Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Mic check, one, two.

It's really nice to have our visitors with us today, and we welcome you. Welcome staff as well. I would like to call the Broadband Authority meeting to order today, Tuesday, May 19th, at 2.04 p.m. The first item on our agenda today is the approval of our minutes from our April 21st, 2026 meeting. Are there any requests for any changes to those minutes? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Meredith. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And that carries unanimously. Thank you all. We are going to move into project updates. Mr. Sandy, I will defer to you at this juncture.

All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. We did have a couple notable absences today. Pretty much everybody that was on the agenda ended up not being able to make it. We do have some substitutes here that I think will guide us through the updates. Michael Armbruster from West Piedmont is actually out of town and was not able to get back in time for our meeting today. And so of course this project, West Piedmont is the manager of this grant. They're the grantee, if you will, for this regional project that includes River Street and American Electric Power. And so we'll jump down to River Street Networks for an update from Zach. Zach Church is here from River Street to give us an update in place of Rob Taylor. who also had a conflict today and then we'll move from there into an update from AEP on some of the progress there and in your packet previously in your Friday packet we had sent you information about a corrective action plan relative to River Street and for Mr. Tatum and Mr. Mitchell some of this goes back to the conversations we had at the PDC meeting where that was gonna be kind of the next step of correcting some of the things and establishing some deadlines for getting some work done as River Street was waiting for the BEAD funding to become available. So I'll let Zach give some updates as to where we are with progress and where things stand today, and then we'll open the floor for any questions at that time.

Hi, Zach. Hello. Welcome, thank you for being with us.

Glad to be here tonight. or this evening. Apologize the slide did not get sent to you guys. We'll send that afterwards. But most of the project that I'll talk about is kind of going to follow up what chassis or AP is going to talk about. But some of the things that are underway for the project is AP has their into cocktails. They've got them all installed. We've sent them the splicing on those. Our LIDAR collection and validation for the Snow Creek area, which is kind of the southeastern portion of the county has been completed. some of our permit designs for the dry hill area which is the western side of the county has been completed and then complete construction drawings for the delayed hill area which is kind of in the middle of the county we've started review of of the dry hill area finishing up the so the things that we're working on currently is some permit designs for the The second half of the dry hill, the last 15 miles, there's a total of 45. We're working on those and then completing our permit design for the Snow Creek area. And then for Oak Level, which is the middle part of the county in the southern portion, we're getting a lot of our collection and everything there. And as well as the design review for the Snow Creek area. For the splice and schematics for this project. I'm sorry. The splice and schematics for this project have all been provided to AEP for the entire county. And then the tails that we supply AEP has been completed for the area. So right now they've completed their Dickinson route and then we're they've sent us the test results for those and we're reviewing those now. As far as the timeline goes, the construction in the Sandy Level, Glade Hill and Snow Creek is expected to start here shortly with the completion of the Q4 of this year. Sandy Level, Glade Hill, permits are approved and construction drawings are completed. And the permit drawings for Snow Creek are completed. And that's gonna be about 1,359 passings. 309 Vaddy, 456, or 903 Vaddy, 22 passings. 456 VAT 823. And when we look at the construction for the Dry Hill and the Washburn remote areas, also expected to start later this year and completed by the end of the year. The Dry Hill and Washburn permit drawings are currently being are in production now and this one is this project is about eleven hundred sixty nine new passings with nine hundred forty one being batty twenty two and two hundred twenty eight being batty twenty three that would be a total of twenty five twenty eight for batty passing And I also had some slides in there for some of the marketing and things like that we're doing, but that's kind of where we're at with the project. We've got crews ready to get started, but we do not have anybody on the ground at this time. Do we have any questions or anything?

Any authority members have any questions or comments that you would like to make? When do you, do you have any indication about the BEAD funding?

No, that's been one of the things that's slowed this whole project up, right? Right. It took and pretty much doubled the project, not just for this county, but for the overall project. But, you know, we're still fully committed to getting this project completed. You know, as Mr. Sandy mentioned earlier with the cap that we issued to the PDC and the JCD, um we're working with those guys i know they've got some follow-up questions after that was submitted um but uh you know we're doing everything we can as fast as we can to get things moving okay well uh mr sandy did you have anything further

I think just from my memory I think what we were told was by the end of next year they were expecting to have this this entire project completed is that is that what you guys remembered as well correct yeah into 2027 to have that completed including the beadwork so that's a predicated projection on the bead funding coming down and what I'm hearing from the state is

to the end of 2027 to have that first one has to be done. Correct. What happens? Correct me if I'm wrong. Right, end of 2027, that whole deal's gotta be wrapped up. Yes, sir.

What happens if it's not?

I guess that'll be between them and the bead and the state.

Yeah, and I think some of that funding becomes questionable at that point. Yes, yes. Because there are some deadlines on spending that funding.

Okay, very good.

And Madam Chair, I would just say, And I'm not going against River Street or anybody. I don't see a need for us to have another update from River Street until there's boots on the ground with people getting lit up.

Okay, okay.

I mean, we've been getting the same update for a year.

Yeah. Mr. Sandy, that's a point well taken for you. Duly noted. Mr. Tatum, do you agree? I agree. Okay. So Zach, we wish you all the very best with trying to get all these projects executed. I know it's very frustrating and it's been frustrating for supervisors that represent these districts, but we appreciate you being with us and sharing your information. And if you would email your presentation to Mr. Sandy and he can make sure that we get a copy of that, that would be great and very helpful. Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

And then we have in place of Rob Mann we have Chasity Williams is the project manager on the APCO side of the of the project and she has I think just one slide but I think she's kind of going to walk through that to kind of help you see where progress has been with on the APCO side because as we mentioned several times this is really a kind of a joint project between River Street and APCO with APCO providing the middle mile fiber for this project.

Welcome. We're so glad to have you with us today.

I am excited to be here, and I thank you all for this opportunity to provide you with the update from Appalachian Power. Thank you. If you take a look at the screen, the slide that I have here, first of all, in total, the mileage that we have built out for the project for Franklin County is 93.47 miles. We have 24.9 miles on that Dickinson route, 16 miles on Sago, 28.89 on Endicott, and then 23.68 on Ingramville. In regards to Dickinson route, we have completed the splicing and the testing, and we've turned that over to River Street, as Zach has stated. They were reviewing that. With SEGA, we're about 85% complete. I think we have close to six to eight case and terminals left. Once we get those done, we'll complete the testing, and then we'll do the same process. We'll turn that over to River Street for them to review. And in Endicott, we're actively splicing there as well. And then when you move on to Ingramville, the same. We're kicking off our splicing over in Ingramville. So we have splicing moving in all those areas. Where we need to apply extra crews and resources, we will be doing so as needed to meet the scheduled timeline. Does anybody have any questions about that before I move on? Any questions?

Okay.

I just wanted to show you, I think it's important to see what we do, what our folks are doing out there. On top of the splicing and the building and the fiber of everything through there, we're also replacing new poles. That provides the sustainability that we need moving forward. We don't just want to go through run fiber and not be, you know, cognizant of the fact that, you know, the polls can't withstand that, you know, five years from now or whatnot. So we're doing everything the way that we should. Our guys are out there, boots on the ground, making sure those right-of-ways are cleared. They're making sure those distribution polls are set. And they're doing a phenomenal job. And I go out in the field occasionally just to say hey and see how everything's progressing. So that's always a good trip.

All right.

And then I kind of broke this out so you could see each slide as you roll through, you know, the mileage for each county or the mileage for each route in the county. So there's Dickinson. And then here's another slide to show you some more pictures of our guys out there working. And I can continue to get those updates from the field and send those in. I think, like I said, it goes a long way to show you what's going on. We have DH Eliot crews out there, Source Power, New River crews. We provide a diverse group of people. The fiber that we're using in VA3 is 288. It's a different beast than what a lot of these guys are used to. It's a different splicing for them. So you have to make sure you have qualified splicers to do that work as well. The guys that are used to doing the 144 might not necessarily be used to doing the 288. making sure that we have those resources and that they're not green, right? That we have them, they're trained well, they're used to doing this so we can make sure we get the best quality product out there. This is the SEGA route, the 16 miles there. And then here's another picture. This one I kind of blew up just because I thought it was cool. and the endicott route which is the 26.7 miles and again each of these slides you'll see where we're at with the fiber route installation and the splicing and then ingramville and then of course we have the pop site oak level where i'm at now is we have a generator company that's coming in from texas genera or gpc they're going to come in they're going to commission the generator then generac waves their magic wand and says yay we're good to go so that's kind of the process that that's going through and i'm working with westco to ensure that that's taken care of okay so and those are all the updates that i currently have and i'll pause and see what kind of questions you may have for me today thank you um i'll open up the floor for any authority members with questions concerns

working hard out there i think you're golden here for the moment yes i mean that's like yes until someone said this was on camera and then i was like just kidding no miss williams we really do appreciate you being here on rob's behalf um you know please extend to him um that we missed him but you did a fantastic job And, again, you know, we certainly empathize and understand the obstacles. And we appreciate the transparency with which you all are, you know, talking about how we're going to work through these challenges. So thank you very much for that.

Absolutely. And moving forward through the rest of the project, I'll be the project manager for VA3. Okay. So to the completion of the Schroeder Broadband Project. So if anybody has any questions and needs anything, please feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you very, very much. Mr. Sandy.

Yes, so really the only other item we have is one action item. It's for the Zytel project. So it's the 2024 grant. And what you have in your packet is an extension request. And honestly, that doesn't come from Zytel. There was really a mix-up in some of the paperwork with the state where the initial deadline that Zytel and the county thought was October, the state had put in July as the deadline. What the state has acknowledged and just requested that we file for a six-month extension. That would put us through the end of the year. And Zytel still expects their project to wrap up in October, but that will also give us a couple months for the closeout documents and the paperwork that need to be submitted, kind of like we did with the Chantel project last year. Yeah.

there is an action item there and a draft letter that with the authorities permission I will go ahead and sign and send on to request that extension sure so what we can do at this juncture is if the authority members would consider putting a motion on the table for formal request for extension with the HCD that would expire I believe January 21st, 2027. January 21st, 2027.

Make a motion that we give Zotel an extension until January 21st, 2027. Second.

Thank you, Mr. Tatum. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Like to sign? Okay, and so that passes. Do you want a motion, Mr. Sandy, to be authorized to sign? Yes.

I think it's kind of included in it. Okay.

We probably should have put some language in there, but if you're comfortable.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure that the board was aware of that request. Okay. I would say I did hear Mr. Mitchell's comment, and maybe we'll have a little more discussion on upcoming meetings. We were planning to have Zytel here at the next meeting with an update, and part of that was because our state project manager is coming down doing an inspection that day. Oh, okay. And would also plan to be here at the meeting. Right. But beyond that, going into July and August, you know, we can forego some of those regular updates if we, you know, if that's the pleasure of the authority so we don't have to meet every month. But we kind of already have some stuff scheduled in June. But beyond that, we don't have any – Any updates scheduled at this point?

Well, and I know Steve and I talked about that. I'm on this time efficiency kick here lately. But, yeah, that's fine for next month. But going forward, you know, we handle today's business in 15 minutes.

Yes, absolutely.

So going forward, I think we can trim this down. And maybe does next month need to be an hour or can it be 30 minutes?

think we could start at 2 30 if that's if that would be pleasure of the authority we can start at 2 30 and then we can look at potentially not even having a meeting in july and yeah because we don't meet every month and we historically have not done correct yeah we've we've just kind of alternated um those times but we could also go to update from both in the same meeting and then yes you know we could

Well, we had to go through some changes when we got done having to get the shintail. Oh, yeah. Deal. So it's kind of slimmed up now. Time to move away a little.

Okay. Mr. Sandy, did you have anything further?

So we'll we'll plan to schedule 230 for the June meeting.

As long as the agenda itself will permit that. And of course, when we do agenda review, the three of us can, you know, make sure that there's appropriate time allocated for whatever's on our agenda. Yeah. But I think Mr. Mitchell's point's well taken. Did you have anything else, Mr. Sandy?

No, ma'am.

On the agenda at this point, authority members, do you all have any general comments, questions, inquiries at this point before we adjourn? Okay, hearing none. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the broadband authority meeting. Second. Thank you all as a favor, please say aye.

And we will adjourn this meeting and we will look forward to the board's regular meeting at 3pm this afternoon. So thank you all.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so happy to have you with us this afternoon on such a beautiful day, and we appreciate you joining us. I am officially calling the Board of Supervisors meeting to order today, May 19th at 3 p.m. We will have our invocation offered by Mr. Tatum, followed by the pledge with Mr. Carter. So if you please stand.

Good to see everyone here today. Let's pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today, Lord, we thank you and praise you for all you do for us, Lord, with the many blessings of life. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to conduct county business today. Lord, we pray that everything that we say and do will be pleasing in your sight. and according to your will. And Lord, I pray that this board will always come to you as seeking wisdom and guidance in every decision that we make. In Jesus' most holy and precious name I pray and ask it all. Amen.

Amen.

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

OK, thank you very much for that. The next item on our agenda is to actually approve the agenda as submitted and advertised. Are there any additions that any of you all would like to make to the agenda? If not, I'm sorry.

One question. Please. I was wondering if we could add I like to put on our motion to reconsider from the last meeting about the RFP for public safety. I didn't know if I'd be a possibility. Discuss that a little more or not.

Which RFP do you want to get on the record for reconsider?

It was number three for a solicitor to make an RFP for the public safety study study. Yes.

We voted on that, right?

Yes.

So to reconsider something that's been voted on, I would have to defer. Mr. Dad, do you I've got our policies here. I just want to make sure we're following policy.

I guess, how did you vote, Mr. Mayor?

I voted no. So I probably wasn't on the prevailing side.

He was on the prevailing? He was not. I was not. Yeah, so someone from the prevailing side would have to make that request, Mr. Meredith.

I understand.

Okay, okay.

I mean, if nobody else wants to discuss that, that's fine.

Okay. Well, I would encourage you to open up communication, you know, with us individually, you know, moving forward, and we'll certainly make sure that your desires and your communication, it's important. It's very important, and we definitely want to hear from you.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay, so are there any other requests for additions to the agenda? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Second. Mr. Mitchell, second.

Second.

Okay, Mr. Quinn, I think, grab that. All those in favor of approving the agenda, please say aye. Aye. And that carries unanimously. Thank you all very, very much. Okay, the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. There are five items on your consent agenda. I would like to, if I may, just call out, I don't want to pull this item, we've got a community action month proclamation on here. And I just, I don't know if Kathleen Duncan from STEP is here. If you'd just like to come up for a quick minute. The reason that I wanted to acknowledge Kathleen, she is the Vice President of Planning and Community Development for STEP. And I think STEP, you're celebrating 60 years? Yes. And we just wanted, because it's Appreciation Week, I believe for community service and action and I just wanted to on behalf of the board just Really congratulate step for all of the work that you all are doing in our citizens that you're serving I was on that board it was a privilege to serve on that board and We just want to thank you for being with us and if you would convey our gratitude back to the staff and the board We would greatly appreciate that

Thank you all for your support of what we do every day. And it's been a really great week. Preschool graduation happened. Huge deal for our families. And we invite everybody to come out for step in a step, which is our open house to come see what we do. And that's on May 26th.

OK, well, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thanks. OK, colleagues, do you all want to pull any of the items on the consent agenda for further discussion?

With consent agenda, it's approval of the minutes and everything from the last year. Yes, sir. Just have one thing on page 14, if we'll go back to page 14. It's just a matter of clarification.

You mean the minutes at this point?

Yes, ma'am.

Set of minutes, sir.

Very front set from the board meeting in April.

Okay.

I counted up. I think it's about 14 pages, the 14th page. Yes.

Okay.

I was just, the notes in there, it was talking about, we pulled item number three. So we did a vote on the rest of the consent agenda, and we were all in favor of that. And then number three, we voted that on separately. And according to these minutes, I think it got it all lumped together. I don't know if we need to make clarification on that.

that there was a vote for the consent agenda and then a vote for the item pulled?

Yes, ma'am.

OK.

But usually we vote to put that back in.

No.

Usually we voted on that item separately.

It should be voted on separately. Should be voted on separately. Correct, Mr. Mayor. Is that correct, Madam Chair? Yes, sir. OK.

Yes, sir. And the minutes don't reflect that.

That's page 14, just under number seven, national. That's all it is.

What we could do. Keep it separated. And I appreciate that, Mr. Meredith. What we can do is ask our clerk to review that. And having those votes separated, we'll make sure the minutes reflect that. Yeah. And if you'd like to defer approval of these minutes until that time, or we could approve these with the suggested changes, it would be up to you as to what you want.

I'm fine with approving them with the suggested amendment on there. That's fine.

Okay. Thank you for bringing that to our attention.

No, thank you.

That's great. Okay, anything else? Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda with the notation for Mr. Meredith about a needed correction in the board minutes.

So moved. Second.

Thank you. We'll have a roll call vote, please.

Madam Clerk. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. And Chair Smith? Yes. Thank you.

Okay, moving on. We are at our time to hear from VDOT. Mr. Casella, I see our VDOT contingent with us this afternoon. Welcome. We're glad you're with us. Hello, Brian. Hello.

good afternoon madam chair members of the board always a pleasure to be here with you all it's good to see you so we've got our road report here for today and then of course I'll see you back tonight at 6 for the secondary six-year plan again so starting off with our report for ordinary maintenance of course we're continuing our pothole patching and patching in advance of some of our schedule work we have a pipe replacement project on route 767 Parliament switch road which has now been completed and several of the routes here that are mill and overlay that have been completed as well. Again, continue on with our maintenance activities in Route 643, Dillons Mill Road. That pipe replacement project is in progress. On to page two, we've got a slew of surface treatment schedule work that's been going on. You'll note the ones that have been completed. and others that are underway. So we've been pretty focused on the Glade Hill area and moving around through the Burnshammy area. On to page three, we have some site plan things. Of course, we've got the dog park, the YMCA, just to note a couple there. And of course, the fiber work that's throughout the county seems to be pretty steady. So just note that. We don't have any traffic studies that were requested over the last 30 days. And then lastly, on page 4, we have Route 657, Red Valley Road. We're beginning construction on that Royal Rustic, as well as Route 635, Novella Road. With that, I'll say we do have an update on the project at Works Road and 220. That will be a new traffic pattern effective June 1. I think it's 7 p.m. roughly. They're going to transition that to that through cut uh will be um in place and so you'll coming off warts road make a right go down to a u-turn and come back up to go south on 220. um so that will be a new traffic pattern there this is the one that's extended period of time yes ma'am that we've been discussing yes ma'am okay thank you yep and uh likely uh the 619 sign tag pleasant hill one is probably right behind that one i don't have an update on that one but that's same thing so And that concludes our report. I'll be glad to try to answer any questions you all may have.

Okay, thank you, Brian. I'll open up the floor to supervisors. Mr. Carter.

I just have a comment, Brian. I notice VDOT's marking a lot of secondary roads and stuff in Franklin County. A lot of roads that I don't think have ever had paint on them before. Is that true, or is it that the paint's wore off and you all are just going back over them?

So are you saying painting lines for like centerline or edge line?

And sides, yeah.

Yeah, we started that back. It's been several weeks ago now with painting lines again. So roads that are over, I think it's 500 vehicles per day get a centerline. If they're over 520 feet in width, then they can get an edge line. Great.

It's helpful. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Jamison.

Brian, how are you? I'm good. Good. I've been seeing, are they y'all, VDOT people? There's a couple people there spraying the sides of the bank of the road with backpacks, you know, back sprayers. What's going on?

It's probably one of the utility companies because we don't have really a lot of spraying going on for us. So I don't believe it's us. But if you've got a certain area that you're focused on, let me know and I'll be glad to look into that. That would come out of our district office roadside. But I'm not aware of any spraying that we've been doing.

This was last week, I guess it was. I hadn't seen none, you know, the last couple of days. I'll check and see. I'll ask them about that.

I'll be glad to look into it for you. If you can shoot me where you've seen them, I'll be glad to look into it. Thank you. Yes, sir.

okay anybody else mr quinn brian one quick question so the grade from the whistle stop down to kemp ford road is very steep and it's almost weekly that a truck or a trailer gets stuck there there was one stuck there this morning and a tractor a farm tractor had to come and and get it out and it seems like it's more of a whistle stop problem than a v-dot problem but Do you ever work on that intersection between the driveway of a business and the VDOT road to somehow improve it, or is it really up to the store owner in this case?

So is it right at the intersection with 40 and Kemp Ford?

No, it's actually on Kempford Road. It's their exit from the whistle stop down to Kempford Road. And the VDOT road is flat, so that's good. But their exit driveway is steep. And so the trucks just get their wheels stuck. The front and the back are both on the asphalt, and the wheels are... AT THE INTERSECTION. I JUST WONDER, MAYBE THERE'S NOTHING THAT CAN EVER BE DONE ABOUT IT, BUT IT'S JUST A WEEKLY OCCURRENCE.

