Commissioners - Regular Meeting

We're back from executive session with no action taken relating to legal matters Well, after the discussion, I think there's been a lot of back and forth and all of everybody's having all these special meetings here and there and doing their own thing. And so I would like to instruct our chairman to contact the executive board of the chamber and the mayor of National City and us have a joint meeting. public meeting in reference to this uh agreement this interlocal agreement master agreement um next monday at 5 30 at the opera house if they're available it's available there no one out there well we need to figure out where it's going to be because i want it to be on it needs to be um to where we can it can be um uh streamed so possibly maybe some of the city county and chamber exactly exact board Because I just think there's too many little meetings going on, and we all need to be on the same page.

I would agree with that. So you'll get a hold of the chamber in the city?

Yes, I will.

Okay.

And would you make that a motion?

That's my motion, that we do that, depending on the location, because we need to figure out how we're going to straighten that.

Okay, and I'll check with, in the meantime, we'll check with them to find out, make it possible at 5 o'clock.

I'd say 5.30, so give people time to get off work.

5? 5.30. 5.30.

I'll second that.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carried. And I will get on with that today and let Teresa know, right? Okay. Okay. Moving along. Sheriff, sorry. Thank you for waiting. Of course.

Good morning. Sheriff Nick Beckman here at County Sheriff's Office. I will be covering two-week staffs between June 3rd to June 16th. During that timeframe, our daily jail population was one of two. We took six accidents. We assisted outside agency 43 times. We took three battery slash assaults. We had zero burglaries. We issued 62 citations. We served 277 papers during that two week timeframe, civil papers. We took one domestic incident. We had two drug investigations, two DUIs, zero motor vehicle thefts. We had 17 prisoner transports, zero sex offenses, zero shots fired, zero thefts, 178 traffic stops were conducted in that timeframe, zero weapon violations, 28 arrests, We had a total primary incidence of 619 with an additional other 134 calls for service for a total of 753 calls for service in that two-week time frame. Any questions, comments, or concerns?

I saw you guys had a pretty big disturbance out on the lake yesterday.

We did. The under sheriff jumped on Lake Patrol that night and pulled up to quite the scene, I guess. I guess East Rolling Hills had over 300 vehicles. And then apparently that moved over to that area, which sounds like there was some, not domestic, but disturbance with several individuals, mostly military is what I've been told. So it might be reaching out to the post. Back in the day they used to do that. I think, I don't want to jump the gun, but I think, yeah, they probably had some party at the lake. Yeah. Yeah. I told them I'm sure it might be best to reach out to some higher ups at the post to resolve that problem.

Was there any injuries?

I believe there was some one person has some injuries. Yes. Yep. And I think they're looking into it, but we had a lot of uncooperative people.

Yeah. What time does it close out there? Because I remember they used to have, you know, big parties out there and then when it closed and they would come in and hang out at 18th and watch.

Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like no one wanted to cooperate or talk and it makes things difficult. Yeah. But we were there to provide service if they needed it. Any other questions?

um no there was a question we had um on one of the um about some software um and um i think uh we might want to maybe not this week to have an executive session with you about um talking about that um um because it tested with your personality when you guys are speaking up so yeah we can definitely arrange that yeah since it since it's pertaining to your active personality we'll need to do that

The counselor has met with finance, right? We had a phone call. Okay.

Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you.

I'm going to take a couple of minutes break.

Thank you. Okay. I tell you, I'm kind of ashamed where the venue was.

You had to walk from the parking lot up the little hill and . Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. That's a handy tip.

Good morning, commissioners. Tammy Robison, finance director. We are here for our first budget work session that is not presentations. It provides you the information concerning the value of a mill. And it also reflects the requests that have been presented to you in their natural state, no adjustments made. so this first worksheet the 2027 budget development we have 2025 expenditures we have 2026 budget on there and we have the 2027 proposed clear over to the right side it shows you the percentage of change of the three c's so that takes 2026's budget and compares to what's being proposed at the bottom of this first page it also reflects the budget request for debt service capital improvement county facilities special bridge economic development and the health department all of them except the debt service receive transfers in from the general fund which affects the ad valorem tax that's why the information is provided by statute capital improvement and special bridge is not required to be budgeted however we do so to be transparent to the public so they know what we have available and what we're using for those special project costs. Debt service is on there because also with the hospital and the changes that we made with the new bond, defusing an old one, utilizing the reserve that's in there, again, being transparent to the public. So that information is available on this worksheet.

Also in that middle section, you'll note that there's appropriations.

