across the categories. We would anticipate that for inflationary factors, personnel costs, maintenance service contracts, all of those things that never seem to go down. Health and welfare, we are seeing

increases in CSA to be anticipated uh given the uh the higher case costs that we're seeing in some of our residential programs and um and group homes. Fund balance. So, did want to show this to you updated through the end of February. So, if you remember, we have our peak collections in really June and December of every year, and then we spend down that balance for the other periods. So, uh, we factored in the $1.6 million in rollover requests that the board approved last month at staff's recommendation. Felt like those were, uh, reasonable projects and needed to move forward. Uh, when you take in the 20% policy minimum, we're about 10.5 million above, uh, that minimum on our unassigned fund balance. So you will probably see that go below $10 million for the end of March, April, May, but then uh April possibly, but then for May, you should see that pick up again as we start collecting first half taxes uh real estate taxes. So just uh reserves uh nothing has changed since prior month. Budget stabilization and capital reserve uh have been reduced for use of one-time capital needs or contributions. So just wanted to notate that for you on the slide. Just wanted to provide a little bit of an update. So we do have a slight increase in inflation for February, 2.4%. Core inflation's 2 a.5%. Still roughly uh a lot better than it has been, but still not at the 2% benchmark that the Federal Reserve is is looking for. Unemployment did tick up 4.4% in February. roughly 92,000 jobs were lost in the national economy. Uh the Federal Reserve is meeting uh today, tomorrow for their March meeting. So we'll see if they change the rate. Uh given the volatility in some energy markets and and world events, do not know that that

rate will be reduced at this meeting. Likely would like to see some stability before they decide on that uh rebenchmarking. Uh and so as a as a state budget update, General Assembly did adjourn uh this weekend. Uh they did not have a completed budget. There's still a gap uh that that is being worked out between the House and the Senate and the General Assembly. And so they're working towards of course the governor will consider certain bills and then they're going to reconvene in special session April 23rd. And so of course what that does is that puts a delay from a locality standpoint of knowing what your numbers are trying to adopt a budget. And the same thing for the school system, knowing what their numbers are, trying to get contracts out for teachers and all of those things that we would expect from them as well. So, uh, budget pressures, I think, uh, Madame Chair, uh, asked last time for unfunded mandates. And so, um, I do not have numbers with these, but with what we've seen so far out of the general assembly, these are items that, uh, will likely have an impact, explicit or implicit, to the county's operations. Uh, one has been well talked about. It's the LCI adjustment for the schools. U, one of the items that made it through the general assembly right now is a cap on state reimbursement for CSA costs. They're going to uh only reimburse uh up to 2 and a.5% increase for private day for next fiscal year, assuming this is signed by the governor, but it passed both houses of the general assembly. So any provider that raises their rates over two and a half% the locality would be 100% responsible for those. The uh other thing that um they they made it through the general assembly is community- based services. The state is looking to essentially create a statewide rate for that as opposed to a more specific locality. Right now what has been proposed would roughly double our community-based local match rate from 15% to 29%. And so what these things do is of course

be by putting those caps on there, those increases, it creates higher local match, which means we'll receive less state money, which will put a future budget pressure. Uh CSA up until this past year has always been a some sufficient the state funds its portion and what we're seeing is the state is not funding its portion and it's pushing it to localities. uh the SNAP administrative costs. Right now, the state cost share is looking to pick up the locality piece and it will be state funded. That is pushed down from the federal government and so we'll continue to monitor that, but we're hopeful that will pass. That will be a less of a burden on the local budget that we would not have to pick up that that cost share. Uh paid family uh leave is a bill that is passed and essentially you have FMLA. It allows 12 weeks of leave. it is not required to be paid. And so what happens when employees take that leave is they take their personal leave, their vacation leave or their sick leave and they use that time. It's not a separate leave bank that the county or the locality funds. The bill that is uh in the general assembly is now there would be a statewide 12week paid leave program. And so they would be able to you still run it I would from what I understand concurrently with FMLA but it would then be paid leave and it would not reduce employees vacation or sick leave balances because it's a separate pay leave pot. More details will come out about that. U not sure all the details ins and out but that's what it seems like I've read to this point. But that's a burden on the county because when you have staff out for paid leave, um I mean you have an a loss of productivity and you also have the high potential for abuse for using paid leave unnecessarily when it's a state guaranteed benefit. And so that comes at an implicit cost for county providing services. Uh minimum wage increase that looks to be that it's going to pass. So

it will go to $13.75 January 1st, 2027 and $15 January 1st, 2028. That uh we probably we think we can absorb mostly the impact for next fiscal year 2027 that we'll be budgeting for. Uh but 2028 fiscal year is going to have a significant impact and there will be a high uh impact to the county budget to try and fix compression by a $15 minimum wage. and we think that'll need to be a high priority for us to do so to keep well- qualified staff. Uh collective bargaining is the elephant in the room and so the the state uh the general assembly so far has passed collective bargaining. It would uh it was previously passed to be an option for localities. The language currently is that it would be mandated for public sector employees that we will have to engage in collective bargaining. that will do nothing but increase costs for the county and so and the school system. So how we calculate that, we're not familiar in Virginia with collective bargaining and unions and how all of that works in most of our localities. It will be a learning process. Uh but when we look to the 2028 budget, uh particularly that's going to be uh a very high cost. Uh it may not immediately, but it's going to be a budget pressure for years to come. and a service delivery pressure. Uh the other thing to make you aware of because it's kind of flown under the radar is they're still in the budget state funded bonus payments that are to be funded, but they're to be funded in this fiscal year in June. So, we will either have to find a pot of money. Uh it's either flat payments or it's going to be a percentage payment whether it's state uh school employees or local state supported employees. And so we'll as if assuming what specific details pass the general assembly, we'll bring that to you. If they're not reconvening till

April, it likely will have to be the May meeting that we bring it to you. But we'll continue to update you. But that that is in this fiscal year a cost that we had not planned for. And so that may be something we'll need to look at because they only of course fund certain positions and then if we provided the bonuses, we would have to fund the difference for any if we wanted to do it for all employees. happened last year, they're doing it again to us this year. So, school update, we're continuing to work with our counterparts on the 2026, the current fiscal year revenue. We're still not thinking state and federal revenue is going to be projected to meet the budget based on current data. Uh, Miss Shaver provided some of that information to you. So, we thank the school staff. They've been working diligently trying to gather information for us to to assess and to analyze. Uh but we're still not there from a confidence level to be able to tell you that we think we're going to meet budget. Uh mentioned the local transfer is too high. Uh we're we're roughly 25 percentage points a quarter of of ahead of where we were this point in time last year in the transfer. Some of that looks to be delayed reimbursement. Um but I don't know that it's all of it. It doesn't appear to be all of it. And so I think that work will continue. As Miss Shaw said, we wanted to get to a point of an assessment today, but we don't have enough data to really give you a projection to the end of the fiscal year, and that's what we'll be working on between now and your April meeting. Uh, continue to work on that. Uh, I I do think that um there's likely to be a proposed budget reduction to the school system budget for the remainder of this fiscal year because of that state and federal revenue missing budget. And so what what we don't want to arrive at is another situation to where the schools arrive at a negative cash position like they did this last year and the county has to front them millions of dollars. And so we'll be working on that to make sure we get ahead of that. U but it is

concerning at this point just how high that transfer has been historically compared. And that's it madam chair. So certainly be happy to answer any additional questions. Thank you Mr. Carter. Are there any questions comments from the board? Mr. Carter. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. On that day placement, Brian, those figures? Yes, sir. Do you have an idea what percentage that's been increasing the last couple years? They I know those companies are they're unregulated, so they can charge whatever they want to. And I think from my work on DSS board, it looks to me like that just is keeps going up exponentially continuously.

It does. Um we we've seen a variety. Uh I think last year or or this year last year's budget process most of our rates stayed around that 2.5% cap do not we do not anticipate they will this year and so uh a lot of the rates go up six seven two years prior we would see double digit increases they were up 10 12 13%. And so when you put a cap on it at the state level and now 100% of that cost is local, it has the potential to greatly increase our cost for next year. We don't know that yet. We do not have rate sheets from the vendors uh for next fiscal year yet, but I think it's a high probability that they will exceed that 2 and a.5%.

Yeah. Thank you. And Mr. Carter, as a reminder, that's been one of our legislative priorities, right? um rather you know we need we need the general assembly to set limits on what can be passed down to the localities that needs that's what needs to be capped uh because there's unfettered access to the vendors um to raise rates at whatever they deem appropriate. So again, it is local new local dollars that are being required. Um it it's not a want situation. They're required. Correct. And we've got to meet that task. Okay. Uh so we're going to move on. Brian, we're one minute behind my schedule. So we have health insurance renewal.

Yes, ma'am. As your last topic, sir,

I will. So I will just introduce um I mentioned to you last month we had a 10.2% increase. Mr. uh Gray Hooker, senior vice president with Pierce Group, is here to present the renewal, provide some options, answer questions. Uh what we're looking for, of course, we have an estimate and in our in our current budget uh that Mr. Sandy, of course, will propose. Uh but we do need action uh by the board if it if not this meeting, if your comfort level is not there this month, uh because we need to set those rates so that we can move forward with open enrollment that's coming the first two weeks of May. And and our carrier one needs that information. we need to move forward. So certainly with that u would uh ask Mr. Mr. Hooker to come forward and then we'll certainly supplement any additional questions you may have after.

Very good. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. You should be able to

uh madam chair uh members of the board. It's good to be back again. It's been almost a year since I was here last. Uh before I start with uh this short presentation about the renewal, I thought it would be helpful if the board heard um what's going on globally uh in the United States with healthcare, health insurance. Um I've been doing this now for 34 years. Uh this is uh the roughest and toughest renewal season that I've ever gone through. Um and uh it's for a lot of reasons, but the main reason that health renewals have uh gone up in the fully insured market especially, we had one come in at 40% for a local. That is typical. Uh is the drug cost. Uh the specialty drug cost has gone through the roof. Uh those are all the drugs we see while we're trying to eat supper at night and the jingles won't stop. And uh uh so there's a lot of things I'm going to talk about during the renewal process uh where the adjustments have been made to even the local choice plan in order to curb the cost of those drugs. Um healthc care is expensive. Uh but in my career I've never seen a period where over the last 8 years health insurance premiums have exactly doubled. Uh and it's not going to be sustainable uh in not only the public sector but even the private sector in the future. Uh here at Pierce Group, we only deal with public sector. We have now for 58 years. Uh budgets. I've I've been in more budget meetings this year than I have insurance meetings. So we certainly understand. So what you're going to see here today is a little bit about um the methodology that the local choice uh uses. So, if you remember a year ago when I stood here, uh you made um a a good decision to leave the fully insured market where you were constantly getting 25% rate

increases and go to the local choice in hopes of more stability because of the poolled plan. So, a summary of local choice again it is uh it's been around for over 40 years. The general assembly uh established it. It is managed uh by the Department of Human uh resource management in Richmond. Uh they set the rates, they set the rules, uh and there's over 375 public entities, school divisions, as well as city and county governments that participate, roughly 90,000 employees. So when your health care plan is shopped every year, uh it is as that big pool plan as if you are uh one of the largest employers in the state, which you obviously are. Um and uh this past year because of things like GLP-1s uh uh drugs being used for weight loss uh other specialty drugs, the local choice actually had one of their roughest health plan renewals u in the last 40 years. Uh the average increase for all of their groups, however, uh still stayed at 13 1.5%. The largest increase any entity got uh was 25%. Uh the lowest was 7%. Believe it or not, those are the highest rates that I've seen uh come out with the local choice. But still, in comparison to what we're seeing in the fully insured market at 30 and 40 and 50% increases, uh it is it is much more palatable. So, I encourage you to ask me any questions as I go through this. Um, and I'll try to be brief in in the interest of time. So, this is a snapshot of exactly the the renewal underwriting that we get from the local choice. The local choice is a large self-funded healthcare plan. And what I've always liked about the local choice is instead of you getting a fully insured quote and say, "Here's your rate increase." and not having a

breakout of what those increases are paying for. With the local choice, you see where every dollar is being spent in your healthcare plan. So, you see there at the top uh number one, the income at current rates that includes uh the county's contribution to the rates as well as the employees payroll deductions. Uh the uh income at current rates is $5,541,000. They are projecting your medical claims for the upcoming plan year that starts July 1st to be a little over $3.4 million. You actually pay for reinsurance premium. All the 375 groups pay that collectively. Your portion of that is a little over $584,000. They have a pooling limit of about $125,000 for any one claim. Because for a a plan like this to be successful, you can't have one million dollar claim completely wreck the plan. So they purchase reinsurance on your behalf to cover all the money after that $125,000. Um the administrative charges that Anthem as the TPA is charging is a little over $247,000. The great thing about uh this plan as well is your dental cost and vision are embedded into this. So that saves you some money not having to have separate coverage for that. And it's capitated at the beginning of the plan year at just over $234,000. U the drug capitation is extremely important in this environment. Uh your drug spend is capped at a,514,000. If it ends up being $3 million, it's still capped for this local at just over $1.5 million. That is a key um protection inside of the local choice.

You do not get when you are either fully insured or self-funded on your own. Um the contingency fee is basically the fee that DHRM charges to manage the plan and also to set up a reserve. Uh and that's a little over $115,000. So your total income requirement for the upcoming year is $6,15,549. which equates to about a 10.2% increase. Uh at Pierce Group, we manage all kinds of health plans. Um we are the largest uh uh manager of the local choice plans doing business in the state of Virginia, but we have a lot of plans that are self-funded on their own. Uh and a heck of a lot of fully insured plans that are getting hammered. Uh the average fully insured renewal that we have received so far this year has been 33 and a half%. So in this environment, 10.2 2 is very good. Uh, and the real reason I'm I heard inflation used a lot in the last presentation. Medical inflation now has creeped back up to about 12%. Nationwide, but pharmacy inflation has hit 17%. Which is an all-time high. So although 10% is real money, um, it it it does beat the market when we look at results elsewhere. Could I ask a question on on that on the prior slide?