THAT WOULD BE THE STORE'S RESPONSIBILITY, BEING THAT IT'S A COMMERCIAL ENTRANCE. THEY WOULD NEED TO MAKE MODIFICATIONS. BUT THAT'S GOOD TO NOTE. I HAVEN'T OBSERVED THAT IN THE PAST, SO THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THAT UP.

Mr. Meredith.

Brian, first I want to say thank you for taking care of a lot of stuff we talk about. Only one thing, 220 southbound by Murray Knob, there's a couple potholes in there that are pretty deep. I thought I broke my axle the other day. They're small. They're not, I guess, but I don't know if there's something they can look at patching those. Sure. And another question is, Burnt Chimney Road from Three Oaks Road out to the roundabout, They just repaved that, and that road just got paved a couple years ago. Why did they go back in there and cut it and redo that? Was it wrong in order to do different mixes for paving? Because to me, that's about two and a half miles of pavement I'd love to see on a different road, but Burnt Chimney Road ain't that old.

It's not, and I know towards the end of Burnt Chimney Road, we were actually paving that section, and that hadn't been done in some time. we did do um i forget the limits i want to say from maybe lovely valley uh on down to where just beyond the roundabout i believe we paid that in years past but uh we were focused on that last segment and that would accomplish all of 670. but this was from the roundabout back to three oaks okay and that's where i think that y'all had just paid that a couple years ago and it was just

They cut and shore that up. I was just curious if that just seemed like some wasted asphalt there that we could have used somewhere else in the county. But I don't know if it was a bad mix or what. Hopefully. I'll take a look. That's all. Just educate me on that one. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. That's all.

Anyone else? Brian, I just have one thing. Back in February, we had talked about a potential speed study being done there down beyond the creamery with Warts Road. And we exchanged a couple. Well, I know that I had talked with you on the phone. I think that you had informed me that there was a work order in process for that. Do you have a status on that?

I do not, but I'll follow up on that. I know they've been behind on several of our work orders. I've got some that are approaching nine months, which is outside of what we would typically see. I know there's a lot of activity on 81, not to make excuses for it, but just to let you know, I know there's been a lot of activity there that's taken their time and So but I will certainly follow up on that.

Thank you. I know the sheriff's office. I've noticed a increase in patrols down through there. I think at one point they had somebody clocked at 122 miles an hour. And that's not cool. And with the businesses that are there and the residents coming in and out, I appreciate it. Give me some follow up on that.

And especially in that area, it's 45 miles per hour. Exactly.

So exactly. Mr. Tatum.

Yes, I happen to remember I received a phone call from a lady recently and there's been a Bigfoot sighting in Ferrum. Okay. There's actually a statue of a Bigfoot cut out attached to a road sign at Garden Lane. Garden Lane? Mm-hmm. And the lady that called me, she said it startled her and it caused her to run out of the road. I wrote that the statues actually are attached, kind of wired up to the sign. Okay. Someone just check and make sure. You'd like for us to pull that down? Yeah. I mean, I don't have a problem with having a big one up there. It can't be on state right away. Right. And, yeah, it shook her up pretty good, I think. Okay.

I've seen it, and at dusk it sort of gives the impression it's a big person getting ready to step out in front of you. Really? It's a shadow, yeah.

Because, Tim, I'm looking at you thinking, okay, did you eat your Wheaties this morning? You got my attention.

It's a big foot in Farum.

It just falls in the category you can't make this up. That's right.

That's right.

Appreciate it.

Anyone else? Okay, Brian, thank you so much. And thanks to our VDOT contingent being here with us today. Thank you. And we appreciate all you do to support the county and our citizens and businesses. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay, next on our agenda, we will hear from Ms. Shauver, our public finance consultant that's working with our school division. Ann, welcome. We're so glad to have you with us. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that nice welcome, and it's nice to be with all of you again this afternoon. And I see we've got the financial report up on the screen today. So just a little bit of review. This is the third time that I've come and presented to you on the results of the school's financial report. status on a year-to-date basis. And so first time in February, we did not include a projection for the full year. We just gave you factual data year-to-date. And then last month for March, we provided you with the factual year-to-date data and also took the next step, which was providing a projection. And so here we are, April, 10 months under our belts for the fiscal year, and we have the same routine as in March where we're again providing a projection for the year. So today I'm gonna spend a little bit of time talking about process that we've been working with and also talk about the numbers. And I'm going to kind of weave some of these comments in and out together. And so the first thing I want to share with you is that one of my favorite sayings really about life, but definitely about numbers, is that you get what you inspect, not what you expect. Okay, you get what you inspect, not what you expect. And so, and I've been doing this a long time and a financial professional for a long time, specifically in local government for a long time. And the routine that I think works the very best is to have, for financial professionals to have our hands in the numbers every single month. When we do that, we learn the data, we learn its trends, we learn seasonality, we get to know the data, the revenue line items, the expenditure line items. When I work with the Franklin County Public Schools data, it's about 1,600 individual line items of data. And of course, I'm not studying every single line item. We roll it up into these categories that you see here. In the revenue side, we do tend to dig more into the detail, definitely more rolled up on the expenditure side. But it just takes time and routine and repetition to work with that kind of data and to really learn it. I think an observation that I would have is that over time I'm hoping that the school division will be able to do more and more of that themselves. We have developed what I think is a good partnership between myself, county staff, and school staff in working with this. We work back and forth together. We have a couple of different meetings each month as we build this report and we are trying to be collaborative and and, you know, utilize the inputs from all. And as I go through the material today, I'm going to share some comments with you about the ones that I feel like we're more certain about and the ones that I feel like we're a little bit less certain about. Okay, so, and I think, is there a pointer around here? I think last month I used the pointer. There it is. Let's see if it wants to behave today. Will that work? Oh, yeah, it will. OK, super. So let me just, for purposes of the elected officials and also members of the community, members of the public that may be watching or sitting in the audience today. So we have the major categories of revenues and then expenditures on the left-hand side shown in rows. And across the columns of the report here, we've got your year-to-date results for April. So 10 months of 12 are recorded at this point in time. We reflect the current budget that has been amended throughout the year various different times. You'll see it is a balanced budget at about $99.1 million. The next column is of interest because it's showing us the relationship between April year to date and that budget. How much have we seen so far this year? If everything is moving smoothly, that's going to be about 83%. And so you can see that revenues are just a little bit short of that, but not far. And the expenditures are pretty much Spot on, right on the money, 83%. And so that's going to make this down $285,000 as of April pretty logical. Revenues are off just a little bit, not a lot, not enough to get too excited about. Expenditures are spot on. And then the next column is the one that we really care, all of us care the most about, is if we have the crystal ball, what do we think we're gonna do for the year as a whole once we've gotten it all recorded, we've done all our counting entries that we need to do, these accrual entries at the end of the fiscal year, everything's booked, it's all accurate, where are we gonna land? And I'm gonna come back and talk about that more in just a second. And then these last two columns are gonna show the dollars, and then on the rightmost column, the percent of variance if this projection is accurate compared with this current budget. Now, this may not be the absolute final budget for the year. If amendments are made during the months of May and June, that budget could shift around a little bit, but it should be pretty good measurement there that we would have, okay? So I want to kind of hit some high points and then back into a little bit more of the detail. So high point number one is that this projection for the fiscal year 2026 right now is saying that the school division is going to be expenditures over and above revenues to the tune of $1.4 million. Now, you might say, well, how did that look last month? In March, when we presented it, we said it was $2,245,000. So it's better than it was a month ago. But it's still not good, right? Because we don't want to overexpend the budget. That's not something we want to do. I think another high level item I would point out is that right now, based on the crystal ball that is in place, We expect underperformance against the budget on both the revenue side of the house, 1.1 million or 1%, and on the expenditure side of the house, not quite $300,000. And it actually turns out to be 0% when we round the nearest whole amount with a $99 million budget. Now, I told you that I would talk a little bit about the places we have the most uncertainty. I also wanna talk a little bit about which pieces of the pie are the biggest. On the revenue side of the house, our state funding here, the first line item, is 42% of the revenue estimate. Followed behind that is going to be county funding at nearly the same amount, 37%, and then both the state sales tax and the federal funding are 10% each. so two really big slices of the pie two that are you know important um county funding of course is much more uh certain as far as from the budget perspective we are expecting that the county is going to pay the full 36 point well really 37 million that's budgeted so that projection is easy to do the state sales tax projection is I feel pretty confident about that. I've got a model built that I like, and the number that I'm showing you today has only moved about $10,000 since last month, so that gives me confidence in that model. The trickiest ones on here from a revenue perspective are state funding and federal funding. So again, that state funding is 40%, more than 40% of those revenues. Now, the story that I'm happy to tell you this month is that I feel we have we've gotten to a much better place in a collaborative manner between myself, county staff, county finance staff and school personnel. in in working together to arrive at the 41.1 million dollar number you see here with the state funding some of those revenues come in all through the year some of those revenues come in upon request or filing for reimbursement some of those are lottery based and don't start until later in the fiscal year so estimating the exact performance of these state funding numbers really depends on knowing the ebb and flow of each of these revenues and I have to admit that's not something that I have the deepest of expertise with. My first pass at these state numbers is pretty high level and so really was important to get more assistance from both county finance and school finance and even just I guess yesterday we worked together and dug through those numbers and I think we feel pretty good about this 41.1 million dollar number. Now, it's still short of budget, a half a million. So it's still, monetarily, it's still not performing where we would like it to be, but I feel like the level of certainty has improved. Last month when we reported to you, we were expecting that to be about 40.6 million, and so this 41.1 represents an improvement. So we're gonna continue doing this routine every month and hopefully continue fine tuning that. I wanna talk about the federal funding next, this third line item here. The number you see on the screen, this $9,045,000 is unchanged since last month. When I do a projection, I'm doing a very high-level trend projection, and the number I arrive at is higher. The number that you are seeing today, and this is, again, the same one that we reported to you last month, is a number that was developed by an individual providing consulting services to the school division, and while we would have liked an update about that this month, we did not get one, and so we're continuing to use the same number from last month. I will share with you that another item that we would like to get to help support this federal funding number is a work paper, if you will, that helps characterize the relationship between those expenditures that are federally funded and the federal funds that should be derived from those expenditures. And we have not been able to get that information at this point in time. I think we're gonna continue asking for it. We're gonna continue urging the school division to really provide the analytics and the commentary to help us get comfortable about this number. But we are continuing to use this lower federal number of 9,045,9045 lacking additional information at this time. So I think that's it on the revenue side of the house. On the expenditure side of the house, I want to make similar comments where when we look at the pieces of the pie, instruction, this first line item, is huge, 71%. It's the only double digit piece of the pie. All of the others are 4%, 3%, 9%. After instruction, the two that are the biggest are going to be pupil transportation and operation and maintenance. And so what I would share with you is that the numbers that you see on your screen are numbers that I developed using a trend analysis approach where I'm assuming that the performance is more or less going to follow suit with what we've seen so far this year. Most of these numbers are fairly consistent with what we saw last month with a couple of exceptions. I want to talk about those. Last month we got data on all of these expenditures from the school division, and the instruction number provided by the school division was very different from my number. It was 71.1 million. And so last month, in order to be conservative, we used that number. This month, we were not actually able to get additional detail or an update or a projection from the school division, so we're using my number because this number, $70,133,000, is about a million dollars less than the number last month. I have built in, you'll see down here on the bottom, $500,000 of contingency make room if you will for that variance in numbers. I do not have good detail or good analytics about what causes the estimate to be 71.1 million on behalf of the school division. I just know that their estimate is higher. I would like to point out that unfortunately most many of the expenditure categories appear to be on a a trend to be overspent for the year. The entire expenditure budget is trending to be overspent for the year. Thankfully, only 300,000, but still overspent. And so I think one additional comment I would make just overall would be that over time, I think it would be important that the school division able to manage within this budget I know it's a challenge state funding is down ADM is down you know there's pressure on the county funding there's pressure on the school division to operate its budget but I do think that it is important to operate within the confines of that budget so that's something I'm going to continue urging I've been pointing it out when we have our meetings and I'm going to continue doing that So I think on the expenditure side, because of this $500,000 contingency, there is uncertainty about the instructional number up here. Again, the $1.4 million shortfall is the best estimate that we have at this time, but there is indeed some uncertainty that is still in existence. I'll just speak on behalf of myself, but I think that we will continue urging the analytics and the inspect not expect with these numbers as we conclude the fiscal year and really try to hone in to figure out what does this performance look like it's going to be once we get finished and get the books closed for the year. So with that, I will open it up and see if anyone has any questions for me.

Thank you, Ann.

Mr. Quinn.

I'll start. So last time there was, given the uncertainty, there was a range of possibilities. The best was that we would be short a half a million and the worst would be short five million. What would you say the range is now after one more month of work and only two months to go?

Yeah, that's a really good question. You know, I mean, I think probably for me, I would hope that best case would be a break even. I mean, I don't know that I'd want to go so far as to think that there's going to be a surplus. You know, I think that there is definitely risk that it will be worse than $1.4 million. I don't know how far to go with that. I mean, I think it could definitely go a half a million. It could go a million the other direction. So it could be $2.5 million like we had last month.

Thanks.

Mister Mister Mitchell and so we were coming to this one point four million change in that position is that a normal I don't I've been on this board for four years now that would not be if Brian was giving me that number that we think we might be one point I would be troubled so I'm wondering if if this is a normal thing for school division not versus a local government it explain that to me what that

Sure. I mean, I probably would rather not make a distinction about school operations versus local government because honestly, I mean, I think for any entity that's creating a budget and then running its accounting records throughout the year, on both revenue side of the house and on the expenditure side of the house, we want to utilize reasonable conservatism, right? So on the revenue side, we want to have our revenue estimate not too optimistic. We don't want it to be too low, but if anything, we want to make sure we're going to exceed that revenue estimate. And likewise, on the expenditure side of the budget, we want to make sure we budget enough to cover everything. And certainly salaries. I think for entities that employ a lot of people, and public entities do that, there really should be strong what we call position control, where we know exactly what positions have been budgeted. we are methodical about knowing um what to budget for those positions and obviously when there's turnover that changes things but um you know we should have a system in place to budget for the salaries and benefits for positions and then when there's vacancy through the year that should create vacancy savings and then um you know obviously we're going to budget very accurately for things like the debt service all of those amortization schedules should be in place in advance. So really, we should set the budgets up on both sides, revenue and expenditure, where we're going to have positive variance. That second to the right column would be positive. in total revenue total expenditure and so in you know should really be setting us up to create a at least a small positive variance not a negative variance and i think all of you know it is not sustainable for any of us for me for my husbands in my household for your households for franklin county i mean it is not sustainable to have ongoing shortfalls that does that math doesn't work so And I don't mean to sound like an unfriendly accountant. I guess I probably do. But, I mean, that's where we have to have the discipline to correct that over time. That's something important to develop.

And when you talk about tracking positions and things like that, that's something that can be done on a spreadsheet, kind of like what you have here.

A lot of times accounting systems or HR payroll systems do that. But, yes, spreadsheets can do it as well.

So are you saying that's not in place now?

I don't know. I don't know if it's in place or not. I would probably venture to say that it seems to me that the school division has not been able to manage its budget because there's been overspending the last two years. So I do think that seems to me to be a challenge. I would probably venture to guess there's probably challenges in that personnel area because typically personnel costs, personnel can cross all of these categories, a lot in instruction, but other categories as well. And typically personnel costs are going to be about 75% of a public entity's total spending. Some of my clients, it's 80%. So it's a big piece of the spending.

Anyone else wish to ask it? Mr. Carver.

I guess it's a comment, Ann. It looks like, and this has been going on for several months, the big elephant in the room is payroll and salaries. Would you agree with that?

Well, I mean, there are issues on the revenue side of the ledger as well. I mean, if you look at these revenues, four of the five have a deficit performance. So, I mean, that's an issue. Is that tied to issues with personnel and payroll? I'm not sure. I don't know.

And I guess this may be a follow-up for Dr. Sears. Since my time on this board and before I got on this board, we've heard the acronym ADM in that graph. I'm sure you've seen it. It's like the Titanic going down. I'm curious as to what the school's doing to address this continual drop in ADM because that's affecting all of these numbers across the board.

And one comment I'll make, and we talked about this as a group, is that when enrollment decreases, then with some of the state's metrics and calculations, it can lead to a reduction in funding. Of course, this county school division's LCI, local composite index, has gone up, gone down, whatever. It's changed so that the state gives less funding. That LCI indicates that the county is more able to fund its own school division. So that's put negative pressure on the state funding, right? And so one of the things that we've talked about is when you have a reduction in enrollment, you think, OK, we need fewer staff. Well, the problem with that is there's a few fewer students here, a few fewer students there. I mean, it's sprinkled all over the place. It is harder than one might think to actually reduce staffing costs. So I don't know where the budgetary management pressures exactly are coming from. I would guess it's likely to be personnel related just because that's such a big piece the pie I don't actually know I mean I know by category a lot of these numbers don't look great because there's an awful lot of negative numbers in this column and negative percents in this column okay now we're still finishing up the year some of these could change I hope some of them do but I mean we're the team the group of us is putting our best effort forth every month with these numbers and I mean though we've seen

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Mr. Quinn. I just wanted to address Mike's point. So Mike, in all the papers we got, there's a letter from Dr. Sears about a rift that they're doing. And that's 67 positions. And just my own math would say that's a savings of $3.5 to $4 million a year. Dr. Sears will have a better number. But that's a huge step towards addressing the ADM problem you mentioned.

Mr. Meredith.

Quick question. Is this safe to say, I don't think the school system's been fully staffed as teachers. I know they were using sub stuff. If they were fully staffed, and Dr. Sears might weigh in on it, that instructional number could actually be worse. Is it safe to say that if they were fully staffed?

I mean, that would make sense to me. I think what you're saying is the division is not fully staffed. If it was fully staffed, would the expenditures be even higher? I mean, yes, that would have to be.

Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Ann, just an observation, and I just want to clarify, if I may. It's to my understanding that we are still waiting for requested information, probably at the 10 to 11 week from the request. Mr. Carter could clarify that. And so when you talk about the lack of information on the federal side and on the instruction side, You just don't have the information. I want to clarify, is this, and Brian, you may have to chime in as well, are we talking about one and the same data sets of information, Ann, that you don't have? And Brian, is there something more than what Ann is saying she doesn't have? Or are you talking the same stuff? Same stuff? And so that's very troubling because the question this board's been asking is we're here in mid-May and we should be able to have information a firm projection, year-end projection at this point in time. And the fact that we are sitting here over two months and the schools have not been able to produce the needed information to get those calculations and those analyses done is very troublesome. And so when you make the statement that they can't manage their budget, that's a huge symptom, in my opinion, of why we're where we are. And I would like to say to you, Ann, I very much appreciate the complexity of the role that you are in and that you've chosen to play with the school system and with the county government. I think you've done an extraordinary job under very complex circumstances. And I want you to know that we appreciate that very, very much. But I just, I think your information today has been very telling, and it reaffirms, I believe, the information that you've cited in that position. And given the fact that we can't get the information that we need, just from my lay perspective, I would almost project that number is going to get worse. I hope not. I hope it doesn't. But I don't know how we can proceed with closing the year and budget out without needed information. So I'll leave it at that. You don't have to comment. And those were just some observations.

Well, and I do want to affirm, you are correct, that we have asked for information and have not gotten it. We've asked for analytics on some information that we have not gotten. I do try to be a positive, glass-is-half-full individual, and so I again want to emphasize we got more better information on that first line item, state funding. I do hope that there can be more analytics, additional information, just additional analysis in the future. Those that work the closest with the data are the ones that are best positioned to really dig in, do the analytics, produce projections, but also need to be able to defend those projections as well. So I appreciate your comments of support. And again, as of today, this 1.4 is the best estimate that we have, but we'll be going at it again for May and be back in another month to give you an update.

Well, Ann, thank you for being with us. We very much appreciate it.

You're welcome.

OK, next on our agenda, we would welcome Dr. Sears to come. And I think, Dr. Sears, you have a slide presentation that you'd like to give to the board. We welcome you this afternoon, sir.

Thank you. I do not have a slide. I've just got a few comments. OK. OK. Sorry. I'm looking at something else, Dr. Sears.

