Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Okay, good. All right. Good morning, everyone. It is Monday, July 13th at 9.02 a.m., and this special call meeting for our budget workshops is now called to order. I'm going to begin by calling roll. Commissioner McCall? Present. Commissioner Weijian? Present. Commissioner Chapman?

Here.

Commissioner Carpenter? Here. And I'm present. We have a full quorum of all five members. Next up, we'll begin with public comments. Are there any public comments at this time? Okay, there are none. Now we're going to transition to agenda item three, consideration of possible action to enter into session three of the FY2027 budget hearing workshops. I'm going to hand it over to my colleague, Corinna, and kind of walk us through the anticipated agenda today and how you'd like to go from here.

Good morning, Judge. Good morning. Today, you're going to meet with three outside entities as well as go over the culture and health services budget, which is where the other entities are budgeted. We also will have elections. They were not able to come to the first two meetings. So this will be the first time they are in court. And then at one o'clock, we have the sheriff and the CDA coming. Okay, to a physician and then facilities is coming back. I found some information that work to see. So we may wrap up a little early today. I'm not really sure the last scheduled person we have coming in, too, but I didn't know how long it was going to take.

Okay, and just to make sure, I had folks from Visit Comfort Texas reach out just to make sure that their item, their request would be discussed. So if we can make sure to make sure that is going to be touched on today.

So actually, and this is my fault, Commissioner Carpenter actually contacted me. I left him off inadvertently as somebody who wanted to come speak whenever... I was scheduling, so I have a contact to ask if they wanted to come on Thursday. So if they actually wanted to present to the court, they can come Thursday. We can fit them in on Thursday.

And Chad, you may know more. I was under the impression it was more they were going to be available to answer questions because I think we've heard their presentation of what they're looking for long term. Isn't that fair? So it's just more of just them being available. So I'm okay if it's by Zoom, if that's more convenient for them, but just...

Throwing that out to y'all. That was this morning. So that's my fault completely. If y'all want to discuss it today, I can still reach back out to them.

Let's just, if you've already talked to them about Thursday, just say we'll discuss it Thursday. Sure. Yeah, so don't worry about addressing it today then. Okay, I'll let you start. Can you give us a summary of where we're at? And are there any critical decisions we need to make today? Or would you like to make those on Thursday? Because we're doing three days of workshop this week. I know we kind of start needing to make some concrete decisions now. So you and Clint can start making some formal adjustments to the budget.

Correct. So you have two more scheduled budget meetings for those after this week. And that is July 27th and July 30th. And the reason we kind of budget some hours there is because we're able to certify to all the taxing entities by July 25th. So we anticipate that Mr. Hudson, the tax sister collector, would have that information at least by the 15th. And so typically the court wants to hear from Mr. Hudson because his thoughts on where that is. Y'all may want to come in on Thursday. This is APS preliminary numbers right now. if that's something you want to do. But I anticipate by the end of this week, I would like for the court, if possible, to be able to make decisions on things you've already talked about with triple scale. We have to revisit potential defiers, revisit the potential increase that you've put in the president. the potential increase to the TCDRS, which we have put in the budget. Those decisions that were about to be made, I can give us time on Thursday to discuss salary benefits, new hires in the pay plan scale. The other thing that we'll discuss this week is after last budget meetings, it was brought up that the sheriff had proposed to allow Potential changes to his field, his employees, based on y'all's new rule that he's been hired in Step 4, that's it, depending on non-exempt or exempt. So one of the things y'all did is ask Juanita, the HR director, to create a form, send it out to the departments, and those will all be back on Friday. She did receive several. So we're going to be putting that together to present to the board. any departments that have their own recommendations for the court to decide if that's how you're going to move forward in allowing this. So I really would need salaries and benefits and new hires kind of locked up by the end of this week, if at all possible, because when we're calculating salaries and benefits, it is for every single employee. And so it's, yes, it's by department, but it's also by line item, and then it's Some people are part-time, full-time. So it just takes us a little while. It's about a week or week and a half of time that we really need to make sure we've done the work. And then we check the work to make sure that we have the correct information budget. So I'd like to get that scheduled or that kind of done by Thursday. You do have that on the schedule for Thursday afternoon. So last thing that's on the schedule Thursday afternoon, kind of everything. And then I anticipate you're, July 27th meeting and your July 30th meeting if you need those meetings to wrap up anything that may come out of this week that you need somebody to come back for or if there's just some things you need to double check.

Alright, so Thursday is the big day where you need concrete decisions and so we will deliver that to you. Alright, who would you like to start with today?

So we have the Hill Country Fire Coalition at 9 to start at 9. We are running a little bit

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning, Judge. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for having us today. Before we get into discussing our 2027 budget request, The future of the Hill Country Fire Coalition, I'd like to address two topics that arose during conversations I had with a couple members of the court last week. First, I was told public safety is the court's highest priority, and I could not agree more. However, I was surprised to hear it suggested that the coalition's work does not fall within that mission. Public safety is not limited to responding to emergencies after they occur. It also includes preventing emergencies, reducing hazards, and building resilient communities before disaster strikes. It's precisely what the Hill Country Fire Coalition does. Through public education, property and community risk assessments, defensible space projects, fuel reduction, and homeowner outreach, we reduce wildfire risk before it becomes a disaster. We help residents understand how wildfire behaves and what they can do to protect their homes, their families, and neighborhoods. In communities like Kendall County, where approximately 94% of the new development occurs in the wildland-urban interface, prevention and mitigation are every bit as important as emergency response. Firefighters can't protect every structure during a fast-moving fire. The survivability of homes often depends on actions taken long before the first engine rolls. Our work also protects firefighters by reducing hazardous fuels, improving access, and creating safer operating conditions during an emergency. Simply put, wildfire prevention, education, and mitigation are public safety. We only need to look at the devastating fires in Colorado to understand the consequences when wildfire outpaces our ability to respond. Thousands of acres have burned, thousands of structures have been destroyed, wildlife and crops Our three wildland firefighters have lost their lives, and in fact, that changed last night to four. They lost another firefighter on the fire above Oray, Colorado, when his seat, his single-engine air tanker, went to dip into the water, and he crashed and perished. Those tragedies reinforce why proactive mitigation is one of our most cost-effective public safety investments that any community can make. The second topic I'd like to address is the Community Wildfire Protection Plan. I was asked whether creating the Community Wildfire Protection Plan somehow put a target on the backs of Kendall County homeowners by identifying wildfire risk. The answer is no. Insurance companies already know where wildfire risk exists. They use sophisticated modeling, satellite imagery, claims history, vegetation mapping, weather data, and topography to evaluate risk. A community wildfire protection plan does not create risk. It documents existing risks and provides a roadmap to reduce it. In today's insurance market, companies increasingly look for communities that are actively reducing wildfire risk. Mitigation efforts, community planning, and homeowner engagement demonstrate responsible risk management. After this question was first raised several months ago, I contacted Albert Betts with the Insurance Council of Texas. I asked the question, his response was clear. A community wildfire protection plan is a gold star for communities because it demonstrates proactive risk reduction. And he added the Hill Country Fire Coalition is another gold star for Kendall County because it shows the county has an organization dedicated to implementing the plan. The coalition has been operating for just over two years We are an all-volunteer organization. No one receives compensation. Our reward is knowing that we're helping Kendall County become safer. During the two years, we've conducted over 150 property risk assessments, completed five additional community risk assessments beyond the original CWPP, where we did 75 communities. held 10 community wildfire workshops covering every fire response area across the county, participated in volunteer department fundraisers, attended HOA meetings, and presented to 12 homeowners associations and four nonprofit organizations. We received authority from the Texas A&M to assist communities in becoming a firewise site, helped establish the county's first firewise community, completed a roadside defensible space project removing approximately 300 tons of hazardous woody fuels, participated in insurance panels, podcasts, television interviews to promote wildfire mitigation. We've... developed the Wildfire Risk Reduction Grant Program to help residents overcome financial and physical barriers to doing mitigation, which we hope to get implemented soon, completed two National Fire Protection Association's Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, and this year we partnered with the Bernie ISD during their Senior Service Day To do our our project. It was a really neat project We invite you all each time that we have an event and we're thankful for those who come These are only a few examples of what our volunteer organization has Accomplished perhaps our greatest achievement though has been securing the 2.2 million dollar community wildfire defense grant and From the U.S. Forest Service, we were one of only three awards in the state of Texas. Even more significant, the Forest Service waived our 25% cost share, saving the community more than $750,000 in cost share cost. More than 100 Kendall County property owners have participated on our wildfire risk assessment program, and approximately 22% have already completed some type of mitigation work that they became aware of through the property risk assessment program. Today's request is not for an increase in operational funds. Instead, we're requesting a one-time capitalization of $125,000 mitigation revolving fund to provide the working capital necessary to administer the federal grant. Because Texas A&M Forest Service administers the grant completely on a reimbursable basis, every expense must be paid prior to requesting reimbursement. Additionally, we must provide proof of payment. which includes canceled checks, bank statements, credit card statements, before any reimbursement can be processed. Reimbursement requests generally can be submitted once a month because we need to wait for those statements or the canceled checks. And they tell us payment typically takes four to six weeks, but we've had issues each time we've submitted a request for reimbursement so far. Our last reimbursement that we submitted, fingers crossed, we haven't gotten a call yet that says they're going to reject it. So we're hoping that this will be a good measure of how long it's actually going to take them to reimburse funds. The revolving fund, we feel, will solve the cash flow challenge. And the way that I came up with $125,000 was I took the amount of the grant, divided it by five for the years, divided it by 12, and figured what the grant's value is for a three-month period. Because by the time we get our receipts in, you know, get our canceled checks, our bank statements, whatever they require, and submit it, and then it takes four to six weeks. I'm figuring three months is a pretty good measure. Funds would return to the account and become available for future project expenses. So it would just be just like the name revolving. We would pay the expenses out of it. We would wait for the reimbursement. It would go right back into that fund. This one-time funnel allows Kendall County to leverage the more than $2.2 million federal grant. And for every dollar the county invests in the revolving fund, it's approximately an $18 wildfire risk reduction work is returned back to the community. It's an 18 to 1 return on investment. In addition, we are requesting, and I'm happy to say we'll absorb this this year through the funding that we have in the bank, but there were increased costs under our new current agreement, things like increased different insurances that we had to carry, those types of things. And then there's an indication in there that any of you all could call for an IRS-type audit of our nonprofit. So I called our accountant and asked him what that would cost, and he said, first he said, why? But he said, if I have to do that, it will cost you $10,000 for that type of audit. He said that there's a lot to it, there's a lot of paperwork to it, there's a lot he has to do, so it's very time-consuming if that was requested. So, that's where that $13,000 number came from, was just to cover the realized costs that we have in the addition of the insurances and then the potential of the audit. We recognize that you receive many funding requests each year and difficult decisions need to be made. We simply ask that you consider the return on investment, this all-volunteer organization, has delivered to Kendall County over the last couple of years and for what some of us have done, you know, in the years prior to that. Unlike many nonprofit organizations, the coalition is implementing the county adopted community wildfire protection plan, leveraging millions of federal dollars to reduce wildfire risk, improve community resilience, and strengthen public safety throughout the county. Judge and commissioners, we definitely appreciate your time, your continued support and thoughtful consideration. Your decision on our request will help us charter the future of where the coalition's going to be able to be.

Well, first, I'd like to thank you for the in-depth presentation. And you know where I stand with the coalition. I've been with you from the start. And I've seen firsthand what you do. I've been on several of your projects with you. And this is just not a team of ordinary citizens. These are experts in their field. participating, giving up their time to implement something the county adopted. The county does not have the employees to do what y'all are doing. So you're saving taxpayers' money by doing this for us. So the little bit we give to you each year, I think, is a drop in the bucket. And whoever says this is not public safety is crazy. This is 100%. prevention, because we know a wildfire is coming. It's not a matter of if, but when, and everything you're doing is mitigating the damage is going to be to our citizens. So I fully support you, whatever that number is, I'd like to see it put into budget. So thank you for everything you've done.

Well, and you know, I would also say that, you know, I, I kind of fought this my whole entire career. You know, I, I of course worked for the biggest wildfire agency in the, the, nation and you know i would say to the director all the time you know if you put more into to prevention you spend less than suppression um you know if you just take that aspen ridge fire in colorado right now they are at 24 or 24.7 million dollars in suppression costs for that one fire um you know i i didn't even think to this morning to look but you know, it's going to be billions of dollar fire season this year. And so, you know, when you look at the dollars you put into prevention compared to the dollars you put into suppression, you know, God forbid we have a big fire in Kendall County, it's, you know, it's definitely a worthwhile investment.