So, u I'm very supportive of this plan and the decision we made to go with this plan. Um, however, I have a question. Just based on my memory, I was thinking that our increase per year was a combination of our experience, our claims experience plus of the claims experience of the pool. And there was actually a formula. So, so our claims experience times a percent plus the pool claims experience times a percent would would figure out your uh total percent for the year. Your prior slide seems to show that it's just our claims experience that goes into determining our rate because I think ours is going up the 10.2% right?

Uh it is. And if you um wait a minute let me go back to that slide and I'll see. So there is a um in in your size of group only 29% of your actual claims experience goes into underwriting this. So they they take that 29% of the pool. Uh and it it varies for very very small groups under 100. It's 100% the pool. You're in the third category which is 250 to 499 employees that are covered on your plan. And so 29% roughly a little less than a third of your own experience in any given year is going to go toward underwriting uh this plan. Uh and you'll see um uh in in years and there's another there's another factor also there's waiting that's separate uh on 6040 on your current plan is normally 60% of the renewal 40 is the prior year since you are in the first year with the local choice that piece of it is not factored in but the 29% of your own claims experience is uh we don't get that exact data until you have completed your first year. Uh and then starting in July 1st, we will get the full set of data that we need to do quarterly reviews and whatnot with your staff so that you can see that impact of blending on a year-over-year basis.

So 29% of of our increase is due to our local claims and then 71% is based on the the claim experience of the pool. Is that right?

No, it's actually reversed. Uh so 29% is the pool and and then there's the uh impact of the uh 6040 split in one year to the other. At the local choice, they use a 24-month rolling experience and you don't have that yet. And so uh you'll really see the impact of that blending uh once um once we get past that 24-month uh period. Um my estimation as a former underwriter is that this is much more based on the pool uh than it is uh in your uh first year experience because when this was underwritten they had less than six months of experience uh to underwrite your plan.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? I don't think we ever really got the answer Dan was after there. So 29% of it is coming from the pool. the pool. Correct. Where is the other 71%. 71% is going to be your claims experience and it's going to be as I said earlier split between the current year that you're in in the future and the previous year. So it's 60% of your current year and 40% of the uh previous year. So those are the three elements in your size of group. So, where are they getting the numbers for the year that they don't have that data yet?

As I as I said, it's it's mainly based on the pool for this first year. Uh, and they'll look at your fully insure plan that you had previously, but that doesn't carry nearly the weight. This is more of a manually underwritten, manually underwritten plan for the first year based on the pool and the pool average was 13.5%. And you actually got a little bit of a break on that. So, so did the claim experience of the pool this year help us or hurt us? I'm just curious. It helped you. It helped us because tremendous because the pool was they had a lower claims experience than our local claims experience.

That's correct. If you see down at the bottom, you'll see that their annual medical trend, which is inflation within this plan, was 7.9% when nationally it's it's at 12% uh for medical and about 17% for and that's down at the bottom. uh in those three um uh categories there uh 7.9%. And I've seen the local choice be in the sixes for their for their inflation. This is the highest I've seen theirs and still it's a full a full four points below the national average.

Um I also like to always show the plan design changes. That's what employees look at. Uh so currently you offer two plans. It's a It's a a PO plan with a $1,000 deductible. A family deductible is $2,000. Individual out of out of pocket is $5,000 and the uh family out-ofpocket maximum is 10,000. Uh and it's an 8020 plan, just a basic PO plan. And then you have a high deductible plan. Uh the high deductible plan for this this current year that we're in is $3,300 for the individual, 6,600 for the family uh with a $6,900 individual out-of- pocket maximum and family is 10,000. Uh if you look to the right of those two columns, this shows you the um uh the changes this year in the local choice plan, and there aren't many. Uh the change in the high deductible, they're all shaded. the the change in the high deductible plan from 3,300 to 3,400 is an IRSmandated uh change. Um they have a minimum deductible that they require every year to qualify as a high deductible plan that is then eligible for an HSA account, health spending account. Uh same goes for the family. It it's going up uh $200 to $6,800 and the out- of- pocket maximums are staying the same. uh on the PO plan, which still has your that you have the most participation in. Um you'll see it's actually an improvement in the out-of- pocket maximum. It's actually being reduced from $10,000 to $9,000. And all the other changes are in that drug coverage that I mentioned earlier, which is where really all of the u uh cost exploded for them this year. For the first time ever, they are putting a small uh individual and family deductible on the drug plan before uh u

payment is made of $150 for the individual, $300 for the family. And then there was a slight change in the in the drug formulary on the um tier 4 drugs uh to have the 20% co-pay only apply up to $200. uh believe it or not over that many people and that many family members it will mitigate cost tremendously. These uh changes along with the fact that they have elected to no longer cover GLP1 drugs for weight loss only but continue for diabetes. It lowered this overall renewal by 7%. Not yours but the the TLC as a group. So it was no one else was covered it in Virginia. uh Anthem Direct didn't cover it. The self-funded plans didn't cover it. And so they made that election which is going to really stabilize their cost moving forward, I do believe. Let's see. Um quick question on is there a pass through on that high deductible high payment? I didn't see one. What

a pass through. I know a lot of your HDHP plans have a pass through. No, there

you don't have you don't offer it through. Okay. Thank you. Um so we have modeled three different uh contribution strategies for you uh as was requested by staff. Uh this first model at the top is your current rates and at the bottom are the rates uh based on the model that we've done for you. And this first one um uh is considering the county taking 100% of the increase in the contribution strategy. If you look down at the bottom, that would increase um the budget number for the increase to just a little over $650,000. Then we were asked to also um do an increase of just changing the increase to the employees of the $1,000 deductible PO plan uh and uh leaving the rates the same on a high deductible health plan. Uh this is twofold. Obviously, it's going to um lessen the budget number. It would it would lower that thing from 650 down to $553,000. So, it's almost $100,000 in savings, but a minimal impact to the employees. And then the second reason this is a good idea is to encourage more people to join the high deductible health plan. Uh that is the trend across the nation. It's the trend here in Virginia. Uh we have uh one of our clients not far from here. Uh that's a city and schools together and the high deductible plan is the only plan they've had for years.

Uh the third thing that I would uh tell you is because we do manage most of your neighbors uh in this general area in southwest Virginia um uh your employees are getting a really good deal on especially dependent coverage. Uh it is rare anymore that I see family coverage, full family coverage anywhere below $900. And and many um of our clients uh have uh family coverage well over $1,000. Uh and it's getting unaffordable. Uh you folks have done a great job at continuing to make this affordable for your employees. So a slight adjustment uh might be um appropriate. Uh, also, uh, you know, I'm a big believer, uh, in incremental increases to employee cost so you don't get that whammy one year and you have to pass on a 25% increase. While I was sitting back here a few minutes ago, I got an email from one of our school division clients here in Virginia that wants this model in because their budget's so tight for the employees to take the entire increase. And and unfortunately, I'm seeing that request more and more. Uh so this is a very palatable option I believe. Um and the next one would be uh an 8515 split. Uh you'll see down at the bottom the same illustration. Um you you would go from 553,000 to about $493,000 in the budget. So roughly about $60,000 in savings, but it would be a bigger impact to your employees. uh and uh but we were asked to also model this just in case uh the board uh uh decides that the employees should take on more of the cost and uh now I'll pause for any further questions you might have and I thank you

very much for your attention. Thank you so much. Your presentation was excellent. Well, thank you. You can take a very complex topic and make it understandable. Well, I'm just a country boy, man. And all my family's from here in Southwest Virginia. So, uh, so I just try to, you know, we're not we're not smarter than anybody else. We just try to work harder. Well, thank you.

Uh, and and I assure you in the future if there are developments in health care plans and there are better options out there that we're going to bring them to the table. I do want to address one thing before, if you don't mind, uh, because I think I was asked this last year. if you ever want to get out of the local choice, uh you know, what are the rules? And of course, we are doing that exercise for one of our groups in Virginia right now, a big school uh division. Uh they do have what's called an adverse experience adjustment if someone leaves.

And the reason is it's uh it's it's pretty simple to explain these self-funded pool plans. If a large group were to leave, the revenue to that plan stops immediately, but the liability to the plan can continue on for five, six, seven, even nine months in terms of claims that had not been paid yet. Right?

So, they try to they do an adjustment. It's a calculation based on your adverse experience because most people don't want to get out of this thing unless they're getting a big increase. Um and and uh the one that did want to look at it this year had a 23 and a half percent increase. We get it. Um but it's still advantageous because their best fully insured quote was 40% over current. So they're staying. Um but there is that fee and and a lot of boards will ask me how do we get ready for that? Uh well what I would suggest is is that there be some amount of money put aside on an annual basis. uh we can do some of these calculations not this year because we don't have the data but next year so the county can be prepared if you ever say okay there's a better deal out of here and we want to get out of this thing uh because it could be well over between a half a million and a million dollars to get out. The other rule in getting out of TLC is you can't get back in for three years. Uh that's also to protect uh the situations where people go in and out and in and out and in and out of the plan which causes instability. Those two rules actually have what have made the local choice stick around for over 40 years. And I did want to add that uh it was requested of me to make sure the board was aware of that.

Thank you so much. I'll open up the floor to supervisors uh for any questions, concerns, thoughts. Madam Chair, I just getting all this. I mean, we have to have this done by April next board meeting. Correct. Yes. Uh I I would say with the information we got and the different effects, this might be something we want to table and look at more um and see which avenue we want to go considering budget. Okay. Determ how much that's just my opinion. I just think I give us a little more time to dig into the numbers and the effect it have on the employees and also our budget. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. I'll defer to the rest of the board and may I ask you for a motion?

Uh any thoughts uh that differ? Madam Chair. Oh, I'm sorry.

Before we move on from that question, um, you know, I mentioned earlier at the start of the presentation, so the TLC has to have the renewal paperwork by April 1st, which is why we need a decision in March. Now, we can punt a decision to one of our two work sessions. Uh, but you know, I mean, we just received this in order to get it to the board. So, I I appreciate um that we need more time to look at it, but we don't have that time in order to renew. we have to make a decision and turn that paperwork in to the the program by April 1st and and enrollment starts May 1st. So that that only gives 30 days to get all of those plans moving. Uh so we we have a couple work sessions. Mr. Sandy mentioned of course the 19th and 24th certainly uh we can provide additional information to answer board comments, but we can't wait until the April 21st board meeting. Just wanted to make that clarification.

Thank you for that clarification. Yes, ma'am. Yes, Mr. Quinn. I I I think that we can divide this into two decisions. So, one, are you staying with TLC? Yes or no? And the second is what will the employee county share be? And it feels like tonight we could make a decision. Yes, we're staying with TLC. And then to Mike's point, we wait until the budget session to decide what the split will be. Yes, that that that would suffice. Yes. Any Mr. Carter? the cost to the employees, if my math is right, is it's going to amount to what about $100,000 or $97,000 depending on the uh option that you take? Yes, sir.

Okay. Anything else? Okay. Um is there a motion that someone would like to make to move this issue along? So, will we have to redo this motion since we're splitting this into two motions? It sounds like you would make your motion as you would prefer it to be and we'll help you with that. There's always help available. So, I'm going to make a motion to stay with TLC as our insurance provider. Does that sound fair? Yes. Okay. And then maybe that we would and table the decision until a budget session to determine which option we want to use as payments

or uh such decision to be made no later than March 24th. 24th. Excellent. Does that work, Mr. Carter? Does that work for you? Yes, ma'am. That would work. Board. Okay. I'd second it. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Um, all those in favor of the motion so stated, please say I. Oh, I'm sorry. You want a roll call vote? Yes, you do. Okay, Madame Clerk. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Jameson? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Chair Smith?

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Appreciate that very much. Okay. Um, Brian, thank you so much for your extensive reporting. Thank you for being with us. We very much appreciate it. Okay. Um, we are running a little bit behind. Um, we are going to move into our work session portion of the afternoon agenda and we will begin that work session in B75 uh which is the conference room right down the hall here and uh we will deal with the uh uh Westlake dog park project an update and overview um and then we'll go into close session. So we will adjourn to B75. Five.

Uh it's very nice to see uh a nice full house with us this evening and I appreciate each and every one of you coming out to uh to be part of your community and and what's going on in Franklin County. Uh so I will call the evening session of our day uh to order. We do not have any public hearings this evening. Uh which is highly unusual. Um so we'll be able to divert our full attention uh to some very important matters on our agenda being our school budget presentation and the county budget presentation this evening. Uh Mr. Sandy, I will defer to you if you want to make any remarks prior to Dr. Sears presenting the schoolboard budget.

Uh no, ma'am. No, no real comments other than we'd like to invite Dr. Sears to come and make his presentation and then once he's done I'll I'll come forward and make a budget presentation from the county's perspective. Thank you. Good evening Dr. Sears. I should say good good evening again. Thank you all for being with us.

Madame Chair, members of the board, Mr. Sandy, thank you all for having us here uh this evening to present our budget request for FY27. It's still odd to me that we're saying 27 cuz I can remember my grandparents referring to 27, but it was a different century.