That shows you again what the 25 actual, 26 budget, and 27 proposed is in the general fund. That does not reflect the requests that have been made to the economic development, nor the special alcohol or the opioid funding. However, I do have the appropriation sheet in this packet, and we can pull that up after we go through this worksheet. that's the information that's provided on the first one concerning the expenditures and then when you come to the second page on the left side it gives you the budgeted revenue for 26 and 27's proposed on the right side it gives you a summary of the expenditures from the previous page for the general fund since it's the only levied fund and other than special districts the value of the mill, which you can see one mill equates to $330,141. So then it takes your comparison of your expenditures, less your resources to show you what is needed. And you can see that amount of the ad valorem tax required at this point in time with no adjustments, no changes. And it also includes the delinquency calculation of 1.73% and our NRP program that we have so that we can recapture tax dollars to make up the difference that we pay back out as rebates is $21,170,082. That equates to 64.124 mils, and that's a mill levy difference from the previous year of 7.823. And in looking at that, that's based on if we would capture the growth that we see from previous year's mill to the current year mill. If we look at revenue neutral rate, which says that we can only collect the same tax dollars as the previous year, then we are actually over by 10.343 mills. And in reference to dollars, that's 3.4 million. well and that's why i gave you additional worksheets to look at to show you what made up those differences and so in just looking at that this worksheet which was included in the packet and out online it shows you where we were from previous year into comparison with what we're proposing So the decreases are on the top and you can see for the decreases that are being requested, that's a total of 429,368. The bottom half shows you why we're increasing. A couple of things to think about is for instance, the sheriff's office, the first one on the line. So their revenue sources decreased, which means we have to increase the mills. Also on the expenditure site up above, you'll see that that also decreased. So the net is the 300, about 300,000 that we have to deal with because our revenue is lower. Revenue is lower because previously we had put in additional SRO grants and we don't have that. And then of course, a part of that is the dispatch and the jail agreements. And then we also have some other funding sources that adjusted with the inmate medical costs. So again, that's with a new sheriff coming on board, learning everything that's going on in their office, making adjustments based on what is actually happening and this is what you see. So the other things that are adjusted is an estimated investment, sales tax and penalties are decreased. And that's a couple of different things. Looking at the history of the investments, our investments have went down, we're down in the mid twos for what the interest we're receiving in our checking account now. We were in 4% previously. Sales tax decreased it, I believe it was, $50,000, and that was just based on what we're seeing right now and what we may see with the deployment of our troops. Penalties, we received a lot of dollars in penalties last year because of the tax sale. That's not going to be in every year happening, so reduce that again based on what we actually expect to collect because in 2025, we collected $600,000 in penalties and interest, and that was due to county councilor putting that tax cell in place. But that was an adjustment that's probably a one-time thing, and I don't expect to continue to see that because she's getting on top of it so that as we move forward, it's going to be much more regulated. The other thing is our beginning cash decreased. and when you look at that i gave you a couple of worksheets that reflect so this one is your estimated ending cash balance for 2026 which carries us our beginning 2027. so our beginning cash coming in was 10 million 162 382 in 26 based on our audit that we're completing right now and our ad valorem taxes and other revenue That's our estimated revenue based on collections and our budget. So we have resources available just over, well, $34.6 million. And then when you look at our expenditures, I look at the history of what our expenses are that we actually pay compared to our budget. So I put in 92% of our expenditures, and I didn't take appropriations or transfers into consideration when I look at that 92%. That's just our core expenses, salaries, and the three Cs. I also took out the budget stabilization, our reserves. So then the appropriations you expect to pay 100% and that is in there in total. And then your transfers are also in there in total based on what we've approved. So when you calculate that down, we're looking at 6.1 million coming into 2027. Last year we estimated 7.3 million so then if you look at this cash carryover sheet and this really hopefully will help you understand where we're at with this when we look at this because for instance in 2025 we estimated going into 2026 ending 2025 at 7.3 million however we had 10 million in there but you have to remember that's not 10 million dollars that we have of working funds because that 7.3 million we expected to deploy towards our 26 budget because we have a balanced budget where revenue equals expenses and that money is counted as part of the revenue that's going to equal expenses so our variance between what we actually ended with and what we expected to end with was 2.8 million also remember we have reserves of 2.1 million so what we have as working dollars going into 2026 was 738 000 not 10 million not 7 million but 738 000 when you look at 24 we had just over a million and then you look in 23 we had almost 3.9 million so as your carryovers get smaller which the thing about that is that means that you guys are making your budgets more leaner more trimming them, making sure you have in there what you're actually expending. But when you do that, it also takes away from that carryover cash. We do need some carryover cash to pull us forward or we have to ask the taxpayers for all of those dollars to cover us. So that's important to understand as we move forward. The other thing I want you to note is In the past, we had a lot of vacant positions in the sheriff's office and in public works. Those have been cut down, and a lot of those dollars before were carryover dollars going into the next year. But since we don't have those unfilled positions, it's taking away that carryover cash, as you can clearly see. So that's where we are with the 6.1 million going into our 27 budget and estimating to end the 26th year with. This worksheet, again, all of these documents are provided to you just so you can see what's going on and you have a good idea of what you need to look at, maybe where you want to consider making adjustments. So this one I wanted to give you, So it shows you how many employees are by department because understanding that a large part of our budgets are our personnel budgets and that a lot of that is not an easy adjustment based on the information that they provided you, unless you want us to cut positions or make adjustments, those kinds of things. So in looking at the number of employees, you see that their proposed budgets probably largely make up that number based on those and then the other thing i gave you was the proposed revenue which is right here in this column and that's what the department heads have given me for estimated revenue to come in against their expenses so the net is going to be your proposed budget less your proposed revenue and then what i gave you is how much that equates to in a perspective from looking at mills. So the value of a mill is $330,141 and that net budget equates to the mills needed column. At the bottom, you have to take into account that beginning unencumbered cash because we use it to deploy against the budget, which is down there. So that takes out 18.73 mills that we would otherwise be requesting because we're going to reuse it in this next year. The delinquency calculation that's based on the 1.73% and the NRP calculation is based on the taxes that are paid that's provided from the county clerk and it calculates it out in the budget percentage wise to show what we need to increase our levy to make up that difference. So with that, that's the 64.124 that matches up to the developmental worksheet and the 21,170,082.

That's a pretty lame amount on the delinquency, isn't it?

That is provided on the clerk's worksheet that she gives me. So she shows me what that, there's like a history of what it was. Last year it was 1.8%. This year it was a 1.73. So I've just literally pulled it right off that worksheet. Yeah, they may have budgeted that, but with that worksheet, that's the dollar. And you can, I mean, it's a relatively large number, even with it being 1.73%. So again, I knew that these numbers were going to be large and you were going to be going, And that's why I wanted to provide you all the additional information so you could look at it, you could understand where the numbers were coming from, and then make a determination on how you wanted to move forward. I'm not necessarily expecting anything from you today other than I just wanted you to review this, answer any questions you may have, and make a calendar item for when we need to come back to discuss further. The only other document that I have in there at this point is the appropriation request, and that is to show you what we had approved in 23, 24, 25, what was requested and approved in 26, and what is being requested in 27. The percentage change takes what was actually approved in 26 and compares it to what is being requested in 27. And then the column clear to the right tells you where historically we have been paying those dollars. I did do some digging in a couple of other entities and looking at the agencies that they fund and how many dollars go out of there. And I would encourage you to speak to some of your fellow commissioners and ask some questions on the agencies just so that you know i know there's been a lot of concern about some of them and whether we're paying enough or whether we're paying too much and i also think one of the commissioners brought up a good point on an entity that is charging counties differently than just a flat rate for all of them based on the usage, and those are questions I think would be good to ask.

I don't know. I remember you and I, I thought we had asked, and I don't know who does the budget for the extension, but I don't know if it's something that, because we are responsible for funding them, that it could be something that

you could take a little bit deeper dive in to see if there's any you know where they might not notice that there's some things that could be well so there is a statute on that and legal counsel would probably be best to advise you on how to handle that but there's a time frame from when they turn that budget request in and when you have to respond to let them know whether you're going to accept it or not if you choose to not accept it then it goes back to them They have to revamp it based on what you request them to do and then resubmit it. But it would be probably best to have your legal look at that and advise you on how you would want to handle that one.

Because I know you sat down with the court last year and you pointed out some things that they were not aware of. And I know that's what you're trained in. So I don't know. Is it somebody that is a true finance person or just somebody who's plugging in numbers?

Yeah, I don't know. I know they have a board.

Yeah.

