Commissioners - Regular Meeting

with us right yeah seems like we always keep having this weather business well um and jeremy said that it's not a possibility it is uh whatever i didn't know you guys can come on in

Don't we love budget season?

Yeah. It's the best. Mr. Hurdle, I'm back, by golly. I'm going to leave early. Yeah, I was just saying, it looks like

Yeah, you know, the weatherman is one of the people that get paid and get promoted even though they can tell you a lie every day. I was really surprised at the black page of this.

Were you?

I wasn't aware of it.

I know a lot of people are.

Isn't that something? You know, I mentioned a problem last time, and you kept me up several nights thinking about it. Oh, sorry. I'm not supposed to give out a problem without a solution.

Well, you're going to write us a memo, right?

No, I don't think you'll be able to. I don't see you so far. You're not going in my letter to that.

Oh, okay. I think we've tried for it. We've come a long way. I have. No, we have.

Oh, yeah. So many of the things that I guess your advice would be.

No, I didn't want to. You know, I know about not just me and that kind of stuff.

Yeah. So there are other items.

Very deep. You'll be right on time. One minute, sit down. I know. What's yoga?

It's hard to keep track of lights and wings, or legs and thighs.

I know. I am so sorry, I had no idea.

I had no idea. Do we want to wait until she gets settled in?

No, go ahead. Okay. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Jordan McCann, and I am the Executive Director of Direction City Main Street. We are going to change.

Do you have a clicker?

I don't have a clicker.

If you just glance at me on your clicker.

You're the cutest clicker I've ever met. Thank you. If you just glance at me on your clicker. Okay, I'll just give you like a little wink. Okay, so we are a district-oriented community development nonprofit. We are a 501 and we are brought on to help preserve and revitalize the former Central Business District, which is from 6th to 10th and from Franklin to Jefferson. Um, we are, our mission is to recognize downtown is the heart of the community and strives to preserve and share the city's history through a dedicated network of community volunteers, driven to ensure the downtown provides a positive experience defined by a modern and robust economy and activities that engage and delight. So I always like to say we are downtown revitalization, but a big part of what we do is also community development. Um, so we tend to kind of go outside of our district and being able to work with our community partners. next slide and since we are 501c3 we are governed by a board we have 11 board members to include a past president a current president and a vice president today we have Miss Terry Butler who is our current president of Junction City Main Street and she's here to just help answer any questions because she is very involved in something that I might not have the answer to so she probably if I don't know what she does it there's two brains you have here Next. And like I was saying, our community partners are really important with us. We're really proud to have this list of all the partners that we've been able to work with inside Erie County and even out. This really helps us not duplicate efforts. It helps us uplift other community organizations and it really just sets a tone for our partnerships and working together throughout the community. Again, duplicating efforts is really a big purpose of that and not duplicating tax dollars. and things like that, and manpower too. So, next.

I will if you don't let me.

Okay, there we go.

And a really big question that's always asked from all commissioners is, are we pursuing funding outside of just CBB or city dollars? And the answer is always yes. So we have investors, so you'll see Gary County, CDB, and Video Junction City is listed up there. But then we do also have six additional that have given to us every year since our conception. So we have Central National Bank, Gary Rehab, Key Office Products, they don't give us physical dollars, but they do donate all of our flyers and stuff in kind, which is a huge offset to our expenses. And it probably ends up being a bit more than $10,000 a year. So we're really thankful for that. And then we also have exchange bank and interest that you've given every year since our conception as well. And then another way that we're able to create additional streams of income is through revenue and grants. So our partnership with Little Gary County has a stretch to them being roommates with us. So they pay us $150 a month to be able to rent our office, which helps offset utilities and a shared space with them is also helps offset costs for the entire community as well. But with our partnership with the market, it really just was a partnership or a roommate situation that kind of made sense. We also have interest through an exchange bank that we're able to create revenue from. We have about $33,000, if not more, in investors that give $33,000 each match day. For event sponsorships, now this is the amount of money that we aim to raise to offset cost of events. So to do that, we have to raise about $13,500. Anything more that we get just goes into creating that event, making things better, buying things to make it better the next time or things that we can continue to grow on. And currently we've already raised a little over $5,000 towards our community events. And then through our partnerships, we're also able to get in-kind and donated work. So we're able to do things at a cost that probably would never be feasible to the city and county. So through those partnerships, we're able to beautify downtown and other businesses are able to work with us because of that 501c3 status. So that's something that we're really proud of. So far through 2026, we have just received a $2,000 our first art sculpture in our arts district downtown. We were approved for a letter of interest through the Patterson Foundation, and they are a foundation out of Kansas City. And it would be a three-year, $300,000 grant that would go towards just the beautification of our downtown. So for the letter of interest to be approved was a really big feat. So we're really excited about that, and we'll probably be reaching out soon for letters of support. We are also working with the Flint Hills Regional Council for the USDA Rural Development Grant, which would implement entrepreneurship, economic development, and it would really complement our work with JCE 101 and 201, and then our regional work with RE 101 as well. We were able to get a $23,000 grant from Network Kansas to send 11 businesses and two community leaders to Destination Boot Camp as well. So again, a huge impact for our business community and for just downtown alone. And then this is just a really quick 2025 overview just to talk about the impact that we made in a full calendar year. And so we were able to raise $15,000. We had six successful signature and three partnership events held within our district. We gave over $118,000 back into our community through beautification and projects and entrepreneurship investment. We've also were awarded the $50,000 T-Mobile grant. We were instrumental in the, in Highland Brewing receiving a $300,000 CDBG grant. I was able to do a lot of the groundwork to get the right people in the right places and doing a lot of that conversation. And then the Flint Hills Regional Council and Matt really took it away and now has a partnership with the city. So a lot of hands were in that pot and to make that come together. And then we had over a million dollars in public and private investment just within are four blocks. And then again, because we are a nonprofit, we are able to capture volunteer hours. So over 165,000 volunteer hours, that's what they would cost to be able to employ somebody to do all of the work that we did just in 2025. So we're really thankful for all the volunteers that show up, but again, an offset and cost always to our city and county for not having to have to employ people to do downtown cleanups or beautification projects. That's really us doing a lot of background work. And then last but certainly not least, we were selected for the recreation economy for rural communities, which is a federal technical assistance program. And what this does, well, it won't just help the industry elevate us for federal funding. It will elevate us as a community to be able to go after federal dollars. One of our commissioners said it pays to be broke. you know, to be able to be set up, to be able to go for these incentives that our community qualifies for. This is just a great stepping stone for us being able to do that. Next. And then again, here's your Gary County return on investment for 2025. We were given $25,000 that year. So for every dollar you guys gave us, we had a $19.40 return on investment between leveraged funding and public dollars. So again, just being able to capture a lot of those volunteer hours, those grants, beautification projects all create a return on investment, as well as events that contribute to tax dollars being spent, sales, those types of things. And then also encouraging business owners to open up and create, again, more revenue for our downtown community.

Next.

Okay, recognition. This is something that we're really proud of. We are a top three program in the state of Kansas, meaning out of the 28 Main Street programs that the state of Kansas recognizes. We are what's called the Ad Astra level, meaning that our accreditation standards for the six points that Main Street America has you identify through your accreditation process, our average was four and above. The highest is five. So that's something to really, really be proud of, of all the hard work that's kind of come together and be a top three program. The other program is Emporia, which is a 30 year plus program. And then the second program is Seneca, which is almost 10 and we just turned five. So huge, huge feat for us in our community. We've been featured on KSMT news multiple times for preservation work and community building. Again, just bringing positivity to our community, attending the capital and being able to advocate for people wanting to come visit, wanting to explore us just not being a stop on I-70. So that was fun to learn that when the CBB went back, they had met somebody that I talked to and they're like, oh, I met the nicest girl. I want to go to Junction City now. And that's really what we want to do is encourage people to come here. And then we're not only able to advocate for our businesses to be able to win awards at the state level, which again, just brings recognition to Junction City, Gary County, but really able to advocate for things on a state level. and bring in the right resources and tools for businesses to want to grow, for us to want to expand and to really do a lot of that and be able to get grants. Next. And then our current projects, we just have a few things happening right now. Our kind of fun project that I'm really excited about is our historical freestanding signs. These were put in with our streetscape that was done a little over 20 years ago. They have not been touched since. The inserts in them were severely UV damaged and scratched. You can't even read them anymore. So those were removed. We had Golden's Washing come in and they were able to clean the limestone bases for us. And then we had Ben's Kitchens. They actually donated 50% of the work to have all of those three signs painted for us. So we were able to do that. And then we're partnering with the Historical Society and they're doing all the, layouts for the inserts that will go in there. So we're working on finalizing those right now. And then you guys all got a calendar invite that those will be unveiled at the end of July. So we're really excited about those. Just a really kind of low hanging fruit. That's something that needed to get done, but also really wanting to talk about our history and all the cool things that have happened downtown. We are in farmer's market season. So that is from May to September on Fridays, or I'm sorry, on Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 to 1 p.m. We hope to see you downtown. We are partnering with the city and county on the county-wide marketing campaign, and we have our video photo team coming in this week, actually, to start with the footage, so we're really, really excited about that. We are working on the Patterson Emerald Business Development grant opportunities. We are also in the middle of an executive director search, so we are very excited for that and all the prospects that we'll get. We are working with our design committee on micro facade grants. So essentially just smaller grants than what we've typically given out, but really just to help with the visibility of a facade and maybe to get somebody that wouldn't normally apply because they might think, oh, I don't have $5,000 to match, but maybe they have 500 or a thousand. So again, just trying to get some low hanging fruit to help little things to beautify and clean up downtown. We are constantly working on investor meetings and funding education. And so ways that we can maneuver funding, stat grants, historical tax credits, those types of things that are really key in getting things done without having to access further funding. And then we are also working with the city on a common consumption area, which would just be an event-based common consumption area. So it would only be open for events. It would not be 24 seven, similar to how Manhattan does it. It would be more to what Emporia does. And then we just had our transformation strategy updated for 2027. So we're really excited to put that out here soon. And the document's like 43 pages long. So we're gonna edit that down a little bit, just so it's a little bit more digestible for everybody. But these were the objectives that they came up with on what our new goals will be for 2027. So talking about where this funding will be going, this is our plan and what we plan, how we plan to execute those, then our plan will be how to execute those when we start doing our um plan for 2027 here in august next and then funds requested um so in 2026 you guys awarded us 30 000 and you guys did this through cvb which is transient guest tax um and we are asking for level funding no increase for 2027. The funds will be ongoing operating expenses and mainstream revitalization projects that strengthen downtown, support local businesses, and enhance the community. Currently, our overall budget is roughly $160,000 per year.

And then I think that's it. I think it should be questions. Yeah, questions. Thank you, questions. I think you're doing a pretty good job. Thank you. I'm sad to see you leave.

Yeah, I'm very, very sad to go. It'll be really hard, but I think that we have such a strong program. We have such a strong board that I think anybody would really be lucky to apply and get this position. They are really set up for success with everything that we've been doing. And I think that that momentum will continue 100%.

And I think that's a tribute to you and your board. Well, thank you.

We really appreciate that.

You guys work very hard. Your passion shines.

We do.

We do. In everything you do, your passion shines.

I like that you included in here too, that the funding helps to reduce the county services. How you're doing is helping us, but you're creating doing economic development and stuff throughout our community.