Okay. Um, as is the has been the case for many years now, we are projecting a decrease in our student enrollment. And this is following a pattern uh statewide and I think probably fits in with the pattern of uh um declining uh population of Franklin County overall, although the loss loss of students is probably a little higher percentage. Um, but the state projected ADM next year will be 5,567 students. That's a reduction of 137 and results in a loss of a little over a million dollars in state revenue. Um the saving grace in this year's budget has been the rebenchmarking of cost for the standards of quality positions that helps offset uh the losses caused by the declining enrollment projected decline in enrollment and the loss of the uh caused by the increase in the local composite index. We spoke earlier uh this year and presented information based off of the governor's proposed budget. Since that time, we have a Senate version and a House version to work off of. The Senate version is the more conservative version. So, that's the one we have built this budget uh request from. Even though everybody knows we still don't have a final state budget and who knows where or when that will occur, where we'll be once it does occur um in regard to state funding. Uh but we do expect the final version to fall somewhere between the the House and the Senate version. And of course, Friday, uh, March 13th, they adjourned without a budget and and I believe come back together for a special session on April 23rd. So, as has been the case for many years now, we're going to be very late in this budget year getting everything finalized, which does make it difficult when you 80% or 84% of your budget is personnel and you have to make personnel

adjustments at the last minute. Um, this is just a description of of the budget process. I'm not going to go through and read each uh one of these. We'd rather just get on to the actual budget. As you can see, the the different amendments and the House budget and the Senate budget uh compared side by side. The House version 3.4 million additional Senate 1.5 million. Down in the lower left corner of the presentation, you'll see the U SOQ bonus that would be put into this year's CO budget. and the anticipated state funds is $520,000. In order for us to tap into those funds and receive them, we would have to have a required local match of $442,000. That just covers the SOQ positions. And as everybody knows, the SOQ is a bare minimum for running a school division, and it's really not sufficient to ensure the safety and quality education. So, in order to fund for all employees of Franklin County, it would require um the local match of 442,000 and then an additional 921,000. Um so, it we never like dealing with bonuses because they always put everybody in such a a bad uh in bad shape trying to figure this out at the end of a fiscal year. And uh if they're going to do them, I wish they would do them for the following year and work them into the budget and give you time to plan that out. But that's where things stand with the budget for this year, assuming it makes it through. Um I mean, assuming the bonuses make it through and and get approved by the general assembly. Okay. So, this is probably the the main slide of the presentation. Um the projected revenue based on the Senate's budget for Franklin County Public Schools is 100,463,521.

When you uh project our salary, our non-s salary budget um debt service payment, that's the last payment on Windgap Elementary School. And uh our estimated expenditure budget for additions is 100,000 100 $125,55. Uh that does leave us a little bit of money to work in. Uh a few of the other costs that we know we're going to have to face this year. Uh projected increase in the CSA expenses of $350,000. We have been reaching out to uh vendors, providers of uh of day uh treatment or day uh placement services and are trying to work out something to get more options available in Franklin County. And hopefully that will one reduce transportation cost and two allow us to be able to work a transition plan to get them back into our schools more quickly. We had a very good meeting today with Hoperee and they seem interested in working with us. Uh of course all this will take time but uh we are exploring those options. Um we have to increase the minimum wage from 1277 to 1375 effective January 1st and that will come with a price tag of 432,000. Um CTE enrollment at Patrick and Henry Community College. This was the the welding program. uh advanced manufacturing and motorsports where we send students onto their campus to be uh trained by by the community college uh instructors. That had a price tag of 95,000. It was kind of on our wish list, but since there was with the state funding and the rebenchmarking, there was a little money there to work a few of the budget priorities in. So, we put the two in that provide classes to our students, the CTE program and the SOS program, which is our special ed employment program where the students are placed at Farm College. That brought

us up to a total estimated expenditure of 100,000 um

I'm sorry, 100,437, uh $927. And uh when all said and done, we would have a budget surplus with no raises or anything factored in yet of $25,000. So that brings us to our uh budget priorities, the the budget request for FY27. And these were all uh presented at the the joint board meeting a few weeks ago. We've went back and tweaked them some based on some of the feedback we were getting, but uh the priorities are still pretty much the same. the amounts might have changed uh slightly. First and foremost is phase three of the compensation study and that comes with a cost projected cost of $3.9 million. Um the board knows that has been our top priority for the last three years is to get the compensation study implemented. It's getting harder each year. Each year that amount goes up. Last year it was 3.7. Next year I mean for FY27 it would be 3.9. If we can't get it done soon, it's going to be out of reach, I'm afraid. And uh you know, we have incredible teachers. They are doing wonderful things with our kids. And it's something we should all be proud of the school division and the work that is done. And and as I said at the joint meeting, we have a lot of teachers who have been hanging with us for decades who are at that point. they're ready to retire, but they're not going to be able to maximize their retirement if we can't get phase three implemented and get uh get their salaries where they should be on the salary scale. We also discussed at the joint meeting the fact that when you look at our salary scale, it looks competitive to the surrounding divisions, but our teachers aren't where they should be on that scale. So, that's where the problem lies. if uh if they should be on step 20, but because of all the salary freezes, they're still getting paid on step 16. So, they are

not where they should be, and they're paid below where their counterparts with the same amount of experience and neighboring divisions are paid. So, that's why that has been and will continue to be the top budget priority for Franklin County Public Schools. The other priority is uh the market adjustments for positions that were left behind in the compensation study. There were several that were not brought to market value, uh, such as nurses and bookkeepers. And to bring those up to where the salary study indicated the market value would be, would be another 350,000. the DSIP program for current employees. Those are the uh employees who have already retired but did so uh with the DS with understanding that they would be able to come in and work a certain number of days at their uh daily rate. To continue that for the retirees who are already in the program is $414,955. uh if we wanted to extend it to the retirees for 2026, that would be another 130,000. We do need to adopt a math series for textbooks and the local share for that would be $500,000. Um and and you know that that it probably should be more of an expense that we have to have because the state is requiring that we have textbooks now. It's no longer optional. We do have a few years to get them in place. So, for this year, we're we're leaving it as an option because if we can't fund it, we're not going to be penalized by the state. But that just means next year we're going to have to ask for twice as much because there'll be another ask next year to to get us there. Health insurance premium increase of 1.2 million. That's a 12.05 05 uh% increase on our uh health insurance premium for our employees.

And if we can't offer raises and offer and have to pass on the health insurance uh increase to our employees, that's the same as giving everybody a pay cut. And that has happened several times in recent history in Franklin County where the health insurance premium increases were actually more than the pay increase was. So that and and that is something we certainly want to avoid. Sorry. Um, with transportation initiatives, we would like to purchase up to 15 new school buses at $600,000. Also, uh, increases for repairs, safety equipment replacement, and personnel of a million dollars for transportation initiatives, $1.6 million. um capital project initiatives. These are excluding the major renovation and construction projects. Uh which these are all the same that we discussed at the joint meeting. Replace the hot water heater and central gym which is used as an emergency shelter. Sorry. And we did check and that project is not eligible for grant money.

But we followed up on that. Uh uh actually uh Mr. Law, our assistant director of operations, had already checked on that before the meeting. He contacted me the next morning to let me know that it was not uh eligible for grants. That's terrible. That's terrible.

The fire alarm replacement at at Franklin County High School, $80,000. The unit replacements for TechC and TechD, $150,000. School security upgrades, installing a weapons detection system at the high school and the middle school, and updating our cameras, uh, 200,000. And then a playground equipment replacement cycle. Our playgrounds are deteriorating quickly. I I'm really not sure that 100,000 is sufficient, but it's a starting point. Um I don't think folks understand how expensive playground equipment can be, but it'll run you about $100,000 just to redo one set of equipment in a at an elementary school. And most of our elementary schools have two different areas of playground. Uh and some of those are 20 years old or older and in dire need of upgrades. So, our total capital initiatives would be $780,000. And that brings us to the last line, which is our additional funding request of $8,929,437. And this, uh, is our needs-based budget there. Um, you know, these are the expenses that we feel would help get us where we need to be next year. Um, we understand that it is a huge ask. Um, we also understand that uh throughout history, a lot of these things have just been kicked down the road and kicked down the road and we are um, you know, we're struggling right now. I I I have was prepared to pres present earlier and didn't get to come up and present, but I have a list of things that we're not preparing right now just because we do not have the funding to do it. And that list is growing every day into the hundreds of thousands of dollars with uh equipment u for transportation and inside of our facilities. And uh but uh if next month if uh if I present I will uh bring that list and an updated list

and and share it with the board of supervisors just so you know that we are out of operations money. We run out of it every year pretty early on. Previous to this year, we've always just carried money from other funds to cover the overages in operations. But given the deficit from last year and having to apply funding towards that, we have not had we're leerary to try to pull money from another account to cover the operational expenses. So, we're just repairing patching what we can and leaving the things aside that we can't fix. And as I say, that list is growing every day. I will not uh go through each step of the graphs. You can certainly read through those and if you have any questions after you do uh email me or uh contact Sharon. We'd be happy to try to find answers if you have any questions. This is the budget category comparison for the last several years. Are there any questions regarding our budget request?

Dr. Sears, and those slides you just went through pretty quickly in your budget document that you'll give to us. Um, are you going to be able to demonstrate um year-over- date uh for your expenditures on the expend on the expenditure side for the current year? Uh yeah, your expenditures, what you're requesting versus over um audited numbers from last year. Yes, I think that's part of it. Yeah, in the budget book there is a detail. Okay. And we'll get those budget books tonight. They are being printed. Okay. We'll bring them on Thursday if that's all right.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I just I would before I open the floor up and uh thank you for your presentation by the way. Um I just wanted to restate um that this board um has you know made a very intentional determination um to start having a work session with the school board and school administration during our budget period uh wherein um we will sit down around the table which will this year take place Thursday um and we'll have roundt discussion give and take um you know for understanding and questions and so forth Um you all are $und00 million budget of taxpayer money and uh we feel that's highly critical um that we you know in our side as well. I mean both of us as elected bodies need to be highly transparent about how we're approaching spending taxpayer money and I think that we've been remiss in the past for not having a more dedicated approach uh with a work session with the schools. uh but we want to get off on the right foot here and uh I appreciate your willingness to do so with us starting

and if it would be helpful we could send an electronic copy of that out tomorrow and and bring the hard copies on Thursday. That would be lovely if you could. Okay. Thank you. So I want to open the floor up to supervisors. Uh Mr. Carter. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Uh Dr. Sears, when we had our joint session at the middle school, I asked you what the savings were from closing those two elementary schools. Do you all have a figure for that? I'm still curious what the school system saved by closing those two schools.

It's really not something that we can quantify because we did fund phase two that year. I mean, we eliminated uh in, you know, two-year time period, we eliminated 87 positions, and that's probably the most we could quantify. Um, you know, so you think the savings was more in salary than it was Yes. building expenses and that sort of thing there. You know, there was certainly a saving in building expenses, but we also saw expenses go up in the buildings that took the students in. Uh, you know, and trying to determine if that was because of the increase in student population or just a general increase in rates is difficult to to to quantify. Okay. Thank you.

The closing of the two schools enabled us to do the phase two of the compensation study. Okay. Mr. Gwen, so Mike, one comment to your comment. I think part of the savings was capital avoidance because they had really old HVAC systems and so it's not we didn't save that money per se, but we saved spending it.

But then Dr. Sears, back on your slide with the 8.9 million, if you could just go back to that for one second. So on this slide you have both capital and expense, right? So it looks like down at the bottom you have you have 780,000 for capital and so then you're really looking at at say about 8.1 million increase in your expense budget and then the this is your capital. However, um so just that is that correct? These are kind of your small capital projects because where I'm going to is it doesn't have the big capital projects. We have a lot of old um HVAC systems like we talked about Rocky Mount tonight and those are not in here. Is that they'll be on a separate schedule?

Yes, we provided the board of supervisors with that full capital list at the joint meeting and uh yeah, there there are over $und00 million worth of current capital needs on that list. These were just things that we felt like needed to be singled out for discussion because they are kind of urgent needs. Um, not that the others aren't urgent as well. Um, but these were these are things that we would typically try to cover in our we get 1.4 4 million for our capital fund every year and 400,000 of that goes to the purchase of new buses which is as we know from previous conversations is not enough to cover the actual replacement cycle that the state recommends. The other million is used for capital, but that's really just the day-to-day capital uh expenses that we have trying to get through the year with replacing light bulbs and doing minor repairs, uh patching, you know, a hole in the parking lot if that needs, you know, those type things add up quickly. And as I said, that that has never really been enough to cover our just general maintenance needs for the year. We've always supplemented it out of other accounts, but with last year's uh budget issue, we we were not doing that this year. And that's why we have a growing list of of capital needs, these are some that we feel like in addition to the 1.4 million. Um we would like to have funding to add to the operations budget so that these issues can be addressed next year. the full capital needs list is a completely different conversation and I think that's one that uh you know probably would warrant a meeting in and of itself and taking a deeper dive into the full capital list and and looking at uh at some of those uh higher need items. I mean we know the HVAC system at Liam Wade, Rocky Mount, Callaway and Snow Creek are either at the end of their life or well past the

end of their life and need to be replaced as quickly as possible. But there are other uh fairly urgent needs as well. I know. So I I I I think back to the lead way discussion and we really need to see the most urgent requirements. Thinking about the timeline, these are projects that need to start in the summer of 2027, right? And if you back up from that, we really have to give you the green light to go ahead with a certain amount of money so that you can begin that competitive procurement process that we talked about. So, so it'll be really important, I think, to go from the hund00 million request down to what are those projects that are most urgent for for you to get approval on now. Those would be the I'm sorry,

so that so that you can begin planning to do that work in the summer of 27. The highest priority on the overall capital needs list are those four HVAC projects. And how much are those altogether? Just just roughly, what's the cost for those four? Let me see if Dr. Nester knows. 10 million. It's 11 million. 11 million. No, it was 11 million for I'm thinking like 16 or 18 million for all four of them. Oh, is it closer to that? Oh, for all. Okay. All four. That's right. Remember the total onion? Yeah, I'm thinking around 18 million for all four. I was thinking Rocky Mountain Liam wave around 10. Yes, that's correct. Okay.