And so I would expect that that board assists them. And I also know they work with K-State. So I don't know if those two agencies assist with the numbers they come to. And I do know that Ginger did reach out and she asked me a few questions on, like what we were proposing for COLA and those kinds of things before they presented their budget numbers to us. So I do know they're looking at it and thinking about it, how they actually formulated it. I don't know that answer, but I do know that she did specifically ask questions about that. I did bring in a little packet this morning And this is just for your information, really. And that's just to give you, again, some more history on the expenditures, which this is out inside our budgets and our audit numbers online. And it can be pulled directly from those reports because that's where I received, that's where I gathered it. So it gives you the general fund expenditure history. And it shows you what the actual expenditures were, what the original budget was. That's not amended, but original budgets. And really the reason that I did not put in the amended is because the original budgets is how we calculated our mill levies in the past. And so really we have to understand how much of that original budget did we spend so that I can estimate a number going into this budget year. The other thing that I took out of that when you look at those percentages is the reserves because we don't expect to spend the reserves. And so we don't really want that to be part of the budget numbers when you're calculating what percentage we're spending. So when you take the 32 million in 2026, less the 2.2 million, we are spending 95.23% of what we budgeted. In 25, it was 97.3%. Now, the thing that I also want you to understand is that's everything. That's appropriations, that's transfers, and that's the three Cs and the personnel. So when I tell you on that calculated page for the cash that has the graph, that is separating them. So when I take 92%, I'm taking 92% of the three Cs and the personnel, not appropriations, not transfers, because those we put in at 100%. And that's why that expenditure sheet in front of you in the packet shows 95%, and this shows 92% plus 100% of approved appropriations and 100% of budget transfers. So if you calculated that out, that's where you would get the 95.23%. So I don't want any confusion there because it is all being calculated the same. It's just that I have them separated on this worksheet. And the reason is because those two categories are 100% calculated to be spent. Same thing with 25, it's 97.30%. When you take the reserves off, 24, 93.14%. And then 23, which was the first year that we restructured our budget, we spent 88.59%. 23 and 24 we had a lot of vacancies in the sheriff's office in the public works and that's why you see that percentage lower so in 25 and 26 you're not seeing those vacancies so we're spending more of the budget and i i think that's important too to point out because we were overtaxing our taxpayers for these positions that some have been open for over a decade and we were we were

and they weren't being filled, and it was just over-taxing our taxpayers for no reason.

Right, and that's a good thing. That's a good thing. But when you're looking at a carryover going into the next year, you're also decreasing, which means that next year you have to tax a little more because we don't have that carryover because we did not spend it. I think there's a balance. There's a balance. Yes. That's exactly what I wanted to say. There's a balance, and that's where you have to figure out where you're okay with what that balance is when you bring in the next year that you want to make sure you have that carry over cash. But now where we are right now, you've got to get to that balance. We're not where we want to be. And you can see that with the 21 million. So with that, that's where you have to determine. And the other thing you need to remember is last year we didn't have a CIP transfer. And this year I have it in at 750. Is 750 the, bottom line that you have to transfer? No, not necessarily. But I have told you all that I do think it's important to keep up with that because if you don't, then we get behind and it hurts us in the future. Yes. Now, also keep in mind that a couple of the next few years are asking for $1.4 million. So 750 is about half of that. So it wouldn't even cover a full year. And you don't want your CIP depleted so low that you aren't able to fill the following years. The other thing that we adjusted last year for taxpayers' sake was we only adjusted the reserve by $100,000 rather than $250,000. So this year we have back in the $250,000. So right there you look at $150,000 plus the $750,000. you're at 900,000 right there, that's three mils of this change. So those are all important for you to remember when we're looking at our numbers. And then of course the estimated beginning cash decrease is 1.1 million. And when you look at that, that's about four mils. So four plus three, now we're at seven. We would be right back where we were last year if we adjusted. And you could do that, but I would guess if you do that, you're going to end up with a negative cash carryover going forward next year because we would basically be eating into our reserves. So those are all things that you have to think about is not just what's happening today. And that's the hard part about this is you have to think about what's going to be happening in one, two, three, four, five years down the road and how what we do today is going to have an impact on those future years. So lots of information. The other documents with that little packet is your by department, what we had for our actual budget, what the original budget was, and what we came in over and under. And really the reason that's so important is so that you understand, you can see the departments that are highlighted, attorney, sheriff, public works, Those all have a lot of employees, and depending on whether positions are filled or not, that's what you see in that carryover and how it's affected. Now the general, that's based on our reserves and looking at that, and then additional costs that may come in that we have to deal with. But I mean, we're doing okay on the general. You can see in 25 that we spent more than we expected. Now we did adjust that when we did a budget amendment because we got more revenues in than we expected, but it's still, it has an impact on that when you're looking at those. So it's good for you to review all these numbers and my door is always open. Give me a call, come in, sit down. We can go through any questions you have, any suggestions that you have on, you know, things that we can look at or consider. I know it's a lot. I know I'm throwing a lot at you this morning,

and i i just don't want you to look at that number and go oh i want you to see what is behind it so that you can determine how you want to work with it no i appreciate all this information because it does make budgeting so much you know finally so much easier to have this information on what we can do what we have to do well and

I mean, you know, you directed the departments to try to decrease their free season. I think pretty much almost all of the departments did that. A couple of them that didn't do it like public works, for instance, they came to you and they told you they were putting more money in asphalt and the rock. And you've seen how our roads have been in the weather we've been dealing with. And we either do that so that we can keep up with it. Or we don't, I mean, you can take it away, but then you take it away at a cost of what the roads are like. Now, do we need to do all of it? I don't know that answer. I mean, you have to rely on your department head to know what makes sense and what they need to do. And I think Jeremy's pretty good with communication on letting you know that. So that's maybe a conversation you might want to have him come back in and discuss that. But, you know, we don't have a crystal ball and he uses, Everything he's had from the history and what he needs to do to carry forward when he presents those numbers to you You know, the sheriff has done a lot to cut his budget He's gotten rid of positions and they're filled and they're spending their budget. And so that's what you would expect Is it a high dollar budget? Yes, but they also have 83 employees and Again, you rely on that sheriff to come in here and tell you what their needs are. And so, you know, if you want to have a discussion with them, have additional questions that you think of or consider, I think that would be a good idea. I can't answer any of those things for any of the department heads, but I'm here for support to provide you any information and any history that you need, I can bring back. I think this is going to be probably, well, it definitely is going to be the toughest year you've had to deal with in determining what you want to do.