So that's, I think something important to be aware of is that Jordan has, you know, she's, she's a military wife. She knows that she has worked very, very hard and establishing our foundation and creating such a system, getting a system in place that will set the next person up for success. And so I really am appreciative of that. Um, so, um, just FYI, if there's any question about the future, it's going to be awesome.

And I do plan to stay on as consultant, volunteer, even after the move. So if anybody has questions, I'm not running away and hiding. I will be here for questions and for information and to help. I would joke that this is my third kid, so I want it to grow and prosper just like I would want my own kid to. So I would never leave them in a lurch to where they didn't know what was going on. I would want them to have the most success. I want to hear nobody misses me when I'm gone because they're doing so good.

Well, I appreciate all your hard work and I appreciate all your partnerships that you've really build those relationships up, which I think is vital to your success.

I think it's really important not to duplicate efforts. I think that is a really important thing with tax dollars as well, is two organizations shouldn't be doing the same thing, but if we can partner with somebody to help uplift them or whatever they're doing complements us, you know, it's always a good thing to just work together and make sure we're all, what's the saying, rowing in the same direction. Yes.

Yeah, that's it. I think that could be happening with some of them and, you know, that's what those efforts need to be combined.

We're really lucky our board members are part of different organizations, so they're able to help connect things. And having such a large board really helps kind of complement that, because at least one person on our board is at least a part of one other organization. So that is really beneficial. Is that all? I appreciate your financials. And then, I don't know, did you send them the comparison? If she put it in your packet.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I do for my work. I try to do that quarterly just because it's a little bit easier to read because book books is book books. So, yeah. So, if you guys have any other questions regarding that, I'm always an open book and happy to answer. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. I am Debbie Savage. I'm the executive director of Fresh Start Emergency Shelter. I thank you for allowing us to come before you to present our request for 2027 funding. This is our board secretary, happens to be my husband. He's also the building maintenance person. But he also has some extensive knowledge when we get to the part of how we also benefit the community. So what I'm going to do, I'm kind of backtracking. I know just to kind of give you a start of Moving forward. So in 2025, we were currently only working as a day shelter, which we provided meals when people came in. We still assisted with case management, helping getting their vital documents, anything that they needed to help get employed, try and find housing. We still assisted them as day shelter, but we did not have overnight stays just due to financing. We did have people staying outside of our shelter, especially in the winter months. um for one they weren't in the community trespassing anywhere we allowed them to stay there we had cameras so we knew that they were safe they'd come in during the day to get the services that they needed um and the our board knew that we needed to make a change so in 2026 you guys graciously had given us um 40 000 and we are still asking for the same 40 000 um but what we did is we changed um We took what we had. We have 19 rooms, a computer lab, a dining room, kitchen. Everything that we've done before as a 24-7 shelter, we just decided we needed to make it work. So the board decided starting January 5 of 26, we did turn into a night shelter program. So what that did is allowed clients to come in between 6 and 7 at night. They stayed overnight in a safe, temporary shelter. But in the morning at 8, they had to leave. Um, we could not fully fund a 24 hour shelter at that time. Um, part of our best practices is finding employees or board members that have lived experience. So we had hired actually two members that had been previously, um, homeless. Uh, currently they were doing fine. They were living on their own, but we asked them to come in. So now they had a place to stay. They helped with security. They helped with staffing. when we were open as a 24, or when we were open as a warming center, they were able to stay over 24 hours, you know, overnight, when we still were not yet open. So when we finally opened as a night shelter program, we immediately had an average of, I want to say, let me see if I have my paper here. I didn't grab that one. Currently we have 63 unique and clients that have stayed or been enrolled in our shelter. 26 came from unsheltered locations. So staying out camping uninhabited or uninhabited places. I don't know how to say it. Abandoned building. Let me say it that way.

That last presentation was great by the way.

So it's kind of hard to be up here. So two came from other shelters. We had two that had come from hospitals. We had three that had come from jail. We had eight come from hotels, some from family members and family that just said, hey, you're not welcome here anymore. So those were some of the people that we had taken in. So currently, we have sheltered seven adults over 60 years of age, 44 adults between the ages of 24 and 59, five young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, and seven children under the years of 18 of age. The most current one is like a newborn, pretty much. Um, and he's currently at our shelter now. So, um, what we have been doing, a lot of our referrals have come from like the state corrections, a judicial court services. We've gone straight from jail. They just point them in our direction and they show up on our doorstep. Um, we have some from restoration programs, so they're waiting for their bed for rehab rehabilitation. And so we're able to take them in, um, We have people that have been staying in motels and decide that it either didn't work out, they run out of their money. And we have taken them in to get them either additional benefits, help them get employed so that they can move on because they don't realize staying in a motel is way more expensive than being able to be in an apartment. And some of them just don't get it. One of the things that we have done Well, you all have our budget of what we've done in the past and to current. Our average from January through May of this year are monthly operation expenses, and this is kind of just payroll, utilities, building maintenance, and food. That's not all of the operational expenses. It has been $8,300 a month, and that's just a rough estimate. I'm not giving you the exact number.

Pennies.

Yeah, it doesn't, well, no, it doesn't include payroll. It just doesn't include like insurance, which is pretty pricey for a shelter that has overnight guests. That comes up to 41,000, over 41,000 for the five months. So you guys have funded us to be open for those five months, which has been great. However, what we do as a shelter benefits, I believe, this community more than 40,000 that you have been able to help us with. According to several sources, like the Kansas Statewide Homeless Coalition, KDOT, who does a lot of reporting for accidents, e-miss calls, things like that. There's other sources on the website that explains kind of the expense of being homeless. And it costs the community $30,000 to $50,000 for one person to be homeless in a year, approximately. So part of those costs broken down. I don't know if you want to explain this or not. You can.

so i do a lot of research on homelessness because being on the board going to the kansas statewide homeless coalition symposium learned a lot of interesting facts and it really surprised me so that's kind of why we wanted to bring it up to you the average person that's homeless in kansas costs the community between thirty and fifty thousand dollars a year fifty thousand dollars i kind of looked at as being Sedgwick County, Lawrence or Wichita. So I kind of broke it down to $30,000 a year I think is probably a good average of what it's gonna cost us. Basically the essence of those calls are emergency room visits. We kind of isolate our homeless population to one means of obtaining healthcare and that's through the emergency room. They do that because they don't have anywhere else to go or they get picked up by an ambulance and they get taken to the emergency room and that's where they receive all their care. I was surprised, not really surprised because I've actually had some ER visits lately, but the average ER visit costs between $1,400 and $2,700 for one visit. That's if you don't have any extensive diagnostics. When you look at that, you think, well, that's one visit. Well, most of these people aren't seen once a year. Most of them are seen several times a year. and they don't have another option. One of the things that we provide our residents when they're staying there, if they need to go to the doctor, we hook them up with, with Conzo. We, we make sure that they have transportation there so that they don't have to utilize the emergency room. EMS calls, it's about 13 to $1,500 for an average EMS call, depending on what kind of EMS call it is. I have extensive knowledge of that because i was in ems for 12 years and um this is one of the things that we did a lot we ran a lot of homeless people uh even back in my day leo response i worked for the sheriff's department over in puck county i don't know how many times we get called and you guys know as well how many times you get called on homeless people just because they're somewhere they shouldn't be they broke into something they broke something that could cause damage to property The average call for law enforcement is about $1,300. That's if they haven't done anything wrong, up to about $10,000 if they've caused property damage, if they've caused an injury, and they have to be taken into custody. That doesn't even include the public defender's office. It doesn't include things like that. Incarceration rates of homeless people are astronomical. This is something that we try to avoid when we have people there at the shelter incarceration costs between 90 and 130 dollars a day you guys already know that but this is just some of the ways that we save the community money public defenders charge about 80 to 100 dollars an hour just to do public defense of someone who has no other means to defend themselves the crazy thing that i found as i was doing my research You know that ER visits go down about 60% when somebody is housed, just as we house people. It goes down and drops to about 60%. About 77% decrease in inpatient hospitalization just by being housed. There's an 85 to 95% less probability that somebody will have law enforcement contact or be incarcerated if they're housed. These are some things that we have over and over worked with our staff and our residents about because we know that that's the greatest impact to our community. Right now, if we continue at the pace that we are continuing at the shelter, we average about 16 residents a month. I did the math on that, if you average 16 residents a month, if we can keep those people housed, it will save our community about $490,000 this year. And that's just in averages. That's not any extravagance. That's just in averages. We certainly appreciate your support. It has been the only way that we have been able to stay open. I'll let Debbie talk about the other grants we are applying for. that we're very hopeful that we get this year because we'd really like to be 24-7. We can provide more case management if we're 24-7 than we do right now.

One of the things I do want to say before I talk about the ways we've also looked for other money is, so as of the end of May, those 63 people that we have housed so far, 42 have exited our program. So eight have been housed. One began work on the traveling crew. One returned to their host home. We had three return to family. One went to a friend. We had three return out of state. So there's at least three times 30, if you want to think of that. One went to transitional housing with Pawnee Mental Health. One went to a hotel. That one particularly came back. One went to a shelter elsewhere. We had one that had ended up in a hospital, had an accident. And then not at our shelter. He had an accident outside. Sorry. Yeah. In the community. One did go to jail. A lot of our clients do have mental health and substance use issues. Yeah. I hate to say that like that, but so a lot of them will come and go, so they may decide they're not going to come in by seven o'clock and they're out for the seven days, but we know the circumstances, so we will let them back in as long as there's no no outstanding warrants for them still and things like that. We are trying our best to help them become stable. As Ed said before, we did get a large gift from the Greater Gary Community Health Care Foundation on that golf tournament that they had for us. So we have the funds to help get them to concept of monumental health, helping for medications and stuff. So we are continuing in that. Those are essential services that shelters offer. And so that is something that we're very happy that we're able to do one of the things that some of the other things that for funding purposes we we are still going to look at doing our community awareness with our silent option that we had done last year it's kind of a community awareness type come in look at the shelter of course depending on where where the clients are at the time whether they're there or gone we will make that able to happen we did a a mile in their shoes, 5K, and one mile walk last year. And we're planning on doing a second annual one of those. We do participate in the Greater Gary Community Match Day Foundation. Last year, I think with the match, we had brought in over $17,000. That's great. So currently we're sitting on like 32,000 in that account right now. Our biggest grant right now that we have applied for in the last three years, and I'm planning on getting it this year, is our ESG, the Emergency Solutions Grant. This year we are more focusing on partnering with Pawnee again to try and better serve those clients that have those mental health and substance use issues. And so I think that partnership will help kind of seal the deal and hopefully we'll get this grant and then we'll be able to stay open 24 hours with another full-time person, hire a part-time case manager, and then be able to open and serve more people. I think right now that's my presentation. Does anyone have any questions?

Oh, I do.

So last year we had requested the same that we had requested of you and you guys had granted us 40, we had requested 45 and they had given us 45 this year. I go before them next week and I'm asking for 60. They do however, so we may or may not get the full 60, they do give us any kind of water. So right now, in fact, the city just said, hey, you need to check and see if you have a leak because your water bill has gone up so high. A few weeks ago, we had about 23 people in our shelter. And so when they come in and get showers and do laundry and stuff, that does add up.

I went back and did the averages of water use for an adult, and it turned out it's probably a little less than it could have been.