It's fine. It's got finance written on it. So yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Madam Chair, Mr. Sandy, members of the board, thank you again for having me here today. The past month has been incredibly busy as we try to continue gauging where things stand in the current school year, while also planning for FY27 without an approved local or state budget. On the plus side, we have been able to pare down what was last month 2.2 million projected deficit to 1.4 million. The 1.4 million projections shared today is still higher than the school division's projections, but we know that the county folks want some additional verification before they're comfortable with our numbers. However, we are glad to see that the changes are trending in the right direction. Some of the discrepancy between the projections can be attributed to the source data that are being used. Our numbers are based on the most up-to-date calc tool provided by BDOE with the March 31st ADM adjustments made, which we believe to be the best data available. No matter whose numbers you're looking at, though, the fact remains that this is an incredibly tight budget year, and we greatly appreciate Brian, Corey, and Ann for working with us to solidify our projected revenues and expenditures. And even though the numbers presented today project a deficit, we believe there are some points of interest that explain why the final numbers wind up better than those projections. First, Ann's expenditure comparison for this year through April are running two million less than they were at the same point last year. The austerity measures that we put into place in January seem to be having an effect, although some are impeding our ability to operate efficiently. Federal revenue has recently started coming in more consistently than it has all year. As of today, we've received $1.2 million in federal revenue in May for April's expenses and then some catch-up from previous months. Revenue is historically higher in June due to the timing of distributions in adult education, special education, and foster care. So the revenue numbers in June should come in a little higher than they traditionally run. We're continuing to monitor our numbers every day and meet regularly with our county counterparts. I expect that the June numbers will be a better indicator of how the year will end, although we're still trying to figure out a consistent way to account for the accruals and reversals that are made after July 1st of each fiscal year, as those can have a huge impact on projections and final numbers. Looking ahead, our finance department has identified three changes that would be incredibly helpful in the future for tracking expenses and making regular projections throughout the year. We really need to create a separate account for federal funding. Our federal grants are numerous and can often run for up to three years. Lumping them into one account with local and state funds makes tracking them incredibly difficult. We need to implement a purchase order system. It has proven very difficult this year to regulate spending without having an approval system in place, such as a purchase order system. And finally, utilize a program to encumber salaries and benefits for the year that can be adjusted as employees come and go. In closing, I would just like to say that Franklin County Public Schools has done everything it can this year to make sure we don't end the year in a deficit. Did the worst happen and we not succeed, we are implementing an extensive number of operational adjustments and personnel reductions for next year to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I know people are asking, how did we get to this point? As we dig deeper and deeper, the answer becomes incredibly clear. The state has cut our funding, the county has not funded our identified needs, and we have not made staff reductions that correlate close enough with our enrollment losses. Anyone who's following the local government in Franklin County this year has likely noticed that some of the same people who criticize you all for raising taxes are the same people who are criticizing us for cutting programs and positions. There's an obvious disconnect since many folks seem to think that a stagnant tax rate can cover increasing expenses and that school staffing levels can remain constant with less money. I know we have some important work to get through over the next few months, but prior to next budget season, we might want to consider holding a few town hall meetings to help folks better understand our budget requirements and limitations. Please know that the school division is a willing partner if the BOS would like to schedule a few of these. It's something to think about anyway. Thank you all again for having me here today.

Thank you, Dr. Sears. I'd like to open the floor up to supervisors for questions, statements. Mr. Quinn.

I'll start. So, Dr. Sears, you mentioned that you don't have a PO system, and it just made me wonder if the county has a PO system and where you might be able to piggyback on their PO system and just get additional seats so that you could use an existing system. Is that possible?

I do not think the county has a PO system. Oh, you don't have one? That is, it would require, if the county had one, then we could do that, yeah. Okay. Since we share the financial system.

So then moving on. So I really applaud your effort to close the two schools a couple of years ago. It was a very courageous decision. And now you're doing a RIF, which is equally painful and hard to do, but another courageous decision. And I just don't think we were ever going to get to where we needed to go without doing that as hard as it is. It looks like it's a total of 67 positions. I assume they're full-time. I mean, left to my own devices, a fully loaded cost, I figure that's $3.5 to $4 million. What would you estimate the savings from those 67 positions would be?

I would not have an exact estimate because we're still putting the finishing touches on that. That's a little higher than what we would have it at, though, because about half those positions are support positions, so the salaries are lower. But, yeah, I mean, it will be a significant reduction in expenditures for next year, but I do not have that exact number yet. That's something we'll probably have within the next few weeks after we get the individuals identified and everyone notified.

And then given that only 10 of those 67 were termination rate, all the rest are their transfers or through attrition, how long will it take you to achieve that reduction? How many months? When would you think you'd hit that point where you've actually accomplished your 67 reduction?

There were really only eight who were completely eliminated two of the family liaisons had teaching certifications so we have moved them into teaching roles. So there were eight people currently who don't have a position for next year and we have reached out to them with information about how they could get a provisional teaching license and we could try to work them into a classroom if they have an interest in going that route. I would say For the most part, it's done through attrition. There are still we have a few positions identified that we're still trying to transfer people into. We've done a few internal postings for some administrative positions and for administrative assistant positions. So once the people who have applied have been interviewed and we know who is moving where, we can finish those transfers. But it's something I expect that we will have a probably 99% complete by the end of the month.

So that seems good, because that might help with our budget problem by the end of the year. I mean, it's only two months. There are only two months left, but still, directionally, it's going to help you reduce that number, I would think. Or maybe that's already built into this.

I mean, it would help with next year's budget. All these folks still have a contract through the end of this year, so it's not going to be a reduction of expenditures for this year.

And then the last point I had is regarding the capital planning. So I know that you identified the four schools that have end-of-life HVAC units. We're doing the Lee Wade School. That was about $4 million. You guys had estimated about $20 million to do all four schools, right? So I'm just thinking if it was $20 million, we gave you $4 million. There's somewhere around $16 million left to do the other three. And we'll want to be in a position where we can make a commitment early to you to do that so that you can do that work in summer of 2027. So will you be able to give us good estimates on what that work would cost so that we can figure out how to get those funds and make that commitment to you well ahead of the next year so you can do the RFP process?

I mean, the estimates that are on the CIP are from 2022, and we could go back and apply an inflationary adjustment to those, but it would be difficult to give better estimates without having at least some of the engineering work done. And that is something I don't think we're in a position to engage with engineers about planning those projects without funding to pay for the engineers.

I know. So some of the numbers then don't really make sense. Because I have the 2022 numbers. And it looks like there would be about $8 million left. And we spent $4 million on Lee Wade. That'd be $12 million. And yet we're thinking it was $20 million to do all four. But I guess it's worth going back, whatever you have, to give us the best numbers that you can so that we can figure out how we'll give either the money for one school or two schools or three schools. I don't know what the appetite of the board will be, but we'll want to make some kind of commitment to you ahead of time, and we'll need to know a good order of magnitude estimate in order to do that.

Mr. Quinn, I would just add, and Mr. Sandy can clarify, I think we've been asking for some clarity about what process the school's school board administration are going to put into place to be able to address the remaining schools through that. And we're not getting anything. Again, in the absence of understanding what their process is going to be, we're left at trying to guess. And we cannot guess. We've got to be able to depend upon a properly scoped RFP. And leaning on Dr. Sears paying for engineering to do an RFP scope, those dots are not connecting for me. OK. Mr. Quinn, continue, please. Oh, I'm done. Thank you. You're done? Yep. Mr. Meredith?

Dr. Sears. Just to clarify, when you start the next school year, what is going to be the staff reduction number? Because I see this, but I've heard two of the liaisons is transfer to teachers, y'all getting this. So I hear a lot of moving and transferring around. But when we start the school year next year, what do you expect to be the net number? reduction, and I hate saying that because nobody wants to do it, that you're expecting to see, even with all these transfers and everything you've got going on?

I would be afraid to say an exact number, but I expect it will stay probably in the 50 to 60 range when all is said and done, because there will be some adjustments that have to be made. There'll be additional students come in in a particular grade level, so we'll have to add a teacher here or there. That happens every year. But I expect the number should be around 60, or maybe a little lower than that, but should be in the neighborhood of 60.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify, because I was hearing all those transfers, and I was just making sure I was on the same page, so thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Meredith. Mr. Carter.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Sears. I'm curious, when you all start working on your budget every year, do you all take into account this loss of ADM that's been occurring every year on a regular basis? Do you all budget for that?

We do. We always go off of the state numbers, which usually has a – significant drop in ADM and that is what we built our budget on. This is the first year that we've ever had the ADM drop below what the state projected it to be and that did cause an additional loss of somewhere between two and three hundred thousand dollars in state funding at the end of the year because the numbers dropped lower than what were projected.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

Dr Sears when you say you see a drop in ADM and y'all budget for it you're talking about which money you're losing do you make any kind of operational budget adjustments for the loss of the student

As Ann said that is very difficult to do especially after the school year starts because the numbers don't just drop from from one building or one grade level they drop from 12 buildings and 13 grade levels and so it's three or four at this school five or six at this school and and Trying to come up with a corresponding reduction in staff mid-year just isn't possible because the teacher that lost two kids from her class still has 22 students in her class. And those kind of adjustments, they typically are even difficult to make each year. Every other year is probably a more reasonable timeframe for doing those large scale reductions because the students have the numbers have to shift around enough for you to identify positions that you can eliminate through attrition primarily.

If you look back to 2008 to 2026, we've lost about 1550 students. It's gone basically down 20%. the day and yet the budget is up twenty two percent that's that's a big spread between the two and I I'm having a hard time understanding you know with this there ought to be some operational budget for those that can I count them of many students

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part of what you said.

That is an awful lot to me. I'm having a hard time understanding the spread between the loss of students of 1,550 to an increase of 20% in our budget. It looks like there has been no operational budget changes at all.

Can you help me understand that? Well, I mean, expenses have went up a lot since 2008. The state funding has went up to teachers and everyone. They make more now than they did in 2008. Nothing has remained stagnant. If we were trying to fund a school division at the state reimbursement and local reimbursement for 2008, we would not even be paying minimum wage for most of our positions.

It still looks like a big difference there to me. Last month I asked you about the professional development, about the cost of that annually. Do you have those numbers for that?

I thought we sent those to Steve. I don't have them here with me, but I

You got them, Steve? Yeah. I'll get them later. That's fine. I saw in one of the I think it was one of the letters you sent out you talk about a new bussing program yes how is that going to work I understand that sounds like something we did back when I was a kid in school we had two buses there in Callaway that picked up both elementary and secondary students out and come back two buses going to rock him out that took a secondary student Is that gonna affect the fleet that you have now and the bus drivers? Are you cutting any buses and bus drivers out?

Yes, that plan would allow us to reduce about 17 buses and 17 bus drivers. Now, some of those savings would be offset because drivers would be driving longer routes, so we would have to compensate them for the longer routes, but it still would result in a significant savings. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Jamison, I would just add, I have requested, I've asked Mr. Sandy, and I think he's done this, I've requested a full overview of the school's bus, their fleet management with their school buses, in terms of how many, how many's in the state of disrepair, what is their replacement cycle, et cetera, et cetera. So that request is in. I don't think it got done until maybe it was yesterday. So we understand, Dr. Sears, that came in very late. And we would appreciate getting that information. We're just trying to, because the board at this juncture is looking to adopt a budget that includes a million dollars that we would hope to be able to contribute specifically to school buses on an annual basis, which is a significant unprecedented step.

Yes, for boards of supervisors.

And we just want to make sure that we're understanding the current state of your program so that as we look to make those types of of significant allocations that we're able to track and understand the management of your system and exactly what your challenges are. Does that make sense?

It does, and I thought that Dr. Nestor had sent that information to you yesterday afternoon. Did you not receive it?

I did not.

Okay, you did not, okay. It might have been quarantined or something then, but I know he copied me on and I had it too. No, I didn't get it. Okay, we'll make sure that we send that again. I'll check my junk email and see if it ended up there.

I do have that number for the professional development was 363,290, and Dr. Sears indicated they'd spent 99,423 of that with 161 paraprofessionals. Repeat that last number, please. 161 paraprofessionals.

And that was annual, right? Annual.

Yeah, I think that was your annual budget, 363.

We'll get these to the board, Mr. Jamison. I will just conclude. Dr. Sears, thank you very much for being with us today. I have read a piece of correspondence that you sent out to your faculty on Friday. And I'm just going to leave it very succinctly. I find that... what you have expressed in here to be very disappointing. And the shift of the blame for the schools, I mean for the county, not fully funding the schools, which we clarified that last week. And the fact that the county did not, I think your quote was that the county did not have to cut a check to bail you out. All of those things, it could be a matter of interpretation. But I find them very misleading. And it's disappointing to me that your staff received a communication like this that is completely skewed off of the facts. So I would encourage you, working with Brian and Mr. Sandy, I think we need to level this playing field a bit more. Because I don't like the idea that a lot of the blame shifting is coming our way because it's inappropriate. And it lacks factual basis. So I'm going to leave that comment there for now. And I appreciate any other questions, comments before we move on. Mr. Sandy.

I did want to go back to the capital discussion that Supervisor Quinn was having, if we could. maybe what we need in order to move forward is kind of the scope of work for the three schools kind of outlined and then some understanding of the method that's going to be used to to move forward with those projects or the desired method to move forward with those projects for instance are we looking to design each school individually and have a different contractor for each one are we looking to kind of group them all in one architectural engineering contract and one you know one construction contract I think some of those sort of things maybe can come back and then maybe come back in the form of a request to the board as to how to proceed and then with that as I think you mentioned was the allocation of funding kind of to move forward once you put it RFP out to to be able to review those that come back in and make a recommendation to move forward

OK. OK. Very good. Dr. Sears, thank you very much for being with us. And we appreciate all the due diligence. OK. We're going to move on. Mr. Carter, I believe it's your turn, sir, if you would be so kind. We're to the portion of our agenda to get our monthly finance report and the county and school supplemental compensation report as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. So we'll do a finance report. We have some of our data. I have a little bit extra. Make it add some context for the school system as well. And then at the end, after questions, we can talk about the supplemental compensation. So I'll try and go quickly through some of these areas. So as Ms. Shalva said earlier, so we're 10 months through the fiscal year. We'd be looking at roughly 83% of the budget. We look at our revenues. We're at, for the most part, or exceeding that where we'd anticipate. The general property taxes would be below because they're not collected monthly. We'll have that. That's twice a year. So that should pick up in May and in June for our real estate taxes. One item to note is the revenue for the use of money in property. It's just under 80%. And so if you notice, we've talked constantly about budgeting for interest earnings. And so we're really looking like we're probably not going to meet revenue, the interest earnings on that line this year. Next year's budget, we had a roughly $800,000 reduction in that line. So I wanted to make you aware of we are anticipating that that continued to drop. But that is a little below trend, and we do not anticipate reaching 100% of budget on our interest earnings for that line item this year. It would be slightly maybe $100,000 off is what we're thinking right now. The rest of your revenue lines are looking pretty consistent. Your federal government is down a little bit, but when you look at that, a lot of that is driven by your social services reimbursement and their expenditures are down in that particular area. And so that's not necessarily concerning to us for the federal revenue. It's really related to your expenditures. So to look at the expenditure side, you can see we're really, all our departments or our functional areas are under that 83% of budget, with the exception a little bit above is public works. Most of that is being driven by repairs and maintenance on the line items. One of the main reasons is to make sure we keep up with our solid waste and our landfill capital replacement because it starts to impact your operating budget on some of those And leachate hauling, that has also been an increase with the new sale. Until that gets filled up a little bit, you'll increase that. The other item is your transfers, which is 91.2%. And that's basically being driven by the front load of the school system transfer from the county. That's why that's running ahead. So revenues to show you just graphically, I'll move to more detail, but relatively no grand fluctuations that we would normally see year over year. So to show that categorically for you, you can see you've got a roughly $2 million increase in or almost a $3 million increase in general property taxes. so some of that's going to be necessarily timing there is an increase year over year in personal property when you look at an overall comparison but we have a little more detail it's actually running even when you look through april but we do anticipate general property taxes trending ahead of what we would want for our projections this year I have some reasons for that. We can get into that in a little more detail. If you notice, the other categories are relatively flat. Your other local taxes and your state revenue, which are the larger drivers, your tax revenue or your revenue buckets in our general fund budget, they're relatively flat in growth. And we projected relatively flat growth on those in the next fiscal year. So real estate tax is a little behind, about 3.2%, $726,000 compared to last year. Roughly the same point in budget, not overly concerning on that. Delinquent collections are up a little bit, and so they're offsetting to a degree, so we're not overly concerned with the overall real estate tax collection. Keep in mind that the June tax collections are set at the 47 cent tax rate, not the 43 cent tax rate. So there will be an additional revenue anticipated for that June tax collection. Personal property taxes, so relatively flat. It's basically even with last year down about 0.8%, but we're at 105% of budget. And so we anticipate additional collections in May and June for the rest of the fiscal year. And so the trend line is still where we would anticipate based on our next fiscal year budget as well. Personal property is kind of a leveling offer. We made that adjustment with the MVP pipeline switching from the commissioner's office assessing to the state assessing. Local sales tax up slightly, 3.3%. So strong, solid numbers that we would anticipate with the growth, just under $220,000. It's a little ahead of budget, 84%. The next taxes that you would see, meals and transient occupancy as well, are more cyclical, seasonal, with the summer months being higher collections. Other than sales, you see that higher in February because of the December taxes is two months behind. Meals had a good month, so we're about 48,000 up year over year, 3.8%. We're a little bit behind budget at 82% instead of an 83% mark, but we would anticipate you're going to see, as you can see on the graph, you're going to see strong May and June collection, so we're not really concerned about meeting budget at this point. And transient occupancy had a good month. It is 8.5% over budget compared to year-over-year growth. And it's about almost 89% of the budget instead of 83. So we're about 5% ahead of the benchmark there. And you'll see the similar trend. You'll see May and June collections typically trend higher as the season, the summer season starts. So expenditures, you can see a drop. for the month year over year and so really that is not related to any other category except the school system transfer in April of last year we made a very large transfer to the school system this year it actually dropped in comparison which was welcome news with how it had been trending and so the the school transfer was only about a million and a half instead of three million And so we'll have more detail on a slide on that. I'll show you the percentage comparison. Again, they're still running ahead of where they were at this point in time last year as far as the county transfer. Other categories in the county's general fund, you can see mostly level up slightly. We would anticipate that with normal inflationary pressures that you would see in any given budget. No direct drivers on any of the increases outside of that. Health and welfare, the human services fields, if you notice that social services programs in the middle, that is what is correlating with reduced federal revenue because expenditures in that category are down. Those are more your TANF, your food benefits, those things that are almost direct federal reimbursement. So you are seeing an increase in operations and also an increase in the CSA budget year over year. It is still trending okay as far as percentage of budget. but expenses are increasing and we don't necessarily expect that to trend in a different direction at this point. So fund balance, I wanted to show you that, try and update that for you monthly. So as of the end of April, when you back out restricted funds and our 20% minimum fund balance, we're about $4.3 million over our unassigned fund balance limit. So what we would expect, and that's the cyclical nature based on twice a year real estate tax collections. So what we would expect is that that's going to, as real estate taxes are collected in May and June, that that number will increase. Wanted to be aware that really when you back out of all of the policy restrictions, this point in time through April, we're only $4 million above our required limits. And so there's the cash is that's not the amount of cash in the bank. But point is discretionary money in order to stay within policy limits. That's what we're operating off of. The budget stabilization and capital reserves have not changed from prior months. They're still at those levels. So economic and budget update, we do have the inflationary numbers. Inflation in April was increased compared to prior months at 3.8%. That's pretty much being driven by fuel prices with the global conflict in the Middle East. And so that's not unanticipated. You notice if you back that out and get to core inflation, which is less food and energy, it's 2.8%. So it's still above the Fed's 2% target rate, but it's a lot better than 3.8%. So I think we would anticipate at some point that conflict will be resolved and energy and fuel prices will drop to more sustainable levels. Unemployment was unchanged for the month at 4.3%. The Federal Reserve did meet in April. They left their target rate the same. The next meeting is scheduled for June. So we do have a new federal chair, Federal Reserve chair, that was appointed, Mr. Kevin Warsh. It took over for Mr. Jerome Powell. So... I'm not really sure. There hasn't really been a lot of commentary on anticipated policy changes. I think, of course, the intent with the nomination of a new Fed chair is that interest rates start to reduce a little faster. And so we'll see if that—we tried to build that into our projections for next year's budget, and we'll monitor and see how that works in the Federal Reserve in upcoming meetings. On the state budget front, there really is not a lot of news. The General Assembly met and did not really do anything for the state budget. They did address some of the governor's amendments and sent those back or just tabled them in essence. The latest update that we have heard is you may have a state budget by early June, but from what we understand, there's still a big gap in the Senate and the House and the General Assembly as to merging those two together. So budget pressures, unfunded mandates. I will not spend a lot of time on these. These are similar items that you've seen prior month. The payroll, the paid family leave was signed by the governor. That will be enacted starting in 2028. That will be a new payroll tax on the employee and the employer. That will have to be accounted for from a county standpoint. We'll start budgeting for that. Minimum wage will increase January 1st next year to $13.75. It's scheduled to go up January 1st, 2028 to $15 an hour. That will drive inflationary costs. That will be a budget pressure for compression in our budget for our full-time employees. And then the collective bargaining is probably the largest. The General Assembly did not accept the governor's amendments, and so the governor has vetoed that bill for this year. And so that is a large cost, at least a cost avoidance for the moment for us in budgets. Several localities were projecting that could raise costs by up to 20% of their budgets for compensation. And then the state-funded bonus payments, I'll talk about those in a little bit, but those are a pressure that require local match for those. So school update, still I will not repeat what Ms. Shawver kind of updated, Dr. Sears. So we're still working on that. I do want to make a mention of the local transfer. So through April, it's at 92.4% of the budget, so we had a better month. but it was 86% in April of prior year. And so one of the items that we are anticipating, and Dr. Sears and the school staff, we're not sure or certain if the federal or state government are going to be withholding reimbursements until we get to July. Claim is transition, it's turnover, it's different processing deadlines. If that occurs and we do not receive those reimbursements in May and June, then the county, of course, will have to pick up the difference and float the cash again. And so just be aware of that. We'll continue to monitor as the school system gets more clarifying information and as we're able to work with them, we'll update you on projections. But it's trending that way again. So I will say the schools have made several spending reductions or anticipated ability to do so, so we're very appreciative of that. A couple of things I want to point out, and this kind of gets to, so I know there were some questions on this. So I heard Dr. Sears address, well, the school projections are better than ours. Well, then give us the document. I think we're kind of to that point of, we've asked for the document. If you have projections, then give us the document and the reason for the numbers. And so we don't know how else we can really address that. If there's a document that has better projections, we'd love to see it. Appreciate their expenditure comparison. The revenue, federal revenue, definitely we'd like to look at more consistent. You know, if there's revenue higher in June, I know Ms. Shawver, Mr. White, and myself have sat in several meetings trying to get projections. We like your data on why the revenue is going to be higher in June so we can project that. So I appreciate Dr. Sears' comments, but those comments and that data should have been given to us two months ago. And so I just don't have patience for that explanation. So I apologize, Madam Chair, members of the board, but those needed to be addressed. I think for the sake of the other items and the changes, we can certainly address separate federal funding. We talked a little bit about that in our last meeting. I do think that a PO system would be helpful for the county. It would be pricey, and so it's just not been able to be funded in normal course of business with other priorities. So we can certainly work with the school system and join in a future request for that. Encumbering salaries, I've never really heard of that on a government level, and salaries are the easiest thing to predict because you know how many staff you're supposed to have and you know what they're paid. And so you should be able to project that every month. And if you're tracking your turnover through position control, you should know when changes occur during the middle of the year. And so I just don't think that that is really as difficult as it's made out to be. We do that on the county side. I know they have a lot more employees, But a lot more of their employees are contract based and they know those settled numbers. It's not as much fluctuation as we have on the county side. So that, Madam Chair and members of the board, be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Mr. Tatum.

