County Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

I call this meeting the order of Langster County Budget Workshop. Um, I ask that the clerk note for the record that a quorum of council is present, that the public notice of the meeting, including the meeting agenda has been posted required at the time in the lobby of the county administration building on the county website that the news media was notified at the meeting time. I welcome you to the county council me uh workshop meeting. U I would ask that you take a moment to turn off and place on vibrate all your uh cell phones. Thank you for wearing not wearing any hats or caps in council chambers and be considerate of others in the room by retraining refraining from conversations during the meeting. I ask that you please stand and join council for the pledge of allegiance followed by the invocation given this evening by council member Steve Harper.

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

Let us pray. Most heavenly gracious father, we thank you for this beautiful day uh day that we gather to uh work on the finances here at uh Lancaster County. and Lord uh be with uh uh Beth uh as she goes through her procedure today and all those who are are hurting at this time and lead and guide us in everything we do here today. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

I need a motion for approval of agenda. So moved. A second. Anybody second? I second. Second, Charlene. Okay. All right. Everybody in favor of agenda, raise your hand. Unanimous. Okay. Uh, Councilman KS is joining us on teams today, so he'll be joining in. So, um, okay. All right. We're ready to move into the opening remarks. Mr. Willis.

Ah, Mr. Vice Chairman, members of council. Uh the only thing I really have for opening remarks, I've just handed out um my recommendations on personnel funding for the next fiscal year. I would really really appreciate some feedback on this. Um as you look through, just to highlight some of them that are yellow, I'm not recommending funding. Ones that are green, they're out of a different fund than the general fund. On the flip side, you'll see two parks and wretch spots. They're part-time. They're not full-time. Um, so this is my first run at it. Over to the right, the ones that I did not recommend funding, you'll see what was originally requested. Um, and I have, you know, uh, touched base with the departments on this. So,

so Steve, the the the one with no color, the white is no recommendation. The ones with white I'm recommending. You're recommending the one with yellow. Say it again. Yellow. I'm not recommending. And the green. The green would be out of a different those were fire departments. That would be out of the fire funds. Okay. Not general. And on the back side, the one blue one is part-time part-time positions for parks and reg. Okay. And you have the number on the right side of how many positions,

right? I I want to make sure y'all saw what was actually asked for. So if council disagrees with some of my recommendations, you'll see what was originally asked for. You add some back, cut some out. Did you always did a budget council adopts one? Did you the original total of the ones that you recommended? Did you do that? Yes, ma'am. The what I'm recommending is 52 and a half full-time positions and two part-time. What's that total amount? That I do not know because I did not want to tinker with the amount column Sabrina had. We can get that for you, but I I didn't column.

Yeah, I would like to see the amount that you're recommending what that total is. Yes, ma'am. Get that. Right. And other than that, um I don't know if Sabrina or Jamie have any anything they need to pass on before we actually start into the uh meeting. I just need to know where y'all y'all got some magic uh magic that you're going to create some funding here or money. Can you make that happen?

I wish I could. All right. Uh good afternoon, um council members. Um and and I truly do wish that I could. Um but I think we we'll talk about the funding uh strategy as we move a little bit forward and um definitely after we've had a chance to look at the revenue outlook and talk about some of the um economic factors that are in um impacting you know what the projections are saying. And so just to kind of level set us to start today, we will hear first the um the second half of the departments do their um budget presentation. We do have some adjustments to the way the presentations have been done based on input from last time. you'll see the summary slide for each department and they'll be speaking from that bottom line amount. We won't have um additional slides beyond that. What we have made sure that you have in hand is the line item detailed budget that includes each department's um budget for the current year. It shows their request for next year. It has detailed notes for each line item where there's a request um especially around those that there's a significant difference and the departments will speak to that when they come forward. Um and so they'll be able to talk through their bottom line requests. They'll highlight some of their um key performance indicators, talk about their staffing, but really the focus is on what they're asking for that's significantly new for next year. And so we'll be capturing any questions um especially any that we might need to follow up on. Um we have your request to make sure we total up those items included in Steve's um recommended for the personnel. We'll have that before we leave the meeting today.

All right. Are there any questions before we start? Not any. All right. With that, we will invite up Alan Williams from the animal shelter to present his bucket.