So we are going to look into measures of public push buttons. The shower goes on, the shower goes off, and then you have to keep pushing it until you're done.

and just so you know you guys know we have made a huge transition at the shelter we have put in uh a i don't know how many now led lights because we have the old the fluorescent lights just like you guys do we are really trying to cut down the amount of utilities and it has been a noticeable drop in our utilities putting in all led lights We're currently going through now because of the water situation. I've priced out push button showers so that you can't just stand there with the hot water on. You have to push the button. And we think that that will bring water usage down. So we are trying very hard. We have a very old building. I don't know if you know it, but it was built a long, long time ago. And we have done a lot of upgrades to it personally, but we're trying to even do more. so that when we do get funding, that we can utilize that to the best of our ability so that we can spend it more on clients than overhead. You guys kind of know how that all works.

I've got a couple questions. Are the folks coming to work I see them in the park. I think I saw three this morning. Are they coming from your shelter? A lot of them are. They didn't have a lot of bags or anything. They just had a small bag.

A lot of those are because we have one of those gentlemen is waiting on his disability. We've heard it's coming, we just haven't gotten it yet. So once we get his disability, we'll start working on the housing portion.

What will you do when it gets really hot? Will they have an option to come back there or will they just have to sit in the park?

I have made accommodations for like when the weather got bad, we had that tornado warning goes up. I let them come in early or, you know, it's raining. It's going to start at three. I have been known to let them come in, stay in during Saturdays. I just have to have staff available.

So the issue there is you don't have staffing to let them come in. The other question is, Are you partnering at all with, you know, they've got that, or will you consider partnering? You know, you sat through the first presentation with, you know, the new city homeless task force. Will there be, you know, options that there for you to partner up with them? Maybe to, you know, they've got a lot of good people on that board, I know, and you're on there.

I have been approached, so there's still some discussion. I know Christy is gonna represent the county, which is great. I gave Mayor Butler a list of my suggestions here, here, here on the whole 11 line items. I think of different organizations or people they wanted. So I gave her my suggestion. So it would be nice if someone from Fresh Start was part of it. But I also told her, you can reach out to the crisis center. They do take in homeless people because of domestic situations. So that would be another avenue. I know the Magdalene Project has done some street outreach, but currently she's working on community deals and such.

We were talking about these projects where all of them are so worthy and everything else, but it would be nice to kind of have everybody intermingled so that you could maybe focus on one thing and do well, and they could focus on something and do well, and instead everybody's doing different things and people going to different places and stuff. But yeah, I admire the service provided for those people, because you do feel horrible when you see them on the street or whatever. But I haven't seen as many, though, as I used to, so that's good.

I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. As we were preparing for this ESG cycle, one of the things in discussions with the Kansas statewide homeless coalition, one of the things that we found is really how the ESG focuses on how the community is embracing everyone and trying to get everyone to work together. For the last couple of years, we have I'm not just saying, hey, look at us, look at us, but we have tried and tried to get partnerships built. We have come a long way. We're working with a lot more people than we were before. And to answer your question, Fresh Start will have a voice on that board. So I know

In June, our next board meeting, which is on the 17th, this is where we're going to look at what we've done in the last five, five and a half months. And the board will determine if we're going to continue, how we're going to continue, what funding we currently have. With the ESG grant, it's 100% matched. So what we've requested, which was over 111 from them, we have to provide 111. So we did get an increased funding from United Way. They actually doubled our gift. I don't know how you can say that.

um we also have received our jellison grant again um so that was good um so there's ways that the board has been doing a good job of trying to make this we've we've worked very hard as a board to really be strategic in how we're spending the money that's provided to us because we feel obligated to do that without that we can't stay open um and it was It was a long time coming for us to be open at night, and we knew the community wanted it. We were trying, but we had to really crunch the numbers because what we didn't want to do was open up at night for three months and then close again because we're out of funding. So we really believe we've got a good plan. We provide our financials to you guys quarterly just so that you can see.

I appreciate that. You have come a long way. And there was a lack of financials presented to us. And you shared, and I said this last week, I love having the financials in all of your tax documentation and everything because that was lacking years ago. And so I applaud you.

Thank you. The one thing we want to be is transparent. If we're having trouble, you'll know it. If we're not having trouble, you'll know it. So, yeah. Thank you. We greatly appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Mike is back. Did you get me?

I don't know if you're happy or unhappy that I'm back, but I thought I'd give you something.

He feels better.

I still have a cough, but I'm not contagious at this point.

I don't think we need all of the other information. And I apologize, Mike. I think there was a little bit of confusion as to getting that and were you mixing the two together or whatever. I don't recall necessarily this I don't think he meant that to be a formal budget request. Confusion, I apologize. So anyway, we've heard everything. I guess just the bottom line on the dollars is probably all we need.

Do you have a copy of the letter?

Yes.

So the bottom line on the dollars, And I'll be happy to take a few minutes to explain why, because once you hear the dollar amount, it might sound like, oh, why are you asking for all that? What has changed? But also, when we, Pawnee Mental Health respects me for mental health by $109,200 from 210,000 to 319,200. And I can't tell you why, but there has been an increase in the number of individuals served. We have written off a significant amount of money for Giger County residents. Um, we have in, in the last year alone, we offered mental health and substance abuse treatment services to 3,678. Duplicated here in County residents across all agency programs. And that number includes. 1581 unduplicated clients served, an additional 207 clients engaged, and this number also includes 370 clients receiving crisis services. One thing that the public might not know, and I might have mentioned that to you last week, but one episode of hospitalization per individual costs $16,000 to $15,000. And we are serving a lot of people in the Crisis Stabilization Unit continues to be a life-giving service. Pawnee provided $4.52 million in services to Geary County residents. Over $505,000 was uncompensated due to reasons such as no insurance or under insurance. And Our fiscal year 2025 audited financial statements show a loss of $2.19 million. One thing I would tell you that Gary County currently spends approximately $5.92 per capita for mental health, and that is extremely low. That's probably 40% of what other counties spend, actually maybe 33%. So it's extremely low. A few of the benefits would basically be that we will enhance the staffing level to provide more care. And one of the things that we have done over the course of the past few months, we have expanded mobile crisis response hours to 24-7, which has called for the hiring of more staff, which we did. We have about 10 teams. three managers from different disciplines from operations and overall crisis services and clinical services. I will tell you that we are expecting to see about a thousand responses specifically for this year. That's a lot of responses that offsets the cost on law enforcement, hospital, other first responders by serving the individuals in their own environment. I would say, and this is me shooting off the cuff, I need to look again at the financial statements. That's about a $700,000 of cost to the community and we see a lot of value in the work that we do. We also fulfill a statutory role individual who needs to be committed to a state psychiatric inpatient facility. We are the gatekeepers to the state inpatient psychiatric facilities and through our qualified mental health professionals, QMHPs, who assess these individuals for admission. And I cannot stress enough the increase in the cost, 80% of the cost of doing business and you're probably seeing it here again, has risen to about three and a half million dollars per point. And I would say that is money well spent, if you ask me. The cost of uncompensated care would help us, offsetting that cost would help us basically hire more and and dedicate more resources to a vulnerable population. And there's a lot of people being served. Happy to answer any questions.

Well, first of all, you know, when you think of it, that 1,700 undivocated cases, you know, with a population of 34,000, it doesn't seem like a whole lot in the whole scheme of things. Does that number include military as well?

I have to look.

Yeah, I mean, you know, because, you know, something we might have considered is going after, you know, some other funding for other sources, too, because, you know, those are, you know, getting tax dollars for providing services, you know, for them. And so, you know, that could be part of the reason, you know.

Sure. No, but I'll tell you that we have served last year 419 veterans served. I don't think they're active. through a different type of insurance but a lot of those are those are veterans when the individual's insurance does not cover we put them on a sliding fee scale and that cost goes to them what i'm referring to here is the cost of uncompensated care for individuals under here in county that are uninsured or underage so those go through their own insurance

Yeah, it's just one of those things, you know, and we've talked about it before, you know, that these mental health services continue to rise and, you know, rightfully so. Everything's continuing to go up, astronomical, but, you know, with the funding and whatever, it's a start for counties, too, to, you know, meet the those needs necessarily with no funding between the state because when we talked about the jail and and you know how that works when they go to jail then the county has picked up that cost with very little funding for those dollars and you know again that might be consideration for to go out to more legislation to help get those costs because otherwise you know that's our our

alternative would be to raise taxes to fund this sure this is something that the county and the sheriff's office will tack team on and present the legislation I mean absolutely I mean that's an avenue We did serve people in the jail last year, 43 individuals received services, crisis services by statute, and then we are mandated to provide those we do. We also currently provide services to individuals in the jail through, we have hired a jail liaison and that comes at no cost to the county and no cost to the jail. And we're doing it because we believe in the possibilities ahead for these individuals once released.

And the telehealth, I think, they were encouraged by that as well.

Absolutely. We have multiple options available, telehealth and group therapy, once the individual is released. from the gym, they can come to us and their care is not interrupted because we have an active chart for them and we're able to help them.

I know you do a great job and I think they provide awesome services. As they were talking about Fresh Start, those connections too, hopefully everybody could mesh together a little bit better in order to get those services somehow provided better so that they're getting them but because the way that i understood you know and and too when they leave there was a gap there and and what they do once uh someone's released then who's where they're going and are they followed up with and i don't know you know necessarily i understood that they're working on that as well that those type of things i would hope that these other, you know, you work together to try and fill those gaps.

Oh, absolutely. Any referral for an individual who's unable to pay or in need of care, we provide care regardless of the individual's ability to pay, whether they have an open chart, an established fine card or not. regardless of their place of residence. And now with the expansion and crisis services, regardless of the time of the day.

Well, you say you provide this service, you know, regardless, but on the other hand, it still falls back on the county to increase their budget so that you still are getting some sort of funding for the lost cost duty.

Well, absolutely. So we provide it to them when they need it. At the same time, when I'm to also put on the table that the funding we received from the county does not offset the cost of uncompensated care. Don't get me wrong, we are very grateful for the help that we received from the county. But we do, I mean, the funding last year was reduced by $5,000 from the previous year. And I understand that the pot does not have enough money to go around for everyone.

Well, like I said, I appreciate your services. I know you, you know, you're all very passionate about what you do. It's just that, you know, and I just have, you know, I'm still learning this new scheme of stuff too and some of this stuff. So I appreciate your.

Thank you.

And thank you.