Okay. And then so thank you on that. And then the second question on the health insurance premium. I know that you're self-insured and last year we switched over to this TLC program and I wondered if the school system has considered or evaluated that as an alternative to self- insurance. We look at that every year. Our consultants go out to TLC and ask for a quote on our coverage and it has not been competitive um compared to to what we have now. Okay. Mr. Quinn. Yep. Mr. Meredith. Yeah. Uh, quick question on the the phase three. I know 3.9 will get everybody on the correct step. Yes.

And you've had some very dedicated teachers. It's been froze for seven years. I guess a two-part question is number one, if they're already on the 20 step. Do y'all have a plan on compensating them for frozen years? Um, correct my memory. It's like a 3%. How do y'all how would you compensate those teachers as dedicated that many years and they're already on 20 but we haven't they fell behind on a retire pension

for the uh for the last two years the and we only have a small handful of employees who are at the top of their scale but we have uh uh done a 1% cost of living increase for the the folks who are at the top of the scale. So this phase 3 3.9 will also take care of everybody on the correct step but those who may be going above yes it includes a step or a cost of living increase for everyone and then bringing everyone who's still behind on their scale up to where they should be. And just out of curiosity how many teachers do you have now been froze for seven years? Do you know roughly has been so dedicated to our students?

Mr. um you know we did a chart on how many teachers are still behind that was presented at the and I remember it but I was just curious out of the seven years uh how many went through seven years of teachers for which hurts their pension. I'm just curious. I would say that number would probably be uh all those that are still um four steps behind those would have been the employees who were frozen seven years but I don't remember that number off the top of my head. We have Mr. Patty has those numbers. We can send them to you. Okay. Yeah, I'd be just curious to see. Yes. Thank you.

Um, so hopping on Dr. Sharers, if I may, Mr. Meredith, for a moment, um, the 350K for market adjustment, uh, would you say that that's also dealing with uh, compression from the last two or three years. Um, given that this is a little bit two years old, if you will. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. All right. Other comments, questions from supervisors. Okay. All right. Mr. Sandy, did you have anything? No, I think you covered, you know, we are planning to have a budget work session at 2 o'clock on Thursday to talk more about the school budgets um as well as other budget questions that you guys may have.

And just for a point of clarification, um and this may have predated you, Dr. Sears, I'm not sure. Um we had struggled to get a CIP from the schools for some years. Um and um we are very grateful that we have a good CIP from you all that you give annual attention to because when it comes to intricacies like the county needing to go um to the rating agencies and to fund debt, I it's important that we're able to demonstrate a joint CIP. these projects need to be articulated and they need to be demonstrated on a CIP. So the importance of those discussions, we do a dedicated discussion on CIP and I'm sure you you do as well. Um and I think it's really important, you know, as all of us are deliberating operating expenses, operating expenses over CIP. Um those are two different discussions. Um, you know, operating is going to be recurring and CIP are going to be one-time projects in all likelihood.

Um, I'd love to see you all get to the point that you could pick up your maintenance. Um, you know, your uh day-to-day maintenance cost is not part of capital. Um, but more of your operating budget if we can, you know, get there. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And we would like to see that as well. And and you're exactly right. the CIP list was uh not very robust a few years ago and uh it was explained to me well nothing was ever funded so we just quit updating it and I thought well if you're not updating it how's it ever going to get funded so you know Mark Law has done a great job of updating that and keeping it updated each year now

yeah and I think a point of clarification also in addition to that um I think CTE project it is that still embedded in your number. Yes, it is for CIP. I think we need to make an exclusionary note um on that um because I think there's full intention um of funding that project. Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you all so much for being with us and we look forward to seeing you on Thursday. We will see you then. Thank you. All right. Uh we're going to move on to the county budget presentation. Mr. Sandy, come on down.

Come on down, sir. Mr. Sandy, we welcome you to give your inaugural Yes. budget presentation as our new county administrator.

Thank you, Madame Chair and members of the board. So, as you stated, yes, my first budget presentation, so be gentle. Um, you know, I you'll probably see some familiar things from previous presentations. Uh, but, you know, hopefully maybe see some different things u that are pointed out and highlighted. Again, this this is a a very high level look at the proposed budget for 2627. Um, you'll get your budget book tonight obviously, which will have all those details. Uh, but I do want to hit some of those highlights for you this evening. And so starting off, I kind of wanted to go uh maybe backwards a little bit just to talk about kind of what what has been the the strategic areas of focus for the last couple years anyway. Um and as we look at our budget, we try to determine what we're going to fund um you know based on strategic areas. And so this is just a real short note of that that that shows kind of those those topic areas. dynamic community safety, enhanced educational opportunities, wellplanned growth, strategic economic development, responsible government operations, as well as conserving and promoting natural assets. So, just want to point that out as, you know, that's those are kind of the guiding principles as we look at at our budget and what the the board has has identified as priorities uh for us to focus on as we move forward. Um, I will just footnote that a little bit. We're hoping um later this summer to to have a strategic session where we can reaffirm or um you know realign those priorities but uh as far as developing this budget still working off of some of those priority areas that were previously identified by this board. So want to go back based on that want to go back and and kind of look at some of the things that we maybe were able to accomplish in the last year or so um hitting those priority areas. Um and so one of those main focus areas

has been to continue the development of waste collection sites. So um as as you you know well that you know for years the county has a number has had a number of green box locations uh all over the county. We've been going through a process over the last several years to eliminate those green box sites and develop these what we call man collection sites. Uh sites that are uh have compactors, have fenced in areas, have staff u much cleaner, much more efficient um operation for the county. We're not there yet. We're we're still working um and going through those, but the the list is getting shorter and and so as we add new sites, we're able to eliminate some of the uh some of the other sites and we're also able to eliminate some of those those routes that we have from our front load trucks which which run all the all day long across the county. So, we're looking to to really continue that effort in this upcoming budget to to finish that um and finish that effort for those sites. We've worked uh tirelessly for a couple years on uh continued advancement of broadband across the county. And so we had a broadband meeting earlier uh where we uh talked about uh how a lot of our Chintel work has been completed. We're moving into the next phase with River Street uh for kind of the Snow Creek and u Blige districts of the county primarily. We have uh another group Zel who's working kind of starting at the lake but also headed uh west across the county as well. So we're continuing uh of that effort where the completion with Chintel was about 3,500 households that were able to to get highspeed internet as a result of that project. With River Street we're looking at about another 3,000. Um and then with Zitel another 3,000. So, we're continuing to to chip away at those homes that don't have that access. So, um we're continuing those

efforts um as we go. We uh we did purchase the former Majikraft property and we did get the zoning approval from the town for that uh earlier this year. So, we're continuing to move forward with that. Uh I'll talk a little bit more uh on some future slides. We did see improvements at the Ben Franklin Middle School that the the school was able to do uh and get that project completed. We've also seen the adoption of the county's comprehensive plan. And you're you're currently uh working on the zoning ordinance update, which we expect to see adopted uh this summer. Um and we've got a some future work sessions and open houses coming up on that in the next couple weeks. Uh we've seen extensions and expansions of water and sewer projects to our development growth areas uh of the county as as needed infrastructure projects. And we've also seen the completion of road improvements at Summit View Business Park and uh a number of road projects underway and and a couple more coming on 220 as we look at uh some of those intersection improvements that were part part of smart scale projects that we submitted uh several years back. So we're starting to see those come to fruition and into development. Um we've seen continued economic growth. uh Traditional Medicinals has uh started and they're anticipating opening uh for operations in October of this year. We saw the the recent announcement from Cornerstone and we've seen some recent announcements for housing projects that are going in again trying to hit some of those strategic areas that that you focused on before as far as economic development and and housing needs. And then uh on the public safety side, uh in the past year, we were able to purchase two new pieces of fire apparatus. Um we've gotten four new ambulances added to the system for uh helping with the rotation there on on ambulances. And then uh we did pay off debt that we had on some of the uh apparatus from several

years ago. And by doing that, we freed up our ATL funds, which is state funding for fire departments. and we've been able to utilize that and set that aside for equipment for uh fire and rescue needs. So, just just some of those efforts uh pictures of of some of those activities that have been going on, the collection sites getting paved um and new sites getting open uh like I said, traditional medicinal, the the broadband activities and our um new ambulances. That's just a picture of one of our new ones that's uh out on the road now. So, I I also wanted to address uh something else that we were able to do last year. We we were able to do a $20 million borrowing last year. Um and that was really due to uh the capital needs that we saw coming as well as uh being able to capitalize on a low interest rate. And I think uh Chair Smith, you mentioned this. Um you know, the county is well positioned with our double A+ bond rating. that gives us that opportunity to be able to go out and and get those uh borrowing opportunities for some of those capital needs. And so, uh, to Supervisor Quinn's comments earlier, we'll also be talking about, um, you know, some of those needed capital projects for schools and how they're going to be funded and how that's likely going to be through a borrowing again to to, you know, be able to afford those expenses. Um so for the 20 million that was borrowed uh recently you know the the anticipated uses for that fund uh funding was one was to purchase the modcraft property and that's been completed. So that that part has been checked off. Um as I mentioned earlier uh completing the waste collection sites. So we still have sites in Callaway, the Indicott area, uh Pen Hook, and Snow Creek, which is actually under construction now to finish up and complete uh to allow us to complete that system of new facilities for waste collection. Uh that that funding is also

anticipated to be used for uh design work and uh help fund some of the activities at the Modicraft facility. So um the CTE, the E911 center and public safety administration all being envisioned for that property um we envision that um a portion of this borrowing will be used for the design work that's necessary for those um those needs at that facilities and then there should be some construction funds available as well. Uh likely would be used for the 911 and public safety portions. Um we'll talk about um the the CTE funding later on in in some slides that I have about how we anticipate to fund uh those activities. Uh there was the the possibility of school capital needs to be included in the borrowing as well. And then recreational field lighting is another item that's that's been on our capital um our capital program for a while and has not been funded. So, uh, we anticipated trying to start an effort to be able to to add lighting to some of those ball fields and increase the opportunities for use of those fields. Those fields now are, um, we're we're in a symptom of our own, um, good works from our parks and recck department where we have so much use of those fields that if we could, uh, add lights that would allow us some more opportunities to use some of those fields further into the day. So um anyway wanted to summarize those some of the activities that we had been through within the last year and then that that borrowing activity as well just to demonstrate some of the things that have been done and have been accomplished with previous budgets and pre previous uh financial actions taken by this board. So now we really get into the budget uh the budget piece of of this and I really wanted to start again by going backwards and kind of recap uh last year's discussions uh from the budget. So there was a proposal last year from uh administrator Whitlo uh last year to to do a 1-centent real

estate tax increase and a 2% meals tax increase. Um there were new no new positions that were part of that proposal. Uh so there were no new positions that were funded. The school funding request last year was 40.9 and the funding that was approved was 375. Um and um what was ultimately adopted was there were no tax increases if you recall that. Um there was a change in insurance providers. We talked about that earlier today. And by the county doing that, we were able to to see about a million dollar in one-time savings. And that helped to eliminate uh a need for a tax increase at that time. And then uh the the board also used uh balanced the budget by using some one-time reserves and we spoke to that earlier uh of how some of those funds were were moved over from reserves to to help us balance the bud budget as well as interest on fund balance and then some mountain valley pipeline taxes. So all those uh items allowed us to to not have to raise taxes last year and be able to have a balanced budget at the end of the year. So, wanted to talk uh now move into FY27. And we've talked a lot today and Dr. Seir spoke earlier about uh the local budget climate and some of the the pressures that we're seeing and the for here we go. I was going to say the formatting was was looking a little different here. So, the current local budget climate is uh we'll look at the revenue growth trends. Revenue growth is stabilizing. It's it's slow. Um, you know, I would consider it moderate, but we are seeing some growth uh in the county uh from revenues and and Brian's report demonstrated some of those uh earlier today. Um the reduced dependence on one-time surplus revenues to support ongoing capital maintenance and infrastructure obligations. So again, looking at um really trying to find ways where we can have a recurring funding

source instead of having to to dip into um you know, reserves or dip into one-time type funds to balance the budget. Really want to try to get to a point where we have a more sustained um you know revenue source where we don't have to do that on a recurring basis. As we look at the economy and we've talked previously, you know, we we did very well for a couple years on interest earnings. Um, I think those days are probably behind us, um, unfortunately for the most part. So, I don't think that's an avenue that we really have that we can really rely on as well. Um, and then, you know, because of everything that's going on around the world and because of, you know, what we've seen over the last few years, you know, we we do want to be conservative on our revenue forecast. Um, you know, again, and we want to make sure that we have the funds that are necessary to help us uh comply with our budget budgetary needs. Um, we talked a lot about ongoing inflationary pressures. That's just something that seems to be a way of life over the last several years. Um, a lot of elevated cost uh that affect county operations including schools as you heard from Dr. Sears. Those capital investments and and just service delivery in general. U so fuel, construction materials and personnel expenditures are still some of those main drivers of our uh that are pressures on our budget. Um, and the other factor is just the minimal state funding to localities. So, it seems like every year we're seeing less and less uh funding coming from the state uh for for various services, whether it's schools or other um other local needs. And so, what that does obviously is put more pressure on the local budget and the local tax base to make up for those losses. Um, in a lot of those cases, I won't go through this very much because I know, uh, Dr. Sears hit on a lot of it, but the the school funding pressures is another big one. Uh, the