Brian, thank you for the report. And before you mention January, the minimum wage is going up, and then next year it's expected to go up to $15 an hour. Do you have a rough estimate on the increase that's going to cost the county when minimum wage goes up this coming January? And then could you give us maybe a rough estimate of what we're to expect next year?

Yeah. So we built in – it's negligible for this coming January because most of our part-time staff are already at that amount, that hourly amount or above, that $13.75. And so there was a slight amount included in the budget. I'd have to double-check the number to give you an accurate number, but that is in the proposed budget for the six months of the fiscal year that you have. I think for us the biggest increase is going to come in the 28 budget when we have to address the $15 an hour. And I know that would be a half year. But it's not really the minimum wage that is going to be the large increase. It's fixing the compression that results from that. And it's going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars to address that appropriately if we're going to do it probably like it should be done. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Any other questions from Mr. Carter?

comments okay Brian did you need to proceed to your next item okay I will yes ma'am so thank you so thank you madam chair so the county and school supplemental compensation and so we've mentioned this in the state budget it's been in updates for the bonuses and so that the state approved this as part of their caboose bill and it includes a county component and a school component so we're at this again if you remember this conversation from prior years really the same concept there is going to be a required local match and so I'll do the school system request first which is the bottom three bullets and so that the school system request is a one-time $1,500 flat rate request and is for the SOQ positions and so those positions are really your instructional your support staff and and so they have uh they have asked for the local match of 442 501 to be able to give just those soq bonuses is the way that the request is now if we want to do more beyond that there'll probably be a higher cost for additional staff but that is the request in the letter that we received at this point in time so i think the um that that's one thing they have flexibility unlike the county And they did this last year, which is take that $1,500 and spread that out across their other employees. So it may be in their mind that they will not receive $1,500 each. It may be they reduce it $750, but they're able to accomplish all their full-time employees. They have the flexibility to do that. the dollar amount as far as the commitment to ask from the county would not change. It would still be at $442,000. So right now that is their ask. The county bonuses are more complicated because it's not a flat rate, it's a percentage. So the state approved 2% one-time bonus for state supported local employees. And so that is your constitutional offices and their employees and the social services employees. and so historically the county has preferred to fund an all-or-nothing approach when we look at bonuses we we really don't feel like county employees should be left out and so it's really been we look to supplement if the board wants to move forward with that to to fund a bonus for all employees So the estimated 2% bonus for all full-time employees, which is the 2% amount plus the FICO that would be associated with that, that we're required, would be just under $535,000. The county does expect to receive $179,000 from the state. uh for for those various agencies we mentioned and so that still leaves a 355 000 request of the board from local funding in order to accomplish a two percent bonus for all employees this is a one-time bonus it is not a permanent or recurring adjustment to salaries we did not last year however we would If we're going to consider bonuses, we would consider doing a flat $250 bonus to regular part-time staff, not seasonal, not temporary, regular that work a consistent schedule month to month. That would roughly be $48,000. So the total would be just under $404,000 for the county to provide these. wanted to present this information to the board the original plan was that the bonuses were to be processed in june some of the language that we're seeing allows it going into fiscal year 2027 we would still be able to collect the reimbursement so july or august time frame depending on the um locality of requirements we're probably going to be required to certify when those bonuses were delivered in order to receive reimbursement we did that last year looks to be in the instructions again this year and so for that we wanted to present this to the board for comments or or additional analysis you would like to see this can be a future item for consideration or it can be staffed if the board's feeling is we do not consider this at this time, then, of course, we'll take it away. But I wanted the board to be aware of that, and it really is a decision at this point of do you want staff to proceed with scenarios on how to proceed with a one-time bonus.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. I'll open the floor for any comments or questions from supervisors. Mr. Meredith.

Only comment I will make is I'm all or nothing and I don't want to separate the school system from the county. I would like to hear a commitment from the school system saying they would give everybody a bonus, however that would look. And I think on the same side, on the county side, everybody's been working hard with fuel costs and everything. But I don't want us to, if we do it on our side and not the other side, I don't think it's fair. I think it should be for everybody. That's all I'm gonna say, it's just my comment.

okay thank you thank you mr meredith mr quinn yeah my comments very similar last year we were discriminatory so we funded the county and we did not fund the school and it felt like you're treating the school people as second class citizens and i realized the presentation they gave us was not compelling and so i understand but but i agree with mike completely that i i feel it's it's all or nothing from my perspective and and i think we should pay it for both thank you mr quinn mr carter

Where's the money going to come from, Brian?

So I think it really all depends on how much we have to cover the school system. I think right now we're looking to end the year on a sizable enough surplus to be able to pay for this. i would say looking at recurring revenue projections right now we feel comfortable with a sizable uh i say sizable couple million dollar year in surplus but that's dependent on how much we have to cover the school system last year we had a three million dollar surplus and it took it all so um i think for us that's that's going to be the The real kicker and we and that's why I mentioned we have time to solidify some of those numbers again We just don't want to proceed without but I feel pretty confident if we're talking between the two at roughly a million dollars between four hundred five hundred thousand each To do the match that we would have the ability to do that if we do the bonus and use that out of one-time reserves Or funding then that does impact what we may have in year-end surplus to put aside for capital or other needs So that that is a consideration Well for me speaking for myself, I want to wait and see what the school deficit is Before we move forward with doling out any more money.

We don't have Thank You, mr. Carter, mr. Tatum

Yes.

I agree with Mr. Meredith and Mr. Quinn that we need to do all or nothing. But I also agree with Mr. Carter. I'm not going to vote to fund these bonuses if it entails or requires any new money to come from the taxpayers. If we can do it with carry over, then that's what we need to be doing. But before we can dedicate our carryover, we need to be sure on this, make sure the school is whole by the end of the year and not leave ourselves short in case we have to cover a deficit there.

Mr Mitchell, Brian, last year there was a time and to Dan's point about the school, there was a time restraint that it had to be known. And then just to add to Dan's thing, we ended up giving that money later from the school's rollover. And I don't know what happened there. And we set it aside with the notation of bonuses or capital. It didn't go to bonuses. It went to cover the deficit, correct?

It basically went to cover the deficit. So we gave the school system an offer or the opportunity to tell us before the money was transferred, do you want it for bonuses or capital? And we never really received an answer, but ultimately it went to settle the deficit.

I remember that well. So to say that we didn't fund that, Dan, is not entirely true. But as for me, I'm a no for the whole thing. I think it's a million dollars we don't have. And to sit there and wait and say we have to wait to see how it comes in at year end, I don't believe that's going to be an option because I believe there's going to be a time restraint on it again. I don't think we're going to be able to wait and see how the year end numbers come before we make a decision on this because that's exactly what happened last time. Right? That's how the school deal got eschewed.

It was. I think last time was more restrictive.

Well, if I remember right, though, the schools had the option to take the money that the state was given and spread it out evenly across the whole deal, and the county did not have that option. That's correct. So we went back later to do the money at the schools and waiting for the year-end numbers, and we missed the deadline. So to say that we're going to wait on that I don't believe is an option for this, and so it's a no from me.

And it all goes back to the fact that when we give the schools this money, they're free to do what they want to with it. We really don't have any control over it, right?

Once the money is appropriated for them. So I think the control there would be they would have to provide proof that they had spent that money in accordance with the board's wishes before you appropriated the money would be the control, Mr. Carter.

But is there not still a certification to the state required as well?

There is. Well, I do not know on the school system. I think they would provide that certification. On the county side, there is a certification that would provide. There is some type of reporting that they're required to do. Okay.

Yes, ma'am. But, Brian, is it safe to say, to my point, that we wouldn't be able to have those year-end numbers before y'all have to make a call on this?

They would be projections.

They would be nothing but projections.

Yeah, we could delay. So the language that we have seen does extend it at least into July or August if you wanted to process that bonus. Then it doesn't have to be June. But we typically don't, the auditors are not here until October. And so it would still be a projection and not a final audited number at that point. so we I would say if we were going to do it in July or August and we wanted to do it would still be a Preliminary projected year a number that would not be fine So is my statement a fair one to make that we can't wait on final numbers, right? You would be making an assumption on projected numbers to approve. Yes. Yes, sir.

You are correct Brian how close to them these these numbers? If you got the numbers from the school that you've been asking for Could you narrow it down? I mean as far as projection that point

time for this yeah I mean I would think so I think really where we're at we just asked for clarification on we're probably 80 85 percent of the way there on our numbers we just asked for clarification on that other 15 percent and really that's you know here's our methodology we just need your subject matter expertise as the school system on what normally happens during this point in time of a fiscal year so we can project so

you know I think realistically if we had that data then we would feel better about our projection for the end of the year and Steve maybe that's something you can go back to Dr. Sears with and school board you know this is affecting y'all and this is affecting us we need numbers do you have any feedback Mr. Sandy

I mean, generally I agree. I think we need to wait at least another month to see where things are trending and how the revenues are coming on the school side and how the spending is going and have a better idea of what that final outcome for this year's budget is going to look like. So I think certainly waiting until next month and we can come back with further updates.

Okay. I just need to ensure that we have consensus of the board to defer this for another month. Is that okay on this end? This end? Okay. Nick, are you okay with that deferral? Don't grin at me like that. You'll stink. Okay. So, Mr. Carter, I think that is what the board desires to do, is to defer, and hopefully we'll have a better, more clear understanding of where we are. Thank you. Okay. Does that conclude your report, Mr. Carter?

Yes, ma'am. That does. Thank you.

Thank you, as always, for all of your hard work. We will move right now into our 26-27 budget adoption. Mr. Sandy.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple brief remarks. You know, I presented my budget a couple months ago. And since that time, of course, the board has approved the tax rate, which was the four cent real estate tax increase minus the meals tax increase. And so since that time, we had a couple of work sessions as a board and made some modifications to the budget as I as I presented it. And so I just wanted to summarize those changes and just to talk through that just briefly before this board took action on voting for the agenda or for the budget. What it really came down to in the budget discussions and the work sessions was the board did add $650,000 of additional capital funding for the fire apparatus replacement. So we've reflected that in the current proposed budget, as well as an additional $400,000 of additional capital funding for school bus replacement. And to kind of offset those increases, we did remove the funding for six paramedic firefighter positions that were included in my budget proposal. We also reduced the funding for the Western Virginia Regional Jail per diem operating costs by $100,000. we did reduce some part-time staffing from waste collection sites from we kind of dropped that from five sites to three and a half sites to reflect a $90,000 reduction and then we also reduced personnel reserves by another seventy five thousand And so those were the changes that were made in the budget to balance with those increases for the capital side. Also, what we have done with the proposed budget is transferring $12,600 back to the Hardy Volunteer Fire Department line item. And so that's no net increase, we're moving that back from the Smith Mountain Lake fireboats, back to the Hardy Volunteer Fire Department. And I will just point out that what we are anticipating is that the funding for those outside agencies that we currently have, that those will, going forward, those will be subject to an MOU. and also subject to a successful audit, an audit from their home county, making sure that all their finances are in order. And so the funding for those outside agencies would be predicated on those items being in place for the upcoming fiscal year. We also talked about a couple other items we did talk about. looking at restoring those public safety positions potentially mid-year, looking at how revenues are looking relative to Mountain Valley Pipeline and other revenue sources, as well as a FAP position, a FAP coordinator position that was discussed. And finally, we had similar discussions about some requested funding for the Friends of Ferrum Park taking a look at all those kind of midterm to see how the revenue projections are coming at that. So I think that kind of summarizes the changes that we talked about as a group and gets us to a balanced budget with those changes. And so Brian, I'll let Brian just jump in here and talk about the resolution and the approval. And just we are looking to approve the budget, but we will be coming back to you at a future meeting for the actual appropriation of those funds.

Thank you, Mr. Sandy. Mr. Carter.

Madam Chair and members of the board. As Mr. Sandy said, so those are the adjustments that we made from prior board comments and work sessions. And so what we're looking at, they are outlined in attachment seven in your board packet as well on some of those. The only thing that's not mentioned in there at this point is the hardy fire adjustment that Mr. Sandy just mentioned. And so that's a no net impact from one line item to another of that $12,600. What we would be looking at is the adoption of the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget with those amendments from the board. And then we would look for an appropriation likely in June. And so that appropriation is really the resolution that is the legal document that is the spending authority. So I think some of the comments from the board previously were to look at how we appropriate to the school system and how we manage that. And so that process and that appropriation resolution is where you would manage that. So the adoption of the budget is really just a plan. The budget adoption of a budget is not a legally enforceable document. The appropriation is. And so what we would be looking for the board's approval at this point is to adopt the budget with the planning document of the amounts we have in here, and then that appropriation resolution will come to you at your June meeting. So I won't rehash the changes that Mr. Sandy mentioned. That's mostly on the front page and the table talked about that. So I think the total budget after those changes, Again, incorporating the capital changes that we asked for with additional fire apparatus funding, additional school bus replacement funding. The total budget between the county and the school system requested to be adopted is $247,607,533. And so there is a separate vote for the capital improvement plan. And so what staff did, the five-year capital improvement plan, and remember, this is a planning document. This will change. The only thing you're appropriating that you'll do next month is really for next year. But the five-year CIP, and this does include the $40 million placeholder for CTE on the county side of the ledger. but that number is $108,377,550 for the county. the school capital is twelve million six hundred fifty six thousand one hundred sixty dollars what it does not include is the school cip numbers for those elementary school projects we talked about earlier we really want before we adopt or appropriate any money for that or do any planning we want a revised plan that reassesses those projects with updated estimates and they really need to address their energy efficiency because abm had those included The original CIP had none of that. So what's the plan and the phasing on all of that? And that, of course, will help staff from a borrowing standpoint, various options and how we plan for it. So we can work with the school system staff on maybe amending or providing us that data for a CIP, a more complete CIP in June. we could adopt you can revise and adopt a CIP or a document at any point in time so I think June may be the better to incorporate those projects in a CIP adoption so right now the only thing in that 12 million dollar number for the schools is our County transfer and then the additional funding for school buses So with that the Mr. Sandy talked about the additional changes. I won't talk about that We talked about a mid-year look for some of the items the six paramedic firefighter positions some of the other items FAP coordinator position I think it probably is prudent to wait until September to December time frame at least to see how revenue and how your end audit goes before we add to the budget on some of these things and but certainly really the board's discretion. But we crafted the budget and the dollar amounts that we have in here are anticipating that methodology, right? They're not included in the proposed budget at this point. They would be a mid-year look. They could be added at any point in the upcoming fiscal year. So, with that, the request is to adopt the 2027 budget in a total amount of $247,607,533 and the same $121,033,710 for the five-year CIP combined and county budget, so combined county and school budget. I'd be happy to answer any questions or clarify any of those comments for the board.

Mr. Carter, I have a couple questions, if I could. With regard to the board's, I think, consensus, if not unanimous support, to do incremental funding to the schools, I think we talked about quarterly. Will you and Mr. Sandy bring a more precise recommendation? Do we need to take a motion under consideration prior to the appropriation? to set forth what we want that process to look like?

I think where you would handle that, Madam Chair, is the appropriation resolution. And so what our plan is to do is to bring options to the board on whether that looks quarterly, whether that looks more periodic, and to put restrictions on that. But That would be the intent is your resolution and what you adopt by the appropriation in that June meeting will have those restrictions in there.

And just to clarify, because I've talked with you about this offline, Mr. Carter, because this includes CIP and it includes, you know, we're using one cent of a tax increase for school buses. And I'm not sure that that's being represented as a capital expenditure. My concern has been, once the appropriation trigger has occurred, the schools can do with their money what they wish. Now, am I under the right clarification that if we do incremental, say quarterly, allocations of the appropriation, that you are confident that we can manage that in a better way to ensure that the monies that the board is funding for school buses stays with school buses. I mean, that's a concern, because in Dr. Sears' email from Friday I earlier referred to, he still is saying that they intend on funding the $3.9 million comp study next year. I don't know out of what that remains to be seen. But my concern is to make sure that we are putting appropriate safeguards in place that we can and following statutory requirements, of course. And if you feel still that doing a quarterly allocation allows us to have a better, I don't want to use the word control, but oversight perhaps of the spending on those large dollar amounts for capital.

i do think capital can be separated so what i would say is you are required to fund of course appropriate the money for the i say required we would have to appropriate the money anticipated for the state and federal government now I would want to have a better understanding of how they arrived at those proposed budget numbers for next year before we fully appropriate those. But the other thing is we also required on a local level to appropriate the required local effort. And we get that report from the state. And so there probably is some combination. It may not be quarterly. It may be we appropriate this bare minimum. I'm going to say 80% of their budget because we're going to have to anyway. The state's going to mandate that we fund to a certain level. and then that other above that required local effort discretionary funding may be something that we can look at that would be more restrictive and appropriate as needed in a situation but that is more operating so capital is completely separate i think we can appropriate the board by adopting this budget only says this is the plan and so we can hold the appropriation on that in a resolution and not bring that to you next month and wait until the school system actually purchases those items and brings us back proof of purchase, ordered, transacted, paid for, however we want to set that restriction. And then once that has occurred, the board can go back and appropriate that money to them. So those are some restrictions that we can do to restrict the flow of their capital for the sake of making sure they're spent on school buses or other capital needs. That was the board's desire for the tax increase.

And just for me personally, I can't speak for my colleagues. I think we'll be looking for a firm recommendation from you when it comes time for the appropriation action to understand what the specific recommendation is for those trigger points. I'll open up the floor to my colleagues. Mr. Meredith.

Mr. Carter, just I want clarification on this. So the school budget last year, if memory serves right, was about 98.9, correct? And this year, the proposed budget is 103, some change? so that's an increase of 4.7 million correct system yes sir so i just want to go on record because they've been a lot of teachers and staff just talking about phase three so as we speak with the cuts and unfortunately they've made some cuts and adjustments But we're adding $4.7 million over the last year's budget, which should cover phase three. And I just want to go on record so the board, we are doing what we can to help out. And hopefully the school system will be able to make their adjustments to make that possible. So I just want to clarify and on record, that it is, in this budget, a $4.7 million increase, correct?

Yes, their budget is increasing. That's $3.1 million in additional local funding, and then that's roughly a million and a half or so of additional state funding because this is a re-benchmarking year, so there was some additional state funding that came.

Like I said, I just want us going on record what we're trying to do to help out, plus with the capital improvement buses.

Right, right. Thank you.

That's all. I just want to clarify it. Thank you.

And of that 3.1, Mr. Meredith, that Mr. Sandy had recommended, approximately $2.2 million of that would be to cover the LCI and the decline in ADM, which was, again, included in Mr. Sandy's recommendation for the school. So that's been in consideration of their funding allocation as well. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Okay. Just clarify. Anybody? Mr. Quinn?

Yeah. Mike, just for clarification, I don't think it's as clear as you're stating. The school asked for $8.9 million, and we're giving them $3 million. And you added in the state piece, which gets you up to $4.7. But it's not so clear that we've given them anywhere near enough money to do phase three when you consider they're asked for $8.9 million.