And Christy mentioned Colorado and These places are out of the state, but we've had a large fire as big as close as Fredericksburg last year. Everybody should remember that. So I think that was 8,000, 10,000 acres, something like that. So it's not like we're dreaming something up that isn't a strong possibility of happening. It's just when. It's just like Kerrville with the flood. When's it going to happen? Are you going to be prepared? are you going to be uh just say oh yeah we're okay for now we're okay for now so that preparation and uh could save the county a lot of money and other areas also and the sim tables prove it yes that sim table you've run models for kendall county and we see how fast the wildfire burns through certain areas of this county and so what you're doing is mitigating those areas so

you know a good example is everybody you know we we've gotten rains and that's really good that we've gotten rains but we've also gotten the vegetation now that you know you get the 90 degree days you get the the winds and i know i walk across the you know up until right before we just got this recent rain you know it crunched when i walked across the the you know the the ranch so

So I put in my initial budget $100,000 for the Wildfire Coalition. So is the request actually $125,000? Yes. I support a $125,000. So we'll start with Chad today.

Well, I have family right now that have evacuated their ranch lands in Colorado with Beulah, Wetmore, that whole area. I've got lots of family. And I live on a ranch, and we live on part of the land. If some, even driving through high grass, you could start something. It doesn't have to be a control burn that gets out of control. It would devastate our family land. And I definitely support you guys and what you're doing. And we need to figure out how to get everyone else on board in our county fire departments You know, being volunteers are not able to just drop what they're doing and be at their volunteers. And so I think what you'll see over time is I think the county fire department will continue growing as the population continues. And I think that can be some of the responsibilities that they start being placed on them as far as some assistance towards

um implementing more safety for county water fires fire prevention is definitely not as energizing exciting exciting as as uh like fires richard knows that very well you know your adrenaline can really get going really well when it uh things aren't going well especially so uh And it's not really exciting, but it needs to be done.

Now, the ask is 125 plus 13. Is that correct?

You know, like I said, we'll absorb the 13. We can absorb the 13 this year if you all don't. You know, I just wanted to. call to your attention that, you know, we do have, you're going to see increased administrative costs, you know, when we do our annual report again this year, you know, the cost of administrative fees are going to go up just because of the requirements that are contained in our new agreement. You know, we had to purchase additional insurance and then Like I said, I just wanted to make sure everybody's aware that that audit can cost us $10,000.

To add to that, one of the reasons why you're looking for this funding, just so everyone gets their social media posts correct later today so it's not all over the place, you have to basically pay now and get reimbursed later, which is the issue that's becoming commonplace. and they're being difficult and I don't know what else we can do to help you force an issue on governing bodies that are making it more than impossible to get reimbursements, but you need a fund there to pay for as you go and submit. Correct. Paid receipts.

Yeah. We're not, you know, we're not a city, we're not a County, you know, the, the, um, grant came to the coalition to actually do the work that we do for you all but you know like the other two that got grants in texas one is a city one's a county so there's a little bit different difference for them when they when the texas forest service says hey pay for pray for everything up front and then you know give us your receipts and we'll reimburse you because they've got a little bit bigger pocketbook than what that we what we do and you know when we start to implement the grant program and actually want to give people money so that we can actually do the ground work on the ground. You know, we're proud of the fact that we've done over 100 property risk assessments, but unless people can afford to or have the physical ability to do the work on the ground, we don't reduce the risk. So, you know, this grant's going to You know, bridge that gap that was created when the federal government came up with the grand idea that when they pass money down to the state for private property owners to apply for mitigation grants through the state, that it was based on the county's area median income, not the applicant, but the county. So, Kendall County has been screened out multiple times for that type of work. So, what we're trying to do is start this little grant program so that we can bridge that gap and we can actually get work done, help people get their risk reduced around their properties. And as that occurs, as each person does their work, then we won't see the complete devastation like, you know, some areas of Colorado are seeing right now because they've just had structure-to-structure ignitions, and so that's our goal.

Are you good with that? I'm good with the 138. Is that acceptable to you?

It is. Okay.

Commissioner Chapman, anything you'd like to say?

I'm good with it.

Okay. Commissioner Regent, you're up.

Thank you. Thanks for coming in, and thanks for the briefing the other day on the phone. So you're 990s in good standing. That's good to see. And who asks for that audit? Because I can look at your 990 and ask for your bookkeeping, and that'd probably be sufficient.

It's just written into our agreement, you know, and it may be something that's written into everyone's, that it was just part of the boilerplate that was used for that.

Are we requesting something from nonprofits that are going to cost them $10,000? I am not requesting anything, so that would be...

It must be in the general counsel contract.

We need to look at that because that sounds very onerous. And then that fire not wise neighborhood and comfort, congratulations on that. And have they realized any better ISO ratings and any insurance rate?

You know, I asked that question hoping to get that answer before I came. And Dr. Schroeder, who had been the president of the HOA, he has stepped down and one of the other guys who's out of town right now. he was going to try to contact him and see. He said that he knows of no one in Hidden Springs that has gotten a letter of non-renewal or had their insurance terminated. So he said, I would say that was great because they had had some prior to that. And the benefit of us being named and actually specifically me being named that the Texas Forest Service has given us that authority to pick up that program and run with it, is that it actually, until we got that authority and could help Hidden Springs get that across the finish line, they had worked on it for nearly three years with the Texas Forest Service. So, you know, we're hoping that now we can go ahead and pick that up. The other program that I was telling Andra about, Commissioner Wieschen about last week, was the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, IBHS. They are the arm of the insurance industry that does all their research. And so they have a program very similar to the FireWise program. Actually, it almost mirrors it. The difference between that organization and the NFPA is that their board, if you look at their board, it's all the major insurance companies that sit on their board. They consider this IBHS to be their cousin, you know, so they're more familiar with their cousin. They're doing a whole lot more with them. So I've reached out to them. They're only in a few states currently that they – recently identified Texas as a state that they're interested in coming in. After I heard their director speak back in September when I did that Insurance Council of Texas panel over in Austin, I reached out to her and I said, hey, when you're ready to come to Texas, we're ready to be your pilot program. And so, you know, when I read an article recently that they were getting ready to open the door and come to Texas, I reached out to her again. and said, hey, don't forget us. We, you know, we would like to do that. So, they have two different programs. They have the wildfire prepared home, and that would be you calling us and saying, hey, we would be interested in doing their check sheet. It's very similar to the assessment that we do right now. And, you know, doing whatever they tell us we need to do to get you considered a wildfire prepared home. But then they also have a wildfire prepared neighborhood. And again, they're supposed to be sending me all the specifics for that. But if we could actually get a wildfire prepared neighborhood in Kendall County, it would be the first in Texas.

So will you keep us posted on looking at those?

So we're going to try to. incorporate that into our program. And we've asked the Texas Forest Service for concurrence that we could add that as an implementation to part of our federal grant. So if they give us their concurrence on that, then we could actually claim expenses towards whatever program Right now we have it for Firewise, but we're trying to get it for that.

So it seems you have a cash flow issue and that this $125,000 will help you fill that gap so that you can wait for the reimbursement. What do you have in place to protect the county's money? So this $125,000 sounds kind of like a loan. Are you going to put it in a different account? That would be the auditing I would want to see.

Yeah, the way that I proposed in the proposal you all received was that we would actually set that up as a separate account. That way we can clearly see how much of the $125,000 we have left to spend. But at the same time, you all could clearly see that the funds that go out come right back into that account. So if we spend $10,000 on a project and we apply for reimbursement for $10,000 and we get it approved for reimbursement, you should see $10,000 coming back into that fund.

Don't spend a bunch of money opening two accounts with fees and all that. In your accounting, you can actually show that it's different. So then, are you willing to, I mean, you would sit on the phone that this could possibly be a loan. Are you asking outright for the $125,000 that the county never gets back? No.

The way that, again, the proposal is written is that it's a, you know, for five years, we would use that revolving fund for the length of the grant. Okay. And then at the end of that term, as far as I'm concerned, that would be up to you all or whoever's sitting on the bench at that period of time to determine what happens with that $125,000. Does it then just revert to the FY2031 allotment to the coalition to continue the work? Or does that come back to, you know, do we write a check back to the county and that money come back to the county?

Do you have any thoughts on that?

I would suggest that this court have a separate agreement for the $125,000. That way, this is the governing body that's authorizing the $125,000. And so at this time, I think you could designate what you wanted to happen at that. Because I do think the agreement ended in 2030. So that would be the 2031 budget that would start October 1st of 2030 is the 2031 budget. So yeah, if y'all wanted to have a separate agreement for this $125,000, it's basically it's setting up a fund balance for the reoccurring cost for the agreement is what it is.

And it would be too cumbersome for the the county to administer that, hold it, and then reimbursement it back and forth, that sounds very cumbersome.

Why don't we just give them the $125,000 with the expectation in 2031, that's your operating expenses for that year. That seems like the cleanest way to do it.

I don't think that this court could tell the court if FY2031, because that would be that body at the time sets that budget. But I think right now you could set your expectations of that $125,000 because that court at that point, that's a whole new budget every year. So that court would get to determine that $125,000. But as the auditor's office, we would know the expectation of the current court, you're authorizing $125,000, what you want that $125,000. So I would ask for it back regardless if the court was going to fund it again or not ask for it back if that was

Or do we just do what we've done for the last two years and you all give us the $125,000 allotment and we set it up, like Andra said in our books, so that we ourselves can keep track of that. I just figured that I wanted you to understand that I wasn't going to come back every year and ask for $125,000. That my intention is to take, if you give us the $125,000 this year, I'm going to have a separate line item on our accounting that says that that's that revolving account that we're going to use to administer the CWDG $2.2 million on behalf of doing the work for the county that we've pledged to do in our agreement with you. And, you know, So maybe it's just simpler not to, you know, to just say, give us $125,000 allotment this year, and we will do that. We will set that up, and any one of you could ask for, you know, the status of it anytime you want, because we will have that set separately from our regular operating budget.

We do need an agreement that sets the expectation, so I'm fine with it as long as we have a separate agreement for what the money is going to be spent for.

I think if you choose to do the $138,000, your $13,000 is your allocation. Allocation with $125,000 for the separate checking account.

But does that make it more complicated, or should we just do the $138,000 allotment and we do our own you know, without having to do another agreement and wait for that agreement and do the, you know... Well, we need an agreement.

We have to put in writing what we've agreed to and what the money's going to be used for.

Well, but that's what your allotment that you give us every year. I mean, what's the... I guess I'm having trouble seeing the difference in the... You know, if it's going to create more of an issue, I mean, we... What I will do is just set up that separate account because it's as valuable to me to be able to keep track of how much we're asking for reimbursements and ensuring that the reimbursements come back into that account and that we keep a fund set up separate from wherever our operating funds go, we'll always have that $125,000 because we need to be able to, you know, pay our bills and get them reimbursed by the, you know.

We have to have an agreement every year, every year regardless. We have to have a new agreement, general counsel. Right. So I'm just saying in that agreement, we need to identify the 125 for its purpose.

And that's what I was going to say. So anybody that's going to receive funding for FY27 is, will have an agreement. So in this case, it would just be two agreements. One is your FY27 allocation of $13,000 for additional administrative services. But the $125,000 would just be probably the same language. I'm not legal, so I couldn't say. But it is for the five-year period to help.

Explaining what that money is for. So I think there's a clean way to do it.

That would be the only difference. Just so, as the county auditor, I know the court's expectations of that. The allocation needs to It's going out. It's never coming back. There's potential that this 125 after five years may come back.

I recommend get with general counsel to start working on the details of the contracts.

Because I think our agreement right now says that it's agreement for this year and extended to next year.

But that would only be the allocation portion.

That's why I'm asking, are we making it more complicated? Or do we just do the allocation like we have in the past and just, you know?

But it has very specific strings attached to it. The 125 is specifically for the reimbursement for your CWGD grant. Right. We would have done that out of our hands. It just needs to be documented in agreement. I just don't want to make it more complicated for everybody. It's always complicated when we do an agreement.

we'll get it. We'll sort through it.

I know we just got our agreement.

Just, you know, uh, just call anything for me.

Um, I, I would agree in that we don't, that that money is not, it's not something we're going to give every year. And that hopefully what happens is that the grant, which congratulations on that grant. That's pretty amazing. Um, that the grant would fulfill the needs that you have. So, um, And then education and outreach and property risk, when you're doing a lot of that, what are the costs that are associated with that?

A lot of it is printing materials, having materials available to provide to them. As far as the risk assessments go, we pay to have each risk assessment cost of $75 a risk assessment. That's the only thing right now that is paid out of the operating funds. We did, when I applied for the federal grant, I wrote in two part-time positions to be able to assist with actually getting things done on the ground, but that will be paid out of the federal funds. That's not paid out of the, the only thing that we pay out of the county funds right now are our property risk assessments. And they will revert to, you know, unless for some odd reason, I can't even think of a reason why they wouldn't be reimbursed out of the grant funding once we can get that set up.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you all.

Thanks for coming in.

Okay, the center. I don't have a copy of that. The center's up next.

Sorry. Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you. How are you?

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners.