local composite index, uh, the increase from 045 to48, that was a loss of about 1.3 as Dr. Sears said earlier. Uh, and then the enrollment decreases, you know, represents about a million dollar um, uh, loss in funding as well. Uh, another item is that that was mentioned in some of the school information previously is that there's also the lottery proceeds that are dis decreasing and so that's resulting in some seems to be less funding again that's coming from the state to to help out um there. So, and and again that what this does is it puts more pressure on the county budget and the county resources to fund a larger share of school funding from local revenue. But, you know, and that's also competing with those other needs of public safety and infrastructure and human services that the county also has. Um, and so finally, operating and capital needs uh relative to the school as as was mentioned before, the phase three uh is a priority that the school has mentioned those elevated costs for transportation uh repairs, fuel, utility service, food services, all those things. Um and then the school bus replacement and facility needs as we've touched on several times today. Um so just again FY budget FY27 budget pressures that we're seeing um from our anticipated uh or requested operating expenses an additional $14 million um in total operating request between the schools and the county. um and an additional 2 million in new positions. So a total of 16 million uh of of what was requested for additional operating um in this budget and a lot of that goes around um revolves around inflation. Uh CSA we've talked about again earlier talked about that um some of those high dollar cases and and some

of the again some of the less fund less funding that we're receiving from the state government for that. uh Department of Social Services and Commonwealth Attorney, their increasing case load and expenses, the decline in school enrollment, uh the phase in of the SRO's um and those those budgetary costs that we've been talking about for years that we now are having to phase into the operating budget uh of the county. uh the competitive labor market, which gets back to salaries, uh cost of living adjustments, uh the win minimum wage increase. Brian touched on that earlier and we we are working on that for this budget year, but we know in future years is that um minimum wage continues to go up under the man mandatory requirements. Um we're going to have to, you know, have more um more ways to be able to fund that through our budget. And then the health insurance increases as uh was spoken about by the schools and with our um consultant earlier today. Uh th those cost increases are are there and they're they're typically what um local governments are experiencing um in the in the realm of health insurance. On the capital environment, um an additional 8.8 million in county capital requests um above the proposed local and grant funding of 5.8 8 was requested and then 51 million in school capital above the proposed local funding of 1.7. So again, lots of needs on the operating side and the capital side um that are uh before you and before this county. So now uh how do we address those and how do we get to uh a budget that is uh realistic, sustainable and and allows us to meet those needs. And so some of those accomplishments uh in the budget that I'm presenting to you are are identified here. Um increase the school funding by 3.1 million uh in operating and another 161,000 in CIP. Now I I'll caveat that by saying, you know, we we'll discuss

later about some of those other capital needs that that Supervisor Quinn brought up and some some opportunities to address uh some of those larger needs as well. Um there's there's funding in the budget for health insurance and and cola increases. There's additional half a million dollars for county capital improvement projects. Uh there is there are some additional positions funded in this budget under uh my proposed budget. Um where we had 12 additional positions requested in public safety. I'm proposing that we fund six of those. Um there's also increased CSA mandated funding that we're anticipating for 358,000. Um as we are completing those collection sites, there's a need for additional part-time uh employees to help man those facilities. So we're incorporating 10 additional part-time positions for that. We're continuing to to support higher education with the CCAP program at $100,000 and the pharm scholarship program at $50,000. And then uh as I mentioned earlier with some of the increased workload and case load at the Commonwealth Attorney's Office um looking for uh restoring an attorney position and increasing uh salary funding from the Commonwealth to a total of about $101,000. This is this just relates to the request that we saw for additional uh positions. So 19 positions were requested at a at a total cost of uh 1.4 million. As you can see here from the list, two of those uh are being funded through my proposed budget, one being a parks youth athletics position. Um and then uh half of the requested um firefighter EMT positions. Um and that's a total proposed funding of 486525. This is just really just a historical chart um just showing kind of CIP request um in the in the bar and then

the line running horizontally really addresses uh really shows what's been funded uh over that time. So you can see um there's those bars are much higher than what's been able to be funded. Uh you know so if we look at the proposed budget 14.6 versus 4.2 two. Um I guess on a positive side that line is increasing some but it's not certainly not increasing to the level to be able to support all those projects. So when we look at the proposed budget, we're looking at an increase of of seven almost $7.8 million in the budget. Um and here's some of those uh expenditure adjustments that that kind of equate to that $8 million. I'm not necessarily going to go through all these, but you know, these are the various areas where we see those those increases occurring. Um, and again, with the up at the top, the additional school capital and the additional uh school operating funds, about $3.2 million uh in additional funding there. Um, so how do we get that funding and and where does that come from? And this is displayed on this chart is the revenue adjustments. And where that comes from is um this the growth of the county through the um growth in property taxes and growth in development um some of the other taxes uh that we see. But in addition to that um what I'm proposing is a 3cent real estate tax increase which is about $3.2 million um as well as a 2% increase in the meals tax which which is approximately about $750,000. So those two additions in addition to just the the regular growth if you will of the county um you know generates about $8 million in additional growth. And so if we look at uh you probably remember this graphic from last year just looking at where we are in comparison to some of our neighboring uh counties. Um you know we're we're there

in the middle currently at 43 cents. If you uh kind of look directly above the 103, that would be Renault County uh 76. Uh over to the kind of to the left is Montgomery County, just for uh just for comparison's sake. And I will caveat this by saying this does not include any proposed budget increases from any of these localities at this point. Um as they're going through their budget processes, these numbers likely will change as well. But uh these are the the current numbers. Uh just reading some recent articles, I know Montgomery County is proposing a five 5-cent increase. So if if that was to be adopted, that would take them from 76 to 81. Um I haven't necessarily seen any definitive um proposals from some of the other localities, but I'm sure we'll see those in the coming days uh as well. So looking at the chart um based on the proposed budget uh that would be a 3cent increase that would take the county from 43 cents on the real estate to 46 that would projected revenue is about 3.2 as I mentioned the meals tax um you know if approved would go from 4% to 6% that would be a 2% increase and that would represent you know approximately $750,000. Again, looking at our tax rate, this is um again, this is something you saw last year. Just kind of showing how the tax rate has has evolved over time. And over that entire time, the average has been about 54 cents. And so, you can see the the bottom right uh with the proposed increase um is gets us uh from that 43 up to 46. So, with a 3 cent tax increase on real estate, what does that look like as far as an impact on on property owners? And this chart, you know, just picks a few of those numbers just to give a comparison. So, if we look at a a $350,000 uh assessed value, um you'd be looking

at $15 uh extra on your tax bill uh in the year. And so that would be about $8.75 uh per month on your real estate tax. When we look at meals tax, a similar scenario, uh if you look at just a an average, let's just say an average $30 meal, uh this would increase that by 60s. And I do want to make it uh abundantly clear uh that the town of Rocky Mount already has a 6% meals tax. This would not change that meals tax rate in the town of Rocky Mount. Uh the 6% if adopted by the county would only apply to those facilities outside of the two towns. So Boone Mill currently has a 5% um tax and Rocky Mount has six. So uh the countyy's at 4%, you know, obviously meaning we're the lowest right now. So if this proposal is accepted, it would mean that the tax the meals tax in Rocky Mount and the meals tax in the county would would be the same. It'd be identical. So it's not doubled. Again, I want to make that clear. It's not uh 6 plus six. Uh it's either one or the other. So, um, just want to make that clear as you hear from constituents or, uh, so forth. So, for those that are, uh, eating in in establishments in Rocky Mount, they're already actually paying that 6% tax, um, already. So, um, one thing I did want to touch on uh, real briefly because it's been mentioned several times about the, uh, capital needs for the schools and how will they be funded. I know earlier uh Supervisor Mitchell mentioned that really the only way we're going to be able to fund those big ticket items is through borrowing and um you know that that's correct. I think that's really how we're going to be able to address some of those large ticket items including the CTE. And so one of the initiatives that that is is looming and and we hope to see it come to fruition is that the Virginia General Assembly is

considering passage now it's been moved April 23rd um of a provision to allow all counties to add an additional 1% countywide sales tax specifically designated for school construction renovation or modernization activities. It does if passed it does require a local referendum. Um and so if it is passed as part of this special session when the general assembly comes back, it could be placed on the November uh ballots for consideration by the citizens of Franklin County. So um that's something that we're going to have to wait and see if if it makes it through the general assembly. Um it was noted earlier. It's it's passed the both the house and the senate in previous years and was vetoed by the governor. this year it's kind of taken a little different path and it's it's tied up in the budget the budget discussions and so um we're hopeful that it makes it through those discussions and it does get passed as part of the budget uh but we will not know that until at least April 23rd um which I think it still gives time um if it does pass for this item to appear on the ballot uh in November. So what does that mean? So, if if it does go on the referendum and it is approved by the majority of the voters, uh a 1% additional local sales tax would be added uh in Franklin County, and that could generate about uh probably conservatively $7 million uh annually to address school capital needs. Again, that what we would still likely do is still borrow money to do these projects and get those projects done. But if you just think of it in simple terms, uh if we borrowed $30 million and we're getting seven million a year, we can pay that off in in five years. Um you know, or less. And so that that's really what it equates to uh for us. And so the ability to be able to use uh those funds that are specifically designated for school capital needs uh would be a big benefit for um for our

budget to be able to designate those funds for that purpose. Um, so one thing I think we to some degree we need to kind of wait and see if if the school projects um, you know, we can re-evaluate how we're going to address those. Uh, obviously we don't want to, in my opinion, don't want to spend a lot of money on these projects uh, in advance of knowing whether we have the ability to use that 1% because anything we do prior to that we will not be able to use the 1% for. So, um, you know, I think that's going to be a key item coming out of the general assembly if that, uh, opportunity is availed to, um, to the county and then ultimately to the voters of the county to decide if that's, uh, something that they would want to see Franklin County move forward with. So, just in summary, um, what you have uh, before you is a balanced budget. It does propose a real estate tax increase from 43 cents to 46 cents. It does also propose a county meals tax increase from 4% to 6%. No other tax rates are changed um in this uh current proposed budget. And so that represents an overall proposal uh for FY27 of approximate budget of $192 million $842 321 which is about a five a little over 5% increase in the budget. Um and so you know it's a structurally measured budget. um you know looking at a lot of needs uh and figuring out how to how to best accomplish those needs and address those needs. Um you know it's a modest u new revenue that we're looking at uh to help us with those ongoing capital and operational expenses. Um you know and it's it's a m maintenance of effort budget budget as we continue to look at additional new school funding. um funds that are mandated and inflationary cost um adding a few positions in key areas and um COLA increases.

So I won't go through each of these because you'll have a copy of this, but this is this this is something I think Chris and even administrators prior have been providing just to show a visual of how how a dollar is spread spread out across the budget and how it's divided up proportionally. This would represent the expenditures and and these are the revenues um as you uh look at the proportional uh amounts uh based on a dollar. So I'll just wrap up with just some next steps. Um you know the budget information that's been presented tonight. Um and the books that you'll receive tonight will be on the county website. They'll be available in the libraries and they'll also be available in administration and finance offices. And then uh as we talked about earlier, we do have some next steps. Uh so Thursday, scheduled budget work session with schools at 2 PM. Uh following that, there'll be uh opportunity for uh discussion of county budget items uh non-school item uh for the latter part of that work session. Then we have another work session scheduled for Tuesday the 24th uh to start at 3 p.m. And I've just highlighted there that that's really the the point where we need to know what is the advertised tax rate that uh the board of supervisors wants to put out there. It's not what you will eventually adopt, but we have to advertise a tax rate um by by March 26. We have to have that number to the paper and be able to get that advertised. And so, uh, as a reminder, you can you can advertise any number really that you want and you can come down from that, but you you can't go up. So, as an example, if if you advertise 46 cents, you can't later choose to do 47 or 48. So, just want to point that out just for clarity that you can always advertise something higher and come down uh for for any of those um for that tax rate, but we do have to have a number uh coming out of your last work section

next week in order to to meet that advertising criteria. Uh April 14th is the proposed budget public hearing uh at 6 p.m. and then we are tentatively looking at the 21st for budget rates and budget adoption um budget and rates adoption uh at 6 p.m. as well. Now, as was mentioned several times earlier, um the we're not anticipating the budget to be adopted by the general assembly until April 23rd at the earliest. And so obviously that has uh you know factors on our budget. Uh what we would need is we would certainly need the rates adopted um as we approach the end of April so we can get the tax the the tax bills out. Uh the budget could wait a little bit longer as we kind of figure out all those um all the funding that may or may not be coming from the state um as we finalize that. So, we can continue to talk about that more as we go through the process, but wanted to identify some of those key next steps as we move forward in this process. So, and just finally, just appreciate the county staff who assisted with this, primarily the finance office, uh, who do a lot of the heavy lifting on this and and help help answer a lot of my questions along the way about what if we do this and what if we change this. Um, and so really appreciate Brian and his staff, uh, Corey, Jackie, Sarah, all them that that work tirelessly on that. Um, as well as, you know, Brandy and Kevin and and the entire staff who who's kind of worked on this together. So, appreciate that and and I'll be happy to answer any questions or if you want to defer questions till we have work session discussions later and you get a chance to see some of the details, um, happy to do that as well. So,

thank you very much, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Sandy. Excellent presentation. Um these budget presentations are always very sobering uh and a look at reality and um very very tough decisions.