Well, I understand what you're saying. I look at budgets, and I have to do it myself, is if you ran a school system last year on this, and they're making tough cuts, I understand it. But we went above what they asked for that part too. So I think the 8.9 also included some capital improvement, which we're doing out of capital improvement. That was never adjusted. So I understand. And I think we're heading in the right direction. Please understand that. And we've committed to leaving Wade. And I think as board, I commend everybody up here for what we're doing. I think there's a happy medium that we can work together on both sides to see how we can make that possible. And I think that also needs to be clear, too. So I appreciate that, but we're getting there.

Thank you, gentlemen. Anybody else? Comments for Mr. Carter? Questions?

I'm good. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. OK, so Mr. Brian Carter, we've got lots of Mikes and Carters in the room. I think you've got your request is to defer the first piece we talked about, but then we need to vote on this budget. this juncture so when I ask if there are any questions or comments from you that is predicated on the thought that we're getting ready to look at a motion to adopt the 2627 budget and I want to make sure it's clear to supervisors that that's the juncture that we're setting at right now so is there anything further you would like to comment on or question

I'll offer a motion when you're ready, Madam Chair.

I am ready if you all don't have anything further. Okay, Mr. Mitchell, please.

I make a motion to adopt the FY2027 budget in the amount of $247,607,533 in the FY2027 through 2031 capital improvement plan totaling $121,033,710 as presented in this summary.

Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Mr. Meredith. And Madam Clerk, if you would be so kind to do a roll call, please.

Supervisor Jamison?

Yes.

Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter?

Yes.

Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. And Chair Smith?

Yes. Brian, I would like to thank you and your staff so very much. And Mr. Sandy, you and your leadership team for getting us to a balanced budget in an extremely complex financial environment that we're working in, various levels, local, state, and federal. So thank you very much. OK, supervisors, we are due to take a break. We're running about 10, 15 minutes behind. Do you want to forego the break, move right into the Water Authority, and then we'll move into closed session? Short break. You want a short break? Five minutes? So we'll reconvene at 5 PM. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you so much. OK, we will reconvene our meeting. The next item on our agenda is to hear from Mr. McEvoy with Western Virginia Water Authority in a very special moment that we would like to take care of first. Not that we don't love you, Mike. We have Miss Shirley Holland with us. And I would like, Shirley, for you to come forward with me down here. we want to acknowledge your 16 years of service on the water authority board of directors on behalf of franklin county and we have been so proud and honored to have you in that role on our behalf and you've done an extraordinary job oh thank you it's really been a great experience and such a good partnership so thank you Okay, on behalf of the Board of Supervisors, Ms. Holland, we'd like to present you with a resolution of appreciation. Whereas Ms. Shirley Holland served on the Western Virginia Water Authority Board as first Franklin County citizen representative from January 2010 to June 2026, and whereas Ms. Holland has greatly contributed to protecting and managing essential water resources through the delivery of quality water and wastewater services to Western Virginia Water Authority customers, and whereas during her four terms on the Western Virginia Water Authority Board, Ms. Holland has demonstrated stewardship, teamwork, accountability, integrity, respect, and service. and whereas the staff and the board of directors have benefited greatly from miss holland's insights and business experience as well as her positive outlook and whereas miss holland has been an advocate for strategic planning and infrastructure development in franklin county to aid in economic development be it therefore resolved that the franklin county board of supervisors hereby expresses its sincere and deep appreciation for miss shirley holland's years of dedicated service and contributions

Thank you.

And we'll let Mr. Cobb.

Come here, come here, come here, come here.

You gotta take a picture. You're front and center.

Well, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, first of all, for assigning me to this role.

Go to the microphone. Please.

for appointing me to this role. It's been a really great experience, mostly because of the collaboration and to be in a partnership that benefits the county, benefits the Water Authority, but most importantly, benefits the citizens of this community. It's very rewarding and not all partnerships are that way. So to me, this is one that you want to emulate and take forward in many other ways because there's so much more. that we can do in these types of things together than alone. So I just appreciate your vote of confidence and this ability to serve. And I wish you the best going forward. So thank you.

I think as well, our chair is coming back. I think I can say that they're big shoes to fill because I think you were the first and only citizen representative on the on the authority representing Franklin County. So we appreciate your years of service.

Mr. McEvoy, welcome.

Thank you.

That's a tough act to follow, right?

Yeah, it is.

But we welcome you, and we're so glad to have you with us.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity. And I just want to echo some of the language in the resolution you adopted. Ms. Holland's been a wonderful advocate for you all. And she is very good at selling ideas to other board members and getting consistency. So she's done a wonderful job of helping getting the board aligned to investments here in franklin county yes thank you thank you for those remarks so uh just a quick update i know you're you're a little pressed for time um the first slide here today is just a reminder of kind of where we have uh services in in the county um again we have a water main down the us 220 corridor uh from the rona county line all all the way down to the rocky mount uh town of rocky mount treatment plant uh there's actually an interconnection there so if the town had an emergency they could get water from us And that water is supplied by Spring Hollow. We also have the joint project we do with the Bedford Regional Water Authority. I think they actually just rebranded now their Bedford Water, I believe, on the Bedford side of Smith Mountain Lake, but we bring water across the lake that serves the West Lake area and Scruggs Road all the way out to Burnt Chimney. And then we manage 13 groundwater systems, and those also include Boone's Mill and Ferrum, in addition to some primarily neighborhood systems. You can see all the wastewater facilities there that we're also managing, and I'm going to talk a little bit about some of those facilities today. Quick update on the Ferrum water treatment plant. We've been doing some upgrades there, and we've been replacing some equipment. We're about 50% done. This is about a $400,000 project. A lot of the work we've been doing has just been kind of housekeeping and cosmetics. You can kind of see from the pictures here, we resurfaced the floor, we changed out some equipment, we did a lot of painting. The building needed a little work. We're changing out some valves, meters, and things like that. So kind of a refresh of that facility. And it's looking good out there. Bridgewater, this has been an ongoing, the chair knows this story, but we are getting very close. This is a private wastewater plant near the bridge. And we have got tentative approval from the State Corporation Commission to finally move forward with the transfer of this plant, something we've been working on for a number of years. All the parties involved, and it's a five-party contract, have all signed. the agreement. So we're just waiting for that final order from the State Corporation Commission to transfer the system over to the Water Authority and then do the closing on the land. So we're getting close. 220 and Summit View Business Park improvements. This is also a multi-year project and I think if when I've been in past years I've talked about how we've kind of phased this project over time to provide sewer capacity to the Summit View Business Park and portions of the 220 corridor. You know when we first started working with y'all and some of you we were able to put in a couple lift stations and force main to the works wastewater treatment plant and that provided about 20,000 gallons a day of capacity just to get things started We then extended that force main over several projects down to the town of Rocky Mount into their Altus mill pump station and that got us up to about 110,000 gallons a day and We just completed a force main extension into the town to the gravity system, and that got us to 250. In addition, we did a study of the town's gravity sewer system with the town's permission. They were very cooperative. And we confirmed whether we thought we could probably go to 400,000 gallons a day. That was something we weren't sure about. And that had been our target goal. goal there was to get the industrial park up to 400,000 gallons a day of capacity. But we realized when we were doing that study that with some improvements to the town system, we could actually take that to 700,000 gallons per day, which is really the number that the state economic development people have kind of been saying you really need to get to to make the park attractive for new businesses. You can see a project estimate here of $11 million. That's really made up of two phases. The first is this grant that we already received from the state of $5.5 million. Your economic development team was able to get that from the state. And we've spent a good part of that completing that Forest Main. We have $2.1 million left over that we are working with the town to do those renovations. to increase that capacity to 700,000 gallons a day. And we have some improvements to do at a new lift station that we're gonna need to build. So the second half of that $11 million is we're working with your team, again, Ms. Poe, to ask the state for an additional 5.5 million to build one final lift station which will be able to take us and complete that project and take us to 700,000 gallons per day. I think the state has been really excited about the project. We're going to be competing for this grant, but we're optimistic that we'll be able to get it. So it's been a wonderful joint project between the authority, the county, and the town of Rocky Mount. They've been very, very helpful in this. And the idea, again, would be that eventually all the flow from the Summit View Business Park and the surrounding 220 corridor would be treated at the town of Rocky Mount's wastewater plant. Another project that we've been working on that was kind of delayed a little bit for some property acquisitions, and I should mention Scott Kroll is here today. He's one of our senior engineers. He is the project manager on a lot of these projects today. But this is a lift station on the north side of the Westlake area, north of 122. And it will open up essentially the north side of that road to sewer service. It'll be pumped to the Westlake treatment plant. We're about 90% complete on the design. We're gonna bid this summer. And you can see we have a project estimate of $1.2 million there, 1.25. So we're hoping to get that started this summer. We're also doing some upgrades to the Westlake Treatment Plant. This is a system, if you recall, we bought in 2008 from some developers. I think they built the plant in 2006. That plant is actually 20 years old at this point. So I'm feeling old that I can remember when we got that plant. And it's getting at the end of its useful life. So what we're going to do is essentially install a new 7,500... 75,000 gallon per day facility there. We're also going to increase the drain field capacity. This is the plant that treats wastewater and then discharges it into drain fields on the 57 acre parcel that's there. In addition, we're going to basically lay out everything so that we can put another 75,000 gallon per day train in next to it when we're ready for that next upgrade. And we may be able to use the existing 50,000 gallon per day plant, but likely it'll probably need to be demolished. We're also going to put in some storage and pretreatment facilities. So this project, we're under design right now. We expect it to bid next winter. And we have a price tag on that of about $7.8 million right now. And that's being fully funded by the authorities. South Lake, you know, we've done a number of things here to create a water system in the Union Hall area. The picture there of the tank, this is our tallest tank we have on our system and has that distinction. We have some customers now hooking up to the water system and it's been in operation for about a year now. Our next phases are to continue building out of the water mains along Route 40 there. So we're going to have a consultant look at that because that work along Route 40 is an estate road and requires a fair amount of coordination with VDOT. So we're going to have a consultant design that for us and probably bid that out. But Scott is working with our in-house construction crews to actually extend the water main down, also down Kempford Road. And our long-term goal would be to bring that water main down Kent Fork Road, down Dillard's Hill Road, Hiller's Road, to tie in to our existing system, our Dillard's Hill system, and interconnect all those and have a little bit more redundancy there, some resiliency for those two systems. So that's moving along. And you can kind of see here, here's some project estimates. We think that the in-house project we're doing is about $500,000, and the project along 220 is probably going to be, or sorry, State Road 40 is going to be about $1.2 million. We are kind of committed to putting about $500,000 a year for the next couple years toward extending these water mains. So we want to make that interconnection, have a more robust system. We've also looked at sewer in the Union Hall area. We did a study of the area and looked at some alternatives, where to maybe locate a wastewater treatment plant. That was actually done with a grant from Southeast Surcap. We don't have funding at this time for that project, but should a large customer, an anchor customer, something like a grocery store or something, come into that area, we're kind of ready to go with a sewer option for them. And then finally, we're working on a couple of acquisitions of community systems. We've been approached by four systems, and actually there's a fifth that just talked to us. I don't know if this is related to the ongoing drought or just homeowner systems that people maybe don't want to maintain them anymore. Pelican Point, actually that one's an issue where the current water provider is no longer going to supply water to the 12 homes that are in that neighborhood. And we fortunately have water next door in Contentment Island, so we're going to try to do an extension there and hook up those 12 customers. The Health Department is actually helping us with the funding on that. That's about a $50,000 project, and they're going to help us fund that. Idlewood Shores, this is one we've been talking to the Homeowners Association there for a probably almost a year now, that system is actually owned by a private individual who just has kind of basically stopped maintaining it. So there's about $400,000 worth of improvements that need to be done there. The homeowner association is looking to acquire that from the private owner and then transfer it to us. And we'll operate it in the meantime. Again, the health department's helping us with that cost to get that system up to snuff. The other two here are owned by the same individual. Tealbrook is off of Grassy Hill in Brick Church Road, kind of right there by the Summit View Business Park. And Woodcrest Drive is actually adjacent to the town of Boone's Mill. So we're looking to transition those. The homeowner would like to give those over to us. And here's a few pictures of those. So you can see the Pelican Point one. Again, it's about 12 homeowners in this subdivision that are going to need water. The Idlewood Drive, this is about 50 connections, 50 homes here. And then Tillbrook, I want to say this is close to 50 homes as well. This is actually going to be a fairly easy transition, just because we already have water on Brookchurch Road and Grassy Hill. So we'll just be able to hook them up. and then woodcrest drive this is a standalone system but it is adjacent to the town of boone's mill system that we operate and so we're trying to figure out maybe a way to interconnect those but we'll probably just take this one over and operate it as a standalone system until such time as we can make that connection there's some railroad tracks and things in the way And I know that was quick, Madam Chair, but I'm trying to get you back on schedule, so happy to answer any questions.

Mr. McAvoy, thank you so much. Excellent presentation, as always. I'll open up the floor for any questions or comments by supervisors. Mr. Carter.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mike. I just want to congratulate Shirley and thank you for all the hard work you've done for our county. Kind of an unsung hero, and I echo a lot of what Mr. Sandy said, but thank you again.

Anyone else? I'm working on that tenant for one of my colleagues down here down in South Lake. I'm working on it. I haven't even told him that yet.

Well, we appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah. We've got so many opportunities across our entire county.

Yeah, exactly.

You all have been tremendous, tremendous partners to the county. And, you know, with Ms. Holland's advocacy, we've really reaped the benefit, Shirley, of your advocacy without question. And we just appreciate, Mike, you lead us with a lot of foresight and vision, and you all enable us to get some things done, and we very much appreciate that.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, very good. Thank you. All right, the time has come for us to move into a closed session. Mr. Mitchell, if you would mind.

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, et cetera. 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 requiring the provision of legal advice such by such counsel, A-29, discussion of the terms of a public contract of the Code of Virginia as amended, and A-7, consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiator litigating posture of the public body.

Thank you. Is there a second? Is that Mr. Meredith?

Yeah, I'm sorry, second.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Madam Clerk, if you do a roll call, please. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. And Chair Smith? Yes. We are moving into closed session in B-75.

Ready?

Good evening, everyone. It's so nice to have you with us and we appreciate your time this evening. Mr. Mitchell, if you would certify our closed session, please.

I certify that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements on the Virginia Freedom of Information Act were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session to which the certification applies. And only such business matters as were identified in the motion by which this closed session was convened were heard discussed or considered in the meeting to which this certification applies.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Is that Mr. Meredith? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you.

Madam Clerk, if you would do a roll call, please. Supervisor Carter?

Yes.

Supervisor Tatum?

Yes.

Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. And Chair Smith? Yes. Yes, thank you.

Okay, we have a series of public hearings this evening. The first of which we will begin with will be the secondary six-year plan. Ms. Cooper? Mr. Sandy, did you have any opening remarks?

uh i know we've got mr casella um yeah brian brian and lisa i think they're gonna kind of tag team this this is our annual review of the six-year plan for the secondary roads and uh brian is gonna present kind of the funding scenario that we have for it um and then the the recommendation i think is that we have the ability to add a road kind of to the bottom of the list and so we can talk about that and then open up opportunity for public comment as well.

Thank you. Ms. Cooper, Mr. Costello. Good evening. We're holding y'all a long time today, aren't we?

Yeah, good evening. Good evening. Good to see you all again. All right, so yes, as Mr. Sandy said, we've got the secondary six-year plan public hearing here this evening. Got a little presentation. We'll talk about the funding. This is for the fiscal years 2027 through 2032. So, all right, Lisa, help me out.

And that's tab eight in your packet as well.

Yes, and you all should have a copy of the presentation within your path. So the secondary six year plan is updated annually based on funds allocated by the Commonwealth Transportation Board to the counties. The purpose of performing construction work on the secondary roadway system. And I highlight secondary, not primary routes like 220 or 116. This is limited to the secondary roads. The allocations are based on state revenue projections provided by the Department of Taxation. The draft Franklin County fiscal year 2027 through 2032 secondary six-year plan totals $2,188,410 allocated at the residency level, including seven rural rustic projects and two countywide cost centers. The countywide cost centers are utilized for various activities related to secondary construction, but not related to a specific project. With the exception of Clark Road, Route 755, all of the projects in the draft plan are fully funded within the six years. The fiscal year 2032 allocation of $127,552 in tele-fee funds and $253,346 in the district grant unpaved road funds are available for programming to a new project. And I'd like to just highlight that the district grant unpaid road funds that $253,000 that is reserved for roads that are with a traffic volume of 50 vehicles or greater. So if we have a road that's eligible, but it has, say, 20 or 30 vehicles per day, it would have to be funded through the telephone money. So this is just a slide that shows you some comparisons from years past and while not a lot it does show you that this year that the tele-fee money actually increased which I highlight that because that's a trend in the right direction as in years past as we've done these presentations the trend has been going down so I don't have an answer as to why but I'm just thankful that we get a little bit more money to fund in the projects.

Ryan, if I may interrupt you just briefly, would you explain for the public what tele-fee?

So the tele-fee is actually through just telephone lines. It's not through fiber or anything like that, but it's occupation and use of the right-of-way for telephone lines. And so we get... through the Department of Taxation reimbursement or some kind of fee that we get off of that. And that's what the tele-fee funds are. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So as you see there, there's an addition of $70,355. while not a lot still it's a great increase and I will say that for fiscal year 27 that's money that is truly allocated the 28 through 32 those are projections so they're subject to change as the years go on so hopefully that trend will continue upward so uh fast forward we have construction beginning on these uh two routes route 657 red valley road and route 635 novella and we're in the process of working on route 744 webster corner getting the design documents environmental and drainage in fact we have a walkthrough on friday for that project um Preliminary activities for the remaining projects will typically commence about 18 months in advance before they are fully funded. And with the unprogrammed allocations in fiscal year 2032, we're able to add an unpaved road for rural rustic project to this year. This is really just a heat map of the state that shows you gravel or unimproved state roads. So you can see the purple are the unimproved roads. And then this is just a focus and you see we for the Franklin County don't have that many, but it's still around 90 miles of unpaved roads. So it's substantial. But in the heat of things, you know, you see this in comparison. So with that, I'll pause. If there's any questions, I do have in your packet, you should have a summary, a narrative of the roads and the projects that we have, a little color coding to show you what's in construction, what's in engineering, and then the ones that are next in line, so to speak. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you. Supervisors, do you have any questions, concerns for Mr. Accella with regard to the secondary plan that he's just presented? OK. Do we want to go ahead and take action on the addition, or do you want to talk more about the additional road? I mean, I know we've got to do the public hearing. In what order do you wish to pursue these things?

If you want staff to explain why we came up with the road that we did, between the two of us, we can.

Yeah, let's just, if we could get all of the public information out, part of the public hearing, that way folks that want to speak may have more information given to them.

Yeah. If you remember when Brian and I did the presentation to you in your afternoon session, We mentioned three roads, Mountaineer Road, Beach Mountain Road, and Henbrook Road. One reason why Franklin County staff or your planning department staff and VDOT staff decided that Mountaineer might be the best road to add out of those three. Now, there are other roads in your districts if you want to talk about them, and we can probably give you a rough estimate of funding We have been talking to a gentleman that has lived on the road. He's been pushing for this road probably for about 20 years. I met him a year and a half ago. I don't think it was two years ago. He didn't realize that he could have been talking to the planning department here with Franklin County to help it get onto the road sooner. It's a road that VDOT has to go in and repair continuously after rains. So they're headquarters it's one of their top priorities that they would like to see taken into the secondary six-year plan so that's that's why you have both of us teaming up with it i usually talk to the citizens not that brian does not and his staff and then his staff is the one that has to do the maintenance on these roads and um so we listen to them too so that's our choice obviously it's up to the seven of you which one you choose but that's the one that we have chosen

Okay, very good. Any questions on the proposed addition of this road? Mr. Jamison?

I think it's a good choice. Those people, I've talked to them. It needs work done, and they've been waiting a long time. I think it'd be a good thing. Thank you.

Any others?

I'm sorry, I'm chair. Sorry. Yeah, I agree with Supervisor Jameson over there. He the citizens have been waiting a long time. They've done a lot of work. So I think it would benefit them. And I think it's positive. Plus, it's the cheapest of the three. So we're saving money.

Thank you.

I would just note that it is the proposal is to add it to the bottom of the list. So it it would still be a number of years before the activity occurred. But I just want to make that clear that it is a six year plan and this would be added to the to the end of the list.

Okay, so at this juncture, what I'd like to do, if it's within your purview of the evening, is to go ahead and open the public hearing. Yes, ma'am.

That would be great.

Okay, all right. So I will formally open the public hearing for feedback on the secondary six-year plan as presented. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up?

Larry Noose.