I think all of the departments, for the most part, have been very approval with their budgets. Like you said, the Public Works has justified the expenses and we don't, if anything, don't want to cut services. I think we're all on the same page with that. With the Sheriff, do you appreciate the fact that you know the cost of what he's had in there in the past for personnel is is better than it was and I think that's responsible budgeting as well so you know again we almost the core services and intact as it is you know it only other place you can really look at is these appropriations and I think that's what it's going to be tough this year making that decision but I think it's I THINK IT'S A RESPONSIBILITY THAT PEOPLE WANT THEIR TAXES CUT AND THAT'S, YOU KNOW, THEY WANT THEIR TAXES CUT BUT THEY DON'T WANT THE SERVICES CUT. SO, YOU KNOW, WE'RE RIGHT AT THE, I THINK WE'RE DOING RESPONSIBLE BUDGETING AS FAR AS KEEPING CORE SERVICES INTACT AND THE ONLY OTHER PLACE TO LOOK AT IS OTHER THAT'S NOT AFFECTING core services.

Well, and we did have a conversation with a legislator that came in and, you know, we talked about unfunded mandates and just bring that up as well. There's a lot of things out there in each of our departments that is not covered, but yet we still have to provide those services. Um, and you know, I don't think that the public completely is aware or understands all of those things that the local government is covering the cost of in lieu of the state's support in those programs. I don't know that there's anything we can do about that, but I definitely want the public aware that there are a lot of things that we are by statute mandated to provide but do not have any additional funding for.

I can't remember on your paperwork that we've got out on the website if any of those services, you know, that we can't plug in, something that says, you know, that this is a mandated service, you know, and make a notation on the side, you know, that reflects that of that one paper that shows all the mandates.

Yeah, and I think that would be good for each of the departments to come up with their list that they know specifically within their department of what they're doing, that there is no support, no financial support from it. Motor vehicle is a huge one because the general fund covers a lot of that salary expense because we're not making enough. Now, they've been able to get an additional percentage in there that they're going to get. It's still not going to make Sherry's department whole. It helps, every little bit helps, but it's still a cost that the county is covering on behalf of the state's program that they mandate. I mean, and that's one of the biggest one, and even the LA TBR, when you look at the local ad valorem tax relief, you know, we used to get a lot of dollars in for that and that's been gone several years, but it doesn't mean that we need it any less. It just means that every year that's more dollars.

We're not getting, when you look at inflation, the inflation rate. And they always say that they took that away because counties weren't spending money. responsibly or overspending, but, you know, why can't they reach that balance? And, you know, why penalize like everything else, they penalize 105 counties for what, you know, maybe a third of them do or even less than a third. And, you know, we didn't feel like we were necessarily one of them.

That goes back to, so one of the legislators is still wanting to know from our departments

you know i think sherry did a good job in that meeting we had yes but he'd like to see all departments turn in what what the county's spending and the state's not helping right well even the r r you know in the past they had been providing us a reimbursement for postage but that is no longer going to occur so now there's anywhere between 10 and 15 000 that we'll be paying for postage and That maybe doesn't look like a big number, but you know, that was the thing I explained too. I was like, well, our valuation is a lot lower than a lot of counties. We have 400 square miles and at least 20% is exempt. I think the appraiser's office is looking to see how accurate those numbers are. So when you look at all those factors, you know, that doesn't allow us a very big pool to collect taxes from. And so it puts a heavier burden on those individuals because of it. So when you look at 10 or 15,000, it is an impact in Gary County. It is something that, you know, I would love to be able to fight for if we could possibly do that. And I don't think that the state understands that an impact in Riley County with 70 some thousand and whatever their square miles is, it looks a lot different than it does in Gary County. So, or even pot County, when you look at their evaluation, when they have an industry that, is largely supporting their tax base. So all of those things are very important to understand when you're looking at how the taxes function in the different counties. So my question to you is, what would you like me to bring back to the next work session, which it sounds like will be in two weeks? And just keep in mind, see, I don't know that I have the calendar right off. It's the budget, the deadline to let the clerk know if we're going above R and R, which looking at these numbers, we could probably safely say that we're going to go above revenue neutral. So unless you disagree with that, I would recommend that we go ahead and let the clerk know that we intend to exceed revenue neutral. but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to. It doesn't mean that these are your hardcore ending numbers. It just gives us that latitude.

I think we should be tasked, I understand what you're saying, and I think we should give that notice of maybe exceeding it that my goal is to need to make cuts to where we're under that because we just we just have to do it and if it if it gets into where we're cutting service then that's it so be it and then you know if we're it might be a reflection next year on on something that if it's a probes or whatever which you know you just don't want to do that but you know my my goal is i think in what we were tasked with and commissioner giordano did a good job of going down this list of the appropriations and us all coming up with what we would like to see. My goal is to be underneath the revenue neutral rate, however that is.

That's going to be very hard to do with $3 million. And be able to take care of our employees and fund CIP. I mean, I'm more than happy to get as close to it as we can. I'm being realistic. I don't think it's possible to be under revenue neutral. I just don't.

Well, not this year. But, yeah, that's always the goal.

Yeah. I just think $3 million is just.

And do you have suggestions, Tammy, on how to get there?

I mean, there's lots of things you can do. And we've talked about this in the past. I mean, you can look at the CIP transfer. You can look at the budget reserves. You can decrease appropriation requests. You can decrease facility and bridge transfers. You can do all of those things. not necessarily the appropriation because you have to look at that differently, but the transfers going into the funds you can certainly deal with and the reserve. But again, as I already said, doing that will impact your future years. And so you may save it this year. Like last year, we saved those dollars because we didn't do it. But now you see this year, it's an increase that we're requesting because of it. So at some point in time, you have to either determine you're going to be willing to fund it and keep it healthy, or you're going to have to let it go and then we're not maintaining things again. So there's a trade-off if you do that.

That's kicking the can down the road.

Exactly.

And we don't have to, I mean, we don't have to do the whole 750. We can do part of that. But like she said, in the future, because of things that are going to be needed, the larger equipment and the vehicles, you know, that it's just going to, and then, you know, three years from now, they're going to, and then you're going to have to increase it even more because we're not increasing it now.

Or you say no, and it just pushes it back another year. And that's what we got.

I mean, I can't believe, I don't know how you guys budgeted without a capital improvement plan prior to 7-1. I mean, I didn't.

one and then I think it got depleted until it.

And that could happen in this case if we don't keep going.

Exactly. Because of the trying to cut. Yeah. So yeah. But I'm not looking at that stuff again, you know.

And I am all about looking at those, but I also, I don't want to cut everybody as a whole thing. I mean, if we're going to cut, let's cut a little bit this year, a little bit next year. So they have, you know, they have things that they have and, you know, cutting it, they're so used to getting all those monies. I, you know, we cut, I mean, we cut out of it, but us and, and the historical society pretty big last year, um, you know, just cutting them maybe, you know, looking at cutting them, but I also, I don't think we should cut somebody 50%.