Yes ma'am. that this board faces on an annual basis to make sure that we are providing the services um and meeting the needs of the taxpayers um and doing it in a conservative manner and in a way where the taxpayers feel value uh for the services that they get. So, this is no small feat um and I applaud your courage that you've demonstrated um in approaching some of the um the additional methods to perhaps produce additional revenue. Um I've been on this board six and a half years and um people constantly around the Commonwealth say to me, "How can you all maintain uh 43 cent tax rate?" And when it was 61, it was still on the low end. How can you do that and still grow, you know, and we've been blessed with excellent fiduciaries and our staff,

um, our finance office, Mr. Whit, you, Mr. Sandy, and, um, you can only do that for so long. And so we've got, this board's got a lot of work to do between now, uh, certainly and Tuesday and looking at the evaluation of your budget. And we will definitely be rolling our sleeves up to do so. Um, I'll open the floor for any questions or comments by supervisors. Madame Chair, I I just want to applaud Mr. Sandy and his staff. I'm been on this board now for 10 and a half years and I'm still waiting to get good news out of one of your, you know, budget proposals.

This is my toughest budget yet. So, but uh I I'm going to reserve my comments, further comments to Thursday after I have a chance to look at these a little bit closer.

Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Anyone else wish to make any comments? Okay, Mr. Sandy, thank you so much. And again, thanks to our finance staff and our leadership team uh for all of the work and the hours that you've put into this. and um we're going to take over at this point u make it our budget and make these decisions ours. Um so thank you for that. Um because we've had a little bit of a of a skewed schedule with our timing. Uh the board is going to adjourn into a close session right now. Um I don't know if it'll be what half an hour maybe Mr. Sandy. Yeah. And when and just so for an expectation of scheduling for this evening uh we'll have a close session. We will come back out. We will take up any needed appointments, public comment. Uh we will have the county administrator and county attorney reports and then other matters by supervisors. Um so I uh I kind of apologize for holding you over a few more minutes. Um but our day has kind of gotten long on us and uh so if you would, Mr. Mitchell, if you take us into close session, please. The Franklin County Board of Supervisors moves to enter into a closed meeting in accordance with 2.2-3711 A1, personnel discussion of appointments to county boards, commissions, etc. A3, discussion of the acquisition of real property or the disposition of real property. A5, discussion concerning a prospective business or industry or the expansion of an existing business or industry. A8 consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters required requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. If you would, Madam Clerk, roll call vote. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Jameson? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Chair Smith? Yes. Okay. Well, are we going to

or good evening, I should say. Excuse me. It's been a long day. Um, we're so glad that you all are staying with us this evening. We're appreciative of that. Uh, we have reached the time set aside in our Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, Nick. Yeah, I get a little tired this time of the evening. If you would certify the close session. I certify that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session to which this certification applies. And only such business matters as were identified in the motion by which this close session was convened were heard, discussed, or considered in the meeting to which this certification applies. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Is there a second? Second.

Thank you, Mr. Tatum. A roll call vote, please, Madame Clerk. Supervisor Mitchell, yes. Supervisor Meredith, yes. Supervisor Carter, yes. Supervisor Jameson, yes. Supervisor Quinn, yes. Supervisor Tatum, yes. And Chair Smith,

yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. I appreciate that. Uh, we are going to set aside uh any appointments that we would uh ordinarily undertake this evening, and we're going to move uh right into public comment. Uh if you'll bear with me, we've reached the time. set aside in our meeting for public comment. Public comment gives citizens an opportunity to address the board in person or in writing on matters appropriate to the responsibilities of the board. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes for their comments. Speakers must direct all comments to the board as a whole and not to individual board members or employees of the board or county. Personal attacks, insulting, defamatory, profane, or vulgar language directed at individual supervisors will not be tolerated. Likewise, commentary on issues that are not within the purview of the board and that are not a function of local government and over which we have no control are not acceptable. Public comment is not a question and answer session and board members will not answer questions during public comment. The chair of the board has the ultimate authority to manage the time the board allocates to public comment. The chair's authority includes but is not limited to limiting public comment to one person per side or position of a topic, shortening the time that each speaker has to speak andor waving any of the public comment provisions when appropriate and or necessary. If a speaker violates these rules, the chair may rule the speaker out of order and upon second violation have the speaker removed from the podium. Uh let's see. It's my understanding we have one speaker that signed up uh madame clerk to to my knowledge that has requested Mr. Jackson has requested five minutes and when you call on him um um to speak uh we'll just do our normal protocols.

Okay. So, madame clerk, if you would be so kind. Gayen Jackman. Mr. Jackman has requested five minutes. So, anyone here in the audience um in which Mr. Jackman is speaking um should stand. And just to confirm these other folks, you're not planning to speak, correct? Okay. Thank you. And the people that are back in the group, are they residents of the county?

Okay. Is that a yes? Okay. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Gayen Jackman, 750 Summerwind Drive, Union Hall. I represent my community of and the union hall village working group and a group of veterans and business owners with me here tonight. I'm aware of the rules of procedure for public comment. I'm also aware of my rights of free speech under the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Tonight, I'm speaking to the board as a whole and I'm aware that one member was not on the board in 2025. Last month, after I presented my finding on Supervisor Quinn Censor, I was told I had some wrong facts and the board gave Mr. Quinn every opportunity in November and December, multiple hours to discuss the matter. I was in council to get my facts straight before I speak publicly. So, let's look at the facts. One. On Thursday, November 13th, at 6 p.m., Supervisor Quinn received a letter from the county attorney notifying him of potential disciplinary action, including possible fines, at the November 18th meeting. A fine by the government is forfeite property. Any reasonable person receiving such a letter would seek immediately legal counsel. That left Quinn just two business days, Friday and Monday, to find an attorney, share the relevant information, and mount a defense. That is not due process. I'll also note that the board itself took 44 days from Quinn's public disclosure before notifying him of any potential action. On Sunday, November 16th, Quinn emailed the county attorney, copying the board clerk, requesting an extension of his disciplinary hearing until the January 20th, 2026 meeting, citing insufficient notice and the need to secure representation.

Quinn reiterated his request at the November 18th meeting. Neither the county attorney or the acting chairperson responded and the matter was not discussed. Five. On November 19th, Quinn called the county attorney again requesting extension and providing relevant information. The county attorney did not respond to the extension request, but suggested Quinn share the information with the board. On November 20th, in close session, Quinn again requested an extension. He noted that any statement he made should not be construed as his disciplinary defense. Again, no response to the extension request was given. Since Quinn's discipline was not on the close session agenda, the board appears to have violated its own close session rules by conducting the discussion anyway. Seven. Immediately after close session, a previously prepared motion was made, seconded, voted on, and Supervisor Quinn was censored. Eight. The assertion that Mr. Quinn had every opportunity in November and December to defend himself is patently untrue. He was given two business days to find an attorney and mount a defense. He requested an extension was never answered. He could not have had any opportunity in December. He had already been censored in November 20th. Nine. Section 11 of Virginia Constitution states that no person shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property without due process. I ask, what urgency drove the board to censor Supervisor Quinn without granting him the time he requested to prepare a defense? Why the rush to judgment? Did the county attorney make a recommendation to the board? And if so, was his advice ignored? I'm troubled by the lack of transparency. Why must citizens like me

inform the public about details of board matters rather than the board itself? Why the secrecy? Perhaps a proper hearing where leadership presents its case, Supervisor Quinn defends himself, and the public may ask questions would be in order. I remind this board of their oath of office where you swore faithfully and impartially to discharge all the duties incumbent on you. I ask you to honor that oath in your response to this matter and all your behavior as public officials. Thank you. I look forward to any clarifications the board may have regarding the other findings I presented on Supervisor Quinn's referral of a very serious allegation and the board's subsequent decision to censor him.

Thank you, Mr. JACKMAN. Kristen Grace. Hi, Miss Grace. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please. All right. I am Kristen Grace, 2021 Altus Mill Road, Rocky Mount, Virginia. Thank you.

So, good evening and thank you for allowing us some time to speak with you today about the SOS program uh through collaboration between students, families, schools, community agencies, and employers. Start on Success or SOS provides high school students who are pursuing standard diplomas with a high quality work-based learning experience. Selected students enroll in a credit bearing career and technical education course and then participate in a paid internship with an assigned mentor to assist with problem solving and applying workplace readiness skills. We want to start our students on the most successful path possible. Whether that be to attend a trade school after high school, attend college after high school, or to simply go into a career career field of their choice at that time. SOS is a program that is run throughout several counties in Virginia, 22 to be exact. Franklin County has been blessed to be one of those 22 counties for the last 3 years. We have one cohort at this time that we work with, which is usually between 8 and 10 students. We currently have 10 students working with FairM College, which is our business partner. We partnered with FARM because they offered our students the largest variety of workplace opportunities to ensure that our students were building skills in the area of their desired career. This has been an amazing opportunity for our students as well as Franklin County Public Schools to connect and work together towards a common goal. We have had students work in the following areas at Phum. We have them in the library, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, grounds and maintenance, the farm, admissions, campus activities, the campus store, athletics, the technology department, and in the marketing and communications department. This program is not a program that just helps the student to make money throughout the time they are in it. We currently have 17 out of 18 students that are either going to school or working full-time since graduating high school. Some of these same students were students that were not planning to graduate high school and continuing with their high school diploma, but decided against

dropping out due to this program. We actually had several students here um earlier tonight, but they had to leave. Unfortunately, Franklin County High School and our SOS program have received some glowing recognitions from the VDOE. We have had the privilege of speaking in different conferences across the state to help other school systems to have the success that we are having. We are at the end of a three-year grant from the Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services, which is DARS. We are hoping to expand the program to two cohorts, one in the spring and one in the fall. This would allow us to reach double the students that we have now. We have spoken with the school board about funding this program and are here today in hopes to gain the support of the board of supervisors as well. We have an SOS showcase on April 16th at Fair College. A flyer is being passed out now with the details of the event. um please register using the QR code that is available on the flyer. We would love for any of you that are available to attend that um to see what it's all about. Mr. White, who is passing out the flyer, is our SOS instructor. Um he has his contact information at the bottom of the flyer. Reach out with any questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much and congratulations. Good stuff. Thank you. Yes. Thank Thank you, Addison Hancock. Good evening, Mr. Hancock. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

All right. Addison Hancock, 6100 Trouvine Road in Glade Hill. Uh, you know, I I just want to say that uh I have two kids in in elementary age. Uh, and and one time we had a teacher uh one of their teachers show up at a uh at a Wreck League soccer game just because my son asked him to come. And uh it made me realize that the the teachers sitting behind me here and the teachers throughout the district, they're not just teaching. For so many kids in this county, they are the only source of love and encouragement and hope and protection and reassurance that they will ever get. That school is a sanctuary for these kids. And we should be paying our teachers out of abundance, not not with the scraps that are left at the end of the day. And I know I know for for years now, the board of supervisors has been saying that we're going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to start making some tough decisions to make sure that we can fund these kids. One year that equated to closing two schools, but here we are yet again with deteriorating infrastructure in our public school system and teachers that are woefully, embarrassingly underfunded. I would implore the citizens of Franklin County when you walk in your schools and you see failing infrastructure, you see your teachers being underpaid, and you see your students who either are missing curriculum or are behind that you should speak with your vote. And I would encourage our board of supervisors to vote to approve 100% of the requested budget from the school board this year. And you should vote as though your political career depends on it. These teachers deserve it. Our students

deserve it. Give them what they are asking for and not a penny less. Thank you,

Lauren Walk.

Good evening, Miss Walk. Good evening.

If you'd state your name and address for the record, please. Hi, my name is Lauren Walk. My address is 355 Rolling Hill Drive in Rocky Mount. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lauren Walk and I am the PTO president at Boone Mill Elementary School. I am here to urge you to fully approve the school board's proposed budget. At its core, this decision is about priorities and I believe strongly that investing in our schools is investing in the future of Franklin County. Strong schools don't just benefit students. They strengthen our workforce, support local families, and make our community a place where people want to live, work, and stay. We've talked a lot about the taxpayers and having to be um having to serve them as well. Franklin County has significantly lower tax property taxes than many of our neighboring localities. And while this may sound appealing on the surface, it comes with trade-offs. One of those trade-offs is how we're able to fund our community needs, including our schools. If we want to remain competitive and provide quality education, we have to be willing to invest at a level that reflects that goal. One of our biggest challenges our school face it that our schools face is attracting and retaining teachers and staff. We are not competing with other counties and we are losing ground to them. Salaries here are lower. School infrastructure is aging and the schools have been feeling significant funding stresses for a while now. The PTO I am a part of have been doing what we can to support our school and we are proud of our efforts but they can only go so far. These factors make working in Franklin County schools less sustainable. As a result, we are seeing turnover, staffing changes, and fewer people choosing to come here in the first place. This directly impacts our

students and our communities. Fewer experienced teachers and less stability in the classroom affects the quality of education that our children receive. Three of my children are in schools here. The entire county feels this decision and will feel the impacts for years and years to come. Businesses look at the quality of local schools when deciding where to invest. Families look at schools when deciding where to live. If we fall behind in education, we fall behind as a community. I know there are many needs and requests being made for funding around the county. This budget is an opportunity to move us forward, to support our educators, strengthen our schools, and invest in the future Franklin County deserves. I ask you to see this as not an expense, but a necessary and meaningful investment. One that will pay off in stronger schools, stronger communities, and better opportunities for everyone living here. Thank you very much for your time, Maggie Lavoy.

Hello, Miss Lavoy. How are you? If you'd state your name and address, please. Maggie Lavoy, 575 Grey Mountain Lane, Lake Hill, Virginia. Thank you.