Larry Noose.

hello sir if you'd state your name and address please for the record and speak into the microphone if you don't mind name is larry noose n-e-u-h-s 1099 crowell gap road boones mill 24065 and that's the other side of route 657. okay so um That's who I am. I'm here to represent the people in our community. And I guess the other reason I'm here is I've been trying to get the speed limit reduced on that road for quite some time. And we have had some positive support from the county. And at this time, I'd like to thank Steve Sandy for his input along the way. But it just seems like we keep running into the same thing. It's a gravel portion of road. And the state is standing firm right now, unless we can change our mind, that we don't post gravel roads. To me, they're putting a higher priority on not putting up posted signs over human safety. Our road, I don't know if you all know, until 2013, the new legislation was put into the state legislature. The speed limit on our road, and that's all gravel roads, was 55 miles an hour. VDOT was comfortable with that because it was applied across the state. And it took Ralph, Senator Ralph Smith, legislation and it changed in 2014 to 35 miles an hour. And now it's almost like, by gosh, that's the gospel. There are no exceptions to that. And I'm saying our road is an exception. And if any of y'all have never been on Corral Gap Road, I more than welcome you to come out. I'll drive you myself. Now, it looks a lot better now than it did when we first bought our place in 69. That's the other side of the story. State has come in about four or five years ago, and they've intensified the amount of maintenance they do. It used to be we'd see a grader twice a year. I bet I've seen 20 times the graders come in there in the last six months. They spend a lot of money maintaining and they're fighting Mother Nature. I was more than once told it'd be cheaper to pave the road than it is to maintain. The cost would be a savings to the county and to the state. So far, nobody's picked up on it. I feel that here this evening, I'm reliving a story that started almost 20 years ago. I thought Brian was talking about me and Crowell Gap. Because I started this in 2009. And it just, we've been rounding and rounding around and then with the new improvements, we've already got one speedway in the county. We don't need another one. And the problem is, to complicate things is, law enforcement will not have told me twice that they will not, now this is state troopers, will not come in there and do a speed attempt to catch anybody because if they catch somebody, the judge is gonna throw it out because it's not posted. So here we're trying to live out there And there was one fatality years ago on top of the mountain. Our mailman, in the last year I think it was, he was hit in a head-on collision. So it's a dangerous road. We asked for a study on the whole road in 2013, but I just got a report that VDOT declined to do a study on the gravel portion.

the travel portion the first of this year. That wasn't good. It was declined. It needed to be. They were doing everything. They all want to be naked and nasty. But the facts are, we've got people in those positions. It's more important to maintain the 35 miles an hour, uncoasted, so people do not know what the speed limit is. And they drive and put everything they feel comfortable with. But it's complicated. But there are new homes in here. They did not.

Sir, your time is up your three minutes. It's hard to convince. I know. And I appreciate all of your thoughts that you're sharing with us. And it's very important that you share those with us and VDOT's in the audience, obviously. So thank you.

I would like to leave by asking the board to consider adding the ground debt, at least the paid portion, and where it stops in the payment of the payment, the ground portion, and then the payment to the least amount. We have to talk about it. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you being here this evening. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please.

I think we're all due a refund. These roads are in terrible condition.

They're sliding down all the paths.

They're sliding down Five Mile Mountain. Fair Mountain Road is a mess. Is anybody watching what they're doing? End of story. Need some supervisors checking this stuff out. The roads are in terrible conditions.

Thank you. Dawn King-Greer? Dawn King-Greer?

Hello, Ms. Greer. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

John King Greer Ferrum. I want to talk to you guys tonight. I've given everybody a handout and an email. We want to talk about some of the precautions and the things that we can do for our county for all of the taxes and problems that we have going on. We need to start looking at some of the matches of the state's highest regulatory requirements.

Ms. Greer, can I interrupt you for just a moment?

Yeah, I don't feel like... And I apologize.

I apologize in advance. I want to make sure that your comments are on the topic of this public hearing on the secondary six-year road plan.

Yeah, mine is not for secondary roads directly. Mine is more in regards of the housing and the other...

Yeah, that's not going to fall under the purview. That would be more of a public comment, not under a specific.

Okay, so can you move my time to the public comment? Pardon me? Can you move my time to the public comment?

Yeah, we'll make sure. Samantha, if you'll make sure she's acknowledged under public comment. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. All right, thank you so much.

There's no one else signed up for this public hearing.

Okay, very good. Okay, thank you all for your comments this evening. Are there any further comments or questions from supervisors? Mr. Meredith?

Madam Chair, I just want to piggyback about Kroll's gap, and Brian, you might help me a fist a little bit. I know the little area he's talking about. I go across there quite often. It's a shortcut. And I think tar and gravel probably would make people speed up more. So my question is, Is this something you can look into about the two signs? Now, I understand a drive truck, I understand speed limits on paved roads, 55, 35, unless otherwise posted. And I guess the confusing part is when you come off Boones Mill Road on the paved part, I'm going to call it tar and gravel, the speed limit's 25. Then when you hit the gravel, it's, you know, and I'm just wondering, putting two signs up, one at the base and one over here, probably a lot cheaper, them tire and gravel and the whole road? Because I just think people would speed up. I just, whatever we would need, anything I can do to help, or whatever obstacles we run into, is that something you could look into and just see what we can do?

You're exactly right. So what we have done here of recent is we've installed some signs on US 220 advising that Route 657 is not a recommended through route. We've also installed that on Boone's Mill Road. And then we've also put some signs, I think even as of today, a new sign right as you turn on to Crowell Gap that says not recommended to use alternate routes, not recommended to through road. So it's on the Boonesville side as well as the Roanoke County side at Bandy Road. Crowell Gap is a through restricted route, meaning for trucks, it's not, it's, So if you go from Boones Mill Road to Bandy Road, that is a through restrictive route, meaning if a truck were to go through there, they could be ticketed as a violation. So we've added additional signs. You're correct in that the paved portion on the Franklin County side is posted at 25 miles per hour. At the end of the paved portion, surface treated portion, It says end 25. Now what that becomes is a statutory 35 mile per hour speed limit, maximum safe speed. And that's in state code that all gravel roads are statutory 35 miles per hour, maximum safe speed. The reason we don't post gravel roads is because they're subject to weather conditions. In fact, we have on Crowell Gap that we do not maintain that during winter operations because It's mountainous, and it's narrow, and it's windy, and we don't want to encourage the public to take through that road. But again, it's 35 miles per hour, maximum safe speed. That means there's places I probably would do 5 or 10 miles per hour. And so we can't really post it at a certain speed limit that might be suitable for all conditions.

that's the reason we do not post gravel roads so hope that that's a little bit of insight well I like I said I know people's using GPS people ignore those signs and I appreciate those are big signs y'all put up there but that's just I'll talk to you later if there's something we can do I just don't understand just putting two signs up you're right you do put the sign that this ends here even if we took out sign down would people recognize that and if we had one there. I'll talk to you later, but it just seems like I understand all these legalities, but we're changing speeds everywhere to meet the conditions and the families and those situations there. And like I said, I know a U.S. bail person got hit head on there because somebody came flying around with his cars. And you're right. I mean, if you know the roads, you know the war to watch out. But it's just people who don't. It's causing the danger. So I appreciate your time, but I'll reach out and we'll. Yes, sir. Whatever I can do to help, I want to do. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, hearing none, I will entertain a motion. You have a motion articulated in your book that would recommend the adoption of the 2027-2032 Secondary Six-Year Plan, adding a priority number eight to add Mountaineer Road. So I would open the floor for a motion if it's at your desire.

I'm getting over here to it. I'll make a motion to add Mountaineer Lane.

Are you within approval of the secondary plan as well? Yes.

I'm sorry, I'll get back over until I got off track.

Just to clarify, Mr. Sandy, we are adopting the plan within the same motion? That's the way it looks to me. That's correct. And adding number eight, which would be Mountaineering. You're good, Mr. Meredith. Thank you.

I make a motion to adopt a resolution, the SSYP Secondary Six-Year Plan for Fiscal Year 2027 to 2032, as recommended by staff.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.

I guess we need to do a roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk. Supervisor Meredith?

Yes.

Supervisor Quinn?

Yes.

Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. And Chair Smith?

Yes. Ms. Cooper and Mr. Cassell, thank you all so much for helping walk us through that. We appreciate that. OK, we're going to move on to the next public hearing we have scheduled. We have applicants and owners Marina and Rob Levin for a union hall request for short term rental. Miss Cooper.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you for having me back up here again for this public hearing. It is a special use permit. It's on approximately 2.27 acres zoned A1. We're here to talk about a short-term rental on this property. This is the only dwelling located on the parcel where the short-term rental will be taking place. The property is located on a secondary state maintained road, which is Webster Road, Route 655. It does have a circular driveway that would provide ample parking for the short-term rental. The water is supplied by a private well. The sewer is supplied by the septic system, and the applicant's owner has had the septic system pumped out on February 12th, 2026. Your closest residence to this house is about 105 feet, and it is According to the records, the dwelling is one story. It was constructed in 1988 and consists of two bedrooms, two full baths, and a half bath, and approximately 1,400 square feet. The septic system that was issued in 1988 happened to be issued for a three bedroom. The homeowners at the time decided just to do a two bedroom. The septic tank is located behind the home and the drain field is located to the west of the driveway. This short term rental could only be rented for a maximum of four adults. Mrs. Levin has already obtained a property manager for this property, and we have her information that we will be sending out to adjoining property owners. Staff received one phone call inquiring about the application prior to the public hearing. There was no one to speak at the public hearing. We'd like to give you a vicinity map of where it's located. We also like to give you an aerial that is in the blue. And we also like to give you your zoning map. And as I stated before, it's A1 agricultural. We also like to give you the comprehensive plan map, which it is low density residential with a lake influence area. We also request a conceptual plan for the short-term rental. You'll see in the green is parking for the short-term rental and the red is where the drain field is located. Analysis of this, this proposed short-term rental, like we said, is 2.27 acres. The closest family is 105 feet away. Next to the property is single family dwellings, vacant lots and some farmland across the road. The surrounding properties have a variety of lot sizes with several of the properties being larger in size. The property, as I stated before, does have a circular driveway. You can tell that there is definitely ample parking for four adults. The traffic that would be generated for this short-term rental would be similar to a single-family dwelling, and we also feel like the noise of the rental would be normal to what you would expect in a residential area. Your comprehensive plan, like I stated before, was low-density residential. lake influence area. As you know, low density residential represents a suburban patterns of development and housing consisting of single family dwellings on a variety of lot size. We know that the increase in tourism here in our county and around the lake, there will be need for accommodation for guests in the county. And we do see that an increase in STRs could be in the future in this land use designation.

Your Planning Commission held their public hearing.

They concluded that there would be minimal impacts to the surrounding area, that the character of the A1 zoning district would not be changed, and that the STR would be in harmony with the purpose and intent of this chapter and with the uses permitted in the A1 district. Planning Commission recommended approval of the special use permit with six conditions. The first is the conceptual plan. basically that this is the only dwelling that the short-term rental can take place if another one would be constructed on the property it would have to go back through the process as usual supplementary regulations section 25 138 and section 5.572 of the county code has to be met at all times the owner would have to have a proof of a million dollar liability the owner must register the short-term rental to be in compliance it has to be inspected has to take place before and everything in the county code met before it can be rented. The owner shall supply the name and phone number of the property manager which they have. We will notify joining property owners. Condition six was tweaked a little bit from the planning commission to read better by the county attorney. The owner shall comply with applicable building and Virginia Department of Health regulations At the time of application and approval, the short-term rental has two bedrooms and its occupancy is limited to two bedrooms. If the owner wishes to increase this occupancy limit to three bedrooms, since the septic is for a third bedroom in the future, the owner will need to obtain an alterations permit from the building department for the third bedroom and be issued a certificate of completion. after inspection prior to approval of the short-term rental restoration. I would be glad to answer any questions, and I'm not sure if Mr. or Mrs. Levin is here this evening, but I would be glad to answer any questions.

Are there any questions for Ms. Cooper? Are Mr. and Ms. Levin here with us this evening? OK. I was just going to offer them the opportunity to chat with us. But that's great. Thank you, Ms. Cooper. We appreciate it. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up? No one signed up. OK. Thank you. OK. So I will close the public hearing. If there are no other comments or questions from the supervisors, I will entertain a motion on this. I'm sorry.

chairman Smith if I could relay something to you mr. mrs. Levin we have been trying to get in touch with them they have not paid their fees for advertisement so if the board is inclined to approve this STR if there could be a condition put on that before it can be rented or Some type of condition before it could be rented these fees would have to be paid Should we defer it or you could table it until next month and maybe we would have a Way to get in touch with them. We've tried mail email and phone and haven't been Able to get in touch with them. They do not live in the area and which could be some of the problems. So we're a little concerned because we've had trouble getting in touch with them.

Okay, so.

Do you want to do the delay action?

Yes, please. If that's at the discretion of the board, we can table this, but I'll need a motion to do so. Thank you, Ms. Cooper.

So I find that the required information for the submitted petition is incomplete. Therefore, I move to delay action until all necessary materials are submitted to the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Madam Clerk? Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. And Chair Smith?

Yes, thank you. Okay, very good. That was a good decision. Okay, the next public hearing that we have is a special use permit. from a Mr. Jeffrey Smith in the Union Hall District asking for short-term rental dwelling. Ms. Cooper.

Yes, thank you again. As you said, this is a request for a short-term rental, another A1 property. This one is in the Union Hall District. This is the only dwelling on the property where the short-term rental will take place. It is also located on a state-maintained road, Jacks Mountain Road, Route 673. It does have a long driveway with a turnaround that would provide ample parking for this short-term rental. The water is supplied by a well. The sewer is supplied by a septic system, and the owner has had the septic system pumped out on March 17th of 2026. The closest residence to this short-term rental is approximately 575 feet. According to records, this dwelling is a one-story single-family dwelling constructed in 1980, consists of two bedrooms, two full baths, a total living area of 1,466 square feet. The septic permit was issued by the Virginia Department of Health in 1959 for a two bedroom. The drain fields, the septic tank and the drain field are located on the side of the home to the southeast of the home. The septic system, as I stated before, has been pumped recently and the short-term rental is for a maximum of four adults. Mr. Smith will serve as the property manager for his short-term rental. Staff received one call before the public hearing of the Planning Commission, and at the Planning Commission that evening, two citizens spoke in favor of the request. We'd like to give you a vicinity map to show you where it's located. We also like to give you an aerial to show you the property. We also like to give you the zoning map to show that it's zoned A1 and surrounded by A1 property. We also like to give you the future land use map. This one happens to be rural area county. We also like to give you a conceptual plan from the applicant showing you where the driveway is parking and where the drain fields and tanks are located. This proposed short term rental, like I probably said, was on 2.65 acres. I know I stated that the closest resident was 575 feet. Surrounding this subject property, you do have a few single family dwellings, vacant lots and farmland. The surrounding property also has variety lot sizes, with several properties being larger than this one. The property does have that long driveway with the turnaround. that leads to the dwelling, which we do believe that there would be ample parking. This one also, we don't think it would generate any more traffic than a normal single family home. With the proposed STR being over 500 feet from the closest house, we really do not think that there would be noise or disturbing anyone. The comprehensive plan as I stated is rural area County This part represents patterns rural patterns of development. You're going to find a lot of farmland housing consisting of single family dwellings on a variety of lot size. This proposed STR would have minimum impact on the surrounding area. The Planning Commission did conclude there would be minimal impacts to the area and the character of the A1 zoning district would not change and the STR would be in harmony with the purpose and intent of this chapter and with the uses permitted in the A1 district. Your Planning Commission, as I stated, did hold their public hearing. They do have six conditions. The first one is that this is the only dwelling that will be used for the STR. If another dwelling is constructed on the property, they would have to come back through the process. They will have to meet all the supplementary regulations in the Franklin County Code. They will also have to apply would have to show proof of the liability insurance of a million dollars. The owner would have to register the short term rental, have an inspector be in compliance with all the regulations before the short term rental takes place. The planning department will supply adjoining property owners with the name and phone number of the person that's managing the property. And if the applicant or owner wants to revise the short term rental to be a three bedroom, any other bedroom size they would need to complete what we call a SAP which is a safe adequate and proper form would have to be submitted to the Virginia Department of Health to obtain an approved septic permit for like a three bedroom or if they wanted more bedrooms I would be glad to answer any questions and I do think mr. Smith is here this evening to give you a brief presentation

Lisa, can I ask you a quick question, please? With regard to condition number five, have they submitted the name of the property manager or contact person?

Yes, the person, Mr. Smith, is going to manage his own property.

I think you said that.

Sometimes they do that instead of getting a property manager. I just wanted to make sure it was one and the same. Yes, it is.

Are there any questions for Ms. Cooper? Okay, so if we have Mr. Smith with us, we'd love to hear from him. Should he like to address the board? Good evening, Mr. Smith.

Good afternoon. How are you all?

Thank you for being with us.

Thank you for having me. Of course. Ms. Cooper did a great job, but I'd be happy to answer anyone's questions.

Any questions for Mr. Smith? I would say in reviewing your application packet, it was very well done, sir. Thank you. We look at a lot of these. And it was very nice to go through it. It was well put together.

I do have one more about 15 minutes away. And my fiance manages Airbnbs for her job. I think she manages 16. So me and her together do it. This would be 17. Very well versed on the ins and outs and how to keep everybody happy, neighbors included.

OK. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. Any other questions?

No other questions, comments? OK. I think we're good.

Thank you.

Thank you. OK. I will open the public hearing. Madam Clark, do we have anyone signed up? Kathleen Scorshaw? Hello. Good evening. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please.

I'm Kathleen Scorsha. I live at 1901 Farm View Road, also in Glade Hill. I live about 10 miles from this property, and I'm here to speak in support of his petition. This is a brilliant idea, and honestly, I love my neighborhood. I love where I live. It's heartbreaking to see so many homes abandoned, just falling apart and falling down, when you can tell that they were once beautiful. and could be beautiful again if maintained or rebuilt. And I'm here to speak in support of his petition. Buy a couple more. Thank you.

Thank you very much. There's no one else signed up. Thank you. I will close the public hearing at this juncture. Are there any questions, comments, again, from supervisors on this application? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion. I find that the use will not be of substantial detriment to adjacent properties, that the character of the zoning district will not be changed thereby, and that such use will be in harmony and with the uses permitted by right in the zoning district and with the public health safety and general welfare to the community. Therefore, I move to recommend approval of the applicant's request for a special use permit to allow for short-term tourist rental of dwelling on property with the six conditions as recommended by the Planning Commission.

Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Tatum. Madam Clark? Supervisor Jamison? Yes. Supervisor Mitchell? Yes. Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. And Chair Smith? Yes.

All right. Thank you, gentlemen, for that. The next public hearing that we have is for Route 1105, Highland Lake Partial Abandonment. Ms. Cooper?

You're very popular this evening. This is the last public hearing that I have this evening. If you will remember, I was before you last month about this abandonment of this unimproved service road. Basically, staff was requested to go back and re-advertise and do it for the whole 50-foot right of way, which would be approximately 0.495 acres. Remember, we also talked about that there would be an easement in place so that you could get to the drain fields on lot nine. County staff has been working with the Webbers for a very long time. So in April, we talked about limiting to just half of it. And like I said before, you, the board, asked me to go back, do another public hearing. to get the whole unimproved surface area, the whole 50 foot right of way to be able to be given to the Webbers and then they would have to put an easement on the property by deed so that we would be able to access the property if there was anything that happened to the drain fields. As I stated before, I think this was a good option for the board to take. I did want to let you know that yesterday I did receive a phone call from one of the neighbors. It wasn't one of them that backs up to the service road or connected to the service road. I thought they might send me an email, but they did discuss. They did have some concerns about having access. There is a road, and I will show you on the map, There is a gravel, kind of a gravel road that goes down to here. But once you get to this area, you can get to this property. But if they ever have to work on the drain field, they would have the easement. and I explained this to the property owner, and they could be here to speak tonight, I'm not sure, and that something would have to be improved, but there would be an easement that you could get to the drain fields on Lot 9, or you may be able to get to them from Highland Lake. But I did want to mention that, that I did, from the last public hearing to this one, I had talked to one of the neighbors in Highland Lake. So this is the plat that would be recorded. So I wanted to make sure that you had this again so that you saw what you would be voting on to abandon. And then there would be an easement to come off the service road to access lot nine by deed. This is an old survey map that shows us the drain fields that are on lot nine that we're assuming that are on lot nine. So staff would like the Board of Supervisors to abandon the whole 50-foot right-of-way of this unimproved service road, which is .495 acres, and to require an easement to be in place to access the drain fields on Lot 9, which is 214 Highland Lake Road. If you remember, Mr. Thomas was in support of he's the one that owns Mr. Mrs. Thomas owned the Highland Lake Road where the drain fields are and that they were in support of the Webbers. And I would be glad to answer any questions. And I think the Webbers are also here.

Okay. All right. Any questions for Miss Cooper? Mr. Miss Webber, if you're here, if you would like to address the board, you're more than welcome to do so. Good evening, sir. Good evening. How are you? I'm very well. Thank you. If you'd state your formal name and address, please.

Dale William Weber, 6 Highland Lake Road, Union Hall, Virginia.

Thank you.

I really didn't have anything to say other than if you have some questions that I need to answer, I'm willing to do that.