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me back to provide an update on the center and the impact of Kendall County's investment. Because I presented much of this information before, I will not repeat every detail. Instead, I want to briefly remind the court why these services matter, how county funding is leveraged, and why an increased investment in the center can ultimately reduce costs around our county and our community. For more than 43 years, the center has helped older adults remain healthy, connected, independent, and safely in their homes. We do this through two interconnected areas of service. Meals on Wheels supports older adults who are homebound and need nutrition, wellness checks, and regular human contact delivered to their homes. Our Senior Center helps older adults remain active, socially connected, mentally engaged, and linked to support their needs before they become more serious. Together, these programs provide a continuum of support. We help people remain healthy and independent in this community, and we are prepared to support them at home when their circumstances change. Kendall County currently provides $21,000 annually, $15,000 for Meals on Wheels and $6,000 for Senior Center Operations and Programming. We are grateful for that support, but the value of those dollars extends far beyond the meals and activities they directly fund. The center delivers approximately 56,000 meals each year to 308 homebound older adults across 14 routes daily. Each delivery provides a nutritious meal, a wellness and safety check, and a meaningful human connection. For some clients, the volunteer at the door may be the only person they see consistently during the week. A delivery may uncover a fall, a sudden health change, an unsafe home condition, food or utility concerns, caregiver strain, or a need for medical equipment, transportation, or other support. That allows us to respond before the situation becomes an emergency. Meals on Wheels has been shown to reduce costly healthcare use, nursing home admissions, falls, food insecurity, and isolation while helping older adults remain safely at home. One of the most compelling national comparisons is that Meals on Wheels can serve an older adult for an entire year for roughly the same cost as one day in a hospital or 12 days in a long-term care facility. Nationally, older adult falls cost approximately $100 billion annually. Senior malnutrition costs an estimated $76 billion. And social isolation costs Medicare approximately $9 billion each year. Those are national figures, but the risk exists here as well. Every fall prevented, hospitalization avoided, and nursing home placement delayed. Represents a better outcome for a Kendall County resident and less pressure on families first responders hospitals health care providers and public systems Nationally one in three Meals on Wheels programs has a waiting list with an average wait time of four months Kendall County currently has no waiting list That is a very important community achievement, but it does not mean demand is low it means we have worked hard to preserve that access and Meals on Wheels is only one part of our impact. Approximately 250 people participate at the center each day and we record more than 62,000 annual check-ins for lunch, activities, education, fitness, support groups, and social connection. Those are not simply recreational visits. A fitness class can improve strength and reduce a fall. A congregate meal supports nutrition. A support group may help someone cope with grief, caregiving, or a health diagnosis. An educational program supports cognitive engagement. A conversation with a staff member may uncover a need for benefits, medical equipment, home assistance, transportation, or another service. Social isolation is connected to anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, cognitive decline, and dementia. When 250 people come through our doors each day, we are providing prevention, nutrition, physical activity, social connection, early intervention, and access to help. Meals on Wheels reaches people when they can no longer come to us. The Senior Center helps people remain active and independent for as long as possible. Someone may first come to the center for lunch or exercise, but as their needs change, they may receive help locating medical equipment, benefits, transportation, or home-based support. Eventually, the same person may qualify for Meals on Wheels. Because the relationship already exists, they know where to turn before it becomes crisis. County funding also helps us bring additional resources into Kendall County. Local government supports helps us qualify for Texas Department of Agriculture's Texans Feeding Texans Home Delivered Meal Grant and which requires a local match. Through that program, the center received $44,000 in the previous year and $63,000 in the current year. That increase is important, but it does not mean our broader funding challenges have disappeared. Last year, the center operated with a six-figure deficit driven by continued growth and demand, decreases in federal funding and significant facility expenses. Our building is now 16 years old, and we are entering into a period when major repairs and replacements are becoming more frequent. HVAC systems, commercial kitchen equipment, and other critical building systems require ongoing maintenance and will increasingly need to be repaired or replaced. These are not optional improvements. They are essential to keeping the facility safe, functional, and capable of supporting daily meal production and services for hundreds of older adults. The increase in the TDA grant helps offset part of these pressures, but it did not replace the broader loss of federal support or fully cover the rising costs of food, staffing, facility operations, maintenance, and equipment replacement. Our annual budget is approximately $2 million, yet government funding represents only about 17% of our total revenue. For every $1 received from government sources, the center generates nearly $5 through community support, grants, foundations, earned income, client contributions, and individual giving. The county is not being asked to carry this responsibility alone. We are asking it to participate meaningfully in a public-private partnership that serves residents throughout the county. Volunteer service further multiplies that investment, and last year, 427 volunteers contributed over 17,000 hours, valued at more than $527,000. They deliver meals, provide wellness checks, support programming, and help us serve far more people without the same level of taxpayer-funded staffing. We have also taken significant steps to strengthen our sustainability. Over the past year, the Center has strengthened Meals on Wheels assessments to prioritize those with the greatest need, restructured membership dues while maintaining scholarship access, discontinued an unsustainable internal transportation program, transitioned riders to Alamo Regional Transit, reduced annual expenses by approximately $130,000 through that transition, and continued improving operations and diversifying revenue. According to our most recent audit, 91% of all expenditures directly supported programs and services. We have made difficult decisions, reduced costs, increased earned revenue, and worked to maximize every dollar invested. As Kendall County prepares its next budget, the center is requesting an increase in support to $100,000, aligning the county's investment with the city of Bernie. We are not asking for funding restricted only to Meals on Wheels or only to senior center programming. We are asking Kendall County to invest in the full continuum of services that helps residents remain nourished, active, connected, and independent. An increased investment would help us deliver more than 56,000 meals each year, preserve immediate access to Meals on Wheels, sustain services reaching approximately 250 people and counting each day, support more than 62,000 annual visits for meals and activities, identify needs before they become emergencies, support family caregivers, leverage additional state and private funding, and prepare for the continued growth of Kendall County's older population. We also continue to ask for the county's support of a sustainable transportation partnership with Alamo Regional Transit so residents can access health care, groceries, pharmacies, and community services. The question is not simply what it costs Kendall County to invest in the center. It is what it may cost the community when older adults do not have adequate access to nutrition, physical activity, connection, wellness checks, and early support. Without these services, the eventual response may involve an ambulance, a hospitalization, nursing home placement, caregiver burnout, or a family member leaving the workforce. Meals on Wheels reaches people in their homes. The Senior Center helps them remain active and independent for as long as possible. And together, they form a cost-effective continuum of prevention, nutrition, wellness, connection, and support. We are grateful for the county's current partnership and respectfully ask you to increase that investment to $100,000. Thank you.

Commissioner Weijian, we'll start with you.

Oh, thanks, Judge. Thanks for coming in. I want to just break it down. Let's talk about Meals on Wheels first. What percentage of the budget comes from Kendall County versus USDA? I'm sorry, I missed that.

TDA this year is $63,000. And we are required to receive, I think it's around $2,500 specifically for that grant from the county as the match. It's a matching grant? As the required match.

Is it dollar for dollar then? It's based on census over 60. Is there a cap? What's a maximum you could match?

It's only that $2,500. Okay. So we're well above that. Somewhere around there, yes.

Okay. And then how long has the county's contribution been $15,000 toward the program?

For several years now. Several years. Mm-hmm.

Okay, and I mean, our population has increased since this in 2020 was 40-ish, and now we're at 53,000. Right, okay. How many meals delivered today versus five years ago?

I mean, I can go back to pre-pandemic numbers, and it was 10,000 shorter than what we're doing now. I'm just looking for the percentage increase. A big percentage.

I don't have that specific. I prefer to look at this as a population increase rather than an inflation increase because every department are all going through that and want to have a justified increase because of inflation. I can get those numbers. You're serving more. Okay. Yeah, I would be good bumping that up to 20,000 this year. To talk about the Alamo Regional Transit, I'm sorry.

Bump it up from 21.

From 15 to 20 just for Meals on Wheels. Yes.

Just making notes.

Right. That's just me. Okay. On the Alma Regional Transit, what is being proposed? I thought that Sean was going to come back and give us a detailed proposal. What's the makeup? Is it the bus? It's the bus plus the microtransit. What's the cost total? What's the cost share of the city of Bernie?

I do not know. The only thing I know is when we met with him and what he presented, but I've asked him for additional numbers and I have not received them. So it makes it kind of hard for me to go and talk to the city to get their support when I don't have what I need. So if you could help me contact him and get more information, that would be very helpful.

So if Sean's out there in TV land listening, we're going to need to know that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because I earmarked in my commissioners, I put $200,000 in there for senior transportation. but we have no program. And so I'm not about to allocate for any funding when I don't know what we're buying.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, that's where I'm, you know, a little bit frustrated because we need numbers to be able to advocate.

The judge met with Sean and I met with Sean and we, we don't really have an offering. Yeah. So I'll reach out to him again. Because just to recap, so the, the you've always run transportation until what? The fall of last year, September of last county purchased a bus for the, this center you had another one we purchased one with ARPA money and then you weren't able to fund the program so you sold the bus which was legal to do you kept those funds and now everything falls on Alamo Regional Transit correct and so ACOG will have some sort of allocation and And I'm in favor of the county as long as the city partners with us doing something, but we need to find out what the something is.

Yes, and I know you understand that the investment from the local community, meaning city and county, has got to be there in order to continue transportation services at the level that they're being provided. run in this community. They knew what our situation was with sunsetting our transportation. And so they were willing to step up in a financial capacity to continue that throughout the remainder of this fiscal year. But they're going to be looking for at least a, I think it was a 50% match in investment in order to continue that. So we are in danger of having that transportation go away if there is not an allocation coming from city or county?

One thing I was excited about, I learned about VIA's program. There's one in Kerr County, and then there's one to ride the Rio in Comal County in New Braunfels, and that's the microtransit. So not just this big bus that takes people all day, you know, and seniors can't sit all day on a bus, but these little like four or five-seater cars that can Zip around, you can book kind of like an Uber.

Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of opportunity there. You know, this created a lot of conversation around transportation, which I think is a good thing. And learning what opportunities there are to access that they will match with federal dollars and other pockets of money that they have access to that we may not have. And so I know for them, sourcing vehicles and buses is easy for them to do, not easy for us to do and may not be as simple for you guys to do. And so I think for now, that is a great opportunity to maintain services here, maintain access. But we have, you know, with more investment, we can pick and choose more of what we feel is most beneficial for our population.

Well, I think our senior population, what, a quarter of the population? 27% is over 60. People who serve this community and country well, and we need to do what we can. So I don't know what to tell you on the number for the transportation. I guess we just get you a number later on. I'm going to email Sean and Mr. Thatcher.

Can I answer Mr. Legion's question? Yes. So I can go back as far as 2014 and the wheels on wheels line, and it's been 15,000 since 2014. The first time the county did an additional allocation to the center, which was $5,000 for like the general operating costs, was in fiscal year 2019. And in fiscal year 2025, this court bumped that 5,000 to 6,000. So those have been the only increases since 2014.

What's the grand total of?

Right now, the county currently contributes $21,000.

So what is your proposal?

So $20,000 for Meals on Wheels, and then the $6,000, keep that the same.

So $26,000 is your proposal, okay. $6,000 for Ops. Okay. Commissioner McCall, you're up.

I had the opportunity to ride with Meals on Wheels, and so I saw firsthand exactly... what the service provides. And I really wasn't aware how needed that is for people recovering from surgery to, like you said, just that may be the only face they see that day. I am definitely in favor of increasing. And what was your ask to the City of Bernie to increase

So last year when I asked them for an increase, they were at $20,000 and they increased to $100,000. And that is for senior center operations and Meals on Wheels. So total. Okay. Correct.

Are you good, Commissioner?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

I would be for National Relations Proposal.

Okay.

Commissioner?

Same.

I had a couple questions. Besides losing state funding and federal funding, have you lost any major private donors?

No.

To your organization? So you still receive money from the Kronkowski Foundation and all those at the same level?

I was posting on Nextdoor the other day saying that we lost all of our Kronkowski funding, which is not the case. So that's not true.

It's just the state and federal funding that's causing your issues. Correct. Correct. And then explain to me your statement, you discontinued an unsustainable transportation system. So why was it unsustainable for you?

We were getting no specific funding for transportation. So we were just absorbing that through our operating dollars, and we just could not continue to do that. I think in total we were getting around $11,000, I want to say, just from donations from RYDES. but it costs us $130,000 to do that. And we were in a position where we were doing about 9,000 rides a year and we were getting calls every day for more. And that means another bus. That means more maintenance, more repairs, more gas, more staff. And so at some point you just have to say, is this what we are the best at? Or are there other opportunities to have people in this community access for the longterm and not just solving right now?

And you saw the trend every year. It was continuing to go up.