All right. Good evening. I'm Maggie Lavoy and I'm the mother of two students at Snow Creek Elementary School. And as of January 30th, I was a vow reading tutor at Snow Creek Elementary School. I was the tutor because my position lost funding. Snow Creek no longer has a reading tutor or any tutors for that matter. Let me take a moment to tell you about the Val's reading tutor position. I work with kindergarten through fifth grade 5 days a week, 5 hours each day during the school hours. My job was to work with students who were flagged as high risk and moderate risk on their vowels testing. I taught anything from alphabet recogn recognition to complex phonics. For kindergarten through second, I would work in small groups or one-on-one with students during their win time or ELA time, which allowed teachers time to focus on other students. That has now been taken away from the teachers. Another part of my job was proctoring Lexia, which is a reading program that our entire county uses for third through fifth grade. It places them at their personal reading level with hopes that one day they'll be above or at their grade's reading level. For example, a fourth grader could test at a first grade reading level. The students play phonics games and fluency games called units. It sounds simple, but I've seen my students make huge strides. And the proof is that that my job mattered to Snow Creek was in our January literacy limelight. Our third and fourth grade students placed first and second places this semester across the county and most units earned. I fully understand grade mistakes have been made by the school board and financial staff. Obviously, I understand this because I have been personally affected by these mistakes. I fully understand that the school board and the financial staff need to be held accountable for their gross negligence. With that said, and negligence aside, every single child that walks through the doors of Franklin County Schools deserves an education that is being funded well by the board of supervisors.

Our children deserve a county that values their education. They deserve a county that will promise to take care of their schools for future generations to come. They deserve teachers who are at their paystep and not left wondering if they should leave the county for better pay. Our kids deserve to know that they are if they are like me and come home to Franklin County to raise a family, their kids will have an education that competes with the top schools in the nation. When my kids are grown and I do not want them to have to fight for public education funding like I am tonight. You can set the precedent right here, right now. At this point, we know that folks from Richmond and DC won't swoop in and save us. We have to save ourselves. So please, for the sake of our kids and future, fully fund the public education in our county. We all know the famous quote from Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. I would love for the county to rebrand this quote to say, if we maintain it, they will stay. Thank you.

Thank you,

Tim Bird. I think he's left. Dana Raven. Hi, Miss Raven. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Dana Raven, 628 Evermore Road, Callaway.

Thank you. I am a Callaway resident and a Franklin County Public School teacher. I'm also the mother of four students in this division. I have spoken during public comment in the past about teacher pay, staff shortages, and the growing list of unmet needs in our schools. Tonight, I'm going to take a different approach. Tonight, I'm asking you to be brave. Every governing body inherits problems that were created slowly over time. Salary freezes did not happen overnight. Aging buses and deteriorating buildings did not appear in a single budget cycle. Years of underinvestment has quietly compounded into the moment now sitting in front of you. Leadership is not measured by how well we maintain the status quo. Leadership is measured by whether we are willing to change the trajectory. Many educators in this county will no longer come to this podium to speak to you. Not because they don't care and not because they don't have anything to say. It's because they have lost confidence that you are willing to do anything for them. Their voices are not being truly heard. Over time, people stop speaking when they feel they are only being politely heard instead of truly listened to. Tonight is an opportunity to change that. You have the chance to prove that this moment and this leadership will be different. You have the opportunity to move Franklin County forward instead of continuing a pattern that has left our schools trying to do more with less year after year. This budget request is not about extras or luxury. It's about stability. It's about honoring professionals who have continued to show up for students despite frozen salaries. It is about safely transporting children, preventing layoffs that will increase class sizes, and maintaining facilities our community can actually take pride in. Most importantly, it's about the message that you send. Years from now, no one will remember the spreadsheets, but they will remember that moment, this moment, when

leaders chose to lead. I urge you to be brave enough to be better than people before. Thank you. Carolyn Sharp. Good evening, Miss Sharp. If

you'd state your name and address for the record, please. My name is Carolyn Sharp, 606 Lakesstone Road, Union Hall. Hello. As I said, my name is Carolyn Sharp. I serve as the librarian at Callaway Elementary School. I come before you tonight as an educator who has devoted years of service to the students and families of Franklin County. I am proud of the work we do each day and I remain deeply committed to this community. However, I must also speak honestly about the reality many of us are facing. But first, let me say it is time to fully fund the budget request of Franklin County Public Schools. For years, for years, I and many of my colleagues have experienced salary freezes. I am currently four steps behind. Yet during that same time, expectations placed on educators have only increased. We continue to show up, give our best, and go far beyond what is required because we care deeply about our students. We have honored our contracts. We have remained loyal to this county, and we have done more with less year after year. It is time. It is time to recognize that dedication alone cannot sustain a workforce. It is time to acknowledge that experienced educators deserve the ability to retire with dignity and financial security. It is time to fund phase three so that those of us who have given so much are not left behind at the very moment. We should be able to look towards retirement with confidence. Right now, many educators are feeling demoralized. We love our profession, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile that passion with the

financial realities we face. When salaries stagnate, it sends a message, whether intended or not, that our work is not valued at the level it should be. It is time to change that message. Fully funding this budget is not just about the numbers on the pages. It is about the people. It is about retaining experienced educators who bring stability, knowledge, and a heart to our schools. It is about ensuring that Franklin County remains a place where educators want to stay, not a place that they feel they must leave. And I must be clear, not funding this budget as requested could leave this division in dire straits. It risks further loss of experienced staff, increased strain on those who choose to remain, and diminished opportunities for our students. This is not the future our children deserve. Our children, our staff, and our county deserve better. Most importantly, this is about doing what is right. I ask you to stand with us. I ask you to invest in people who invest in our children every single day. I ask you to fully fund this budget and support phase three so that we can continue to serve this community and the excellence it deserves. Thank you.

Thank you,

Keith Johnson. Good evening, Mr. Johnson. Hello. I have copies for you. Thank you. Thank you. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please. Name

is Keith Johnson, live at 190 Leading Oak Road in Boon Mill. Thank you for your service. Uh, I'm curious of your decision regarding the school request for funding of the ABM contract and how to move forward. We know there are remodeling and updating needs at several schools, and this has been the case for many years. Now, we are told that there's a crisis and it must be approved immediately. I've been present at several schoolboard meetings where ABM representatives presented or spoke about these details. I have not seen anyone else present options to uh to the school system for the same services. So, did the school consider other options? You recently purchased a modicraft property to use for several needed services in the county, including the new CTE building. I understand you decided to manage and remodel the facility within the county administration. This is an expensive project. It will cost a lot of money, but you will likely save a lot of money by keeping the uh control of the spending in the house. Thank you for that. I understand you have also decided to hire an accountant to manage the school budget. Uh it is clear the school has not been prudent with taxpayer funds and supervision is needed. Thank you again. Remodeling and upgrading school facilities is a major undertaking. What does ABM contract do do for school administration? ABM does all the work. School administrators will not need to bid on different projects or manage the details. This is a very expensive option. I ask you to consider the same thing for the school building remodeling as you are doing with the CTE building. This is about building construction. Nothing fancy, just planning and work. The ABM contract appears to have $1 million of administrative cost. We could save a lot of money if we put off this contract, hiring a good project manner to put out the bids for the work to start at the

end of the school year next spring. The most important feature of this is saving taxpayer funds. Saving significant costs requires the project manager's answer to you or county administrator, not school administration. the new manager would need to work with school administration the same way uh you were going to work with the school with the design of the CTE building. So, it's doable. What about engineering work already conducted by ABM? At a recent meeting, they said they would be billing the school for that work. So, if you don't fund the ABM project and they require payment for engineering work, then you're entitled to that engineering report. It's a great start for the new project manager. And with regards to what they've been saying today, I think it's important to understand the greatest funding problem for the school is the loss of 30% of the students because the funding from the state is based on student attendance. What is the school doing to reattract the they chased away the school administration chased away 30% of their students. What are they doing to attract them back? Thank you.

Thank you. Leonard and I apologize I can't make out the last name. Yeah, right here. Okay. Good evening, sir. Yeah. Two brief comments. Um, if you'd state your name and address.

My understanding from public records. There's a law called the VPPA or Virginia Public Procurement Act and this deals with ethical standards in public contracting. It encourages you uh local resources for bidding in contracts within Virginia. The problem with ABM, it's an international corporation. It's not a local resource and uh one of their main offices is in New York. But if correct me if if you disagree with the information, but I got this off public records. One other thing, my wife was a very successful special ed teacher and she was enormously successful working with handicapped students and special ed students. When she went to the special ed department, and this is not to indict the the average teacher. When she went to the special ed department and said, "Would you like me to teach you what I do?" This uh this is what I'm doing. I'm teaching them so many words. And and they said, "We're not interested." Okay. So just throwing money at a school system is not the answer. It's it's up to the ethical intent of every teacher. I'm sure there are many good teachers here. I'm not saying anything bad about them, but but uh who is going to monitor whether a teacher is acting with integrity or not or with diligence? That's that's my only comment.

Sir, if you could state your name and address for the record. I'm sorry. My name is Len Wajo. Uh Hardy, Virginia on Chesnut Forest Drive. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Of course. Darlene Marray Marissa Maresa Maresca. Hi Charlene. If you'd state your name and address please.

My name is Charlene Moresca and my live at 223 Morningwood Lane Works Virginia. Citizens of Franklin County. It's time we stop pretending everything is fine with our local government. What's happening on the Franklin County Board of Supervisors isn't just concerning. It's a betrayal of the public trust and we need to call it what it is. Let's talk about the censure of union hall supervisor Dan Quinn. The board claims he improperly disclosed information about the county administrator hiring process. But here is what they're not telling you. The chairman of the board had already shared that exact same information with even more details publicly in a local restaurant. This is documented on the same Facebook thread they're cla claiming uh against super queen supervisor Quinn. So why wasn't the chairman censured? Why did it take nearly two months to go after supervisor Quinn? And why was he denied the basic right to prepare a defense to have the case heard publicly? Because the censure has nothing to do with disclosure violations. The acting chair deliberately ignored the board's own rules requiring a separate meeting and vote to confirm confidenti confidentiality before any disciplinary action. They skipped their own procedures. Ask yourself, if they're willing to break their own rules to silence one supervisor, what else are they willing to do? The truth is simple. Supervisor Quinn referred credible allegations of misconduct against other board members and requested an independent investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Virginia whistleblower protection act. That's what this is about. The censure is retaliation, a calculated move to

discredit him before those allegations could gain traction. The chairman wanted this buried. When that didn't work, they laundered this sham censor to destroy Supervisor's Quinn credibility. And now they hide behind the claims of confidentiality and call it the mass matter closed. It's not closed. Not even close. Here's what actually happened. The Franklin County Board of Supervisors chose to protect themselves over serving you, the citizens of Franklin County. They chose secrecy over transparency. They violated their own procedures to avoid an independent investigation. And the supervisors who are accused of misconduct, they voted to censure the man who reported them. Let that sink in. This isn't about politics. Not even close. This is about whether we're going to tolerate corruption and coverups in our own backyard. This is about whether our elected officials think they're above the rules that govern everyone else. They're counting on you to stay silent.

Thanks, Miss Baresa. Shannon Brooks. Okay. Thank you very much, Shannon Brooks. You're very good. Good evening, Shannon. How are you? I'm all right. If you could state your name and address, please.

Sure. My apologies. I've getting over a colder sinus infection. I can't make up its mind. I'm Shannon Brooks. I live at 1680 Stanford Road, Union Hall. Okay. I'm speaking tonight. You guys know me. I'm one of your teachers. Before I jump into what I wanted to say tonight, you were asking, one of you was asking about how many steps we were off. Just for the record, this is my 19th year with the school division. I'm on step 11. Yeah. Uh if we get phase three, good news. I'll move up to step 16. That's a difference of $10,000 a year for my family. I'm sorry.

You're fine, Shannon.

I just finished putting a child through college. I spent most of December cracking up black walnuts by hand to make book money. And my fingers, I still can't feel them. I've got an appointment in June. They say they'll get to the bottom of it then. This is not at all what I wanted to tell you guys tonight. I wanted to tell you about a movie. It's called Greyhound and it's got Tom Hanks, so you know it's good. It's about the captain of a destroyer in World War II. I didn't know this, but a destroyer's job in World War II was to protect shipping, allied shipping, troop shipping, merchant supplies, things like that as they go across the North Atlantic where the German subs are. Now, stick with me here because it's really good. There's a scene where Tom Hanks orders depth charges to be dropped on this German submarine that's chasing them. And it takes like three or four tries to get it, but they do. There's just one problem. The next day, the guy in charge of munitions comes up from below. He tells the captain, "We got a problem. You used up most of our depth charges yesterday, and we still got a day and a half to go on this mission." And Tom Hanks, of course, he goes outside on the bridge to think about this. and his his second in command, his exo, comes along behind him and the captain turns to his exo and he says, "I made a bad decision yesterday." And the exo says to him, "The decisions you made yesterday got us to today and today gives us a chance to make a better decision." And I love that line. It reminds me that we all make the best calls that we can to meet the circumstances we're in. And we're not facing down Nazi subs, thank God. But it does feel to me an awful lot like we're sinking. I don't pretend to know what the best decision is for solving our budget problems. But I do know this. I know none of us are happy to be where we are right now.

And honestly, it doesn't really matter too much how we got here. It's the being here that's the problem. What matters now is that we make a better decision so that tomorrow does not find us here again. I'd ask respectfully that this board bear that in mind as we work work toward a solution to our shared budget problems. Thank you. Thank you, John Shank. Good evening, Mr. Shank. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please, sir. Uh, John Shank, 1357 Riverbin Drive. Thank you.