Can I give you something before we start?

first one, so I don't know. So my name is Donna. I'm the director of the Dorothy Bramlage Public Library. I've been the director since October 31st when Susan Moyer retired after 33 years. So this is my first budget presentation, so it won't be easy on me. What's in your folder is a copy of our 2026 and 2027 budget. Also enclosed is a packet of information designed to provide a clear picture of why the library is a core public service and community asset. Inside you will find information like annual reports, service statistics, community impact, and the many ways public funding is transformed into meaningful services for residents. This information demonstrates how the library serves as a critical infrastructure for learning, workforce development, digital access, lifelong education, community connection, and quality of life. The materials highlight both the community's investment in the library and the measurable impact that investment has throughout gary county for 2027 the library board is requesting an increase of ten thousand dollars from the county this increase aligns with our goals to strengthen core library services and access including digital content while expanding community-centered programming and outreach such as the addition of an esl class each year the library offers approximately 400 free programs for all ages and visits nearly 20 outreach sites each month So far in 2026, the library has supported an average of 420 children each month through outreach services, answered more than 8,000 questions, welcomed over 2,000 participants in in-library programs, circulated more than 30,000 materials, and recorded over 40,000 visits to our website, community history archive, community calendar, the Know JC website for information, The library also serves an average of 204 unique patrons per day. The library is far more than a building filled with books. Every day, staff help job seekers apply for employment, assist seniors in accessing resources, support military families who are new to the community, provide safe spaces for children, and connect residents with technology, healthcare information, housing assistance, and government services We regularly encounter individuals facing food insecurity, homelessness, loneliness, educational barriers, and financial hardship. In many cases, the library is one of the few places where anyone can receive help without cost, without judgment, or without barriers. Before I close, I'd like to leave you with one final thought. Everything I've described today, the 400 annual programs a year, outreach to nearly 20 locations per month, Support for our military families, our seniors, our children, job seekers, and vulnerable residents is accomplished by just 19 staff members. We have 15 full-time and four part-time staff. 19 people serve a county of more than 35,000 residents. 19 people answer thousands of questions, circulate tens of thousands of materials a year, provide technology access, build partnerships, and create opportunities for learning and connection every day. Our team works hard to ensure every taxpayer dollar is used responsibly. We are proud of what we accomplished today, and we are excited about what we can accomplish with your support.

Good job. Good job. Yes. You do a great job. People do not realize how much the library does, and I appreciate your presentation because it is pretty impactful of how many people you do reach. Thank you.

And I think it should be pointed out that the library is funded through its own living. It's not like... Split between the county and the city.

Right.

Correct. I think you do a tremendous job. And I've noticed when I've been down there that, you know, a lot of military uses computers.

without saying I do have questions where are you on expansion great question I was expecting someone to ask a question right now we're on a hold for that just because I wanted to kind of learn my new job and get my footing under my knee before that find the stapler do all that fun stuff before we launched the full-scale project and When the previous director left, we were on a phase development project. As of right now, that's still the plan, but that's something the board still has to discuss.

Thank you.

Are you on the library board team? She is. I think it's a state criteria. I don't know what the board is.

Yes. The mayor said to the library board. Oh, okay. I think that's the right word.

I'm glad I have a date.

I needed some backup.

I don't have a question.

how do you track the 800 8000 questions yeah i mean are they just it's probably more than that that's only the ones we've written down so far um every time someone asks a question if it's online if it's over the phone or in person we make a note of it um so that's just the ones that we've written down so far everything from i've broken my dentures and i don't know where to go to I'm doing a research project and I need to know what movies were popular in 1963 and everything in between.

Well, you guys did a great job.

Thank you. I heard you're getting new parking lots.

Yes, I was so excited. It's in the design phase, I hear.

That's great.

is this your last presentation i'm just hanging out i'm just she's too great oh

So our register of needs had something come up where she couldn't make it in tonight. So she did ask if I could go ahead and present her budget for her. And then if you have any additional questions or want her to come back to answer anything, she's more than happy to do that next week if you want her to. So the budget is on the screen. One thing I want to point out right off the bat with the register of deeds, is that they collect filing fees and copy fees. Those fees that they collect almost cover their entire budget. In fact, in 2025, it did cover their entire budget. So with those funds, they do not require any ad valorem tax dollars to support their office. But with that being said, it's still required to be budgeted. The budget is in front of you. And a couple of things that she noted in her memo that you do have available to you as well is her personnel, which includes the benefits, actually decreased 8,139 from the previous year. And just as a quick reminder, we have 27 pay periods in 2026, and that does have a little bit of an impact on our revenue or on our expenses for personnel. But one thing I also want to point out is she currently has a vacant position. She had filled it and it's not going to work out. So she has the opportunity, the potential to possibly hire someone with some experience. And so she's working through the numbers, working through the offers with that person. And if she is able to get that person in, she may need to increase her personnel budget. So that is something that we would come back and let you know once we know those numbers. She has four total that are budgeted, yes, but she has three that are in her office currently working. Her contractual decreased $5,600. A large part of that decrease was that cost share that she has with scanning her tract index books. That's something that happens every few years. And so it hit 2026. It'll be a few more years before that cost comes back to us. She also has the ability to use her technology fund for some of these expenses. And so in doing that, she has moved some of those costs into that budget which is not a budget that's required she does track her costs and sees where she's at but it is not required to legally be budgeted um another thing that she did adjust a little bit was she actually increased her training and registration line item she is interested in some additional training for her office both her and her staff And so she wanted to make sure she had the room to do some of those things. And then on her commodities, she decreased 27, sorry, it was presented at 2,700. That's a decrease of $400 from the previous year. Her capital outlay is a decrease of $300 from last year. And so at this point in time, Her total estimated revenue for the general fund would be $282,000, and her proposed budget is $300,448. So there's about $18,000 that the ad valorem tax dollars would be covering for her budget. And that, again, is without making any adjustments to the personnel, depending on how that works out. Are there any questions or anything that you

made a note i was um i was um happy i did very good like i was grading papers or something but you know i put on there very good and i commended all the departments especially here in this building that either reduced or stated the same on their budgets because you know you think with her budget you know being as it is over 300 000 i mean who goes and buys 2700 you know with the uh commodities to include paper and stuff and you know and you know that's just um being very frugal and I appreciate that, you know, some of the costs and stuff, you know, just kept very minimal. And so that's always appreciated, but they've all done a good job with these budgets here in the building, especially that I was watching over.

Well, one other thing that I think she would have pointed out should she have been here. And I think more, not because you guys are not aware of it, but because some of the public may not be aware of it. with those copy fees, a portion of that goes into technology funds for the clerk, the treasurer, and herself as well as that heritage trust fund that's required by statute. And so all of those dollars that are collected for services that are rendered help offset costs that we would otherwise have to tax to the taxpayers. All right, and if you have any questions and you want her to come back, she can answer any questions.

No, I think she's really taking charge and done a great job since she got.

Yeah, very conscientious. And she's put a lot of services in place that are free for the people, you know, the fraud alerts. And I think she also does, and I don't know all of them, but I know that she also has some services where they can come in and they do different things for them in her office. And so I know she updates you guys every quarter and keeps you of what it is that they're doing.

Did she get selected for the class?

Yes, as far as I know, she did. And she already has her capstone ready. And so she's just very organized. So yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Sheriff's Office Kayla is going to do the community involvement team. Thanks for coming.

so we do have if we have a little bit of time we wanted to kind of we have a parent from the camp shield that wanted to speak a little bit of the impact that we've had on the community before we open up this little bit of conversation that's okay i was trying to think where i saw somebody was it on tv that somebody was entertained about attending some place

Hi. Hello. Hi, it's Allie. Just real quick. I have four kids. Three of them have attended the Camp Shield for the last two to three years. And in my opinion, it's been a great impact on the kids. They take our electronics for four days. They actually have to be kids. Team building, you know, real life situations. They get to learn about all kinds of different things. And I wanted to talk because I am a single mom.

Four kids. I do everything by myself. I have four jobs. This is one of two opportunities that the kids have in Gary County that is completely free.

So families like me, it makes it a little bit easier that they get the opportunity to do something because other camps are costing thousands of dollars per kid.

And they get to actually go to overnight camp and they get to make friends and see dogs and all kinds of stuff. So definitely a good opportunity for the community.

Appreciate that.

Thank you. You're welcome. Ma'am, did you sign in? Yeah. I need everybody to sign in on...

So I suppose we can open up on the CIT budget for 2027. We weren't able to really outline the 2027 budget besides give you what we've been doing. We've done a lot of expenditure cuts for the CIT. Everything we've given you basically from when the new commission has taken over and the new understanding of the drug and alcohol funds to be able to make sure we properly utilize that per your guys' guidance. We've only been using that for specifically Camp Shield. We've cut down on meal costs. We've had a lot more input from the community to be able to pay for the meals, donations for meals from different restaurants only within Geary County and businesses donating towards those funds as well. With that being said, we were able to cut a good bit of the funds, but this year's expenses did end up costing around $13,870. The income for that you guys gave us for 2025 was a 15,000, which leaves us as a remaining balance for the CIT Camp Shield budget specifically at $1,130. So we were proposing and requesting to go back to the donation for the Camp Shield of the 25,000 to be able to keep putting this on for the kids. We've had a lot of, as you can tell from parents, a lot of positive input from the community. We are, as the county goes, as far as I know, there's only a couple things that give to the community and directly to the kids for education, and we're one of the only ones that really do full drug and alcohol education at a young age. Doing some research, I found that if we start implementing at a young age, the DARE program that we had all grown up in isn't as prevalent as it was when we were younger. So implementing that and implementing that level of education, we've actually seen a very good positive impact on a lot of our kids and a lot of the kids in the county and the community. So we just request on behalf of those kids and on behalf of the rest of the community that we'd be able to keep that going.

Did you share the AG opinion with them because didn't they reply back that they weren't going to be able to address the question that was asked because uh well they said it's up to us right that's right yes i didn't know if that was shared with you you know it was not i know last i knew that right yeah yeah well i just wanted to share with them that you know that was my idea uh that you know was my understanding you know being in the treasury before that you know all that stuff because and i think i told you that anything that has to do the kids kind of get me at heart so i'm all for you know doing whatever we can with our community and i know that their stuff has kind of went by the wayside so i think this is all the more more important and you know i certainly didn't have anything against it for sure but you know that was just my only hold back as my understanding of where it was but you know if it's up to us then you know that kind of

We don't do just drug and alcohol. We do a lot of drug and alcohol while we're there, but we also do internet safety, which is what we're seeing at the sheriff's office where kids are getting like TikTok, for example. There's people going on TikTok targeting children to send me money or send them pics and then

they want money to get rid of the pics so we do a lot of that type of stuff at camp too along with the leadership type stuff these things that are impacting our kids these days um you know we just had uh facts that given from the health department was the suicide rates of you know 10 to 18 years old girls have gone up and you know and all those factors that you know even in that information like that i think it's important with our kids these days because there's other things that gun safety is important, but there's everything else that needs to be intertwined in some of those things with our kids these days, and all the more appreciate, hopefully, too, the school district, you all can work together to come up with some solutions with getting that information embedded in kids these days, because it's so important.

We have. So for the camp, not only is it we're doing that, we've also done bullying, cyberbullying, healthy relationships, healthy family relationships. We've had the domestic violence group non-profit from Junction City come in and they talk about healthy family relationships and what to do and how to cope with it and how to report it if there's any issues. We also, Officer, Deputy Harley over here is one of the SROs, so now this is his first year, so now we're able to start implementing and kind of start getting more education that way and start working more with the schools. When we go to social events, obviously we're handing out a lot of pamphlets, trying to give a lot of education to kids, to families, to parents, so that they're aware of different issues. But during Halloween, we like to highlight a lot of stuff with kids with safety, like sidewalk safety, trick-or-treat safety, and going into bike safety. Just basically, like you said, just covering all the levels that a lot of parents might oversee, but also schools to kind of highlight what we can do to implement change.

So what does D.A.R.E. DO. BACK WHEN MY DAUGHTER WAS IN SCHOOL, EVERYBODY LOVED D.A.R.E.