I mean, numbers just right before COVID, we were doing about 2,500 rides a year. So 2,500 to 9,000 in that short amount of time.

shows you what's what's coming all right well i too support the increase for to the 26 000 overall but i have major concerns about the county taking over transportation because as you say it's not sustainable and that is just going to be a money for us in the way that we were running it i think it's much more we weren't accessing acog funding for transportation but again The county has limited funds as well. And when you come to such a big ask and the demand keeps as our population grows, it's going to keep increasing. And so there comes there's a it's a balance. What should be a government function and what should be a private function? And so that's I just hesitated about taking on an additional burden of that level. That's going to be. continue to grow with no source of income for us. Cause there's no guarantee that ACOG is going to continue to provide a 50% match, you know, cause right now they did a, a bandaid for this past year. But again, federal and state funding keeps getting cutting across the board. I just have some major concerns about taking on such a major debt that once you start it, when do you see a government discontinue, discontinue, a service after they take it on. So I just have concerns about that.

Oh, no, I hear you. Well, I would agree with you on that. The county can't fund it, nor the city. How long has ACOG been funding Alma Regional Transit Program?

Many years.

We've been doing 6,000 in Kendall County, but they've been servicing like Guadalupe. The surrounding counties have major... transportation systems, I don't think we have as robust as those other counties.

We don't because we're not paying in from a local community investment. We're getting $8,000 worth of Kendall County specific rides. If that investment goes up from the local community, those rides and those dollars are locked into Kendall County the way that I understand it. So right now, $8,000 of a let's call it $200,000 transportation budget are allocated to Kendall County. The rest of it is they can pick and choose where they want to prioritize in what community they want to prioritize. If we pay in locally from this community, that's locked into Kendall County. So when you see increased transportation opportunities in Kerr and Seguin and all these other areas, it's because the local community has invested in that infrastructure.

That makes sense. What, Corinna and Judge, do you know what our dues or fees that we pay into ACOG per year? I think it's those substantial or those nominal.

It's very nominal.

Ten grand or less, maybe.

Right now, the county currently contributes $8,000 to ACOG specifically for the Alamo Regional Transit system, so for the buses, that the court currently contributes $8,000 to ACOG for that. Our dues, I was just trying to look up.

And I think that your $200,000 you proposed in your budget would cover what our share was based on the numbers I have in my head, but again, once we commit to it, it's going to be hard to discontinue.

Yeah, and we just need to see what the allocation from ACOG and from the City of Bernie is.

Actually, now we increased, I guess it increased our 2026 dues for Kendall County membership to ACOG $3,555. So it's, it's, it's has plus we pay additional 8,000 for the transit. All right. Well, we'll talk. I've just sent an email to Sean. So thank you.

Thank you. All right. That's all we got. Thank you. Thanks. Do we have anyone from the Golden Age Center?

So I did speak with them last week, and there may have been a conflict. So I told her she's welcome just to attend online. They are online.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, that way they didn't have to try to get here for timing purposes.

Diana, are you there?

We're here.

All right. The floor is yours to kind of talk about your organization and what your request is.

Okay, judge. It's um, it's known she'll be doing because she was there last time. So she'll be doing the talk.

Okay. We have a we have a request for 30,000. We have received so far this year at $658.98 from foundations. We have applications out for 160,600. Of course, we don't know how much of any of those we'll get or if we get any of them. Our budget for this year is increased by 36,000 to 171,000. So we're not sure that, I mean, according to my quick calculations, if we got no more grants, we would end up with $50,000 to start the new year, which is nowhere near enough. And we've never had an increase except for one time above 5,000 and one time You gave us some money towards our Meals on Wheels van to deliver for the center. So we've increased payroll. We've increased, we've changed, we've increased because we have ADT security now. So we've increased that. Of course, we've increased utilities and insurance. And we've also increased, well, we haven't really increased, but our IT, we've worked out a quarterly amount instead of having just him come whenever, which should help us a lot. But in order to feel comfortable going into next year, we really feel we need the $30,000 from the county to help us, presuming we don't get all the grants we need.

So is this a one-time ask, or are you asking to increase the county's contribution permanently from, I think we give five or six to $30,000? Yeah. We get five. So are you asking?

I think I would come back each year. It might be less next year, but I want to feel like we're not in the hole when the year starts, the next year starts.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am. We'll start with you, Commissioner Chapman.

I think y'all know what we have done to support y'all. I just cannot see increasing that much. I think what we're going to find here at the end of today and whenever Corinna brings back figures tomorrow or on Thursday that we're going to have to come back and revisit these things because I feel we're going to be in the negative and way to the negative. So I would be in favor of a $3,000 increase, which is 50%. We have not increased it in a while. Yes.

You didn't start even doing allocations until FY21. So I just wanted to let y'all know that. And it started out at five and it's still five. So you've done five years.

But that is... I just can't see going jumping from where we are now to 30. Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Carpenter. I would support going to 10. And I think what Commissioner Chapman said is right. Probably look at a lot of what we're looking at in front of us right now on Thursday and we may be forced to make other cuts. You know, our revenue is also down. We want to make sure all the nonprofits are aware that we're We don't even know exactly what the expectations are of that district.

Well, we've made about all the cuts we can make at this point. We're getting more participation. We're getting some new members. And our expenses are just going to go up. And until we have this full year, because we had renovations going on since last year, until we have a full year, we're not quite sure where we'll be.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner McCall.

I'd like to increase it to nine. I know I've been to a few of your events, and I do see what positive things that brings to the seniors in your community, and so I'd like to increase it to nine. Okay.

So I was just looking at your income tax filing. What's your total budget, did you say?

$171,000.

And then do you have a big volunteer base or how many staff?

We have three staff.

And you own your own building, so there's no rent?

Correct. But our rent previously was only $500 a month.

Pretty good rent. And then just to point out, the Meals on Wheels program includes comfort as well.

Well, no. They're separate.

The Meals on Wheels is totally the center. We only provide drivers. And transportation.

Are meals delivered to comfort?

Yeah, from the center.

Right. So whatever we just allocated covers comfort as well. Yes, ma'am. So I would support Commissioner Carpenter's idea for $10,000.

$8,000, $9,000, and $10,000.

What's the average of those? $9,000. $9,000. Y'all good with $9,000? Since we're all kind of... $9,000 it is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, thank y'all.

Okay.

I know we talked about earlier today doing tech visit comfort on Thursday. However, I know they're here today. I know we have a 15-minute window. No?

No, that's great. I just didn't... Quite frankly, there were some

Text messages circulating. I was already on my way here, but we're quite happy waiting until Thursday.

We have about 15 minutes, so I'm thinking you're here and to be useful of your time, would you like to present right now and answer questions?

Thursday, but this kind of came together over the weekend and I'm not quite prepared.

Okay.

I didn't want to be present if it came up.

Okay. Fair enough. I was just trying to be respectful of you. I know that you were.

I'm just kind of getting a sense of the process today. Okay. Yes, sir.

All right.

Commissioner Carpenter is good with his suggestion and Craig's suggestion. We'll wait until Thursday.

I'm good with that if you are. Okay. All right. Thank you.

And then Hill Country Casa maybe. I also spoke with them. They may be online as well.

Is Hill Country CASA online?

Stephanie Cash, I spoke with her. If she was able to get on, if not, I was going to present her request to the court.

Okay, thank you, ma'am. Are you ready to make a brief presentation? Yes, as you like. Okay, the floor is yours, ma'am.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. I submitted an application earlier this spring to Included in that application was an infographic. It has the state of Texas in the middle of it. I'm calling it up so I can share my screen and share it with you as well.

Brenda, what's our current allocation to this group?

Hill Country currently gets $2,000 and then a letter submitted back in April to the court. Do you want to double it to $4,000?

Our request is based largely in the increasing cost of travel that we are taking on to make sure that the children from Kendall County are seen appropriately in their placements. This infographic on your screen now has the state of Texas. Each of these colorful counties indicates where children from Kendall County were placed in foster care last year. We'll do this again at the end of this year that y'all are sponsoring and send this information along. We're committed to visiting these children in person where they live at least every 90 days. We also are committed to ensuring that the parents of these children, if they cannot get to the children, that we're supporting and helping them to ensure that they continue to have a bond between the parents and the children when they're placed so far away. That is the basis of our request, and I'm pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

Commissioner McCall, let's start with you.

I appreciate the service you provide, and I'd like to just increase it $1,000 funding. Okay.

Commissioner Regan?

Thanks for zooming in to let us know what's going on with your group. I've I probably wanted to say this at the beginning. We don't have any opening remarks, but I, I too kind of echo what we're thinking is that the economy is a flat. We, you know, have a limited number of limited amount of money coming in and revenue. I've talked to James Hudson a little bit rather than circling back and cutting what we've already promised people or promise we'd look at rather not promise. It's not done until we were finished. We're not going to get to, Revisit everybody. So I would go with just $1,000 increase and just try to hold it at that. Okay.

Commissioner Townsend? I would agree with Commissioner Wieschen in that what I feel like we have to do with this money is spread it to where it affects the most number of people. Yes, sir.

All right. Three it is. All right. Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate your time.

Thank you all so much. I appreciate y'all's time as well.

Okay. Thank you.

May I be excused?

Oh, absolutely. Have a great rest of your day.

Thanks. Thank you. Goodbye.

So the CASA, you had culture and health services, is that, or is that separate?

Well, all of the entities are under 645, that department. And so these are just the information that I had where somebody was requesting an increase to a current budget. That is who I asked to meet because everybody else has actually presented to the court in the last three or four months. where they stand with the money that you allocated. So everyone else I did not ask to allocate. The people that have been presented, except for Visit Texas, have asked, I don't know what it's called, Visit Texas.

Visit Comfort.

Visit Comfort, I'm sorry. Everyone else, we did not receive any additional requests.

So they're flat.

Correct. No one else turned anything in to you than you forwarded to me or directly to me.

So in Department 645, if I can just... Yeah, if you want to go through a summary and just ask if there's any increases from the court.

I do not see CWPP on the 645.

So that one right now comes out of 10401. That is where the court chose to allocate that. Okay. That's in Department 10401. So currently what the court has, and I'll just run down these. Y'all can stop me.

Is that 645, by the way?

It's department 645.

What page is that?

That is page 70. Thank you. So kid advocacy is $2,000. Hill Country Family Services is $5,000. Kendall County Child Services is $6,000. Hill Country Cares is $3,000. Blanco ISD is $6,000. K-Star is $2,500. ACOG for the Alamo Regional Transit is $8,000. The Ag Museum is $3,000. Boys and Girls Club of Bernie is $4,000. Boys and Girls Club for Comfort is $2,000. Kendall County Women's Shelter is $15,000. And Hill Country Daily Bread is $15,000. Those are the current allocations that you have not spoke about today. And I just left everything as is.

Is everyone okay with keeping them as is?

I have a question about Blanco ISD. Yes. I was thinking about that the other day, and I just wanted to know more.

If I recall, that's because we do public, you know, the school safety officer, we have students that attend that school, and so that's part of our contribution to them funding their... Because we fund officers...

For both Kendall County, I mean, the ISD, and for Comfort ISD, we took the Blanco as a proportional amount of the kids based on the others, and that's how we came up with $6,000.

Yeah, it's a proportional share. Are they not paying school taxes to Blanco already?

Just a question. Yeah, you pay, like, out in Kendallia, you pay Blanco ISD taxes.

What? Here in Bernie, you pay BISD and then Comfort, you pay Comfort, so we still help both of those.

Because we, you know, because we, the school taxes are not funding the school resource officer. Those are coming out of our general fund. So that's the logic that we use to apply to pay that $6,000 to them because it's coming, it's not a school tax-related item. Does that kind of give you more background? Kind of. It just seems...

Eventually, they need to cover their own. I know I'm probably going to get a call from Judge Lux.

That's how you feel.

If we have some Blanco ISD kids coming to Bernie as well, if the Bernie school district would accept them, it's $6,000. We're giving some of these groups pennies when they are massively providing for our community, like, well, an AIDS center.

I understand. Okay. Are we able to talk about the libraries right now and just knock them out since we got, I hate to waste this time on some things.

Well, you, you, and when you met before, you went over the library briefly, but you can certainly go.

Just to lock it down because, right, or because I think I told you in my budget, would we give a 5% across the board to them?

Um,

increase they asked for a 7.2 and i think i in my my proposed budget i think i put five percent across the board no it's less less or maybe three i think just trying to nail some stuff down because we need to decide some things you put 2.5 percent in so you can go to page 71 which is the libraries if you'd like to Yeah. So they came in with a 7.2% increase. We increased last year pretty significantly. So I felt meeting them with a little cost of living increase of 2.5 would, was reasonable based on my analysis of everything. So.

So all of them, each of them.

They wanted 7.2. Each of them. Okay. And so I chose 2.5. Okay. So if there's any objections to that, please voice them so we can kind of.

They requested a 7.2% increase. And, Judge, you asked for 2.5% to be put in the budget at that time.

Did you look into, rather than look at like an inflation factor, a population factor, are they serving more patrons?