Yeah. I probably don't agree with that either, but again, you know, the, um, the, If you ask the community, you know, it depends on what, what their passion is for. They may want blonde senior citizen. And so they want all those dollars to stay intact and they don't want to give to, to three rivers. You know what I mean? That's what everybody, so how do you do that? To be fair, be fair. It would have to be an equal cut across the board is my feeling because I don't, I don't have any problems with any of them. I think they're necessary. function in our community, but at what cost?

Exactly. And that's your big thing, right? A couple of things I put down that you can't avoid. So we don't have a 27th pay period going into 27, but we had it in 26. We know that had an impact on us. You can't necessarily avoid property liability insurance increases. So if that's what it is, it's what it is. work comp again that's due to salaries and the ratings that are out there and we're governed by what those say uh we might deal with possible sales tax decreases with the troops that are being deployed we don't really know that fallout yet so you know i would caution to be conservative when we're looking at because we just don't know um we we definitely i think are going to see a decrease in interest income in the checking account because we already know it's went from four down to mid twos and then um that beginning estimate on uncovered cash you know we don't have unfilled salary positions and so when you're looking at that what's coming in the next year has decreased tremendously because of those factors and kudos for decreasing the budget for the positions that weren't necessary, weren't being utilized, weren't being filled, but it does come at a carryover, a cash carryover trade-off. And then we don't know about possible grant cuts. We don't know what's going to happen with our government and whether they're going to take money away from us federally or not. You know, Gary thought he wasn't going to get his EMPG grant and then he ended up getting some money, but we didn't budget for that because we didn't know in 26. Now we have in 27 and hopefully it stays in place, but we've had some huge up and downs since the beginning of 25 and we just don't know what we're looking at. Fuel, again, we don't really 100% know what's going to happen with the fuel. And so we're trying to, to have a crystal ball and make some educated guesses based on what we've seen to date. So those are things that you can't really adjust. And this is the last thing that I would recommend changing, but I know that you as a governing body has the ability to do that. You can adjust COLA for sure. I do feel like when you're looking at the morale and keeping good people here, it's important to take care of them. You all know that. I don't have to tell you that. And part of that is wages. And with 1% equal. I don't have that in front of me, but it's something I can definitely bring back to the next one. But then also keep in mind that if you look at the overall salaries from 26, we already have an overall decrease on that worksheet that I provided you. It's not a big decrease, but it's still a decrease when you're looking at the overall wages decreased in the general fund by $4,600 from last year. Also note that I did make an adjustment to how health insurance is going to be paid, and that will put an additional cost to the tax to the employees because of the way we adjusted that. And we don't know what health insurance is going to look like at this point. So those are things that we have already adjusted for. And so what was the adjustment for the insurance? So when we adjusted the health insurance, we adjusted what we paid for the employee only version. We increased it a little bit for the rest of the policies. We decreased what the county would be responsible for. Well, and I mean, even there's some legislation out there with the pharmacy costs right now that we don't really know what's happening yet. So we're still waiting on that to return them. So there's still some unknown factors and that's the part that's so hard is because we don't know 100% what all that is going to look like yet. I am meeting with another insurance broker this week and going to talk through potential costs with that and see what they could offer us based on what we currently have and what they would quote so there may be a little bit of savings there saline county had some savings with that adjustment i think they had a hundred and eighty thousand dollar savings so i'm hopeful but I don't want to, I didn't want to decrease those costs in our budget until I know for sure.

Yep.

Well, one of the legislators is asking for that information, and I'm not sure why, because the department has not been instructed to do that. He's asked for it for over a year, and I'm not sure why, because I think we need to focus on the impact that those state-funded, those mandates are. I think that's valuable information on that. You know what I'm saying, because they've asked for it, but nobody's given it to them. Sherry has because of the post-audit, you know, from the legislation. So we need to come up with that information to be able to give specific numbers to him and go before the legislature this year.

Yeah, we keep yelling at him about unfunded mayonnaise for not giving him any information on what they are. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, even when you look at, the healthcare and the gel and what we're responsible for. We don't get any additional costs or money back that helps us fund those costs.

Well, even with, you know, and before, uh, uh, commissioner, I was, I was aware, but not aware of the cost, you know, for the, uh, the, uh, unattended deaths and the costs that the county has to bear for that. And you also have the indigent.

So, the county by statute. And who would be responsible?

How do we get that information together? How do we get that so that we're already prepared? Because we've got several months going into this next session to get that information. Is that, I hate to tax.

Well, maybe send out an email that we do. It is in the census that we want each department to work on those. To get that information to Tammy.

Well, and I mean, even when you're looking at it, we have the initiative panel costs that we're responsible for. I mean, that's, that's a significant, right. I mean, those are things that we have to, we have to take care of as a County, but we don't get it. And that's, you know, when you're looking at that LA TBR, those are things that it would assist with, you know, and they give us County and city sharing for the highway, but does that really help us a lot? It doesn't help us a lot, I mean, it helps, and I'm glad that we get something, but when you look at those dollars and what it costs, it doesn't fund a lot.

Well, I think, yes, that we should send an email out to ask what the impact is, what their costs are, what the impact of the unfunded mandates are to their department dollar-wise.

And it's going to have to be like estimates, right? Because even the LAVTR, I think there's, you know, a calculation of how you could come to an estimate for that, but you're never going to have an exact. Right.

Well, and I think that, yeah, I mean, it's June, so, you know, and maybe have a deadline on that so that we can get that information together and kind of plot a strategy. how we're gonna approach the legislators. I think numbers are, numbers don't necessarily lie. If it's on paper and we can provide that, then.

The only other thing I'll just remind you of, we talked about it with my presentation, is there's some admin fees out there that you could potentially collect. You're gonna have to determine if you want to do that and what, rate you would want to collect those?

I didn't want to look into that so I think the next meeting we need to decide on that because they're needing to probably do their budget so they would need that expense for them as soon as possible.

I'm glad that you said that Tammy because I've questioned that as well.

OK. So we've said we're sending an email out. Who is sending an email out directing them to provide information to me? Are you asking me to send an email out to the department heads to ask for this information? And is there a deadline? Will you need to set a deadline so that I can let them know that it needs to be in to me by a certain date?

If you don't mind sending it out for the commission to have a deadline no later than Yeah, July, yeah, July, maybe July 30th. I would think that would give them ample time. July 30th?

Yeah. And some of the other counties might already have a list, you know what I mean, that they've already done. So maybe they could each check with their prospective counterparts in the different counties and see. And I'd want to, you know, not only what it is, but what's the cost or estimated cost for each.

Yeah, I put down to ask for the services and costs, estimated costs.

Not just services, but costs.

Yeah.