Good evening, members of the board. My name is John Shank, and I'm a proud resident of Franklin County. I'm here tonight because I'm deeply concerned about the direction our state is heading, specifically regarding our Second Amendment rights and the integrity of our elections. First, on redistricing. In 2020, Virginiaians voted to take redistricting power out of the hands of politicians and place them in an independent commission because we were tired of gerrymandering. That was a clear bipartisan message. Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. Now, just a few years later, Richmond politicians are attempting to undo this. A proposed constitutional amendment would allow the general assembly to redraw congressional maps mid decade. Something that traditionally only happens after the census. Let's be honest about what that means. It opens the door for partisan gerrymandering. In fact, proposals being discussed could dramatically um shift representation for political advantage despite Virginia being a closely divided state. That's not reform. That's a power grab. Second, on the Second Amendment, across Virginia, we've seen increasing efforts to restrict lawful gun ownership, whether proposed bans, expanded regulations, continued pressure on localities. They have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries. For many of us here in Franklin County, the Second Amendment isn't abstract. It's about our safety. It's our heritage, and it's our constitutional rights. with the state. When the state begins to chip away at those rights, it raises serious concerns about overreach. Those two issues, gerrymandering and the erosion of constitutional rights, are connected by a common thread. Government overstepping the will of the people. So, I'm asking the board to stand up for your constituents. Stand for fair representation. Stand for constitutional rights. and most importantly stand for

the principle that government derives its power from the consent of the governed not the other way around. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you. Body Ananda. Hello sir. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

Bati Ananda, 3249 Foothills Road, Callaway. Um, well, y'all know my deal. First off, I really just want to say how much I appreciate calling Franklin County my home. I moved here, I think, five or six years ago now. That's crazy. Um, and I mean, I love being a teacher here. I, uh, grew up in New Orleans and went to college in LA. And, uh, I tell people all the time, I moved out in the middle of nowhere, and I like it that way. Um, yeah. And I'm thankful for y'all making it that way, you know. Absolutely. Anywh who, I see the items on Dr. Sears's budget as common sense items that absolutely need to be funded from an ethical point of view. As a teacher at the high school and now I'm at Rocky Mountain Elementary, I saw and have seen consistently kids experiencing poverty come to class super tired, slept an hour the night before, right? or kids going home with bags of food like twothirds of the kids or um I don't know yeah kids not having access to just the most basic of materials right and they need their school system to be better not worse which is what's happening it's just dwindling and dwindling and dwindling scraping by um and I also see teachers giving way more than the hours for which they are paid to help these students consistently more and more and are. And then the way I see it, property tax, property taxes just need to be modernized. Um, it's disingenuous to say that you just can't find the money to fund the school district when property tax rates are consistently lowered or remain the same uh so that the dollar amount stays the same. As we all know, steadily raising taxes provides a slight inconvenience to the most wealthy while providing fundamental services to those in the most need. I simply ask you to do

the right thing as far as this is concerned and thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much. Tracy Whitaker.

Hello Mr. Whitaker. Hello address. Tracy Whitaker 361 Leland Lane Rocky Mount Virginia.

You boring. Madam Chair, thank you. I spent over three decades in the classroom of this community. I'm here tonight because I'm tired of watching a shell game played with their children's future. We've had a structural disconnect in this county that serves only one purpose, provides the board of supervisors with political cover and power. We elect a school board to lead our division. Yet, we deny them the one tool they need to actually lead, taxing authority. This creates a convenient diversion where the people with the mandate have no money and the people with the money claim no responsibility. Decades ago, when I was in high school, school boards were appointed. Today, they're elected by the same citizens who put you in those seats. But let's be honest about what that election actually is. It's a lightning rod. By keeping the school board physically dependent while they're publicly elected, you've created a system where they take the heat for every budget shortfall, every agent roof, every lost teacher, while you hold the checkbook behind a closed door. It's a brilliant political strategy, but it's a failure of governance. When you consistently fund less than what is requested, you aren't finding efficiencies. You're choosing to underinvest and then pointing the finger at the people you've hamstrung. We often hear the question from this podium. Heard it tonight. Where'd the money go? You closed the school down. As a veteran educator, I can tell you that's a rhetorical distraction. The audits are public. The line items are transparent. You know exactly where the money goes. It goes to state mandates that you don't fund, to infrastructure that is crumbling because maintenance was deferred for for years, and to a workforce that's been recruited away by neighboring counties that actually value their professionals. Asking where the money went isn't oversight. It's a delay tactic used to avoid the reality that our schools have never received the full funding they required to thrive. The school board cannot raise a single scent. They cannot levy a tax. They can

only come to you as professionals that tell you what it costs to run a 21st century school system. When you ignore those requests, responsibility for the outcome, the lower property values, the teacher shortages, and the missed opportunities for our students rest solely with the board of supervisors. You're the only body in this county with the power to fund our future. To pretend otherwise or to hide behind the school board's management of the crumbs you provide is an abdication of your duty to the county. Stop the diversion. Stop asking questions you've already got the answers to in the budget books. It's time to fund the request, empower our schools, and take ownership of the investment this community deserves. Three cents on a 100 is not going to be enough. Thank you. Thank you,

Tracy Clots. Gracie Clots.

Good evening, Miss Clots. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Um, my name is Tracy Clots. My address is on record and it is also documented on each one of these that I have for each of these. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Can I give them to you? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Thank you. Dear chair and members of the board of supervisors, thank you for the opportunity to address the board this evening and for your continued dedication to serving Franklin County. I am here tonight as a Gills Creek voter and am representing a bipartisan group of 70 constituents by signature to date and growing from across the county who share a common interest and open transparent local government and a strong trusting relationship with their elected officials. We respectfully ask that the board take time to thoughtfully consider the findings presented by Galen Jackman on February 17th, 2025, as well as the concerns raised in the attached letter from Gills Creek and Union Hall voters regarding the Quinn referral and centra matter. These are questions our community cares about and we believe they deserve a clear and open response. We recognize that public trust is built through consistent transparent communication and that when questions arise, the best path forward is always open dialogue. The current structure of monthly board of supervisors meetings, while valuable and necessary, does not lend itself to the kind of genuine back and forth conversation that helps constituents feel heard and informed. When residents raise concerns but have no opportunity to ask follow-up questions or receive direct responses, it is only natural that unanswered questions give way to assumptions. And assumptions left unanswered can quietly erode the trust that our community depends on. A town hall setting changes that dynamic

entirely. It creates space for real conversation where your perspectives can be shared. questions can be asked and answered and neighbors leave with clarity rather than uncertainty. In that spirit and in the tradition of community centered meetings where the chair has graciously engaged with constituents in the past, we would like to extend a warm invitation to the chair and the board to join us for a community town hall. This would be a welcoming, constructive forum to discuss attached exhibits and an opportunity to continue to build the kind of trust that benefits everyone. Um, as of tonight, I was made aware that there is a conflict in scheduling because of your budget open public hearing. So, that town hall will be rescheduled and I will personally email each individual supervisor with that updated information. Um, we hope you will be able to join us and we look forward to continuing this tradition of open community centered conversation. Thank you sincerely for your time, your service, and your consideration to this invitation. Thank

Thank you. Ayana Arrington. Hello, Miss Arrington. Hi.

You state your name and address, please? Ayanna Arrington, 3249 Foothills Road. Chairman, members of the board, and members of the community, I am reading this statement today on behalf of Laura Joseph, a teacher in Franklin County Public Schools and a parent of three children who are or soon will be part of the school system. These words reflect her experience, her concerns, and her hopes for the futures of our schools. I speak today as Laura as both a teacher and a mother. I have one son already in this school system, a child with an IEP who depends on consistent trained support, and two younger children who will soon be entering these same classrooms. When I talk about the condition of our schools, I am not talking about politics. I am talking about my children's future and the future of every child in Franklin County. Right now, our schools are being asked to meet rising needs with resources that have not kept pace. Expectations continue to grow, but the support needed to meet those expectations has not grown with them. A community receives the quality of schools it chooses to sustain and the strain is visible in every building. Even modest adjustments in how we support our schools can create meaningful measurable improvements. Small changes applied across an entire county accumulate into the kind of stability that keeps qualified staff in our classrooms, strengthen services for students with IEPs, prevents further

reductions, and preserves the programs families depend upon. These decisions directly affect whether a child receives the support their plan promises, whether a classroom has the personnel it needs, and whether our schools remain places where families want to stay and invest. As a teacher, I see the pressure daily. Fewer resources, more responsibilities, and a constant effort to meet every need with diminishing support. As a mother, that pressure becomes even more urgent. My son with an IEP needs stability, trained professionals, and the system capable of delivering what his educational plan requires. My younger children will depend on this same system soon. If we do not act, we risk facing decisions none of us want to consider. decisions about consolidating schools, losing essential staff, and watching families quietly choose to leave the county. My request is straightforward that we take the necessary steps to strengthen the financial foundations of our schools.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comment of the evening. Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts and concerns with us. It's It means a great deal to us, I can assure. We're going to move on uh at this juncture with our county administrator report, Mr. Sandy. Yes, ma'am. I really don't have anything more than what was discussed earlier during the day. The only thing I would remind you of the Virginia 250 U car reveal is scheduled for Friday night. And if you're interested and can go, just reach out to our office and we can get you signed up and get tickets for that. Okay. Thank you. That's all,

Mr. Quinn, did you have anything this evening, sir? No, madam chair. Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll move into other matters by supervisors. I'll just go down the deis if it'd be your pleasure. Uh, Mr. Meredith, do you have any matters? No. Okay, Mr. Quinn.

Uh, yes, I have one. Amy, would you be able to bring up the the agenda, please? Thank you. So, I just want to make a public service announcement. The master gardener group asked if I do a presentation on my farm and all the projects that occurred. And so I'm doing that tomorrow at the Essex Center at 1:00 and they've opened it up to the public. So it's just an an invitation for people that might want to see this. And I thought I'd show the agenda here. So that's it. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Mr. Y. Um, I I would just say

I would ask staff to look into I was in the landfield today, latest wind. It's a really big mess and I would ask staff to reach out and ask about the inmate workforce and you know that road crew could get in there and do that in a day. You know, the landfill is a necessary thing that we have and it's in my district and I would I would appreciate uh care that care given to it and that you know if if we can't get that from that angle, maybe we need to look at other avenues. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Carter.

Yeah. Thank you, Madame Chair. A point of order order. Uh Mr. Jackman requested five minutes to speak on a topic and three two other people spoke on the same topic and one of those persons raised their hand. They were part of his group. I didn't pick that up. Well, I did. Just to be aware of that moving forward. I'm not going to sit here and listen to this censure topic every month. Dan, if you want to spread it out here, here's your chance, buddy. Lay it on them. Whatever you think we we did that you didn't like, here's your chance. Put it out there. This isn't my show. I'm not

Well, you've turned it into your show. These are citizens that are coming and speaking on their own. That's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Tatum, just one thing. Um, last month, uh, Jeff Galden came in and and was talking about the projects for the dumpster sites, uh, that he's finishing up and we discussed the need for one in the Henry area. Yes.

Uh, some good news, may have some land located and the lady may actually be willing to sell to the county hopefully. But one thing that that Jeff brought to my attention right now the standard fine for someone caught illegally dumping from outside the county is 35 bucks. That's worth it. 35 bucks. Yeah. Is there any and this may be a question for for Jim. Can we raise that to make it have some teeth? I think so. Depends on what the state code allows. Correct. But I'm not sure if the state code puts a limit on Oh, you don't think for that? So, is this something that we have discretion upon?

Yeah. Can Can we look into that and see what see what options we have? Because 35 bucks for most of these people, one if they get a ticket, they get caught. Okay. The other 200 times in the last, you know, year that they did it, they didn't get caught. They're money ahead. uh and they're and most of our dumping problems are coming from outside the county. You know, we're not seeing the real serious issues on the central part of the county. It's down in Snow Creek and Nicks areas in Henry and my area where we're close to the other county lines where they're coming over because those counties have already shut down their dumpster sites and so all those people are coming into our county and dumping their garbage. So see if what what our options are.

I'll send myself an email. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gold. That's all I have. No, Mr. Tatum, I think that's a valid point and I appreciate you bringing it up, Mr. Jameson. I don't I like Tim in the same boat. Yeah. I'd like to know how many tickets have actually been written. I know it's a hard for me next impossible to catch him, but I I would support.

I think point well taken. I think this board's demonstrated wonderful courage in uh going after, you know, rolling out our our green box sites and manning them and so forth. So, we need to get it right. That's for sure. Okay. Hey. Um, I don't have anything other than um, you know, I've asked Mr. Sandy and Mr. Carter to join me on a on a Zoom with Veco on the collective bargaining um, bill that's gone to the govern is going to the governor's desk. Um, gentlemen, this is significant. um probably won't feel it till next year, but we are looking at some significant costs um once this gets passed that will probably in all likelihood have to include a tax increase to meet the demands of what this legislation is going to require. So, we're carefully watching these these mandates that are getting put into place in Richmond because they keep sending down unfunded mandates um to the localities. We are supposed to create and print money to meet these mandates and it falls on the back of of our citizens. Um and it is a copout at the state level in my personal opinion. So, we are going to be watching this very carefully. we are going to be protecting your interest and protecting your tax dollars to the best of our ability. So, I just wanted to just gently remind my colleagues um we may have some very very tough issues to deal with in the coming days uh with the governor's budget. Okay. Um that's all I have for this evening. Um at this juncture uh I will adjourn the meeting and and recess it until March 19th at 2:00 p.m. this Thursday. uh for a regular work session. So we are journ