Bernie tends to serve quite a few of our county residents. And then you look at Candalia. Candalia is our building. And then comfort is they have a pretty good facility that they've renovated over the years, and it's growing in interest. So I just think that continuing to invest a little bit in them is important just to make sure they stay in the caliber they're at. That was just my thought process. I'm good with 2.5. Anyone got issues? Okay. Corinna, what else can we knock out before elections gets here?

So everything that you haven't really discussed is on. is already.

What about some of the things we're going to decide Thursday? Can we make a few look at those and see if there's some decisions we can make today?

Hey, before we move out of this budget real quick, can we can't? Is there a problem moving CWPP here so we can have them all? I mean, what was the reasoning?

Originally, the court did it as an as a contingency. Um, a long time ago, the court had, it had a small allocation and a contingency or one, uh, the EDC and then, and then they wanted it there. Um, I'm, I probably going to move that to the County fire department because it's already coded with a, the general ledger line is already coded as a fire expense. It's just in commissioner's court. Um, But, yeah, I'm already really going to move it to county fire because that is where we need to. But before we move off of 645.

Before we do, I think Cheryl's got a comment.

Cheryl did speak to me today about one of the allocations that we brought forward last year that we were having issues. I'm sorry, can I just ask a question?

Sure. CWPP, Community Welfare Protection Plan, Hill Country Fire Coalition? Mm-hmm. Okay. That's what she said, Hill Country. Yeah, that's the name of the organization, Hill Country Fire Coalition. Yes.

Okay. Cheryl did brief me today. We had issues last year with one of your nonprofits. I think there was some turnover in their organization, and so they did not cash a check for over a year. I brought it to court. Since then, they came to court, I believe, last year and discussed that. So y'all allocated funds for the FY26 fund. Budget year, which have been paid, and so I'll let Cheryl speak to that.

This is for Kendall County Child Services. We continue to have difficulty reaching this organization. We probably spent a good six to eight months trying to just reach out to them just to get that previous $6,000 check cleared. They lost it. We had to reissue it. It was a long ordeal. We issued their allocation on April the 28th. They still have not cashed it. We have been able to reach the lady one time. Again, they've gone through another complete change. And the person who had the key to the post office box has left. We have been trying to reach them again to try to get to find out if they even have it. It's going to be a continual issue. And I personally feel if we have to contact them every year to cash their check, How bad do they really need that? It is not my place to say that. I don't really know what service they provide to the county. Obviously, there's something. But I don't want it to continue to be this much effort.

How much do we allocate to them?

$6,000.

Is this a mandate? I don't know. I think we need to know if this is a mandate that we support them. Because if it's not a mandate, I say we

I know Glenda.

Yeah, could you find out and see if that's a mandate?

Glenda is the one that has helped us mostly with a contact for this organization, Kendall County Child Services. And we were able to reach this young girl one time, and that's how we found out that they've had such a change in their organization. But not keeping up with with their funding. So that just kind of concerns me a bit. Obviously, I don't want to cut their funding if they do provide a service to Kendall County that we cannot do without. I just don't know what that is.

I have concerns now that this is a breach of our agreement with them. If they're not complying and they're not cooperating with reasonable requests, that's a big issue.

I mean, we spend a lot of time trying to keep our reconciliation clean with people we issue checks to and keep that cleaned up. It's a work in progress. But I have issues with people that continually end up there, especially when we're allocating them funds when we're in a tight budget season. And that to me tells them how bad do they really need it.

But just my opinion. So I have concerns about this group. This is now the second time. And it's not only how bad they need it, but what are they actually doing? If they don't have funds to operate on, then how can they be providing services? And I can't find them online.

And it concerns me that they continually have an overturn in who runs the services. That's concerning to me also. Now, that's just what this person told us. I don't know if that's the case.

Cheryl, their legal name, Kendall County Child Services? Yes. Because they don't come up under IRS.

And I will say, in fiscal year 24 is the year that they never cashed. And so in FY25, they did ask for two years, and they wanted $12,000 in FY25, and we finally were able to get ahold of them. And I did have to say no because the court only allocated $6,000 for FY25. And so they never even received funding in FY24 because they never – well, they received it. They never cashed the check. FY25, they did cash the check, but – After considerable – Correct. But FY26, she just told me today that.

On our checks, is there, you know, some banks say must cash within 90 days. It doesn't matter.

We don't have that on there. And typically, I mean, the entity is the one that could push that. The bank doesn't really. I mean, like if we put that on our checks and the check comes in in six months, they're going to pay it. All right.

So under something called Kendall County Giving Connections, KCCSB, Kendall County Child Services Board, is that what it is?

That is the Child Services Board. And this is where Cheryl and I and FYI.

Is this the same or not?

It's Kendall County Child Services. I think the board, the volunteer board, is who... runs the program. And this says it was appointed by the commissioner's court. And that is what we appointed them.

We had big issues with this.

We talked about that back in FY 2025.

They weren't following the protocols and procedures.

And so we discussed it with Mr. Grove when he was here. And so that is how that organization is supposed to be set up.

My vote is zero. Let's table this for a few minutes until Melissa gets back. Are there any other issues we can knock out, make a permanent decision on? Thank you, Cheryl. Thanks, Cheryl.

Yeah, no, that really is it because everything on Thursday, I mean… We could address requirement and things like that. You could address communications 580. Okay. I mean, just… What page is that? Dispatch. That's the dispatch. So that is going to be on.

Here we go.

Hold on. All right.

So I'm good with zero as well. Oh, yes, sir.

I've reached out to Brent Hives. He's a contact up there in Kirk County. There's always confusion as to the several different entities. that deal with children?

Yeah, he's with KSTAR and CARES, but I don't think he's with the Kendall County Child Services Board.

I'm trying to find out if he knows what their purpose and what they do. I'm not sure. He just responded.

Do you know Brett Ives?

The name's familiar. I can't place.

Sure. For you on speaker. I'm sorry. Just for our Zoom.

If you just turn your mic towards you, you're good.

Hear me? Okay. You're good. So he just responded. I don't think we have any relationship with him. I can ask our advocate supervisor and our mental health staff who have the office in Bernie. So I was just concerned because he's pretty involved and engaged with so much that goes on with the kids. And if he doesn't, I have any relationship with him. I don't know what. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, and this says provides programs and activities to prevent child abuse. The board provides financial support for various medical services, clothes, school supplies, camps, birthday presents, and other needs. And I don't even know if I'm on the right thing, but it says Commissioner's Court appoints. So until we get it together and appoint and know what we're forming, then I would say no. I think it's defunct. This court hadn't appointed anybody that I recall.

We addressed that the last time with them about their contract.

And that was the only thing Cheryl and I could find like a year ago when we were trying to say, y'all need to cash a check. And somebody did come to Commissioner's Court once to present something, but that was it.

Mr. McCall, what do you want to do?

I think... I think if they're not going to come and ask for it, I don't think it should be a, a revolving give when, especially when we've had these, these issues to even know whether this is a, a board. Okay. I don't think we have enough information.

Carpenter. All right. Cut it. And we have elections here. So if we want to start, jump ahead and we'll, Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, how about this? How about a restroom break? Yes. How about it's 1037. Let's take a restroom break from until 1042. So we're, yeah, that's like, I can't wait.

So the equipment that we would use there is about 30 units. Those are gone because those would be deployed out election day. Option A, we keep everything exactly the same. We need about $150,000 in funding to buy 30 additional units and 10 additional pull books. Option B is really us just shutting down one location. We would still need about $108,000 in funding. It would go down to 20 units. But moving on to option C, which is what I feel Just based off of what we see in our turnout and how we operate, where we could save money for the county, and also looking into polling locations. What are we using? What do we have? What do we need to adjust? I think option C is the best choice, in my opinion. Y'all can make, obviously, whatever decision you want to make. The one on the right. C, option C, that's going to be all the way to the far right. And that one requires about $70,000 in funding that will buy us 10 additional express vote units because what locations we shut down, we can absorb those from election day into our early voting site. But we will still need to purchase an additional 10 units to make sure that early voting functions the way its voters are used to. Early voting is where people come, right? That's our biggest turnout there. This would cut down to locations. I know you'll probably notice in option A, B, and C that we have Morningside Ministries in red on this layout here. We have to open up another site in Precinct 1. When y'all moved the Burdick Center out of Precinct 1 and into Precinct 2, it created an imbalance in our polling location. So we've got to go back and rebalance that. We've used Morningside Ministries before. The only reason we stopped using them was because they were under construction for a while. They have talked to us about coming back out. We've had people that have asked if we could come back to Morningside. There's a lot of people that vote by mail from that facility because they can't get out and come in. It would cut down a little bit on our vote by mail. They'll be able to vote in person at their facility. But we are not set on that being our Precinct 1 location. That's just my first option, what I would first recommend. In Precinct 2, we would shut down the fairgrounds. That's the same in all options. The fairgrounds is not an ideal location, and in order to add into Precinct 1, something's got to go first, and that would be the first location I would shut down. We've had, anyway, so we'll move forward with that one. Precinct 3 and Precinct 4. Precinct 4 has had four polling locations in it. It's such a wide area, but Bernie City Hall, which used to be the old Precinct 1, is now Precinct 4. where the line draws it fell into force. So we've ended up with four polling locations in Precinct 4. We would need to cut from there. Of those three, we cannot cut Comfort and we cannot cut Ware. We don't want to cut anything that's in the rural areas. So in town, our options are City Hall or 1910. City Hall, people are familiar with. That's where we get most of our foot traffic. They're great to work with. They're a city building, so they can never charge us. I think they're the better one to keep in Precinct 4. And then in Precinct 3, it's not ideal to shut down Bernie Bible Church because it is one of our bigger polling locations, but we have six polling locations all within a two-mile radius. So shutting down inside of the city limits of the city of Bernie, shutting a polling location there makes the most sense. We don't need that many inside the city limits of Bernie, especially with Burdick becoming the new early voting site once we've moved into that building. majority of people are going to start going to Burdick. So you're going to see that traffic flow come to where people are used to early voting, and they're going to be able to vote there on election day. It's going to shift that traffic once the building is up and running. So those are our options. If you have any questions about them, I'm happy to go over them.

Okay. Now, I mean, I support options. It's cost-saving and It sounds like you put the effort in to kind of really think this through to make sure we're not displacing people. And so it sounds good to me. Commissioner Regent? I agree with option C. McCall? Agree. Chapman? Okay.

And most importantly, my staff's on board with this. When we talk about what changes we want to make, especially when we're talking about the new building, we sit down as a team. We say, what do we think we can work? What works? What doesn't work? And we've all come to the same thing. We don't need this many locations in town. We can shut some down. We can shift people around. We can create a little bit bigger super precincts in some of our other locations and better staff them. Maybe they've been a little understaffed, but now we'll be able to shift them around. So overall, we're all in agreement that option C is the best one.

And do we need to take that $70,000 and put it in this year's budget?

We do. Is it in there? It's like $26,000.

You need it. We will more than likely not need that amount of equipment for the May 2027 election. The state has not come out and told us that we aren't going to move forward this November with this new bill. They probably aren't going to do that until we hit August. Ideally, it'd be best to purchase it within this budget year if we could. If that's not something that we have the ability to do, then we can push it into 27 and we will make do with what we've got to do. We always make it work on our side, but ideally it'd be better to have the equipment on order and moving in and going through the process because we probably won't know until very last minute whether or not the state's going to move forward and that this November we will have that smush of the election, of the early voting and election day period.

So for FY26, that's the budget we're in now. Can you get this equipment by September 30th?

I'd have to reach out to the vendor, but I believe we should be able to.

So if you can do it, let's buy it now. But can you coordinate? If not, if you cannot do it, Corinna, allocate the 70 for this upcoming budget. But the preference is let's buy it now if you have the funds because that way you're not putting a lurch where this is you trying to make do when we could have solved this problem by just buying it now.

So it's in $70,000 is in the budget right now for FY27. Right. So if she can buy it now.

Then you can take that out.

The $70,000 out of FY27.

You'll have to do a budget adjustment or does she have money left over in her?

No, I would need to do a budget adjustment.

Yeah.

And so. Yeah.

Why don't you, can you do this ASAP and find out and get back with. We have an answer today for you.

And it has to be paid for and delivered by September 30th, right?

And I believe we got our equipment in August of 2020, right before the presidentials. And I think y'all signed off on it in mid-June during the budget process. I think it was mid-June. We had our equipment within six to eight weeks from the time that we ordered. So we've got majority of July. We have all of August and all of September. I don't think that's going to be an issue.

If you will get that to me today, I will. Update my budget adjustments for court tomorrow.

Sounds good.

That way. Otherwise, you have to wait till the last quarter.

Yes.

There's your homework. Got it.

Is there anything else you need to address with us?

I believe that's everything just in my general budget. And y'all are talking about salaries. Do we come back at a different time with the salaries and the... I had gone to the salary committee for an adjustment.

We're going to be talking about employees on... Friday or Thursday, but I think we approved all the adjustments already. It's just about new hires.

So that would be the only other thing I had pending on my side.