THEY ACTUALLY DON'T DO D.A.R.E. ANYMORE IN THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. I KNOW UNDER SHERIFF STOPPER WANTED ME TO KIND OF CHECK INTO THE LEAD PROGRAM, WHICH IS KIND OF SOMEWHAT REPLACED D.A.R.E. IT'S KIND OF THE SAME TYPE OF PROGRAM, BUT IT'S MORE FOCUSED ON A LOT OF THE OTHER ASPECTS THAT WE DEAL WITH NOW WITH THE BULLY AND A LOT OF that kind of stuff um unfortunately with me being in the school i may i am in the sro stuff kind of changed i wasn't able to do that this year but i know the school district has wanted to they've reached out to the police department and i think they've seen because of all the problems that we're starting to see not only as a society society but if in our community they want to implement something back so um we've started to look at what we can do to get one of those programs up and running again.

It's like them wanting to take away recess. They don't need to take it away. They need to add some minutes to it because those kids need that release.

Like Kayla said, we try to focus a lot of that while we're out there building good relationships, being healthy, things to avoid, things like that, and try to teach as many as we can to kind of stand up for themselves and each other. especially in the school now.

Thank you for inviting us over the years to come out. It seems like there's a lot of team building that goes on with kids. My question is, how many youth do you take? What's the max?

So this year we reached our max at 34, 32 kids. Where we'd like to keep a pretty equal like a reasonable like counselor to kid ratio to be able to develop and foster those leadership skills and abilities, as well as being able to get them all through different, the different activities and stuff throughout the week, the four days that we had them. So 32, we actually, this year grew more than we've ever seen. We had, we actually had to like stop and we're going to have to refer kids to other camps. So we've heard some kids to the JC, the Jersey police department camp because we couldn't take anymore. The goal this coming year is to be able to, if we can, expand it, but it's just back to the counselor issue. We like to make sure that, one, that the counselors are reputable counselors, so we know that they're coming from, and then we can obviously attest for what they can do. Ninety percent of the counselors do come from the sheriff's office, just because the full background check's been completed and we're able to verify that they're there.

And how do the kids find out about the program? Are they referred to the schools?

Schools, or I know I've gone to the schools to hand out The referrals, if they know kids that think they would be good at this or they can apply or we put stuff on social media. When we went to the touch a truck thing they had at the community center, we had like seven or eight kids sign up just based on that. So a lot of it's going to the events we go to in the public and we try to advertise it.

the best we can so the kids as well are huge references because when anyone last year there was like 20 kids maybe 20 it was doubling time and it's literally just hey come with me come with me come with me so it's a really good you know word about violent kids as well we like to make sure when the application process when they put in we like to it has some questions on there just to see what kids truly can benefit from you know getting out of their bubble reaching out finding new friends if they have a hard time they're a little bit reclusive maybe being able to develop and foster those relationships maybe if they have a hard time working as a team with other kids we can be able to take those kids and kind of develop and foster them that way we've also taken kids that have come to our camp about three years consented so consecutively um that will offer for some of those kids to come back and be junior counselors that way the kids can also see what happens through the years just watching those kids develop and being able to those kids can also attest and talk about with other kids kind of relate and show them what we can do and what we're trying to teach them so you're still doing it at rock springs yes yeah thank you very much i appreciate it i think you've done a good job with what you have for sure so yeah if you have any further questions i said we try and reach out back to you now it's been a little busy for us, so we'll try to get that reply as soon as we can. Thank you.

Okay, we are ready for EDC.

EDC, or you have all three of us for EDC?

Yeah, well, we've got you all three in a nutshell, so whoever wants to present.

This is EDC, if you want to have this one. Certainly. Not a problem. Whatever works.

Okay.

So for the record, I'm the Executive Director for the EDC. With me this evening is Mark Powers, who is the Chairman of the EDC Advisory Committee. And we have submitted our budget for 2027, and we've also submitted the MAC. So I guess I'll just blow right into that whenever you want to. For 2027, we are not asking for an increase. We are asking for the same $150,000 that you provided us in 2026, which is part of your Statutory requirement of the mill the half mill that you provide We've provided a statement with for you there It's just very simple and basic telling you what our annual we have we're working on our numbers for 2026 still to get those exact and Because it's very hard sometimes when companies make investments to get exact numbers. But that is your average that you've seen over the last several years of 223 million with 733 jobs. It's actually a tad higher now. More than $27 million in annual payroll. Something that has been pointed out by a couple of my board members recently is not only have we increased the payroll with the new companies or the new investments or expansions, But other companies have increased their payrolls locally because they have to compete for labor. So that's good for everyone. Obviously, we have a return on investment, but we feel that economic development is not solely based on an announcement. You know, an announcement here, announcement there. It's a build over time. It's letting people know that your community is open for business. It's understanding and supporting an ecosystem. which relates to you have to have larger business to support smaller business and everybody has to work together so i feel we can work within the budget that we had from 26 for 2027 so that is our request again this year um i have filled out the form for you i think i would rather open it up if you have specific questions than sit up here and yammer at you and you have a mac

You say the presentation is for MAC as well.

Yes, ma'am. For MAC, if you'd like me to move into that, we also have worked through their budget and we are requesting that we keep that budget flat for 2027 as well. And we're also showing that it would end the year in the black. So not an issue there that we can make that work with adjustments. So we feel that the military affairs is a critical part in this community. That relationship of bringing people from the fort into the community from taking people from the community on to the fort Retaining that relationship is critically important, but we think we can do that at a flat level We have Stephanie Rodriguez on board with us and her experience and her background as well one of the current with the map with the city now Then you would be finding another position.

I

And that is the decision of the MAC board. And the MAC board did not have a quorum at the last meeting. And so we have not had a chance to discuss that, ma'am. So I don't really know how that's going to shake out. But we had to fiduciarily respond and send our budget in prior to some of these events.

Yeah, I think we all know we're in that transition. So we don't know.

these budgets mean anything or not yeah i won't i can't speak for another position i can't speak and if that committee hasn't yet had a chance to go over it that obviously would reflect and work for us i do have one other handout because i think this is pretty important speaking in military um we would like okay to floor one We would like everybody, if possible, to attend our pitch competition on the 23rd of June. These are young men and women who are either active duty getting out or veterans who are wanting to create companies and businesses within our community, hopefully. The last one that we did, our first year was last year. We actually did see some businesses get started and actually a couple of them that didn't even win the competition started their business and we've continued to work with them. It's pretty exciting and we would love to have you come out on the 23rd of June to see these, I think we have nine, to see these nine people make their pitch for new businesses hopefully in Gary County.

When did the process to apply end?

When did the process to apply end?

I don't have that in front of me, but I think our deadline.

Yeah, we have publicized the deadline for sign up a month ago or better, because the first class started on the 12th of May. Yeah, the first class started May 12th, so they had to be signed up prior to that. We thought that, but I wasn't sure of the time frame. It takes me a second to look at the date. So we have four classes that they have to participate, and it's two hours. on Tuesday nights. The last one was held last week. And what's really exciting is we have exposed those nine entrepreneurs to a lady who is very well known. Her name is Michelle Wiegand. And she is actually the lady who created LendingTree.com and sold it for obviously millions. She's a very successful entrepreneur. So she started with us last year through a contact that I have, came and gave the last presentation for the pitch competition and enjoyed it so much. She says, I will make time in my schedule to come back for your second year.

So what funding is available for the winners?

So the winners, there's 5,000, 3,000, and 2,000. so um 5 000 for first place 3 000 per second and 2 000 for third and we are supported obviously by network kansas and junction city first and then we also said last year that if we had any funds that were left over from last year's sponsors we very clearly stated this those funds would roll into the program for this year so that's that's how we've raised help raise those monies to pay those winnings

So who judges this?

We have four judges. One is a lady who owned her own. She owned the Wichita Technology Corporation out of Wichita, Kansas, and did angel investment named Trish Brasted. Very well known. The other one is Brett with TBI and used to be AMI with Manhattan. And then Stephanie Pierce, who's been doing some of the small business work over with TBI in the Manhattan area. And then I believe the other one is an interest bank representative. So they're not necessarily locals because we didn't want to play that game. So most everybody is from out of the area. Oh, and I do stand corrected. Um, we did have, um, Sergeant AK.

Yeah.

Who's also, so we have five judges as I started to say five.

Yeah. So we have five judges. Yeah, I attended last year. It was, yeah, it was fun to watch. It is fun to watch.

Any other questions for myself? I'll turn it over to Kelly.

I'll just set it up from here.

We'll set it up from there, just for that. Just for that. Let me see here. And chairwoman, ministers, thanks for having me. What if I told you that some of the most important economic development work in Gary County doesn't happen in a boardroom or a government office or even a construction site. It happens at a table. At the annual dinner, business leaders, public officials, and community partners come together not just to celebrate but to reconnect the relationships that hold our local economy together. At the Golf Scramble, where the informal conversations between employers, partners, and community leaders often turn into real opportunities for collaboration and growth. At the New Teachers Breakfast, where they welcome educators into our community and help shape whether they see Gary County as a place to stay, invest, and build their careers. And finally, at the Business Expo, where small businesses, entrepreneurs, and established employers all show up in the same space, visible, connected, and supportive. These are not just events. They are touch points in what I would call I'm with the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce and my role lives in that space where business, government, military, education, and community intersect. Gary County already invests in the work at the Circle of Leaders level and we are grateful for that partnership. that we have is sustained programs and striking workforce development leadership growth and community engagement across the county today we're requesting the consideration of an initial $2,000 to Gary County to the circle of advocates level not because it adds benefits in the traditional sense but because it deepens engagement in the very spaces where economic relationships are formed and strengthened it needs greater participation in welcoming educators to shape our future workforce and Stronger engagement with the military leadership at Fort Riley, one of the most significant economic drivers in our region. An increased ability to support chamber initiatives and connect businesses, encourage investment, and strengthen our local economy. But more importantly, it signals an alignment with the city of Junction City. The shared understanding that economic development is not accidental, it is built through consistent connection. Because when they look closely, counties do not grow because of one major decision. They grow because of repeated moments of connection. A teacher who feels welcomed and stays, a business owner who feels supported and hires, a military partner who feels engaged and continues to invest locally, and a community that keeps showing up for those relationships over and over again. This is what the four events present. The annual dinner, the golf scramble, the new teacher's breakfast, and the business expo. They're not isolated events on a calendar. They are an infrastructure that keeps our local economy connected. So when you ask for this investment, we are really asking a simple question. Do you believe the relationships are part of the economic infrastructure? Because if you do, and I believe Gary County already shows that it does, then this is one of the most efficient and meaningful ways you can strengthen it. We're not asking the county to do more. We're asking to go deeper into what is already working and to contribute to building a community where businesses stay, workers come, and opportunities grow. Not by chance, but by design. Thank you for your time and for your continued partnership in building the future of VA accounting. That's why I brought the sign. You all already support this and the previous people in my position. down here you guys are on the circle of leaders um and i i'd like you to consider going up here where the city is on the top level and if you so choose commissioner astor if you want me to create your own whole level up here we can do that too uh wherever you want to go so let's try so anyways for your consideration do you have any questions I'll reprint this as soon as you decide what level you want to go to. All right. You don't have it going on.

Thank you. Thanks for bringing Show and Tell. Sure. Yeah, did you bring any? I didn't bring any. I didn't bring any. I didn't bring any Show and Tell.

I don't mean that as critical. What I mean is,

Because we would pay for you to be buying RC ambulances just to be showy, so I'd rather they carry patients. Yeah, that started to come out early. Didn't mean it at all.