Okay, so anything else that you want to direct me to bring back for the next work session, which we're expecting to be on July something, July 6th?

And one thing I just, the sheriff might even put it in there, but that new law, I can't remember what it was, I think it's 2244 maybe, where there's no discretion on whether we keep somebody in jail or not. I mean, that is going to be huge to counties. Not only for housing them, paying for their medical, but transporting them to court. That's going to be a huge expense.

Yeah, that was even new legislation. Yeah. That was even to me, you know, with mental health, you know, that they will serve a inmate, but once he goes into the facility, then it falls onto the county. And, you know, those costs, again, are...

Well, and we're going to put that on the agenda, too, because we talked about that at our last juvenile, or the last justice thing, and Betsy and I have talked, and when we give them their appropriation, I feel that we should put in there the requirements of what we expect from that appropriation, and that that should be covered with the appropriation that we give them. If their already established patient goes into jail, they should continue because that's what we want our appropriation to go towards. Because they're double dipping with us. The Sheriff's Department's paying them, we're paying them.

Yeah, and they're thorough registration.

Exactly. I guess that was my thing. And then it's just a vicious cycle because they get arrested, they have services, They get arrested, they stop taking their medication, stop getting help, and then they start all over again when they get out of jail.

Yeah, I shook my head. It's like, gosh, it's just one of those things that don't even make sense. But yeah, that's true.

July 20th is the last day we had to let the clerk know on the exceeding R&R. July 6th.

Yeah. So July the 6th agenda is full. Pretty full. Because we have the, Jacob is presenting the audit. Public Works is here. Gary's here. Jackie comes in. So do you want to do it in the afternoon? Do you want to take a break for lunch and then come back or work straight through? What do you want to do? Yeah, I'd say, yeah. So take a break and start it.

to appreciate the information Tamiya we did a good job putting together a good format not necessarily I don't think that it's just like they shouldn't have to they might pardon me said Mitchell Well, yeah.

Yeah. It was like, wow. Well, then maybe on the sixth, you know, if you come with our suggestions on what we need to do this cut. Yeah.

Because I think it's going to be hard to do for Amelia. Well, I just can't. Well, you can go through and cut all those appropriations and I'm not going to come up with that.

No. Well, I mean, the appropriations total, they're just over 11 mils. And so... Half of that is... More than half. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if you cut everybody to zero except ambulance, you'd still have like six mils. Close to six mils. that, I mean, and so if revenue neutral is 10, you would have to do more than 10. And I just don't think it's possible based on the contract with EMS that can't be changed.

No, yeah, definitely. I just, I don't think that right.

Realistically, but there are some things you can look at adjusting just

just keep in mind the impact as we move forward the adjustments that you'll need to continue to make as we move forward yeah so yeah and i don't know if you could put any scenarios together with that because you know i know what you're saying but without going through and doing all that i didn't i don't know if you're able to put some scenarios together well like the cip would be a big thing right because without

I mean, and we have some money in there right now. It's not that we're going broke, right? But when you're looking at that, you know, you also don't want to deplete it so much that if something comes up, you know, that we can't now all of a sudden cover it. So Jeremy was in the other day, and I know he mentioned putting roads in CIP. Well, those are going to be high dollars. So if you look at one road, probably one road, maybe a road and a half, what you would stick in there it's going to deplete cip 100 yeah just one road and so when you look at that i i mean i don't know what the answer is necessarily on that and that's a conversation for another day concerning potential sales tax and a road and bridge sales tax and things that we can look at but um you know you you just have to determine what your goals are going to be for the future of are we going to continue to keep funding equipment and vehicles so that we don't pay a lot of money in repairs? Do we need to have money in there?

I didn't know those scenarios to be made up or what ifs. Again, I know what you're saying. We don't want to deplete something so much that it's going to hurt us down the road. didn't know if you would have the ability to put those numbers in place. Like if we were gonna cut the equipment, let's say, and deplete that a little bit, and deplete it this much, i don't want her to do that i think that's our job is to say let's look at this if we do this then she'll come back and i know i was trying to save her well let's do this and then you go back and you do this so yeah i didn't know if you could yeah i mean there's so many scenarios she could give us five million scenarios based on a little bit here a little bit there well i know but i mean you could

So, for instance, if you said, well, we only want to transfer 500,000 instead of 750.

If you give us this in a spreadsheet on a computer, then I can move those numbers around. That's what I'm saying. We have to do it on paper.

We otherwise, so that's why I just thought of you. Usually I'll go through it and then I'll put, okay, well I want to move this out of there. So I'll put that in a column and I'll be like, okay, that, and then I just add it up.

I didn't know I was looking at in the way you put those numbers together and plug it into what she has, what the overall impact is. And that's what I'm meaning. Cause I can sit here and cut all day long, but then you come back and say, Well, now what you've done is you've depleted these resources for the next four years.

Well, and CIP, that's the thing. So you have that five-year proposal that I give you when we do our work session. So that's what you would look at. You would say, okay, this is what she said the cash was at our last work session. And if we don't fund it, but we fund everything that's on that list, then you're going to see that, okay, we might have 2.9 million today, but the next two years has 2 million worth of requests. So now we're down to 900,000, which to me, I think is too low. I think if you don't have at least a million dollars in CIP, you're not very healthy. And so we need to make sure that we're keeping that healthy. Now, can you say, well, we'll just not fund everything on the list? Yes, you certainly can. You can push it down, but it's like Keith said, well, then you're kicking the can down the road and everything else has to be adjusted. But at the end of the day,

Yeah, I just make my total and then I'll take the total of the mill and divide that by there and it tells me how many mills I've got that I should shave off of that. It's pretty easy. But I see what you're saying. You want it like this. But once you do that, I mean, that just gives me a rough estimate.

Yeah. Since you're not going to meet for two weeks, you should probably send your recommendations to her. And she could work it up and have numbers done by that time. Right.

I mean, I can give you an estimate once you have an idea of what you want to.

So if you're going to say you're going to, so our total appropriations are $4.3 million. And if you say you want to cut $1 million off of there, well, then $1 million equates to approximately just over three mils. So you know that your overall change is going to be three mils is what you're decreasing. So that's maybe easier than even putting it on each one if you just say, well, no matter what, we're cutting a million dollars off the appropriations. Now, how you do it, that's going to be you guys deciding. But if you just flat out say, no matter what, a million's coming off, then now you just have to determine who is that million.

Yeah, that's

Does that help? Yeah. And you can always come in and sit down with me and we can work through the numbers and calculate with you in there too.

going to the Board of Health. All those in favor? Good morning, Charles.