I don't think you need to worry about that. Okay. All right.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We still have a little time before lunch. Again, is there anything we can solidify now? And that means we can spend less time on Thursday working if you guys are open to it. Like what about retirement? Is there, do y'all have any opposition to the 5% increase that I've put into the budget to move our TCRS from 195 to 200? Because that's one big thing we can knock out where Karina can start adjusting her books.

That was a grand total of what?

250,000, 280, I think at the most. It's 250 to 280, that range.

I'm good leaving now. Okay.

Commissioner McCall?

I say leave it.

Chapman? Carpenter? All right. There's one. Make it 200. What about... I'm just trying to get you those hard answers sooner.

So what we can do is, like, I think one of the things that I have on Thursday... is communications page 63. I think we were still waiting on that number.

Steve, over the weekend, you're going to have something today. All right. Thank you.

So we are still waiting on that. I know tomorrow is the fire departments, but I do have that. We have that figure now for City of Bernie.

Put that in because it is what it is.

So I have that figure. That is now going to be $978,690. And I will repeat that tomorrow. I think I put $900 in. But it's page 51. But, I mean, I will repeat. tomorrow, but I can just tell you the current budget for the City of Bernie Fire is $891,933 and it's going to $978,690. But again, that's... Would it be helpful to send that back up that Mr. Zink sent over from the city to the

the rest of the court. Because there was, I mean, there was a methodology on why it went up, and it does have a cap on it as well.

I think he emailed everyone, didn't he? Yeah. I remember seeing something.

Did you email everyone? I did not, because I was included on that, that you emailed back.

But, yeah, I can. If anybody has any questions, I can pull up the.

It is what it is. It's a formula. So, I mean, there's nothing we can really dispute.

No, no. But just in case anybody had any questions. Yeah. And I believe that City of Bernie gives us a great value for that amount of money with their very trained expert personnel, the equipment that they have.

They're supporting our rural areas, so no problems there. Can we address the 4% salary increase for the employees now and just knock that out? Because that's one of the bigger things on the budget.

Yeah, I just, I had on Thursday at 1, I just had all of the employee and salary stuff listed. So, I mean, y'all can address it.

You can get out early Thursday.

Because on each of the days, I did put various departments as needed. That way it opens it up to whatever anybody wanted to talk about. Yes.

All right. Start with you, Commissioner Chapman. How do you feel about 4% or do you have an alternative?

Commissioner Carpenter? What was the total number?

1.1 million? No? Or is it 1.8?

1.5 from what we saw. I don't know. We talked about it in our MIDI meeting, our compensation.

Do you remind me if that's across the board?

It's across the board. I was for just the employees, but the compensation committee was for across the board for the elected officials as well. I'd prefer to just keep it to the employees since we did the elected officials last year. Go ahead.

Well, the money that's in here that was inclusive of everything, and let me tell you the page number. See, I have page numbers, so it's a little bit harder. So $1.5 million is included, the 4% to all three scales.

So that was the regular employee scale, the law enforcement scale, and the elected official scale.

And it also included the health insurance, which I already approved. That encompassed that amount, which was like that 9% increase that the court's already approved through regular commissioner's court. And it was the 4% that matched the 200. It included all that. But yes, it was to all three scales. And the reason I think it needs to be on the elected official scales, yes, elected officials can choose not to take the raise if they want to. However, what you would have in some departments is the court very generously gave 6.5% in FY24. Not only did you create the scale, you also very generously gave 6.5% to all the employees. but that did not go to the elected officials that year. There was no scale for elected officials. There was no 60%. I don't believe y'all took that. I don't think the court got that. I can't remember. But you have departments where your your management, your mid management is continue to increase. And the reason I originally suggested a scale for elected officials is you were going to have elected officials kind of do this and staff or staff are not careful. So that is why when you did you suggested to me. Only do it for the two scales. I said, I think you need to do it for the elected officials because I understand where the court's coming from as the governing body. But there are, I believe, what, 18 elected officials. And so and all but four of them, the four constables do not have staff, but the others do have staff. And you would not want, in my opinion, you wouldn't want elected officials to. to be this way while their staff is continuing to go up. So I just think that's one of the challenges when you have a scale is that can happen. If you're not careful, um, doesn't really happen as much. If you have merit, as long as the court distributes the same merit across the board for elected officials.

So as is it applies to all, what I put into the budget was it affects all three scales or a total of 1.5.

Um, but that includes other stuff. Yeah. And 1.5 is also the salary. I mean, the, uh, the insurance and the TCDRS.

Basically, the total compensation package for the employees will cost us $1.5 to do TCDRS, absorb the increased cost of insurance, and give them the raise. Yes.

And can you refresh me? Is this the scale on its natural progression forward, or is this in addition to...

So this would be adding 4% to... the scale. Some people will automatically move over if they're in a step three and it's their year to move over, they essentially would get a 6% because every step is 2% more on your scale. So if you increase the scale by four, you might have some employees that would get like a 6.06%. I think that's how it calculates out. And some would just get, they would stay in their little, their step for this year, they would get a 4% increase. If you don't do anything, then those that stay would get zero. Those that move over would get an automatic two. So it is a natural progression as people move over. But when you implement it to the scale, it's a total adjustment to the entire scale. So every step increases 4%.

And if this helps you think about it, for every percent you give the employees, it's about $250,000 to the budget. So it's about $500,000 for accepting the retirement and the insurance, and it's about $250,000 for every percentage you give them. That's about the breakdown to think in your head.

I mean, we could print it where people would land and have that to you on Thursday. I just didn't have that ready for today.

When's the nearest point where we're going to hear Hudson and discuss.

So if y'all want Hudson to come in for your or any kind of revenue talk, we can ask him to come in on Thursday. The appraisal district does not certify, does not have to certify till the 25th. And so typically you don't have any of your tax information. You're just preparing a budget without that. Without hard figures, you've already really prepared your budget, unfortunately.

But you have two days after the 25th, right? Because if we stay close to what I propose without adding too much, we can still afford, based on James' initial, my talk with him, a half-cent reduction in taxes to the taxpayers, too, provided we don't add too, too much to the budget.

Or if you want to propose a lesser figure. I don't know what the national average is on gross income.

it's like three it's like i think 3.12 or 3.2 is what i saw somewhere what do you that the average cola yeah yeah you you know it changes you have to look i know the one you gave me it had increased when i looked and that's when when um yeah i was trying to play a little around that just in a little bit some so it had it had increased by the end of may when i looked um Do you have a preliminary thought of what you're thinking? No, I'm okay. You're okay with four? Okay. Commissioner Regan?

I'm good with four. And as someone pointed out, any elected official can take any portion of the salary, zero, 50%. Commissioner McCollum? Agreed.

I'm good with 4% except for elected officials. So keep it as is for everybody because majority wins. So you have your answers there. TCDRS, county absorbs insurance.

Well, y'all approved it. Yeah, we approved it. That's adopted.

And then 4% to the chart. So that should give you firmer numbers on when we meet for the next couple days on where our budget's at. Were there any other more concrete decisions we need to make that you had scheduled for Thursday that we can make now?

Yes. I believe you'll have some individuals coming back because part of this week would be the new hires. Okay. And so I do think you need to wait until Thursday because you have some individuals that are going to be coming back. that we put on kind of round two. So this week is our round two. And so I don't think that it would be fair or wise to talk about that without those department heads coming in.

And so that's more on Thursday?

That is Thursday. Wednesday is just the fire departments and emergency management. It's just from one to five. And so I allocated Wednesday just for the fire departments and emergency management.

On Thursday, based on the decisions we just gave you about salaries, retirement, you'll be able to give us kind of a better figure of where we're at financially?

I can tell you what your expenditures look, what your budget looks like as of Wednesday.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, well, we start at nine, so I won't have all the changes for the fire departments in there maybe because we don't get over till five. So yeah, but I can get you pretty close. Having the salaries somewhat what you think you're going to do, the 4%, the 200%, taking that out of 409 and getting better figures, that's going to go a long way.

While we got time, is there anything individually you'd like to address that we haven't addressed? Chad, anything from you that you want to? talk about that we can just knock out? Not specifically. Mr. Chapman, anything from you?

Mr. Wieschen? Nothing right now. I just want to say that I'm all for the increase of 4% for the employees and taking care of the people who are here. I'm going to really look at these new hire requests, and so I may want to kind of circle back and something that I supported before. That's Thursday, yeah. Yeah, except for the deputies, I'm not changing my mind on that.

Okay. Commissioner McCall, anything for me you want to address?

No. I know you said that all of that, that $1.5 million includes TCDRS and all of that. Is there a way for us to see a number for the 4% increase, COLA increase?

I can tell you what that is. What we do is we have to take the scale and he's made the scale as accurate as today, meaning it's every single employee and where they are and then where they're going to go October 1st. But it's a lot of calculation until I know what you're going to do. So on Thursday, that 1.5 essentially will be taken out of that line item because it's just a placeholder. And I can tell you what 4% does. Now, again, 4%, I can't tell you just what 4% does because on the scale of 350 employees or the Excel spreadsheet of 350 employees, part of it is the natural progression of moving over to the next step. That's going to be encompassed in that 4%. But I can tell you what that is. Yes. Yes. And 1.5 is rounded up because I need to build a cushion on this, what you may do, because we don't know. Like, I wasn't even sure at this point what y'all might do with what insurance might be. You know, and so I was thinking maybe 10 to 12 percent of insurance. And if you are going to cover it, that needed to be in that one point five million. But as it turned out, it was nine percent. Y'all approved to pay that for employees and and continue the contribution for the dependent coverage. So that's all encompassed in that one point five. But that line will be zero because all the money goes to all the different departments and to the appropriate line.

Right now. And I agree. We need to take care of our employees first. So but. If we have some look at what that number looks like without the additional, like you said, I kind of like to see that number.

All right. I do have one thing. I'm sorry. I did send to you the Kendall Appraisal District Expansion number, right?

So, yes.

I'm not sure everybody knows that number.

So, in Department 499, which is James Hudson's, we always have to wait for their budget once their board approves their budget. So on page 44, there's one line item, and it's called Kendall Appraisal District. Well, I, before the budget started, just plugged in a 5% increase to what we allocate to the appraisal district, not knowing because we don't get their budget usually until the end of July after they're After their board adopts it, it will come to the county judge. He'll give me a copy. Our current funding to the appraisal district is $630,912. I plugged in just a 5%. And she nailed it. So it's $662,245 is what I have budgeted. So it actually covers that additional $630,912. funding that they said would be added to our portion of their budget.

That doesn't include the construction as well.

Yeah. Well, because it's just part of their actual budget. Okay. We get their budget increased that much. And so I try to start the budget process with about 5% increase every year for the appraisal district. That's sort of an average because it's based on our part of it's our collections and our value. Um, But if that changes a little bit, I will update that. That's on page 44.

Is there anything else you'd like to address? Otherwise, we'll recess for lunch and be back at 1.

No, that's it. So we have two items on this afternoon. And then I will say when we're talking to facilities at 2, I have like capital projects for Thursday, but certainly y'all can talk about capital projects this afternoon. Yeah, let's knock some of those out while they're there. Because y'all may have a plan of what you want him to how you want him to do his priorities.

May we lock the door so some of this stuff can stay?

And Corinna, one last question. What was the increase from 25 to 26 on the appraisal district since we were looking at that budget?

Oh, so... Should have been about 5%.

No.

Okay, so I used to have it in two different spots. It used to be partially in the auditor's budget, but okay. But it's not part of that. So we paid them an FY25. 156,984. Let me just.

This will help.

In FY25, it was $546,600. And they came to court and they explained that their budget was going to go up. And it went up to $630,912. Mm-hmm. So it went up about $90,000.

So the increase is because part of that number used to live in another. Yes.

Yeah. And in FY26, I combined it to the six, just to one department because it all needs to really preside in the county tax assessor collector's budget. He just doesn't collect the taxes. We pay the appraisal district.

And where was it housed before? What?

It used to be split in the auditor's budget and in there. We had operating in one and collections in one. And I've tossed around for a long time that it really just needs to be there because the court approves that. And so, therefore, you can see the full allocation.

All right. It is 1113 a.m. on this Monday, July 13th, and we're in recess until 1 p.m. to discuss a new position. So, Laura is yours.

Do you want to start or do you want me to go ahead?

No, go ahead.

Okay. So, thank you. Thank you again for this time to get together. If you recall, in round one, we had come to you and we had requested a new position being a grant writing position. to kind of facilitate and manage grants that would be for the justice side of the equation for the county, which would be a whole new position as we requested. So with that being said, our team got together. We talked to all those involved on our side, and we looked at the current job description. And we looked at what is encompassed in that description. And we thought that a better solution would be to regenerate and re-describe what that position would look like. And we both agree and we believe that a new described job description as a manager of grants would probably be sufficient without having to hire a new position.