We're way ahead of schedule, so you guys sound like you might get some stories.

Yeah, draw a quick picture.

Yeah Good evening. I'm Jana Williams with the Flint Hills Regional Council. And we're here tonight to discuss our request for juice funding. As you all know, our mission is to enhance economic viability and improve the quality of life in the Flint Hills region through regional collaboration. We are here tonight to demonstrate FHRC's value to Gary County and highlight some of our current, past, and future initiatives. As you know, our goals come from our sustainability plan And they are in addition in 2027, we want to implement the new comprehensive economic development strategy, which is the regional economic development plan. And it's due this year. So we're working on it this year and starting to implement it in 2027. We also want to advance regional grant writing, grant administration and technical assistance to our members and expand support for infrastructure, housing, resilience and entrepreneurship. In addition, maintaining our federal, state, and local partnerships, which are so important to us. The amount that we are requesting is $10,531.80. And we use those funds to support administrative costs that are not covered by our federal or state grants. And that includes staff time, insurance accounting and audit services, and also our EVA planning grant, which writes our SEDS report, has a 50-50 match. So every year we have to pay that $70,000 with our dues. And also any miscellaneous software and supplies and indirect costs. This table shows, I've color coded all the grants to try to make it a little bit easier, but to show how we leverage your dues and bring services to you. So the first category is our EPA Brownville grant. So this is our third grant. We're getting ready to write our fourth one this fall. And with that grant, we have done area planning in 2020, which was the Washington grant corner. And plus, we do environmental assessments with this grant. And so for that year, it was $116,000. The next grant, we did the downtown plan with site assessments. And that was $144,000 worth of services from the grant dollars. And this last grant that we're still on, it was $1.5 million in total. And we wrote the Grant Avenue area planning document. We received the money in 2025, and we kicked it off and did grant avenue first and then we have also been doing brownfields assessments and we removed the underground storage tank by the city at the police station with that 110 110 000 there were several other assessments um as well as and you'll notice i put gw by all of them i was trying to note the ones that we were grant writers on but we've We're grant writers on all of them, obviously. But I was a co-writer on the EPA Recreation Economy grant that they held their event almost two weeks ago. And it was really an exciting event. It's a technical assistance grant, so they don't tell you the value. But I've asked, but they didn't get back to me today. But I'm just curious myself to see what that value is. The next category is our Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, which is the grant that's under Department of Defense, and it's for our defense communities. And so the current grant that we have now, we are doing the comprehensive plan, and I heard from Stantec that they are not going, their scope of work is only going to be for $236,000 because they obviously know a lot about you already, and so they brought the amount down so you only have to do the 10% match on that. The other one is the Milford Comprehensive Plan. It has a value of $40,000. And then the tabletop exercise that we're doing with 12 participants, including Gary County, is valued at $100,000. I did not divide that up between 12. And then I didn't even think to add the last MIR. There's so many, you could just keep going. One other grant that we wrote last year was the Towns Grant for Milford to help them with the helipad improvements. That was valued at $10,000, and we wrote that grant. Also, we did, back in 2023, we did the Kansas Water Office grant for Milford Planning with that $388,000 value, and also the grant for Rural Water District 4 for construction for $192,000. I spoke to Tim today from Milford, and we're gearing up to get ready to write the next one. They're actually going to join forces, the Rural Water District and the City of Milford, So we're getting ready to plan that and write that grant because they'll be out before you know it. The other grant that we wrote last year was from the Department of Transportation, Safe Streets for All. It was for EMS safety plan and demonstration technology. And that's valued at $775,000. They haven't sent out their grant contracts yet, so we haven't been able to get started. And this is typical. The year before, it took them a year to get their contract signed. So we're just patiently waiting. And the other grants, let's see, the CDBG commercial rehab grant that we wrote for High Winds Brewery, the grant was for $300,000. And those kind of total up to that number. So I'm always amazed myself.

And I've forgotten some things on it. I was going to say, there's And then I added the population that we are serving here as well.

I get surprised too, and I didn't. 2027, we're looking forward to writing that Kansas Water Office grant for Milford. We did obtain $775,000 from the Patterson Family Foundation for a regional entrepreneurial microloan program for everybody in our region. And we've made contacts with everybody that might be interested and could refer people to us. That will be going on in 2027. As I mentioned, our EDA planning partnership is ongoing every year. We get non-competitive funding from them. And every year it's $140,000 and 70 is the match. So that's what writes that says economic development strategy. The other grant that we received last year was a revolving loan fund for EPA cleanup. And then also we're still working on that EPA assessment grant that's 1.5 million. We're just about to finish it up a year and a half early. we are going to get we spend enough we can apply in November for another assessment grant we're not going to be at the same level as we were before in value but I understand we can apply for up to a million and it would probably be a two to three year grant so we can keep working Junction City and everybody else and again we will the old DCC grant your company that has your comp plans and your others will be finishing up in 2027, so we can write another one in 2027. So anything that comes out of the comp plans or the tabletop exercise can be rolled into the new grant, the recommendations. And that's all I really have, unless you would like to say anything.

I think it's pretty impressive for $10,000 that we've accomplished.

Even putting, you know, the nursing city in Yes, yeah, I know I'm just saying it's even yeah Keep going. Yeah, you've done a great great job Probably just one Thank you for your membership

Gary County for inaugural members. The Flint Hills Regional Council was formed in 2010. And Commissioner Giordano serves as our president of the board. And I wanted to thank you for all of those years of membership and understand that the Flint Hills Regional Council exists to serve our members. It was Gary County as well. and i also wanted to mention the that the eda comprehensive economic development strategy that we are beginning the process of putting together is a critical component of the flint hills regional council go forward pathway and this strategy will encompass our entire seven county economic development district And a couple of things. One, we're going to be having a gathering in each of our seven counties of business leaders, economic development folks, key elected officials to help us walk through, for instance, for Gary County, challenges that you face here and we will do that in each of the other six counties and the notion is to understand the themes understand what flint house regional council must do to help each of our members grow economically and it it will be an important endeavor for us and it will underpin our ability to advance with you in the coming years. And I would just mention, Commissioner Giordano, we're working with K-State Extension to do each of these events. And we're going to be, as Janet mentioned, hiring a consultant who's experienced with economic development strategies. And we're going to be working closely together to develop this. plan together and then that's going to be the plan for our future so so trish is kind enough to pulling together lists of people who would be good to have around that table and certainly if you have any suggestions please please give them to trish but thank you again for being a member we appreciate you very much and we're passionate about our jobs to help you and our members. 8 o'clock you think it's going to have no No, I have to date the reason today 30 looks like now.

It's gonna be really windy.

It's really windy

Yeah, I know. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. How are you?

Let me do it from back here.

You've got a voice that goes out.

He's sitting back in the classroom.

That's right. He just got me.

Some I understand but some I'm going oh, oh

I get the paper, because I think you should. And I'm like, they ask for money? I mean, some are logical, but some are not logical to me at all. Well, you asked about the information on the website. Yeah, I saw it all. Yeah, and there's all the requests. So I'm thinking, I need to go in and say, I'm old, I need money. Yeah, I've been with the system. Okay, whenever you are ready, we are ready. Okay, Jason Lankins, New York City Fire Defense. Just be me tonight.

PRESENTING TO YOU. YOU GUYS DO HAVE THIS SHEET. THIS IS THE ONE I'M GOING TO GO OFF OF, CORRECT? THANKS. So this year, the local contract is, well, 2027 will be a 6% decrease. So as you're looking down the line, line item 520, salary and wages, that'll go up with a 6% increase for the salaries plus, like we already mentioned to the city we presented, adding 3%. It's a safety reason, and I don't know why we got away from them, but battalion chiefs serve kind of like the PD. What's their name? The guy goes around and mobilizes around command.

Kind of like their supervisor.

Yeah. Kind of like their supervisor or squad commander. And they respond to everything. They'd be 24-7 on their shift, just like our other staff.

This is a silly question. So there was battalion chiefs. Correct. And there is no longer?

Chief Johnson took them away. Okay. So now you're just running with captains, right? Correct. The captain's doing both jobs. With the local agreement, we have to do it next year or by 2028. Sorry?

Yes, for what line?

This is going to be, yeah, the 520, the salary and wages. It didn't go that much up from the other one because the other one was a three staff with a 10% the year before. So that's why that was... Health insurance, vision, dental, that's all would go up too because of the staffing of three extra battalions or three extra firefighters. Obviously, firefighters would be cheaper, but KPNF 555 line item would also go up. That's going to go up 78,000. Last year, it went up 144,000. So personnel costs, as you can see, 4.4. down to the next for commodities uh we actually decreased motor fuel by 10 000 and also parts for vehicles as well because we're not transporting as much even though this year now we started transporting more so we shall see but last year we were 414 calls above last year so right now we're a little bit low so yeah back to the fuel it fluctuates so much yes

How do you project?

We just started ballparking these, and then now with how we go, the fire side's higher. But the ambulance side is a little bit lower. We did switch to gasoline. We do have a gasoline that well. The newest ambulance is a diesel. And I'll talk about that Type 3 here in a minute.

OK.

But yeah, it's kind of like a guessing game, I guess, to see.

Medical supplies will go up $659. That always goes up every year. We increase it only by just $4,000 this year. Usually we do about a $5,000. It seems like medical supplies is not bad. It's just the medications, drugs that we push. So the commodities, $285,000 asking for that. Well, this is all the same, but... Contract services 714 went down Medical expenses up 10,000 telephone down 5,000. I think we got a handle on how our telephones all work Before he like all kinds of phones every phone for everything and so I've narrowed that down dramatically dramatically down Flipping it over travel and training we have increased due to staffing getting more people so if more people we need more training kind of hand in hand with that we only increased that 5 000 so contractual services 1.07 million the fun part next one is the capital so next year we want to do the three monitors defibrillators And we wanted to do also with, uh, next year also, we did implement this, this med unit that we want to get now is a 65,000 cost cost for the cot and power load. You have to buy that separate every time you buy a med unit, it doesn't include it anymore. So, um, but that did go down 146,000 this year, capital equipment, because we're not requesting a med unit for next year. So just equipment. THE NEXT ONE, 910, 985, THOSE ARE INTEREST EXPENSES AND LEASE PURCHASES. THAT WOULD BE FOR THAT IF YOU DO DECIDE TO HELP US WITH THE MED UNIT THIS YEAR. AND THEN ALSO YOU'RE ALREADY DOING THE THREE AUTO PULSES WE DID FOR THIS YEAR. THOSE ARE ALREADY DONE FOR. AND THEN ON THE BOTTOM, 0401 INTERGOVERNMENTAL, WE'RE ASKING FOR 1.9. THAT'S ONLY A 54,000. 2.71% increase this year. We're only asking 2.80%. Yeah.

It'd be nice to have a budget with those, you know, actual, the previous and whatever. Yeah. Your overall projected request is 60, almost 64,000. Right.

Yeah. The city did that too. They wanted, when I first gave it, my budget hearing talk, they wanted a percentage. So we can start to do that implement for you guys as well, a percent increase with the last years. So this year, yes, three autopulses have already been paid for, and we do have, and we've trained for. We did ask last year in our budget for a type three ambulance, which would be the 300, what did we say? 330,000 for a type three. If you decide to help us with this year, that's no problem. Just letting you know that we were still, we got approval for the city. So we're going to put it out for RFP to see what we get. Ken's still working on the, on what, on the items on to do it. So the quote sheet, so. The mayor left, but.