Oh, thank you very much for being here. Any questions? Okay. I think you're good. You're good to go.

Well, it's been a long process, and thanks to Lisa, we finally have this accomplished, and thank all of you for your help, and appreciate it, and have a good evening.

Well, thank you so much. Okay, board, I will open the floor for any motion that you would like to make at this time.

I'll make a motion. Oh yeah, that's right.

I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead, aren't I?

I apologize. We need to open the public hearing. The only one I had signed up was Mr. Weber. OK. So I'm good. I'm good. OK.

Very good. And I will close the public hearing. Thank you. Now I will entertain a motion if you all would like to make one.

I'll make a motion to approve the abandonment of the 50 feet of unimproved service road, approximately 0.495 acres, provided an access easement of a minimum width of 15 feet is provided by deed to the drain fields on lot 9 at 214 Highland Lake Road, with the 0.495 acres becoming part of parcel 051

Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. Madam Clark, if you would do a roll call, please. Supervisor Mitchell?

Yes.

Supervisor Carter? Yes. Supervisor Meredith? Yes. Supervisor Quinn? Yes. Supervisor Tatum? Yes. Supervisor Jamison? Yes. And Chair Smith?

Yes, thank you. OK, very good. The next item on our agenda is to hear from Danny Poe, who is our economic development director for the county regarding disposal of property at the former module craft site. Miss Poe. You're good.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Tonight's public hearing concerns the potential sale or lease of county and property identified on the map shown as tax parcel 2040038400. This property is located off of Industrial Drive within the Town County Industrial Park. Franklin County purchased the former ModuCraft property from Champion Modular Homes in September of 2025, and this acquisition included two parcels. You'll see on the map parcel one and parcel two. One parcel is planned for renovation to support long term operational needs for various departments of the county and Franklin County Public Schools, CTE. The second parcel, which is subject of tonight's hearing, consists of approximately 20 acres. The property line will need to be adjusted. And this is to support the county and CTE needs. But this property represents an economic development asset for us. The site is strategically located within the industrial park and is end m1 So tonight's public hearing is held in accordance with Virginia law to receive public input regarding the potential future sale or lease of the property And at this point not answer any questions you have.

Thank you. Any are any of your questions? Miss Pell comments Okay. Thank you, Danny. Thank you. I will open up the public hearing. Do we have anyone signed up? There's no one signed up. Thank you. I will therefore close the public hearing and I will open the floor to a motion by my colleagues. Mr. Sandy, if you could give some guidance.

I was just going to clarify, there is no action necessary. Oh, okay. The holding of the public hearing is required by law before we can dispose of or lease the property.

Okay, I noticed the absence of that. I just wanted to make sure. Okay, very good. Okay, so we will dispose of that matter. Yeah, thank you, Danny. Okay, the next item's on our agenda. The next is the county administrator report. Mr. Sandy? Okay.

All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, just a couple of things I was going to point out for your benefit. On Friday, May 22nd at 11, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation is hosting an official opening of new public trails at the Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve. So the Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources and the DCR Director will be there on site. So I think we've forwarded that information to you guys, and if you're able to be there and want to be there, we welcome you to that event on this Friday. Let's see. I did just want to point out to the board that I did meet, Lisa Cooper and myself did meet with the current chair of the Planning Commission and another commission member on Friday to start discussing what the process looks like relative to uh the the zoning ordinance update so following last week's work session we've started those discussions and the planning commission will continue those discussions at their next meeting uh as well so i'll report back when we kind of have a little more direction uh after speaking with the planning commission on what some next steps might be And then also just an update relative to fire EMS study. We have talked about and formed a committee for that study and so that committee will be convening. I know Supervisor Meredith had asked about that earlier. That group will be convening to talk about the desired scope of work, putting that together, and then that will be the basis for what goes out for proposals. And so the committee is made up of board member Nick Mitchell, two volunteer representatives one from the volunteer rescue side and one from the volunteer fire side there's a representative from the dispatch office that would be part of that and then there'll be two of our career personnel and public safety also part of that committee so and as well as brandy rosser from our administration office will also be part of that so so that activity is continuing to move forward and again we'll report back to you when we kind of have some more information as we go through that process okay very good would you have anything else mr sandy that's it okay mr mitchell thank you for volunteering to serve

Always.

Always. And everybody else, of course, as well. Okay. Mr. Dadak, sitting in for Mr. Gwynn this evening, do you have anything on Jim's behalf?

I don't have any report. Just happy to be here.

Oh, that's so the right answer. Okay. Perfect. Okay. We will open. We're moving into the time for public comment. Bear with me just a moment. Public comment gives our 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 and insulting, defamatory, profane, or vulgar language directed at individual supervisors of the board 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 position of a topic shortening the time that each speaker has to speak and are waiving 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. So madam clerk do we have individuals signed up?

Yes the first is Galen Jackman and he's requesting five minutes to speak on behalf of the group.

Thank you.

Mr. Jackman, good evening.

We're happy to have you with us this evening. Thank you.

I'm Galen Jackman, 750 Summer Wind Drive, Union Hall, Virginia. I'm speaking to the board. Five minutes.

Do you have your group with you, Mr. Jackman? Okay. Thank you all very much.

I'm speaking to the board as a whole this evening on four points regarding comments made during the April 21st Board of Supervisors meeting. Number one, the county attorney's defense of a flawed process. The county attorney is not an independent legal authority. He is hired by the board and paid to defend this board's interests. What you heard at the public hearing on April 21st was a one-sided defense. of a legally flawed and constitutionally suspect process. The county attorney stated the board only employs two people, himself and the county administrator, and then outlined a framework for employee disciplinary proceedings, and then applied that framework to Supervisor Quinn, who is not an employee. He's an elected official. That is a bait and switch. It was used to justify closing the process to the public, protecting the majority's deliberations, and limiting Supervisor Quinn's ability to respond. The county attorney further argued that an employee disciplinary matters due process is very informal, that an employee has only the right to be notified of allegations and an opportunity to be heard, with roughly three days notice and no right to representation. Again, Supervisor Quinn is not an employee. None of that framework applies. The county attorney also waived the 14th Amendment. In his own formal letter to the Supervisor Quinn, he wrote, the board may punish or fine you. The moment that language appeared in writing, Supervisor Quinn's full due process rights attached. A fine is a deprivation of property. There is substantial case law on this point. What is most troubling is that the county attorney, by giving Supervisor Quinn only two business days to secure counsel, refusing to respond to his request for extension, and advising the board to deliberate in closed session, ensured he would be the only attorney in the room and that the public would not hear Supervisor Quinn's defense. Furthermore, he also provided advice to Supervisor Quinn directly. An attorney cannot simultaneously represent both parties in an adversarial proceedings. That's a conflict of interest. Because the county attorney's communications with his board is privileged, I'm asking you, the board, his client, to ask him on the record the following questions. Did you advise that an independent investigation was warranted given the clear conflicts of interest among board members? Was your advice when Supervisor Quinn requested additional time to prepare a defense? What was your advice on November 20th when a disciplinary discussion was held in closed session without being placed on the agenda? When Supervisor Quinn asked to defend himself publicly before the vote, what did you advise the board? Did you inform Supervisor Quinn that the state bar's rule of professional conduct prevented you from advising him on the process? Number two, the board's silence. The board knew that Supervisor Quinn formally asked for an extension to consult an attorney and formally requested the opportunity to defend himself publicly. The board did not respond. What was that? Was that due process? Is that how you treat a colleague? By ignoring his formal requests? What possible harm would it have caused to simply respond to him? Number three, a documented misstatement of fact. The chairperson has now stated publicly on three separate occasions that Supervisor Quinn was censored in December. He was censored in November. That is a matter of public record, repeating the faults Date creates the impression that Supervisor Quinn was given a month of due process when he was not. Voters recognize gaslighting. Four, character, moral courage, and trust. This board made serious errors in the censure of Supervisor Quinn. We are all human. Mistakes happen. But acknowledging them, owning them, and correcting the record requires character and moral courage. Not one of the five supervisors who voted to censor Supervisor Quinn has shown that character and courage. You have waited for this to fade. It will not fade. Concerned voters now see that this board is being in Nixon territory. And you might recall that it was not the Watergate break-in that destroyed the lives of so many officials. and their family names. It was their willful choice to participate in a cover-up. This county deserves leaders of character, moral courage, and trust. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Doctor. Marguerite Swan. Good evening. If you would state your name and address, please.

Marguerite Johnson Swan, 55 Chestnut Creek Drive, Hardy, Virginia.

Welcome.

Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening. We are not representing any organization. We are simply a concerned group of citizens of Franklin County. several community members made comments at the April meeting expressing opposition to data centers in Franklin County. At least one speaker mentioned the possibility of a moratorium on data centers to give the community adequate time to properly assess their potential impacts and determine if those impacts are acceptable. In support of that sentiment, we want to talk about the negative impacts that existing data centers have had on surrounding communities stemming from excessive use of both electricity and water. There are two large data center projects in nearby counties that seem to be going forward. The Berryhill Project in Danville to be built by Stack Infrastructure and the Google Data Center in Botetourt County. Administrators from those localities have made public claims meant to calm the fears of their residents on these issues. In this statement, we hope to illustrate reasons why those claims are not very reassuring. And we'll start by considering the impacts on electricity use. As explained in Chapter 3 of Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission Report 598, data centers are forecast to drive immense increase in energy demand in Virginia. And in fact, it seems that over the past decade, they already have. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that electricity usage over the past 10 years in the South Atlantic region, that would include Virginia, is rising most rapidly among customers in the commercial sector, which is the sector including data centers. And since places like Walmart and Bojangles don't seem to be using much more electricity than they did 10 years ago, one can infer that data centers are probably driving this increase in commercial electricity use. So the question is, Who will pay for the infrastructure to support this increased demand? So far, the answer has been residential customers like you and me. Despite the largest usage increase being in the commercial sector, the cost of electricity during the past decade has increased most for residential customers. Thank you.

Thank you. Tracy Klotz.

Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Tracy Klotz. My address is on file with the clerk. Thank you. Thank you. I'll pick up where she left off. Please. Thank you. In fact, EIA data shows that commercial customers are using 14% more electricity than they did in 2016. They are paying 16% more for it. On the other hand, residential customers are only paying 7% more electricity only using, sorry, 7% more electricity than they did in 2016 but are paying 26% more for it. Despite assurances given by builders of data centers when they are looking for site permits and tax breaks, recent history shows clearly that commercial customers like data centers are using more and more electricity and residential customers are the ones left paying for it. So how have decision makers in nearby localities tried to minimize these impacts? For starters, Matt Rowe, the Economic Development Director for Pennsylvania County, is quoted in an April 22nd Cardinal News article as saying, the proposed data center cannot impact the electric bills of surrounding residents since Berry Hill is part of the Appalachian Power Service territory, while the property around it is served by Danville Utilities. While this might placate property, Around it, it is served. Oh, I'm sorry. While this may placate placate voters in Danville, it is not very reassuring for us Appalachian Power customers. Unfortunately, for the Danville voters, the claim that they will be insulated from rate increases is likely false. According to their website, Danville Utilities only distributes electricity which they purchase from other providers. They do not generate it themselves. Thus, if the base electrical demand goes up in the region due to a new data center, coming online, more generation capacity will be needed to meet that demand. That will raise the price of electricity and that cost will be passed on to everyone, including customers of Danville utilities. Perhaps sensing the weakness of this first argument, Roe goes on to say that stack infrastructure is planning to enter a service agreement with Appalachian Power in which STAC will pay for any and all costs associated with providing power to the campus. He claims this means that there will be no impact on the rates for AEP customers either. However, he is only talking about a plan for an agreement that has not yet been reached. He cannot possibly know what will actually be in that agreement assuming one ever happens. Thank you.

Thank you. Thomas Young.

Good evening, sir. Hi. If you'd state your name and address, please.

OK. Thomas M. Young, 60 Belmont Drive, Rocky Mount.

Thank you.

Based on the sorts of agreements described in a JLARC report the other data centers have reached with utilities, Stacks claimed that they will pay for, quote, any and all costs associated with providing power to the campus, unquote. seems like it would be only about costs incurred in updating distribution infrastructure to the campus, things like transmission lines and substations. We sincerely doubt that they are offering to pay for the construction of additional generation capabilities on behalf of Appalachian Power. Thus, it seems inevitable that increases in base demand due to Berry Hill will cause increases in electricity rates that will be passed to all customers. The website set up by Botetourt County to answer questions about the Google Data Center project is also similarly coy. There it is stated that, quote, if upgrades are required specifically to serve the data center in Botetourt County, such as new substations, transmission lines, or distribution improvements, AEP will require Google to pay for the new infrastructure cost, end quote. However, notice that there is nothing said about generation capacity. As base load increases, more generation capacity will be needed to meet that demand and those costs will be passed on to everyone. If history is a guide, those costs will be disproportionately passed on to residential consumers. Now, let's turn to considering the impacts on water use. As explained in Chapter 5 of the JLARC report, the computer chips in the data centers need to stay relatively cool in order to operate, and they generate a lot of heat while operating. These two facts together mean that data centers need large cooling systems which require water to operate. However, the amount of water needed depends on a great deal on the type of cooling system employed. Evaporative cooling systems use a great deal of water and are particularly wasteful if the water being evaporated has been pre-treated to be safe for drinking. So why go to all of the expense of processing water at a water treatment facility just so a data center can evaporate it to cool off its units? On the other hand, evaporative cooling systems aren't very energy intensive, so data centers with this sort of cooling don't use much more electricity than the huge amount needed to run the computers. Closed-loop systems, on the other hand, use much less water but require a sizable amount of additional electricity. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Daniel Bowman.

Good evening, sir. If you'd state your name and address, please.

Daniel Bowman, 120 Cromwell Drive, Rocky Mount.

Thank you. Thank you.

According to the Botetourt County website, the proposed Google data center is asking to use 2 million gallons of water a day at first, with an option of eventually requesting use of up to 8 million gallons of water a day. So this will presumably be evaporative cooling. This water will come from the Carvins Cove Water Treatment Facility, which currently has a capacity to treat 28 million gallons of water a day. So the Google data center is contracting to use at least 7% of current daily capacity from that treatment facility, with an option to use as much as 28.5% of capacity. In 2025, the annual production of Carvin's Cove facility was only 9.5 million gallons per day. So this treatment facility will need to run at least 20% higher throughput and maybe as much as 84% higher than it did in 2025, just so Google can evaporate between 2 and 8 million gallons of water. The Western Virginia Water Authority spent time, money and electricity to treat each day. Will the Western Virginia Water Authority eat the costs of renting the Carbons Cove facility closer to its capacity, or will they pass those costs on to its customers, some of whom live in Franklin County? People in Botetourt County are also justifiably concerned about the impacts this increased draw on the Carbons Cove reservoir might have on their wells. After all, 2 million gallons per day is 730 million gallons a year, which is 11% of the total possible, i.e., full pond capacity of Carvins Cove. The Botetourt County website makes the incredible claim that there is no connection between Carvins Cove and Botetourt County wells. Their evidence for this is a poorly labeled cartoon graphic and a link to the US Geological Survey's website. Unfortunately, the link they provide does not support their case. In fact, any textbook on groundwater hydrology will tell you that groundwater and surface water are linked. There are even entire textbooks just about how closely they are linked. For example, one recent textbook by Wassner from 2020 is titled Groundwater Surface Water Exchange and contains the following two quotes in its introduction. Quote, groundwater and surface water resources are a fully connected resource responding to changes in hydrologic conditions. And the United States Geological Survey refers to surface water and groundwater as a single resource.

Thank you, sir. Angela Bowman. Good evening.

If you'd state your name and address, please. Angela Bowman, 120 Cromwell Drive, Rocky Mount. Thank you. The fact that groundwater and surface water features like Carvens Cove are very much connected in general. Dependent on many factors, water can both flow from surface water features like lakes and rivers into groundwater reservoirs, or it can flow from groundwater reservoirs into lakes and rivers. And as factors change, the direction of net flow can change. These factors are summarized in a quantity called hydraulic head. Water flows from regions of high hydraulic head to regions of low hydraulic head. If we were residents of Botetourt County or members of their Board of Supervisors, we would want more than cartoons and irrelevant links as evidence that a drop in the water level of Carvens Cove would not lower its hydraulic head sufficiently that it began sucking in groundwater from the surroundings. We have similar concerns about the Berry Hill site near Danville. In the above cited Cardinal News article, Matt Rowe tries to downplay water usage by saying, quote, the majority of facilities that are being implemented today are using closed loop systems, end quote. However, he is never quoted as saying that the facility that will be built on that site will in fact be a closed-loop system. As an obvious counterexample, the Google Data Center seems like it would count as one being implemented today, and yet it doesn't seem to be using a closed-loop system. He also claims, quote, there is no impact to groundwater on neighboring wells. It's coming from surface water, end quote. But we just saw that the fact that it's coming from surface water does not imply that there will be no impact on groundwater resources. Groundwater and surface water are connected in complicated ways. Sufficiently lowering the hydraulic head in the Dan River by pumping out large quantities of water could potentially cause groundwater to flow into it. That in turn could lower the surrounding water table, which would definitely impact nearby wells.

Sylvia Bowman? Thank you.

Hello, young lady. Hi. What is your name? Sylvia Bowman. Thank you. And you're with your mom here? Same address? Yeah. OK. Thank you, sweetheart.

In conclusion, it is well known that all data centers use a lot of electricity, and most of them use a lot of water. Furthermore, the only way for them to use less water is to use even more electricity. It seems clear that the electricity use of existing data centers has significantly raised the cost of electricity for residential customers. It also seems clear that despite the assurances of the companies building them and the local officials they have conned, building more data centers will inevitably further raise the cost of electricity. In addition, we simply do not know what impact the excessive water use of data centers might have on nearby surface and groundwater resources. Due to the complicated nature of surface and groundwater interactions, the impacts are likely to be different at each site and may take years to become apparent. One thing, however, is clear. The tendency of local officials to claim that there is no connection between groundwater and surface water resources does not give us confidence that due diligence was done in investigating potential impacts. Franklin County is a farming community. We have a wonderful farmers market that supplies us with local fruits, vegetables, and meat. Our farmers earn a living growing healthy food for us Franklin County residents to eat. Our water is valuable. We are not guaranteed rain when we want or need it. There is already a drought this growing season. Any short-term economic gains from allowing a data center into our beautiful county are not worth gambling our water supply. We support a moratorium on data centers in Franklin County to give the community adequate time to properly assess their potential impacts and determine if those impacts are acceptable.

And I have a copy. Am I allowed to give each of you a copy of this?

You can give it to our clerk. Thank you, young lady. We appreciate hearing from you this evening. Thank you. You did a great job. Penny Simmons. Good evening. Ms. Simmons, if you could state your name and address, please.

Penny Simmons. I'm at 750 Deepwoods Road in Hardy. This is a hard act to follow.

I was going to say, I don't envy you for that.

I just wanted to share with you all, I'm a fourth generation on our family property. We have farmland and we have investment property. We've been able to cut off land for our family and our children. under the current ordinance. Under the new ordinance would be very difficult. And I'm asking that you leave it with the original ordinance. It's doable. I want to know if any citizens asked for this to be changed. We I've asked around my neighborhood. Everybody seems happy with the original ordinance for the lot sizes. The sliding scale seems like another means to get to the same outcome. It decreases our property. And sorry, I'm not good at speaking. You're doing great. For the last 30 years, the old ordinance has worked. I feel like if the zoning office needs help, let's get them some so they are not pressured. Let's see. I would like to see that the public is invited and involved more like the town halls that you all did so you can actually get information from us i know i spoke with the hodges and they've been involved there's other people that probably have some input that would be very valuable to you in making this decision Let's see. I was thinking about the lake property. I never felt like there was a division. I think when you put restrictions on the farmland, it becomes, it's not a fair move across the board. It devalues our property. If you put restrictions on the lake lots and you said, okay, on one border of your property, it had to be a wildlife habitat area. I don't think the lake people would like that. We don't like having restrictions put on our farmland, if that makes sense. So I don't see it as an even course of action across the board. So what I'm saying is I wouldn't push to rezone your backyard, so don't rezone mine. I also feel like this needs to be a matter of public vote. I don't think the citizens have heard about this. They are not on the internet. The majority of our German Baptist people are not on the internet. So I don't know exactly what direction to get communication out to them so you can get input. Thank you.

Penny Hodges? Penny Hodges?

Good evening. Penny, state your name and address, please.

Did you hear me?

I think so.