Well, it is a new position, but it would give the county the option. It's a new position that has more responsibility. It's a different level of skill sets that we believe could handle all of the grants in the county. But it would be up to y'all to do that position and keep the current one or do that position and eliminate the current one. So that's the other proposal because we heard what y'all said. Some of y'all had an issue with having two different grant positions at this time. So this is another option.

So what is your proposal? It sounds like this is more of a new position that eliminates the other position. The way I'm understanding what we're looking at here in this outline, it looks like it's going to be the county manager or the county grant manager is the new position only.

Well, I wouldn't say that it eliminates it. That's up to y'all whether you eliminate the current grant position. But the one that we have, the one that we've proposed would be sufficient to handle all the criminal justice needs in the way that we need it handled and has the required skill set as qualifications and education that would be required to do that.

So would they be writing that? So under this position, are they just managing or are they writing as well? They're writing as well.

So if you look at the job description, it lists absolutely everything they're doing. They help with procurement. They help with the auditor's office. They help with each individual office. It would very much function how my current grant writer works, but with extra things. My current grant writer doesn't do a lot of the... she'll help with, but she doesn't do a lot of the procurement and the auditor side stuff. We wanted to add extra responsibilities that would really help with the process. A lot of the administrative things that like Donna will do, this person would be handling as well. So for instance, when we had a lab contract or lab, a grant for lab stuff, there's obviously procurement that has to go into place to have a lab that does that. There's contracts that have to be in place. Somebody is coordinating all of that and taking care of all of those details to make sure it gets done. And again, the other option is still on the table for a criminal justice grant coordinator. But again, we heard what was said in the last meeting. And so this is coming up second option. So it's really what you all decide to do.

We'll start with you, Commissioner McAuley. If I can just interject real quick, the court needs to understand that for the years that we've been doing grants through my office, there were systems and processes and things put in place. The grant coordinator position that we have now has not benefited my office. I'm just going to be honest with you. There's been no benefit to that position for my office. The assumption at the beginning was that person was going to take the grants from start to finish, inquire to whatever information needed to be processed out of the office that was required for the grant, and then they would run with that and write the grant and follow the grant through from start to finish.

That hasn't happened. Have you sat down with our grant writer and expressed those concerns that if it wasn't meeting your needs to give her the opportunity to work with you in a way that did work? Yes.

You did. Along with General Counsel Osteen. And I was given the option to say that, well, if you want to use her, I can. If I didn't want to, I didn't have to.

And my office has been the same. We sat down. And to be quite frank, I mean, I don't, I mean, judge, you were there for that and it was not, um, very productive. And there were some things that came out of that, that made it so that I couldn't made it very difficult to continue working. Fair enough.

All right. Um, so because of what we have now and what you're proposing, um, How many positions are you proposing that we have for Kendall County for obtaining grants?

That's up to y'all. So you can either approve the criminal justice grant coordinator and keep the current one that you have, the other one that you have for all the rest of the grants. You can do this grant manager and keep the current grant person. You can do the grant manager and eliminate the current grant position. So there's really three options y'all can choose.

And I thought one of you said during your opening here that they could handle, could this grant manager, the way it's written, could that person handle all of the grants for the county? We believe, you can interject, Nicole, is that

this person taking, if this were the only position that was going to be used by, if you decide this is going to be the position, the manager position, it's unrealistic to think that that person can jump in and just handle, what is it now? How many grants do we have? 30?

34 in FY26. There's 22 that have been brought to court for FY27.

So to think that that person can just jump in there and take over everything from start is unrealistic as well. So we believe that as far as the way our processes have been, that we can continue on doing that for the next year to allow that person to acclimate and get established and get their feet on the ground so that with the assistance of all the other departments, as they have been in years past, and then to the point where eventually that person, and it will be up to the court at that time. There may be an assistant that needs to be hired, maybe another grant writer as well, depending on how many grants are, you know, I don't know what one person can handle, but grants are so specific in their needs and demands that they're all different. Some can be processed from A to Z very simply. Others are continuation grants where you know everything is pretty much already done and you just got to fill in the blanks. And others are brand new, you know, like the $750,000 grant we just got. And those become very complicated. So I think we believe that that person can probably handle it at least the first year and then reassess the position. And that person comes to you and says, I'm overwhelmed or I can continue handling it as it is. or whatever, but I think it would need to be reassessed at that time.

Well, I think that if there was a year not going out and getting grants or getting the ones that we have currently, unless something comes up that this person thinks they can handle at that time, these are the details that I'm not quite sure about. Jennifer Forbes is not here. These are questions that I would ask her. I just texted her the Zoom links in case she... isn't on already.

How long is she going to be with y'all?

I think she said she'd give us until December, maybe January 1st. Um, and again, this job description has a lot more than even what Jennifer does, but she went through it and said, yes, this is something that can be done. Um, she did say that she does not know what the workload is of the other position at this time, but, um, She thinks that it can be done just based on what she's observed. Hopefully I'm not misquoting her.

I just saw the caption that says that she's entered the waiting room, so she might be online.

Okay. I don't know if you want to hear from her and hear what her opinion is about this, but I do think that we...

Ask a direct question. If Jennifer hadn't been working on your grants, how much money do you think you would have risked not having come in through the grant process? I know it's a point blank question. I mean, we depend on these grants. How much?

Probably over a million dollars if you talk about the $700,000 grant that she obtained as well.

Because these are things that offset our county taxpayers.

Well, these grants helped build my office. I don't know if y'all realize the history of my office, but we're coming up on our 10-year anniversary of the existence of the office. But when we first started, the budget for my office was less than what the county attorney's office had been previously. And so I have worked very hard with grants. to make sure that we've got two attorneys that are grant funded, not including the SB 22 attorney that I'm currently funding. So that's three. Our entire victim advocate department, which is required by law to have, you know, we have really utilized grant grants in my office to, expand and provide the services at really a minimal cost relatively speaking to the county with that expansion um because i haven't come in and just said i need this much money i've looked out looked for outside sources of funding before i come in and ask for y'all to supplement and the majority of the funding for like those positions have come from grants so um In that sense, yes, we very much depend on it. And I am very worried when Jennifer is no longer available to assist.

And you think this position is an exempt position?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the amount of hours that's required, the autonomy this person's going to have, you know, They're going to be working with every department head. There's going to be weeks that they'll probably be working well over 40 hours a week, especially when we get into grant season where there's presentations. I mean, this person's also going to be coaching people on how to give presentations because people in my office, when we go to ACOG, we give presentations. And so Jennifer works with us to make sure that the presentation is the best it is to make sure that we get ahead. And we always do. And so I think that, yes, I think, I do think that this position may need a little help, just like contract labor in certain months, maybe, possibly. I would say budget for that. But I think after a year, if you have somebody who comes in very well-versed and very experienced and somebody like Jennifer Forbes, they'll be able to tell you after a year whether it's fine with just one person or you may need this much help or maybe you outsourced to GrantWorks for certain things. But somebody in this position would be well-versed in also GrantWorks. I mean, they'll know how that works because obviously they probably encountered it in their career because it's an entity a lot of government agencies will use.

Do they take a percentage as to how GrantWorks?

I think that the way GrantWorks works is you can a lot of times you can write within the budget of the grant the cost of the grant works uh consultant um but again um we would have an on-staff expert that knows how that works um as opposed to and i think this is where we kind of get in trouble you know if we go out and do this and we don't have the experience and we don't know what we're asking for because we don't understand grants or the ins and outs of them. I understand them probably better than most people do, but not, not the intricacies and not, you know, and the grants are by nature, very difficult. I mean, these systems are not easy systems to navigate and it's almost like there are hour long tutorials, just how to use like certain like federal grant stuff because it's so complicated and so confusing, which is the benefit of having something that really understands how to navigate them. So like I said, Jennifer's online if y'all wanted to talk to her or not.

Do you have any other questions or comments? Well, my concern is hiring two people to do the same position that, I mean, when I look at new employees for this county courthouse, we look at every 10 years, $100,000 a year is going out to somebody. So if they're making $75,000, they're making $100,000 with benefits. That's a million dollars every 10 years in just one position. That's why I think there's a hesitancy on the court on every new hire is because it's not just a one-year hit. It's ongoing year after year. You don't ever get to turn back the clock. Every time we give a raise, every time we do a 4%, that sets a new tone going forward forever. We're always better off making sure that we have the fewest number of employees possible in every department for the good of our taxpayers and that's that's my concern and that's i wanted someone to write grants through the whole process from a to z that's what i wanted a couple years ago when we put this position in so well i think we heard y'all say that the last time which is why this is something that we are proposing I don't know where the coordinator word came from is what I'm saying. Okay.

And my thought was a coordinator is more than a grant writer. So I forget the court did talk about that. It was more to get someone to, in words, you own the grant from start to finish. A coordinator is very much like a manager. So that thought process came for me because I thought, oh, if we're going to get a writer, we need to get... I just researched what manager, administrator, coordinators. And I came up with I just decided the word coordinator because I found that in a lot of different places.

And I looked at that job description and I will say that it does not. Have it's not as robust as with this job description and I didn't do that job description.

I just put the word coordinator in the budget and that's created the title coordinator. I think that came later.

Yeah. And I think what we did is we've learned and we went through and we've talked to different departments and what. The burden extra burden has been with all these new grants that we're getting. and this person this position would help fill in those gaps so that you know my uh office manager donna isn't doing a lot of the administrative pieces of ours or um there's it helps corinna's office it helps with procurement as well it helps with legal um and it it really, and I kind of, in the job description, I kind of blocked off the different areas that this position would really take a lot of that workload off. And I think that's what this was intended for, was to take that burden off of individual offices by having a centralized grant person. But I will say that this job description is much more robust. It has a lot it's more detailed as to what exactly it is that is needed to achieve what we're hoping for.

Mr. Jim? So to me, if we approve this, we're approving two people, it sounds like, because there will be actually three. If the court decides to keep the current one and then this one and you're already telling me that, well, they may need some help in the future. That's telling me we're going to be hit up for the... That's if you keep both of them.

If you do away with one, then the one would probably need assistance. That would be determined. If you keep both of them, there shouldn't be any need to hire a third. That will be determined between the two of them to come to the court of how their processes and their efficiencies... You know, it'd be for them to explain to you if they needed a third person, but I don't see that happening.

My other concern, of course, the court approves every grant. My other concern is for next year, our grant match is going to be roughly $2 million.

I'm waiting on some information from Jennifer Forbes on their grant match.

Okay. Between one and two is a fair estimate.

Okay.

Between one and two million.

It is more than one million. It's at least, yeah, it's two million probably your grant match. Okay. Because right now you have said yes to at least, well, 22 grants that I have countywide and seven, so 29.7 from the... judicial side or law enforcement and judicial 29 set currently for FY I'm sorry 22 that encompasses 22 for FY 27 you have 34 right now but none of those were from FEMA last year from the from the flood so none of those are the what they call the PWs or the reports through the flood so it's roughly about the same A few more in the current year than they are next year, but we haven't even gotten to next year, so we don't know what other grants shall make.

So I guess the question becomes is what liability are we hanging onto by continually getting more and more and more grants? And then is this court going to be strong enough to say, okay, at some point in time, if these grants stop, we can't take on particularly when there are people involved. As Commissioner Carpenter said, with people comes an ongoing. Right now, okay, we're paying, let's say, 25% of the salary. But then if these grants cease, we're either drop that position or take on 100%.

Well, and I think that that's an important thing to differentiate, right? So the two attorneys, third ASB 22, which obviously I'm asking for y'all to take that over, but the two attorneys, I don't ask for grants unless it's something that I need. I look for grants to help the county out on that cost at the beginning, but if those grants were to go away, these are required positions for my office. This is what I need to be able to do to exercise the duties of my office. So like, for instance, victim advocacy, that is a statutory requirement, but we've had that grant for 20 years. You know, the two attorneys, I mean, when we, I believe that my grants have had a very good return on investment because they're required. We have staffed the office appropriately now for two courts. We have cases that are going through within a year of the offense date, which is unheard of which is in turn helping with our jail population and helping with the cost of that. I think that you have to be responsible when you ask for these grants and not ask for something that you would not go and ask for in budget for you to fully fund. So what I do, and I think if you want to ask your grant manager to make sure that this is the case, that when you're going for these grants and when we're presenting them, for instance, the $700,000 three-year grant, we need a digital forensic center. Like these are things that we need to help with law enforcement and protecting the children in our county, right? That's the first step. I believe that that's something that this community wants. And so if that grant goes away, I think that that's something that this court should support. So I'm never, and I'm going to tell you that, right? So when I come in and I ask for a grant and we're talking about it, I'll say, and that one I did, if they don't continue to support it, I think that this court should support it and I will come and ask for you to. Or the other grant I have, this position is going away after three years. I'm not going to continue to hire it. But yes, I think we need to save money where we can for sure, but we still have to have the necessary positions. And I think that when you approve these grants, then those are the questions you ask us when we're asking you to approve the grants. with the understanding that you may be on the hook to fund it if it goes away. So that's kind of, we have the things that are necessary, and it's being supplanted by grant fund money to defray the cost to the county. And I think that's how the grant should be used.