No, she's over there. i'm sorry over there divine has the city uh implemented their cip i can't hear you yes as the city implemented their cip jason just said yes okay so last not budget but quarterly report

When I talked about med units, how we're going to start to get on a rotation and get everything set. So after this one, we will do every three years, we will not touch the CIP. Every three years, we will get a new med unit. And then that will be pretty much hands down, money down by. And that's what we'll do. Right now we're catching up the equipment. That's why I've been asking you about the equipment, the autopulses next to the defibrillators. We've whittled those down. We don't need 10 defibrillators. We're whittling it to seven, just the first out med units and the backup for Kent. So I am looking at things very seriously on that. and an auto defibrillator that's the big machine that reads your heart everything does the defibrillates as well checks your lung capacity co2 all that so that's a very vital piece of equipment prior on eighty thousand as you can see eighty thousand dollars or more for that and that is the heart of the med unit any other good questions i'm i i

Yes. I have a little bit of clarification on the battalion chiefs that you had said that other cities don't, they all have the battalion chief and that's more like a logistical type position.

Correct. Logistical safety officer slash incident commander is really what he is. He would have his own car. He'd be above the captain and he goes to every major call. On his shift. On his shifts. Yep.

Three different ones. Yeah. Whoever, I guess I've lost track, you know, years ago, I knew who they were, but I, you know, I don't remember.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause I haven't paid attention yet. Right.

Yeah. Cosmo Rook and Pax the Mortar Battalions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then they switched to the fire marshal, which we should have beginning anyway, the MS chief and operations chief. And so what's the operation if you think about why we need it? Well, they can be my deputy. Everybody has a deputy assistant. So if we need to change titles, that's no problem. But the battalion chiefs are very critical. So that can explain more if you want. It doesn't matter.

Are you did you participate with the uh, the search I, with the yesterday and that. So here's some of those services too, that you guys, I see you down with him and stuff. I think that's great that you guys are working together. That's kind of the goal with me is to make sure everybody's working.

Yep. And we were about to deploy the dive and start doing the ponds when they found us. Well, I was glad you had an ambulance on standby down there. Yes. I thought that was very smart. Especially with that many participants helping us.

I'm always surprised because I do listen to this can probably more than I should. But I'm always surprised at the number of calls you guys get called out on and then get called away from, I guess, like, you know, disease.

Yeah. Well, that was a good thing. And Strickland and myself were out there as well. Ian drove and I hopped in the back of the med unit to help. Because that's a that's a code call. So we needed all three people and I was in the back with them. I'm still performance to go That's neat.

I'm glad that you guys I think that's awesome that you guys work together.

It is now we're working with you guys together very well We just need money right everybody needs money

only bad thing jason is if we could see that just for you know from last year's see where where yeah okay where it is just okay i don't know what what it is or what i can send you that last year's just like that or else if you know i would go look at our old one put it next to it to see and that's good enough for me i don't know unless they need to see it don't work don't do it this year that's fine i can send you always be easy it's already there oh is it okay thank you okay

Okay. Well, we appreciate you and all your hard work.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

See you later. See you.

Okay, Big Lakes Development Center.

Is that next? So we're going to start any time. We're kind of running ahead, so thanks for being here.

Thank you for getting me in today.

As you know, Big Lakes has been providing services since 1973. We provide services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We're currently serving 229 clients. That's for adult day services, residential services, center-based employment, community employment, and case management. Currently, we have 30 clients who are from Gary County that we are serving in our programs. The Manhattan Day Program serves about 142, and the Clay Center Service Program serves 13. We provide residential services to 117 individuals, and we have 17 homes and duplexes that we provide those services for, one home in Clay Center. And we have clients who also live in our apartments, and we provide support to them as well. County mill levy dollars are expended to support transportation services. Transportation is not an allowable expense under Medicaid, and Medicaid is the primary source of our funding, about $85. 3% of our budget. Services are not possible for the IDD population without transportation. We have a fleet of 43 vehicles that's serving 149 clients for transportation from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. We have large wheelchair accessible buses, smaller passenger vans and cars. We have four county routes that we provide daily transportation Monday through Friday to our Manhattan and Clay Center. offices, 44 clients are using the route buses. We have an additional 105 clients that are using that transportation during the day and in our residential programs. Big Lakes Gary County day program route currently has 11 regular riders. We have some that ride just on the weekends and stuff when they're coming home to visit their parents and things, but 11 regular riders. KDOT provides a stipend of $10,000 per year to Big Lakes for administrative expenses under the 5310 program. expenses for transportation services are paid for using these kdot funds county mill levy and fees paid by the client to utilize the program we encourage independence or use a public transportation system however the out of us demand response program works well for some of our clients who can use it many of our clients require specialized transportation services they need support for behavioral supports or physical or intellectual so they are not always able to use that public transportation and often if they live outside of city limits, it may not be available to them. Big Lakes is charging $75 flat fee for unlimited trips to and from the center, employment access, community outings, shopping and medical appointments. We did increase that by $10 last year just to help cover the costs. Clients receive income from Social Security, however, that's well below poverty level. Our clients' income averages about $1,000 per month, and that's to include rent, food, utilities, transportation, clothing, and Medicaid does not pay for those basic living expenses. 99% of our clientele do not have the intellectual or physical capacity to drive. So residential services have the vehicles available in the evenings, nights, and weekends to use at the group home, and then we're using those same vehicles during the day for our day programs. It is just simply not possible for Big Lakes to not provide those transportation services to meet our client's needs because of their inability to use the public transportation system most often and their inability to drive. So we're requesting to maintain the same funding that we got from Gary County last year. In 2025, we drove 23,000 miles for Gary County and 2,637 rides were provided. We continue to apply and qualify for KDOT capital grants that utilize county mill levy as a match to replace our aging and high mileage large capacity accessible buses. We now are maintaining them much longer than we used to just because of the inability to replace them. We are also having some trouble with our Large vans, we usually get 12 passenger vans. They are extremely hard to get. So we purchased a 15 passenger van and then we learned that insurance doesn't like 15 passenger vans. So it's kind of a struggle there. The vehicle maintenance costs are increasing as a direct result of the inability to replace them on a timely basis. And we are not planning on expanding services in 2027 due to our struggles with coverage and our employees. Um, many openings, it's a problem across the nation in our, in our field, but we are feeling that very hard right now. Um, we have staff working sometimes up to 90 hours a week and have been for quite a while, just trying to get through the weekends and the, in the evenings and stuff to have everything covered. So, um, you know, we start out at $16 an hour and, you know, recently I heard a bank teller in our area starts out at 17. So, um, they're not responsible for life sustaining care, ostomy care. behavioral supports, psychotropic meds, all of those things. So it's quite a challenge. Inflation has had a significant impact on Big Lakes. Our projected budget for 2026 reflected an 8% increase over 2025. One of the most notable pressures has been the rising cost of fuel. As an organization, we use 3,750 gallons on average a month. So We are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in fuel prices. I provided a chart just to show the difference at $340 a gallon that our projected cost is $152,000. At $4, it's $180. So just the small changes are pretty significant on our budget. It's still too early to finalize projections for 2027. Several factors indicate that we're going to continue to see financial strain. Inflation has risen approximately 4% this year, and we experienced a 58% increase in vehicle insurance costs in 2026. And for a fleet of 43 vehicles, that was also significant on our budget. And we see that there's continued rising vehicle prices and maintenance expenses. So we plan on figuring that into the budget as we go. In 2026, we had a $13.1 million projected budget, and that's what our base will be starting for 2027. Over 90% of Big Lakes funding is obtained through federal, state, and county tax entities. Medicaid is the primary source through the Medicaid home and community-based services. In mid-2022, we got a significant increase in rates, and we used all of that to increase our wages, and that's when we were able to get to $16 an hour. But since then, inflation has really taken up those gains. The legislature approved a 6% increase for fiscal year 2026. We are working to, again, try to apply all of that to direct support as much as we can without creating too much wage compression for the rest of our staff. We're hopeful that the 4% that was approved this year will stay in the budget for next year. And policy changes are really in flux right now, as it is really unclear how we will be paid starting July of 2026. There is a tier structure that we had been paid for many years through a five tier rate. They were discussing going to a flat tier rate for everyone, but then that was problematic. So right now they just said, we'll freeze everyone in the tier that they're in and we'll create this flat middle of the road bridge rate for anybody new in the system. And that's supposed to expire July of 2026. And right now KDADS is saying we don't really have a plan for a new rate structure yet. So that's pretty unclear as to how that's going to affect our budget. We did do some just projection of like if they put everyone on that middle bridge rate, in six months we would get $1 million out of our budget if they did go to that flat rate. So that's pretty concerning going forward. They also are wanting to unbundle day services right now, but day services is just one thing and they are going to make it three different things with different rate structures. kind of in-day programs in the community and in employment. And so trying to plan your budget around the lack of a tier structure and then unbundling day services to be some rates that you don't know what they're going to be in the future is concerning for me. They're also working on conflict of interest with case management and trying to figure that out, which could have some significant impacts on that as well. I think when I wrote this, we had 36 FTEs for open positions. I think we're at 35 right now. So that's kind of staying consistent. Big Lake's ability to increase revenue to offset increasing costs is extremely limited. Fundraising and grant opportunities are actively pursued, but most grantors and donors will not pay for operational expenses to supplement Medicaid funding, grant opportunities are more available for special projects or capital expenditures. The Big Lakes Foundation does determine the level of giving towards Big Lakes operations each January and has supported Big Lakes operations every year since 2018. In 2026, the foundation is providing $175,000 towards operational expenses. The local and statewide waiting list continues to grow despite attempts to cap the wait list. I think at one point it was supposed to be capped at like 4,500 people, but they're wanting to start a new community support waiver, which is an attempt to get some people off of that wait list, but it caps their plan for $20,000 a year, which doesn't pay for a lot. So somebody might choose that, but they have to come off the wait list for IUD services, which right now is nine years long. So that can be a little bit of a gamble. And so until they get the community support waiver going, they're not going to be making any new offers for HCBS funding. Big Lakes, we also have an internal wait list just because of our lack of staff. We're not able to expand. So we have 75 people with funding on our wait list right now that we don't have the staff to support. So they're just waiting for us to have capacity to serve them. But technically, they're not on the state waiting list any longer because they have eligibility for their HCBS funding. Statewide, there's 4,919 people on that state waiting list, and 128 of those are in the Big Lakes catchment area, 24 are in Gary County. Our goals for 2027 and beyond are to continue to provide quality services for the individuals we have. We will refill beds as someone may move out of the area or if someone were to pass away or something, we will refill those, but we are not going to expand beyond that. And the community support waiver, as my understanding right now, is that there's one affiliate in our area that's going to do personal care services and one that could do medical equipment that's on that waiver. But other than that, there's no other affiliates to provide those services. What I hear from all of my colleagues across the state is everybody's at capacity. So Big Lakes can't provide those services because we're having a hard time keeping up with what we already have on our plate. In late 2022, the Big Lakes Foundation launched a $2 million two-year capital campaign called Raise the Roof Capital Improvement Project. In 2023, phase one and two were completed, and we replaced the 43-year-old roof and put on solar panels on the roof. We, in phase four, replaced a main breaker in one of our HVAC units. And then phase three is we're in process for that to replace our... flooring, remodel some bathrooms to meet our needs. And our wallpaper, I think, is older than I am. So it's done a good job, but it's time to go. So that's what we're working on now. In late 2025, the Big Lakes Foundation launched a big improvement campaign to make needed improvements to the Big Lakes group homes. As any homeowner knows that things need repaired, we have siding, we have fence. We also need to remodel some bathrooms. We remodeled one already just to meet the needs of our aging population. We have a second one in the works and then we're remodeling a staff apartment. Big Lakes is starting a new initiative to provide remote supports to try to stretch some of those staffing resources, particularly at night, so that those are times when you may not need someone in person. And therefore we may not need someone to actually be sleeping in that staff apartment. That is giving us the ability to move some clients who need more total care setting into that location. So that's in process as well. Big Lakes continues to need the support of all four counties it serves in 2027 to maintain a transportation program that is essential to the people with intellectual and developmental disabilities served by Big Lakes. Without this transportation, they would just simply not receive services. Without the support, Big Lakes could not provide the services and supports necessary for daily living, and we're appreciative of the steadfast financial support received from Gary County.