Hey, I'm Charles Martinez. I'm the director at the Health Department. So I'm going to try to make mine quick because I know a lot of your time goes by. So for this month, we've got the realtor coming out next week to give us a price on how much our office space is worth if we lease it out. I'm really excited about that. Bring in some new income. And a big thing in the public health world right now is the screw worm that's made its way into Texas and New Mexico. And right now it's not in Kansas, but it can become a hazard in Kansas. It affects animals. It can get onto people, but it's very unlikely. The biggest damage is with our cattle industry. So with this, if people notice any new wounds on their animals, they should talk with the vet, get it looked at right away. For our disease outbreak or disease surveillance and outbreak updates, we are trending down in everything. Our suicidal ideations, it's down by more than half from last month. So the trend is really good. Same with acute respiratory illness, RSV, COVID and influenza. And our GI illness, it's about the same as last month.

It seems like everybody's saying that they're sick or something, so that's kind of surprising.

They're doing pretty good. I'm not spreading anything. The one thing that was spreading last month was chlamydia. We're still within the threshold before it's considered a cluster. We were just more than I was hoping for. So it's nothing to be concerned about. And our rates are still lower than they were at this time last year. We had nothing for our surveillance report. We had zero diseases that were spreading. Our patient encounters, we were down with actual medical treatments and medical interventions, but we were up on our case management. I'm not sure why. It's just one of those months. For our staff training, we're working with Crystal to do perception versus intent training just to improve communication within the department. And I talked to Crystal about it. She said it wouldn't be a problem. And she came up with the idea. So we're going to test it out. We had a couple of events last month and this month. We did the bike rodeo with the 12th Street Community Center in Fort Riley. That one, it went really well. We closed early like extra 30 minutes because it started raining The family hit and fun day we gave out a lot of bicycle helmets at that Juneteenth joint STI booth that one went really well We're trying to do a car seat check lane either late next month or early August We're just waiting on other agencies to see if they want to join us Those are the ones we're working with to try and get this set up. We've got the Safe Kids Day with Main Street on August 1st and the Back to School Carnival on August 7th.

What are you doing for Main Street with Safe Kids?

It's more bicycle helmets, water safety, and I believe poison control.

What is your role in suicide issues and education as far as from elementary school to high school? I know there's not a whole lot in—well, I can't say I know that for sure. is there any type of education that could be put out or something you know was you know just seems like well you know i was saying commenting on that last time with the increase in suicides with you know these uh in the younger ages and stuff i didn't know if there's something community-wise that that can be put together for more education and parent type

There's definitely training we could do for the community.

I mean, both education-wise for parents and kids, you know, in relation with the school district would be nice.

Yeah, I can get that together and we can hold some classes.

I think that's just important, you know, I've got... Or maybe partner with the school. Yeah, I've got, you know, young kids, you know, and... consider some of the events that have happened in our community. I just think when talking to other parents, grandparents, some sort of training that's out there, I know it is, but community-wide that we can do to get more information in the hands of parents and kids. You know, and then some say, well, you know, you don't want to scare these kids or whatever. And reality is like someone in a professional field has to be able to balance that out.

Yeah, we can do age appropriate training.

Yeah, I would appreciate maybe that beyond your task of things to do.

And we can add that into our list of community education. Yes.

now it may take more than i don't think we'll be able to get it up and running oh sure next month it would be during the school year yes sure yeah just don't forget yeah i mean you know there's all those resources out there can they not be pulled together to get into the hands of those that that need to be more educated on on you know that subject because it's

And we can get that together. So right now what we're doing is we're intervening between when patients are transferred from here to the stabilization unit over in Topeka. So we get informed when they're being moved and then we reach out and we try and help them with other issues like either homeless jobs food we try and get all that fixed and then make sure that they're making their appointments but as far as though i mean you know they've got some of those educational tools in in the elementary schools now

that that type of information probably needs to be put in with it whatever else the fourth yeah I think that would be great to get it you know what I'm saying so you know they learn about all the other things but it's just another one of those things that needs to be put in their hands before it gets to be a crisis yeah I think you know that would be a great program to bring in yeah and I'd be happy to both be involved in one of those committees or whatever if that's the case and i'll let you know once we got some stuff in the works tomorrow when you have time i would appreciate it yeah i just don't want to throw it together for next month and then it's something like that no you work on it when you can and uh i'm sure i'll have something ready for the school year though

so for our facility updates uh we had some issues with our sidewalk there was some holes that developed after that rain that like the real bad rain public works came in and filled it other than that it was our buildings holding up for our vax care i know it shows negative 49 dollars uh But with those deductions, that $504, that comes from our inventory management system, which is VaxCare. They will bill out part of the vaccines. But if they're not in their clearinghouse, we have to bill through a different system. And so that $504, that's already billed out, and we should be receiving that soon.

So you have to prepay?

Uh, no, we don't prepay for it. They just send us the vaccines. It sits in that inventory. If we use it for someone who's not in that clearing house, we have to directly build that person's insurance. Uh, on that, I know it was, I was trying to make it quick, but it was a quiet month. Okay. We did apply for another grant for $94,000. I think there's a good chance of us getting it. It's designed to target hypertension in the community. So the budget thing is rough for you guys. I'm glad I just have to do our department's budget.

I don't have any questions. Well, I make a motion to go out of the Board of Health. Thank you, Charles.

Okay, thanks.

Second.

Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, motion carries.

Thank you, Charles. Thank you. And now to do that.

Okay.

I feel like it's past the well-meaning, so public comments? Mr. Petty? Not today.

I guess it's good afternoon.

So knowing that you guys had expressed some concern about data centers and alternative energy coming to Gary County, Planning Commission held a meeting last Thursday on the 11th, two weeks ago. And we had invited counsel to that one as well. We had a lot of good discussion, a lot of good suggestions, more questions than anything about data centers and how they operated and what kind of impacts they would have. So what we had come up with was just sort of as a stopgap is to put a moratorium on any kind of development until we can actually get some good factual information to help us make a decision on how we want to move forward, whether we want to incorporate that into our zoning regulations or if we just want to ban them completely or how we want to proceed. We felt like that a year would give us enough time to probably get the information. We're going to start meeting monthly anyway to talk about just this. i have reached out to a couple different folks commissioner moyer thought it'd be a good idea to get somebody from maybe one of the universities that can help guide us in a general direction there's a young lady from wichita state that does that so i'm going to call into hers if we can get some information from her and help us kind of figure things out at the very least like i said they they felt like a year would give us enough time to probably give our induction in a row and make a decent presentation so that you guys could make an informed decision but at the very least we're going to put we're gonna put the brakes on, including alternative energy, including wind energy, solar energy, battery, energy storage, all the associated infrastructure, data centers, to include crypto mining, and that sort of thing. It does exempt projects that have already been permitted. So the solar array that's gonna go up on top of Highway 57 there with Front Hills rule, that's been exempted from us. We already permit for that. This was pretty straightforward, I think, and pretty clear. I don't know if you guys have any questions about this.