Anything else, Commissioner Dunn?

Commissioner Reason?

Okay. Thanks for coming in. So I want you to have the workforce that you need, obviously. And my only issue the other day was that we already have a grant writer. We have your part-time, Jennifer, and then having two positions, I just think we can't add that many employees. We have an ask of over 25 employees this round, and we're not going to be able to fund all that. So I think having one person until such a time when we need to is what we should do, you know, at least for this year. I've had a little bit of experience writing grants, certainly not like Jennifer, but my understanding is that there's not a grant writer who is in every 200 to 500 to 1,000 different industries, areas, nonprofits, that the expertise of that position is being able to interview the client, so to speak, and gleaning that information and From Kleurner or whoever, because not everyone can know everything, right? And then being able to write a narrative and have several iterations back and forth. Do I have it right? Is this right? And then going back and forth. Also, those very particular technical requirements, the tracking and the compliance, there's a lot to it. And I think something that you touched on is that we probably need to look at our program more holistically so that we don't just go grab every grant. You know, some people actually find grants and then try to come up with a program for the grant. We really need to find those that are needed and meaningful. And so I would ask that we kind of just look at that countywide to make sure that that person's time is used to the best, right? Those things that are most critical to the county. That they're so critical that if the grant funding went away, we would say, absolutely, we need to have this person. So I guess when we created this grant coordinator position, we had a very different job description then. And we had very different certification needs or requirements, expertise, training, education, different than what we see today. And as you've said, this position is much more robust. And frankly, it's based on, I think, on what we learned in two years. So it seems that we have a different need. And so to optimize grant funding, I want to make sure that we have that person that we need so that we get all the money that we want to get and that you are not burdened with having to do the work, that your time is leveraged so you can go do your job. So I think this sounds like a good idea. I don't know about the part-time assistants later on. I mean, I would ask that this, let's get the right position and fund that and ask that person to do it for a year. Then next year we'll see. I don't want to not have two and I'm not really sure I want to have one and a half or that's just where I am.

In reading through your job description and kind of your background for this. I was just wondering how much would this grant manager assist the auditor? Because I know we keep hearing Corinna talk about her part of this. So this kind of sounds like it goes from inception to closure. And so in what you've written.

Well, and please don't kill me, Corinna. In my ideal world, Corinna would be managing this person. like they would be helping her because so much of the grant work has to go through Corinna's office, and so much of it involves the financial side of it that I really think that that would be up to Corinna.

I'm not sure she can because she's a separate independent person under the judges, and she's the audit authority, correct?

So I will just say I've had a couple conversations. A few years ago when the court talked about a grant writer, at that conversation that summer, I said when you – when I had a conversation with Judge Cahoon at the time, because I had one judge. And at that meeting during those budget hearings is when I said, we're not big enough to have a grant department where you have multiple people. And grants typically are in the auditor's office or the judge's office typically in counties that just have like one person. So I had a brief conversation with Judge Cahoon and she did not really want grants in my office. She wanted me to stay independent and not really have the grants in my office. So I had another conversation since this budget started. And I believe that would still be the position of the judges is that this is, you know, for me to hire somebody, they would work solely for the county auditor. They would not work for the court on behalf of the court. That's not what they do. And that's, they want me to hold the line. So

In Medina County, isn't the grant writer under the auditor there? Yes. Just pointing that out.

Because I've talked to her several times about our grant or about their grant with TNEC. So, yes. And I've had that conversation. But nobody can do financial reporting except for, I mean – I have to audit all financial reports regardless of who's doing it. And so right now we do all the financial reports for all grants and I don't anticipate that to change. But having somebody that understands it, they prepare, you do need to understand what you need to, you have to understand all the financial rules in order to help prepare any of those. And that's where the benefit comes in. But yeah, as far as having a person that writes grants and all that, that I do know could not be in my office. Because statute says that I would recommend hiring a position and the district judges have the sole authority to set the number of assistants assigned to a county auditor. So that could not happen in our county.

I think that It's just, it's a matter of having, I don't know what the solution is, honestly. I don't know if you can put it back in the judge's office. You can put it in general counsel's office. I don't know if it can be under procurement. I mean, I understand grants. That's why for the criminal justice one, the direct supervision was going to be under me just because I can at least know if somebody's not doing the job right. I do know that.

Well, since you seem to have the most experience, is there any reason why it couldn't, that person couldn't be under your office with the understanding that that person has to come and help all departments.

I think that, I mean, it helps to be under an elected official because we can act autonomously in the hiring and firing of individuals. So that makes it helpful as opposed to having to come in front of commissioner's court if that's an issue. I'm okay with With doing that, understanding that I would want buy-in from like a hiring committee, so it's not just my decision. Obviously, this is a countywide position. I would want there to be a committee that's maybe over this person with me doing the direct supervision.

Would you be open to two court members being on that committee? Yeah.

I mean, again, this is a countywide thing. I mean, this is more about supervising and making sure and, you know, if somebody needs to be put on a performance improvement plan or needs to, you know, get brought up to speed, we certainly have experience and do that in my office.

And, yes, I would be fine with two members. So just to be clear, this position currently we're talking about would not handle anything else outside of the justice system.

it would handle everything. Everything.

Engineering. Everything. Everything. Everything.

I intended to go over grants at a later time once I get all the information, but I just want to tell you what kind of grants you have so that the court understands, because I know that everybody comes in here, your grant coordinators come in here to request grants.

I'm sorry, a spreadsheet would be nice. I've asked several times for everything we've applied for, everything we've gotten, everything.

I created a document. Oh, good. I do have it now from county-wide, and then I spoke to Ms. Forbes today. She is trying to get me hers. She's been out of town, and so once I have hers, I will have it, because I need it in the same format. When you have two different people doing the same job, you get things two different ways, and I'm old school, and I like things to look the exact same. So they're working on getting me the same things. But just so the court understands the type of grants that we have, you have FEMA grants that go through the Pastors Texas Water Development Board, FEMA grants that are CDBG grants, which are community development block grants, mitigation grants that are going through Texas General Land Office. You have FEMA grants that are going through Texas Division of Emergency Management. You have motor vehicle crime grants that are going through the attorney general's office. We obviously have quite a few judicial and non-judicial that go through the governor's office. We have the Hill Country Alliance that was just the dark sky, the dark sky grant. We have several that are still pending.

Yeah, like the animal shelter.

And that's just a small one. So just to understand, we also have State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which is through the Bureau of Justice Administration. We have DSHS, which is the readiness initiative that pays for the $10,000 for the pod director during an emergency situation, which currently is Stephanie Fink. Um, we have the rural ambulance through the state comptroller, as well as your SB 22, which are both through the state comptroller. So you do have a wide variety of grants. And I just wanted to kind of throw that out there. Um, when you're, when you're talking countywide grants, including, including judicial and, and, and law enforcement. So there, there's, you have a lot of different grants and grant, grant, um, sources from the county. Most of them are federal. I just wanted to kind of...

I just think that whatever this position is, it should be under the court. Because if it is a county-wide thing, we are the county. It should be under the court in some function, not just the district attorney. Even though you have the bulk of the grants, I think for management purposes, the county.

She doesn't have to.

Okay.

There's seven in there. And there's, there's for next year, right? For current year, there's 10 judicial. Oh, 24 non-judicial. That's why I wanted to make sure y'all. Thank you for clarifying that. Next year, we have seven. at least applied for, that are judicial and law enforcement. There are 15 applied for non-judicial, non-law enforcement. So it's kind of evenly distributed. You have judicial, you have law enforcement, you have engineering, you have IT, cybersecurity. So they're kind of sporadic.

So that's my first comment. And then two, if I'm understanding the consensus here, Y'all want to basically eliminate the current position and create this position because we need to tell her what to do. And so I would like firm yeses or nos. Yes.

And I would like to have money on in contingency for part-time. There's so much money that we're depending on for grants for our yearly budget cycle. And I can't imagine... not making sure we have the dedication. But Forbes being leaving January, December, January, we're losing the person that's been your most important.

Well, that's what concerns me the most is what's going to happen when I can't utilize Jennifer anymore. And that's very concerning because I don't have the SB22 funds to try to get somebody else in here that I need. I don't have... I don't have the knowledge to continue that she has on these that we've started. And I can tell you it will be a huge problem, which is why we asked for the criminal justice grant coordinator, because that was something I was very concerned about.

Question. You're not going to have Jennifer because she's not available or we don't have money to fund Jennifer because I might be willing to do some part time or the contingency as She's not available. I mean, I still have... Because she could jump in and she just, she knows it like that.

Right. So I have some funds still left over to pay through December for her to help out to try to get everything in line with the grants that we have moved over. But she's just not available. So I would have to find another Jennifer to do everything that these grants require for

If I may interject quickly, just so that the court knows, Jennifer has been instrumental in helping the DA's office and acquire what they've acquired. But what the court needs to be reminded of, since I took office, Jennifer has been helping my office every year, voluntarily, to help my office do the grant processes that we've been successful with year after year after year. So she has done so much unpaid at the very start of my tenure here. And she has just been, you know, without her, it's going to be a hard hit. It just is to find somebody. And if the court decides that, you know, you want to leave things as they are, I'm going to tell you that it's going to be extremely inefficient. The processes don't work well, at least not for my office. The demand on Kevin Klerner has not been lessened. It's probably been enhanced under the current process. And so I'm just asking for some relief there. If you want to make him my grant coordinator, manager, well, then that's what we'll have to do. But I'm just telling you that's the way it's been for 14 years now.

Mr. Chapman. I'm a no on this, and I'm a no on putting another employee under the court. It's not working now, and it's not going to work. If we want to put them under an elected official that can actually properly direct them, then I'm going to agree to it. But I do not want to see another employee put under the court.

What we could do is maybe have an agreement if you want to keep if you want to put it under me that I can hire and firing or with advice and consent of commissioners court. So if you have an issue in particular. You can make the decision as well to terminate also for hiring. I think that even if it's under the court solely, that I would ask there be a committee of the people that certainly use the grant coordinator or the grant manager and have somebody outside like a Jennifer Forbes on there because they're going to understand and ask the right questions and very well may be able to recruit somebody for us. So that would be... different options.

Commissioner Regent, where do you stand?

Well, I think I made my statement that I think it's probably the best move. I think it's unrealistic to think somebody's going to donate time, so we shouldn't depend on that. Back to Commissioner Carpenter's point, let's talk about money. So what's coordinator's salary right now? I'm sorry, did you propose a salary?

I So I would say that I proposed a classification of 17, which is higher than our current grant coordinator, but that's also because of all of the specializations that this person is going to have.

Agreed. Okay. So we would need to put that number in there. And then, I mean, we've got a budget for it, so how much part-time assistance...

I think it could be contract labor, honestly, and it may not need to be used. I just don't know. Like 10, 20, I mean, Corinna, that's like, well, my office has 18.5 every year from the state, and that seems to help us a lot.

You get $27,500 in apportionment funds, but usually you and Donna kind of have a plan of what you are going to spend that on.

Well, so I think that there's really only one maybe two times a year that this person might need extra contract labor to help with just, just stuff when budgets are due. And sorry, I'm saying this wrong. When grant applications are due, they may need some extra help. That's about it, but they may not. I don't, I don't know.

Okay. So, so that salary, and then we've got to come up with a number, maybe.

Do you have any, like,

Pick a number.

But really, you're talking about in the, like, the December to February when, like, y'all's report, because y'all's grants are always due in February. Anything going to ACOG is typically due there. But the rest of, like, a lot of these are due all year.

Maybe, like, 12 weeks of labor. So I don't know what you calculate that out at, like, 20 bucks an hour.

Nicole, could you go, when you talk to Jennifer, ask her what the going rate is, if it's contract labor per hour. That's an easy number to come up with. Said weeks, time, hours.

Did you say 20 hours a week?

Did I say 20 hours a week for 12 weeks?

That's $16,000. All right, $20 an hour. Yeah.

No one's going to do it for that. Well, and that's what I'm saying. I think it's more of an administrative work to help with.

Assistant. Correct. To that person. Okay, rather than guess, and we don't know because we're not getting the answer. Nicole, would you get back to us on a number? So I'm for whatever the increase is in that position. But I could argue it either way of being under the DA. I think it could also be under commissioner's court. And currently, the commissioner's court supervises engineering, the health department, IT, and those work just fine. And that's probably, I don't know, affects 60 employees under there. The key is to have the right job description, the metrics, and the evaluation on whether the person is actually meeting that metric or not. And that's something that I think we're trying to get this consultant to come in so that we have a process by which to have that department head here and saying, good job. And you hit this mark and this mark, you know, very clear analysis and not just this amorphous, you know, whatever that's. And so I think it's totally fine to have it under commissioner's court. So I would agree with you judge on that. Commissioner McCall, where do you stand?