What four counties do you have?

Riley, Pottawatomie, Clay, and Gary.

How do you choose somebody from Gary County? The state does some allocation. I don't understand how they do that, honestly.

But for us, It's just by first come first serve. So they start whoever was the first one on the list is where we start and just go down that list that way.

And Platt County has a lot less people than us, but they have twice the number of people.

How is that? I don't know how to answer that entirely, except for that many of the people that are, I think, in services from Junction City are in our residential program. So they're currently living in our group home. So they're not on that regular route. Um, we also have to travel further for like, we're driving all the way up to Emmett, um, to get clients. So it's not, it's not appropriating any certain number. When we come off that wait list by county, it's just whoever went on the wait list first. Um, they can go on the wait list as early as I think 14.

How do we compare on the wait list with other counties?

Um, Clay is much smaller. Riley is much larger. um i i couldn't remember i don't know i didn't mean to put it on the spot it's just it's just by capita really i i don't know and these clients when you pick them up is that just daycare then if you come and get them and they

but otherwise then you've got actual residents then stay in there. And is that need wise or because the ones who are transporting back and forth, they don't qualify for the care because there's not room?

Yeah. I mean, a lot of them are not room or they chose to stay with their family and not come move into a group home. They're still wanting to live with their family.

I thought I had heard one time that in order for, you know, to be considered a vacancy, I mean, some people that, want to take their family member home for a weekend or whatever timeframe that they still have to stay in that residence for a period of time or otherwise they'll lose their spot. Is that right?

So what's happening is the MCOs are getting pressure that if they're not using enough of their services, they will cut them. and so they'll reduce their plan of care. So it's not that Big Lakes is saying that we won't accept you back. It's that their insurance is saying you're only using this much, so we're going to cut you to that much.

I mean, it makes sense, but it don't. Family members would like to have their person with them for part time, but they can't because they

required to keep them there yeah usually for the weekends we don't see a lot of cuts for that it's if they're only coming like one time a month or something like that that's when we start seeing a lot more of those cuts but we have a lot of clients that do go home on you know consistently on the weekends and we haven't had any problems with them so sometimes our junction city bus specifically is pretty full on the on the evening um the weekends

I'd be curious, like your question was, you know, how is that broken out? You know, with the, you know, per capita, why Hop County would have 55 and we would have 30.

I have those numbers. I can send them to you when I get back to the office.

Yeah.

And that's the numbers that I have on that I have right now are from the statewide waitlist, but I can get, I can do some looking into it and get you what our internal waitlist numbers are.

Yeah, that's incredible. It's kind of, it's sad that, you know, even, you know, him with things the way they are with the state and everything else that there's not, you know, because I know the people that have family members there love it and are satisfied with the care and everything, but, you know, if they're limited and on this wait list for nine years, I mean, you know, that's, that's incredible. Yeah. You know, it's unfortunate.

Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have any other questions? thank you thank you okay last but not least good evening good evening hello ladies

Good evening. My name is Julie Govert-Walter. And yes, I guess you could say you saved the best for last. I'm not sure that's your opinion. But with me tonight is Pat Foster. Pat is one of our newest members on our board of directors. I'm just really pleased to have her experience and her enthusiasm.

You all paid me last year. Thank you.

The North Central Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging appreciates your ongoing support of the programs and services that are available to older Kansans and their family members. What we're requesting this year is a total amount of $28,577, which is, I think, It's only $172 more than last year. And primarily it's due to because your valuation in your county, at least that's part of it, increased. So congratulations. Our agency makes decisions, our board of directors and advisory council looks at the formula that includes valuation in the county, as well as number of older people and total population in the formula. So just letting you know, you know, Pat or I didn't wake up one morning and decide, oh, yeah, we want Gary County to pay 172 more dollars. The biggest challenge that we faced in our friendship meal services is the cost of health insurance. As you've heard before, we are required and actually it's something we'd want to do anyway. But money is the thing. we are required to offer health insurance to our Friendship Meals employees who work 30 or more hours a week. And right now those employees are at the senior center, the Gary County Senior Center here. So in your packet, There's a brochure that really summarizes the programs and services that we provide here, well, throughout our 18-county region, but particularly here in Gary County. And I'll also refer, make a reference to the fact sheet that is in your packet that looks like this. And on that fact sheet, you will see that you have about 13% of your total population who is over the age of 60. You have another 13% of those people who are in the minority classification. And about 7.4% of those people age 60 and over have incomes below the poverty level. The total number of people living alone, that percentage is right at 19%. It gives you a picture of what is happening here in Gary County. I'll also draw your attention to page two of this fact sheet, which lists the various services that were provided here in your county in fiscal year 25. It's the federal fiscal year, but fiscal year 25. And gives you a picture of what kinds of service and service hours that are being provided with the money. that you give us. I want to let you know that one of the things that we're able to do is something called, it's got a boring name, but it's called Administrative Case Management. That particular program helps people who are on the cusp of being eligible for Medicaid and they need some help and some advice to get help through Medicaid we can provide those people with some counseling and helping them fill out the paperwork so that those folks can get access to Medicaid.

How do they know how to get that help?

Well, they have to be part of our case management program.

And they're put into case management by a physician?

No, it's by calling and giving us a referral so that we can have those folks.

I'll tell you, you know, when my mother was eligible for some of those services, I had a terrible time trying to get through to find out what services she was eligible for. So, you know, it's unfortunate because I said, you know, for people that don't have someone at home You know, kids that were, I mean, I told them I was going to quit my job and be an advocate for my mother because we could not find any services or find where, you know, she was after respite care, you know, to go and stuff. So it was hard. So I was just wondering, look at the case management.

There's 668 customers.

That's quite a bit in your numbers.

Well, yeah, it's actually hours. But our units of service provided. But it gives you a picture. And I also certainly understand the frustration that you experience. Let me just say that our agency has had some of the same challenges that i know other agencies have had finding workers who can be part of our team and it takes a while for onboarding and we we're in a better place now than we were a year ago so we just want we want you to to know that give us a call or help people connect with us i will say that um we have you know also in the packet i want to draw your attention to this little brochure it's from us aging A lot of times people do not understand what an Area Agency on Aging is. Even physicians and doctors offices, they just do not understand. and essentially what we do is help families and caregivers and of course older people themselves get connected to services that can help them stay well at home in their communities for as long as possible is that an easy task no and you're right commissioner it often it requires a lot of diligence and focus on the part of family members yeah so yeah you think of those that don't have they have somebody at home that you know are out there and that you know goes along with homelessness and anything else that's right that's right services are awesome once you find there you know yeah and i you know perhaps there's a a way that we could do a better job of communicating

working with counties maybe there's something on maybe there's a phrase or connection on your website that might help after she was getting physical therapy it seems like they're the ones that we finally got tied into it home health services and then through home health services yeah somehow but we were looking and I heard that from some other people going through the same thing is that, what do I do? And that's just horrible too.

And it's a challenge, not only here in our region, but statewide, we've talked about it.

I will say. Same life that your connection should be there as well. Yes.

And we've been, I will say we're very blessed. We have a new director of our senior opportunities and community services program. We've had a vacancy in that particular position for about a year and a half. It hasn't been fun. But we're bolstering that particular program with more training. And so what you said about senior centers being a conduit, yes, we intend to strengthen that. But I will say, basically call us. We do have people that answer the phone. It's a personal answer, not press a bunch of numbers. And we will connect people. the best we can. We have waiting lists for certain services obviously, but we do connect people and we want to help those caregivers and those people. I also want to let you know that our agency is one of about 600 area agencies on aging in the United States. 11 in Kansas. So we're talking about a national commitment to help people age well at home. So again, there's information in this little brochure, which I don't think I've included in previous presentations, but I wanted you to make sure, I wanted you to know that there is that connection. So if there's a caregiver or a friend that you have in another part of the country, there is an Area Agency on Aging that can help them. And we can connect you to that agency if you can't find another place. I also want you to know that our 2026 Sunflower Fair is happening September the 22nd, again at Tony's Pizza Events Center, right down I-70. It's a one-day information extravaganza It's like, well, we talk about it, but frankly, it's got very practical and useful information for older people, their caregivers. It includes a sit-down banquet lunch, as well as we have 14 breakout sessions, two plenary sessions. This year, we're going to be focusing a lot on frauds and scams. former director of the Midwest Office of the Federal Trade Commission. He was there for 27 years. He's very committed to helping older people stay away from frauds and scams. He's going to be one of our featured speakers. It's going to be a great day. And again, one thing we could do with your help, we could put more promotion out about this day of information. You know, you guys are geographically perfectly placed to get to Salina, and we're expecting around 700 people this year.

Bad weather. Sorry, bad weather. Old people who live alone worry about that.

technology is strange I also included a brochure about last it's a program for last year's Sunflower Fair so you can get a picture about what kinds of programs that are part of this information day so there it is do you have questions service yeah well and again if there's a way to collaborate madam chair to get more connectivity maybe through your website or through other promotions here in the county might be something there we have to work on or think about because you know just like the

kids and issues that they're having you know yeah the same thing on the other end of the spectrum i think i know all 4900 people over 60.

Congratulations. I will also add that our auditors consistently tell us that our agency's administrative costs are at or below 5%. So we work very diligently To keep that, I will say sometimes to our detriment because we don't have all the administrative staff time that we sometimes would like. But I also want to say on the fact sheet, you will see that the total value of the services we provided in 2025 was $913,363 and the economic impact based on a multiplier of five is on that first page, that multiplies out to $4,566,800. And our auditor said, oh, you could use a multiplier of seven, and we said, oh, well, we're conservative, we'll do a multiplier of five. But the point is, those federal dollars are coming here to do what they're supposed to do to help people, older Kansans, caregivers, and families. So I just want you to, know that and we wouldn't be able to do it without your continuing support and help so thank you thank you well thank you and we'll do our best to continue that if you have any questions or additional things that you'd like from us please give me a call thank you thank you so much thanks for coming back

You know, I like to come. It's just I get lazy in the evening. I've been busy all day, and then I want to watch TV. But I've come before, you know, just for no reason. I learn more every time I come. I know I don't like the job. Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Thank you, Julie.

Thank you. Was it thunderstorm thing for us then? Was it?

Yeah, it sounds like it's supposed to be nasty. Tammy needs to head home.