Anything with nuclear?

Yes, that's going to include any of the alternative energy.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think it's a great idea. I do not want to put like we're not doing anything because we are not educated enough to say whether we want or don't want something.

that was the sort of the consensus that the planning commission came up you know with you don't know what you don't know exactly so we would prefer some guidance from somebody that has and you know you can't really can't really trust the industry right uh the utility companies have invested interest in this so i would prefer to get somebody whether it's from academia or wherever but i think that's probably gonna be our best Yes, I think so.

To try to, you know, scare people. And I mean, and this is happening all over the state. I agree. And people are very upset, which I don't want anything dangerous in my community. And, you know, I don't want our resources being used, but sometimes that's not the case. And so that's what I want. I'm glad... And I'll be looking forward to the report that you present. I won't be sitting here. I'm still a citizen and I'd like to know because I want to be educated.

Yeah, because they are going to be in direct competition with our farmers and ranchers for all the resources that we've got. So, and I mean, what little bit that I have been able to decipher is that these things are built on some different scales, obviously. So you've got small ones, mean ones, and some of those just mega monstrous. I don't think we have the infrastructure to handle one of those monstrous ones. from talking with some of the utility providers around here, they don't have the infrastructure to provide what those folks need. And even if they, even if the industry ponied up the money to try to accommodate themselves, it's more likely going to lean towards small nuclear facilities as it would improving our utilities, our electric infrastructure. So yeah, we just felt like that this would give us, a year would give us time to really get our facts together and try to get something presentable so that you guys can review this.

With a moratorium.

as well as nothing in concrete that it can be repealed to if necessary right well sure right so what's more important is in fact doing is just going to prevent the planning commission from hearing any applications for any of this so it's not going to make it to you guys

So I appreciate that. For the time being, it's on hold, but it can be repealed if necessary. Of course, this is not law.

So that's what I like about the moratorium. I do too. We're already under the 99 of gary county is under a moratorium from the governor for wind energy yes but i have heard from people at the state that that's going to change well that it's not as concrete as people think it is no it's just a it's a it's a political yes yes it looks good now i do think we are protected a little bit because of fort riley we can't have the oh i agree i think so and that's going to protect us from some of the really large solar arrays as well yes I had a discussion with some of the officials out there when we put the one over on Highway 77, and they said something that size, they don't have a problem with. It's the big hundreds of acres that- No, I was talking about the wind. Oh, the wind, sure.

Yeah, I mean, because they can't fly with those around, and so I'm fine with that because I think those are hideous.

Well, my degree's in biology, and I sat in on some of those talks when they were talking about trying to put those turbines all through the Flint Hills. They do have a devastating impact on the environment.

Not just aesthetically.

No, you're right. It has a huge impact on the wildlife, the fish and wildlife that are in this region.

Well, and I've heard of incidences where, you know, in freezing rain, that when they turn, they throw the ice and, you know, birds die.

And I mean, there's all kinds of... And Lord knows we don't really fully understand how birds navigate, but they think that even the the turbulence from those turbines can screw up their navigation mechanisms. So, yeah, I don't want turbines in my backyard. So, but no, yeah. So the moratorium, it just, it puts things on hold. And if we find out something within, before the year's up, that would say, hey, yeah, we could make a decision based on what we know now. We could move forward. We'll go ahead and do that and repeal this. Or if we're having difficulties coming up with really good factual information, we can extend it. i think um too with um even with pop county you know look and research and there's i think you know let them do that right and that's we've got we have a couple of commissioners that are reaching out to because there's one in uh emporia yeah they have emporia insult in shawnee county i've seen that yeah so we're gonna let them get their feet wet and see what kind of mistakes they've made and see how bad it turns out and we'll go from there but yeah um you know we just didn't want to flat out say no

I think that's very irresponsible if we do that because we should not make, we should be making educated decisions whether for or against something.

I mean, obviously there's going to be some tax revenue associated with something like the data center. And you're going to have to weigh that against whatever environmental concerns you're going to have and what kind of impact we're going to have on the local environment. So to just say, no, I think you're right. It was totally irresponsible.

On any project, not just this one, but on any project.

How does this work with the city? Does this all encompass the city?

This is the unincorporated part of the county only. I haven't had a chance to talk with the city about this. I've got a feeling because I know that they have discussed data centers. I have a tendency to think they're going to keep an eye on what we're doing and maybe mirror what we do. I can't say that for sure.

I know there's been some commissioners that have wanted to do a moratorium and they are waiting to see what we

yeah one commissioner i mean really it's going to be anywhere it's going to be in the county because of the acreages oh i think so right yeah and you know they're not making any more land yeah so you know if you get something that's 500 000 square foot of a building that's a huge footprint and the water and the electricity is going to require not to mention the noise it generates and if something like that comes in They just expand. And so, like I said, you know, they're going to be in direct competition with our agricultural folks for the resources that we've got. So we just need to make a good, a good informed decision. So that's all this moratorium is doing.

Well, I appreciate your work on that, Troy. It's good.

Well, did you guys have a chance to read this? Yeah. Okay. Well, then I'll make a motion that we accept the resolution. It would be 6-22-2023. THE RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A TIPERED MORATORIUM ON THE ACCEPTANCE AND PROCESSING AND APPROVAL OF CERTAIN APPLICATIONS FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY FACILITIES AND DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN GERRY COUNTY FOR A PERIOD OF 12 MONTHS.

NEW SPEAKER I'LL SECOND THAT.

NEW SPEAKER ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? NEW SPEAKER AYE.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. i will let the planning commission know that you have accepted that and we will continue on our journey i appreciate their diligence yeah yeah to dig into this they were more than willing to do this that way everyone has an interest in this yes yes they do yeah pass on our appreciation for that we'll certainly do that

Okay. Teresa, do we have anything for us? We'll wait on the minutes. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, no, that's fine. I just have this one change order. Okay.

I'd love to make a motion we accept the change order.

I'll second. Okay. And there's a seconded. All those in favor? Aye. I'm surprised at this one.

Yeah.

Travis was going to be a stonewaller.

So no meeting next week on the 29th. You know... Yeah, that's fine.

Except for if we have a special meeting.

Well, yeah. And so you'll let me know, somebody will, about what time that will be. And where.

Because I do want to make sure that we can podcast this so people can watch it.

And then we'll meet on the 6th. And the afternoon will be budget.

Is there anything else you have before the commission?

Having none, we will adjourn.

With the city.