Excuse me. Clerk has my address. Ooh, that's too high. So members of the Board of Supervisors, I want to open with a question. After hearing answers from the earlier meeting that don't always fully address the question being asked, How does it feel to sit on that side of that kind of communication? Because many of the citizens in this county feel that way when it comes to this board. And what we're seeing now is the same frustration reflected in the reverse, like when y'all got so aggravated at Dr. Sears. You know, you've been requesting information for two months. So that's how we feel, okay? So anyway, what stands out is not personalities. It is a pattern of communication. and I'm like Penny, I'm messing up here, where questions are asked, answers aren't given, but the, well, answers are given, but they're just political talk, and the information requested is not fully provided in a clear and complete way. This same, yeah, so people show up, we ask questions direct, request documents that are referenced in public discussion. And too often, far too often, documents are delayed, incomplete, or never fully made available in a usable way. In other words, the information requested is not being fully provided. At the same time, taxpayers do not have the option to opt out of funding these systems. That makes clear, complete communication not optional, it's essential. Because when the public is required to fund the decisions, but is not given the full information needed to understand them, trust breaks down. And you guys need to earn our trust. And that leads to the real questions many citizens are asking. Where does accountability begin? when information is repeatedly requested and not fully provided. This is not about individuals, it's about responsibility, bless you, process and follow through. So, At the end of the day, this only works when the public and their representatives are operating from the same complete information. And right now, too many people feel like this has not happened. In other words, we asked you to give us a reason to trust you. You guys need to earn our trust. Thank you.

Christine Sizemore.

Good evening. If you'd state your name and address, please. Christine Sizemore. I'm a Franklin County resident in the Boone District and live in Litton Hardy. Thank you. Over the past months, the zoning process has revealed something much larger than zoning. It has revealed why so many people no longer trust government. People lose trust when they stop seeing honest debate and start seeing meetings that feel managed instead of led. When every difficult question gets redirected into procedure, statutes, technicalities or carefully controlled messaging, people begin to feel the goal is no longer to solve problems openly, but to contain disagreement. And the truth is, the tone for that is set at the top. No one in this county wanted to become a zoning expert. People expected county leadership to explain clearly what was changing, why it was changing, what was legally required, and what alternatives actually existed. Instead, citizens ended up doing that work themselves. Residents spent months comparing ordinances, researching state code, tracing impacts, educating each other online, and explaining this rewrite to the public while the government that introduced it often failed to do so clearly itself. And at town halls, too often what people heard were excuses and deflections instead of thoughtful acknowledgement that maybe the public was raising legitimate concerns worth of a deeper reflection. Last week, for the first time in a long time, something changed. When the planning commission chair openly acknowledged that this process needed more work, more public understanding, and more discussion, the atmosphere in the room changed immediately. Supervisors who had seemed hesitant suddenly appeared more comfortable speaking openly and asking difficult questions. That moment said a lot. because it raised a difficult question. Why did it take that moment for supervisors to feel emboldened to speak freely? The Planning Commission showed leadership that week. They acted like a team. They showed they were willing to step back, rethink, and focus on finding a solution that is best for the county instead of simply deferring to a process already in motion. And I also wanted to acknowledge Supervisor Quinn. He came into his town hall with a very different perspective, but he listened, reflected, and changed his opinion afterwards. And that is what leadership looks like. The same cannot be said across the board. The chair continues to project control instead of openness, and the county administrator, too, often comes across as aloof and dismissive of legitimate public concern rather than engaged in solving the underlying problem. This is not what this country needs right now or never. The public is not asking for perfection. People are asking for honesty, courage, transparency, and leadership strong enough to admit when something needs to slow down, step back, and .

So I hope you will, going forward, we will have your support for more engaging and more transparent conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you. George Carnes and Mr. Carnes is requesting five minutes. I'm sorry? George Carnes, he's requesting five minutes. Sir, do you have a group with you? I do.

Just one person?

Well, it has to be one. Five minutes?

OK. For right now, yes.

OK. They have my address on record.

I'm not speaking yet, so please don't start the times. I cut short trip abroad and flew home yesterday. 14 hour jet lag. Normally I prepare a little bit more extensive notes, but tonight I had some things I was going to say. I've been listening to the meetings, the briefings that were given. I'm just going to speak extemporaneously from my notes. deserve to be able to see every bit of communication that has taken place regarding this issue going back for the entire two years. I applaud the members of the commission that decided that as close to that document as possible.

Sir, I'm going to interrupt you if I may. We're not going to tolerate personal attacks on staff.

That's not a personal attack.

That's a statement of fact. We're not going to be personal with you.

That's just a statement of fact. I didn't attack anyone.

Well, I'm not going to.

I'd like to have my time back. And don't misstate what I said. That was not an attack. There's an entire room full of people here.

Be careful, because I think that you've you're overstepping me personally.

There's three primary issues that are wrong with this one. You have heard really great remarks about tonight. That's data centers. So I'm going to just talk a little bit about the fallacy of data centers. All of the other comments on power usage and water, those are all real concerns. My background is that I I've done it through the federal government, the National Guard. And I can tell you right now that there's no high paying jobs in data centers, one or two and those people will not reside in this county. They'll reside at some network operations center in California, almost certainly with anybody we're talking to. So thinking that's going to bring a bunch of jobs is a big fallacy. Taxes. that they will promise you i guarantee it and number one you won't get any taxes from it for quite some time and then the last thing is the how data centers are changing these power consumption issues and cooling issues are causing where data centers are going to be deployed to change So spending money on that is about as smart as spending $40 million or whatever we just budgeted for a technical center. That's crazy. You're going to spend $40 million to train kids in jobs that will no longer exist. If you're going to spend a bunch of money, spend $4 million for the next 10 years and let kids learn how to be welders and HVAC technicians. Anything that moves atoms, those are the jobs that will remain. Anything in front of those jobs are gone. You are condemning those kids to the life of poverty. The second thing is small farms. You know a lot of people in Franklin County earn pretty decent livings selling eggs, selling honey, doing small-scale agriculture. That is a real business and this proposal would basically make it impossible for them. It puts up all kinds of young woman spoke very eloquently about how it would hurt her and her family, how they have managed to pay bills, to allow their kids to have places to build houses. You are going to devalue farmers' land. Every proposal that has been put forth is not an effective way to preserve land. The best way to preserve land is basically leave it intact. And finally, it is a misnomer to say we need to is and your own county attorney will tell you this that state law already has privacy so anywhere that our zoning is in conflict with the state the state law has privacy it governs and makes our laws irrelevant finally each of you as a supervisor have been warned multiple times about this process and i'm sure you have your county attorney telling you don't you're not in any trouble. But when things are on public record that you go against, you become willfully negligent. And when you're willfully negligent, that covers it.

Sir, your comment, time is up.

No longer exists.

Thank you.

Rain Pecor? Rain? Rain Pecor?

Good evening. Thank you.

I guess the first question is, does anybody really know what a data center is? Go into Roanoke, you see all these things hanging on the water towers on these poles. Now they're gonna open up these data centers, tear up the water table and electricity. AEP can't even handle what they're up to now. They're bringing people out of Tennessee that don't even speak English 10 to the electric lines here. Again, the roads are in terrible, terrible condition. Somebody get a refund. Whatever you're paying DOT, they're doing a lousy job. In schools, oh my goodness. They're cutting at the bottom. We need to cut at the top. You all know that already, and I know you've been saying that. This school situation is ridiculous. The children are being punished for what these adults, so-called adults, have lost track of. It's Unacceptable. Okay, and also, that guy you had in here earlier, the water authority character, he lied straight to my face. If he lied straight to my face, he's lying to everybody. He told me he didn't know anything about a data center. That's garbage. You go to the water authority person first. So, heads up, he's lying. Okay, and... Who's getting paid for these towers around with all the stuff hanging on them and microwave things? Who's reaping the benefits from that to town? I don't know. But anyway, there's plenty of them around Okay, guys. Thanks a lot. Have a good evening.

Thank you Keith Johnson Keith Johnson

Good evening, Mr. Johnson. If you'd state your name and address for the record, please. Yes, sir. Thank you.

My name is Keith Johnson. I live at 190 Leaning Oak Road in Boones Mill. Most of you were here when the school superintendent was asking for money to avoid closing two schools. He was asked how much savings he expected if he closed the schools, and he said he didn't know. I thought that was odd. How could he know how much to ask you for if he didn't know what it was gonna cost? Last month's meeting, he was asked again, how much money was saved by closing the schools? He said he didn't know. Do you believe that? Last month in your meeting with the presentation from Ann, we learned the second year in a row the school is grossly overspending their budget and two months before summer break, they still don't know how much money they're spending. At the end of the presentation, you asked Brian if he was getting all the information he needed to properly evaluate the school budget and spending. He appeared reluctant to answer the question, but eventually admitted the school was holding back information. The school was not forthcoming with the materials so you could make an informed decision. The superintendent also told you in this meeting on April 21st, they had a reduced enrollment of 137 students. In a letter he sent to employees on April 28th, marked A in your handout, he said they had a reduced enrollment of 250 students over the last two years. That's an elementary school. In a letter to staff that included a letter to parents dated May 15th, marked B in your handout, the school approved a reduction of workforce eliminating 67 positions. They also approved a plan to transport high school students on the same bus as first grade students. Nothing in these letters addresses the problems that force parents to consider alternative education for their children. No concern of the problems of losing the students. The school asked for $4 million to pay ABM for upgrades needed for buildings across the district, but primarily Lee Wade. The school never consulted anyone other than ABM for competitive pricing. The ABM provided a very expensive price, four times the projected cost of repair if competitive pricing was conducted. You have your own construction expert on the board. He told you the ABM contract was highly unusual and very expensive. You gave the school the money anyway. You know the school has lost 30% of their student population due to the pattern of management failures. You also know the school has repeatedly rejected parent and community feedback to correct the ongoing problems. They already closed two schools. The bleeding hasn't stopped. Which school is next to be one to be closed? Have they told you? Do they even think of it? Is it Lee Wade? Why are we putting four million dollars into a school that's going to be closed in a couple years? I hope for the sake of our community you stop trusting the politics of what is said and start having confidence in the wisdom and experience of your own experts. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Jason Feldman.

Good evening, sir. If you'd state your name and address, please.

Jason Feldman, 22000 Franklin Street, Farron. Good afternoon, chairwoman and members of the board. I started a volunteer community polling project called the Polls of Franklin County. We post polls in the Franklin County Facebook group and publish those polls to residents and yourselves so you can see what the community stands on key issues. Before I get into the data, I do want to thank you guys for the stance you guys took at the last meeting on the zoning ordinances with the Planning Commission joint session. You listened to the overwhelming voice of the residents and acted accordingly. That matters and the community noticed. I hope you'll listen the same way today. Recent news has confirmed that many already as many already suspected that data center developers have indeed reached out to the county. So I want to share where the residents stand on these issues. I asked the question on people's position. related to data centers in three different ways. We asked the same question in just a plain term. Do you want a data center in Franklin County? 98% of 622 respondents said no. A more conditional way of wording the question, we asked, would you approve of one if its tax revenue funded public services without raising your taxes? Still, of 675 respondents, 96% said no. And at the most generous framing we could write, I wrote it as, would you approve one if it generated its own clean energy, sold surplus back to the community and had zero environmental impact, which obviously we all know is impossible. uh still even to that 88 of those respondents said no across every framing the answer does not change the community has made it overwhelmingly clear in no circumstance whatsoever does anybody want a data center in franklin county The same instinct shows with another topic related to the flock cameras with the sheriff's office. Having installed these around the county, 84% of respondents said they're concerned about the hackability of these systems and worried about bad actors getting into these systems and just overall privacy. I'm trying to rush to get... catch up with my time. A similar sentiment concerned with transparency was around education. When we asked residents how they would prefer their children to be educated, 84% of those chose an alternate to public schools, echoing a lot of the sentiment and past speakers was reflected in a lot of the qualitative feedback that we collected in those polls. The main concern is they're disappointed with the stewardship of . Thank you, sir.

Kathleen Scorsha. Good evening. Please state your name and address, please.

I'm Kathleen Scorcia, S-C-O-R-T-I-A. It's a weird name, I know. I live at 1901 Farmview Road. And I brought my 11-year-old son to one of these meetings about a month ago. He was the shortest person in the room in the back with me. It was standing room only. It was packed. And I'm here to say thank you because this was a better civics lesson than he's going to get at Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy. And We send him to a good school, but we don't send him to school here because my neighbor's children can't read and they're in third and fourth grade. And my husband retired from the Navy after 23 years and came out of retirement to become a high school science teacher so we could get a break on tuition and send the kids out of the county to private school. I went to public school. I can read and write. It's even in cursive, if you'd like to see my notes, right? I can read the original draft of the Constitution. I understand civics. I know what a county board of supervisors is. And I read at above a sixth grade level. But 54% of Americans don't, like the whole country, not just here. And almost a third of the people in our country, adults, are functionally illiterate. So that means half of the people living in the United States of America right now couldn't read the proposed zoning ordinance and make any sense of it. So make it make sense. My husband makes less than minimum wage teaching at Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy. And all of us parents are volunteering like crazy because it's so small and doesn't have any funding. but it's still somehow getting better educational outcomes than Franklin County Public Schools. I would love to send my kids to these schools, but it's not going to work because the schools aren't working. So I would urge you, in everything you're considering right now, give yourselves the time you need. Thank you for your time. I vote in every election. I pay my taxes. I live where I live. but especially with the proposed zoning ordinance. July 1st is a looming deadline, and I know it seems urgent. I believe that all of you want to be good at your jobs, and you're doing very important work. Being a civil servant is a thankless job. But nothing bad happens on July 1st. If everything we have on the books is in conflict, state law supersedes it. Take the time that you need to do this well. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Dawn King Greer. Dawn Greer. Everybody signed up.

OK. Do you have anyone else? That's everybody signed up. So Ms. Greer didn't hang around. I want to make sure she has an opportunity to speak. You're going to check on her? OK. I want to make sure we catch her if we can. Is she out there, sir? OK. All right. Well, thank you for checking. No one else? Madam Burke? OK. I will close our period of public comment. And I'm very grateful for those of you who have come to share your thoughts and concerns with our board. We will move on to other matters by supervisors. I will start to my far left. Mr. Jamison, do you have anything?

I'd just like to make a comment on our station number five. They celebrate their 60th anniversary Saturday. Had a diminished turnout. I'd say close to 200 people. Food trucks run out of food. And there's a lot of dancing going on. A lot of people getting ready to give out on the phone.

There you go.

All right.

Y'all hear that?

So sorry.

but uh they they they've done real good and they've uh uh very proud of them good good thank you mr jameson mr tatum yes uh first uh i wanted to share some projects that other counties localities are using housing projects um and i know mr mitchell and i Heard from some of those at the West Piedmont Planning District a couple of months ago. Henry County currently, just off Stultz Road there in the Collinsville area, the county purchased several acres of land. And what they did is they went in and they invested into, the county did, and they got some grant money to assist with some of that. And they invested and built the first house. And then they took the proceeds from that first house Once they sold and they had the house sold before it's finished and they took the money and they built the second house and They're up to I think what their seventh seventh or eighth house on that one and that their project is to build 16 or 18. It's one of the other houses on that street and I'm talking about 275 250 275 thousand dollar homes on average. But that fits within the affordable housing, not in my affordable housing definition, but the average that we're given statewide, that falls within affordable housing. And that's a project that they started. And I know Pitt County has a similar project. Martinville City had a similar project. But maybe in the future, after summer slows down a little bit and vacations get worked out, maybe we can get Sean to come up from West Piedmont and share with us what some of these other localities are doing. Because what jumped out at me was that county-owned property on Purdue Lane. Right now, sitting there and not doing anything. And maybe for me, that would be a golden opportunity to maybe even partner with the town of Rocky Mount and build some nice homes. I'm not talking Section 8 houses or anything. I'm talking about good starter homes for families because we're trying to recruit businesses to come to Franklin County and hire people and create jobs. And we're trying to get our families Our kids that go off to college, we want them to come back to Franklin County to live. But, you know, there's a housing shortage. The houses, and so that's a small opportunity that the county, I think, can seize on and provide some good housing, relatively reasonable housing. And I'd like for us to get Shawn and maybe Michael from the Planning Commission to come in and share with us some of the other projects that's going on. And like I said, Henry County's doing it on Stultz Road, and I think they're up to their seventh home, and each one of them are selling before they ever finish building the house. And they take that money and roll it, so when they build the last and final house, the county recovers their investment. So at the end of the project, The county is not into it at any public funds. They've covered their funds out of the sale of the homes. And there's some nice houses on that street that they've been able to build. Why recreate the wheel if we can take some ideas that's working somewhere? Now, am I saying 100% that this will work? No, but it's worth looking into. And if we can partner with Town of Rocky Mountain, being right there behind the high school property that we don't currently have a plan for, I think it's a good idea to look into it. And so that's why I wanted to share that with everybody. Maybe, like I said, let's get Shawn and maybe Mike will come in and share with us what these other localities are doing. So come together. It may come out a better idea than what I'm thinking here, but I think it's worth looking into.

Would you make note of that, Mr. Sandy, please? Well, we will certainly keep that on our work session radar that we're planning with our work sessions. That's good.

And it may come, you know, may mean taking an afternoon. Mm-hmm. carting down and letting Sean show us what they're doing firsthand. I know they had some partnership with some of the local home builders, Nationwide Homes, and some of the other companies to help with some of that construction. But, you know, it's just an idea. I wanted to throw it out there because we've heard reports for the last several years that there's a housing shortage and what are we doing to to help with that. This is just a small project that could make some meaningful difference for someone.

Well, Mr. Tatum, we're very grateful. I think it's very good that regionally we learn from each other. And I think there's a lot to be learned. So thank you for that. Absolutely. Mr. Carter.

thank you madam chair i'd like to thank everybody that's hung with us here today some of y'all been here all day so you got a real taste of what it's like uh i just have a couple things uh someone tonight mentioned these flock cameras and i don't know a whole lot about them but i'd like to learn more and maybe at a future board meeting could we get someone in here from the sheriff's officer whoever put them up to talk about that a little bit certainly do that um Also, for the audience, if you all haven't been out at Summit View recently, take a drive out there and take a look at that traditional Medicinals building that's going up. It's quite a facility. It's a huge investment in our county, and I'm so impressed with that. And when will that be completed, Steve? Do you know? It'll be operational. yeah october but it's a big asset to the county and i want to brag a little bit i'd like to thank my fellow board members for putting me on as the board person on the dss board we have a chairman sharon tudor and if those of y'all don't know her Sharon's a real go-getter. We continue to exceed the state numbers for our locality, and Sharon's goal is to make us number one in the state, and I feel like that hopefully we'll reach that goal pretty soon, but I just wanted to give a shout out to our local DSS. Those folks are working really hard over there.

And that's all I have.

Well, thank you, Mr. Carter. And I concur with your thoughts. And Ms. Tudor is a go-getter. And we're very grateful to have her leadership. And we're grateful to you for serving. Well, thank you.

It's my honor to serve.

Well, thank you for that. Mr. Mitchell.

I would just say that it seems like the last couple weeks I've received a pile of complaints about trash at the dump sites on social media and me personally and but the one down at Sago on Old Chapel is super nice and they're nearing the one on Snow Creek right there across from the fire department at the ballpark and it's it's going to be real nice and and will never agree 100% across the board with all the citizens that that that's the way to go but you put all the dumpsters in the world the trash still on the ground and it'll be it's a better look for the community into shadow off of a Supervisor Jamison, I went down to Snow Creek. They had a community day at the fire department and also a dedication to the building they built for the EMS staff and stuff. They had a tremendous turnout. People are so appreciative of what the county's done there to put staff in that building and help them with building it. So it was a good day and it was right across the road from the, it was a good day to be in Snow Creek. It was right across the road from the manned dump site, and there was kids, rec team practicing ball on the ball field, so it was a good day to be there.

That's exactly why we're here, gentlemen. That's right. And that's all I have. Thank you for sharing that. Mr. Quinn.

I just wanted to mention an event that's coming up on May 30th. That's Saturday. The National Wild Turkey Federation has a local branch. It's called the Franklin County Longbeards. Every year they hold an event called the Jake's event It's from 9 to 3 and this year to be on Saturday May 30th and it's at the Franklin County Park on Sontag and they have about 30 outdoor stations for kids so there might there's a BB gun range and a place for them to catch trout for fishing and a tree climbing I volunteered at the archery in the past. And so about 200 kids come and every year I mention it to people and they haven't heard about it. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to let the people know at this meeting about this event because it's awesome for kids and it's free.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Quinn. Mr. Meredith.

Yes, Madam Chair. I just I got a couple of things here. And I guess the first thing we'll talk, I want to challenge my colleagues here on the board. I've been talking to Mr. Tosh back here, and that's why he's been waiting all night. But we've been talking a lot about communication. I've talked to him. How can we do a better job? And, you know, we talk about when he did the meeting dates or anything, having the library, putting out any government building. We also talked about the YMCA's Farm Bureau, get it out to the farmers and stuff. So I want to challenge my colleagues on how we can give him ideas of getting this out. Foothills Produce, you know, Reaching German Baptist. I think all of us together, we could do a better, you know, do better to serve our community. Also, communication, I would like for staff to look at, when we do have work sessions that, in the boardroom, I know there's technical difficulties there, I think that's a good way of being transparent on our work sessions. Not closed, but the work sessions. It's there. A lot of people can't make it. It is 3 o'clock. I know I'm rushing some days to get here at 3 from work. That's a way of keeping people informed, too. So I don't know if that's something we can look at.