Good afternoon everyone. I appreciate this time to get to talk to y'all about can uh as you can see I won't go through all the numbers and stuff. I will hit a little bit at the highlights. uh final intake, you know, it's still around 2600. Our say rate, we're look, we we try to stay above 90%. It's getting tough, but we make it again this year. I did note the TNR cats. I just want you to know that, you know, we are fixing cats. That's a that's 7 700 cats that got fixed. And I would note that we had over,300 animals adopted or rescued. And out of that, 1300, probably seven or 800 of them got fixed, too, as well. So, there's a lot going on in the shelter. Um, I won't I won't waste your time. I'll just hit hit what we asking for a few things here. Um, I did ask for a part-time counter tech for the weekends. As y'all know, we have to clean and feed seven days a week. That's holidays. And for some reason, we just have a hard time keeping people on these count jobs. And u we just need a little bit more help trying to get things clean taken care of there. And it also help if we could have an extra one that could help us with Jensen. Right now we're doing the vet tech. She does a lot by herself. If we get wind up getting a new vet tech then she's going to need some help or he going to need some help. They won't be able to do it by herself. Takes about two people to every one of them animals come in get vetted and it takes two people to do it. So, that's a lot there. Um, on the 551 account, I'm asking for a raise, just put five more thousand dollars in there to make it 15. As y'all know, we did get animal control back and trying to get these four trucks up and

operational and get everything we need in there. Everything is high. Y'all know we didn't have Tommy lifts on them. That's just it's just hard for them to work without that. It's rough on their back. We still got two trucks we have in them. We still got a lot of cat cages and dog cages we need to get ordered. We're going to have to have another computer. It's just I don't I don't know that $15,000 could get all that, but that would be a head start towards getting that all four trucks ready and getting them operational. Um, I did not know to make a note on the gasoline and and y'all know why that is because it's so much higher now than it ever been. For the month of March, we used $1,479 with three trucks running animal control. With 10,500 that the math's not going to add up. I didn't want it to come out at the end of the year. We just not have enough. And so I did ask for a little bit more to I figure that's going to be around $15,000 a year that we're going to use for gas with the three trucks running. Our Pet Point software, we've been using that now since 2010 for free. Pet Point bought out Chamele Chameleon, which is another Pet Point software. And now they're going to combine them. They said they're going to make it better. And now they going to we're going to have to have a $5,000 contract fee with them, which a lot of this with these contracts fees. I talked to it, they they put in there like the more animals we adopt, the less that we pay for microchip. So, this $5,000 that we have to have up front, a lot of it we'll get back on the back end, but it's going to be turned into the general fund basically because we are cheaper on our medical account for buying where we we pay I think we pay $8 for a chip. If we adopt out an animal and offer their insurance, it's going to sell us a chip

for like $3. So, we'll be saving a lot of money on microchips, but that's just upfront. That's what we're going to have to have to keep pet software. That's our intakes, outcomes. That's where we do case reporting for all animal control. And that's what we use. And it'd be hard to have to switch over and do something. Um, I did put in a request for get animal control was a little bit of space over there. Um, we've I mean, I've worked with Jeff on this and Jeff, we just don't have enough space for animal control. I need them over there because I need to be able to use them when we need them. We There's a lot of stuff happen over there that people don't see. And Fridays out Friday afternoons and Monday mornings, we just need some help. Uh you want to comment on that space or

Yeah, I'll let you finish. Well, I'm just the last thing I got out I I did put on these pool fees for all the rescue organizations that pull our animals. I did ask that we could drop the pool fees for the rescues. Um, three years ago we was I mean we had rescues fighting each other to take our animals and now we can't give them away. So that's all shelters is doing it and right now our SPCA and last is kind of making up the pool fees for us and that's a lot on down so you talk about space that's kind of the big item.

Yeah, it came to support Allen. Plus anytime something public services is first I feel like I just need to show up. But uh yeah on this a lot's changed in the last year at the shelter. The shelter is a product of everything else you all hear. It's affected by growth and you know we're trying to find a way now gathering as much data as we as we can to see what kind of pacing needs if any. Currently when animal control came back we're running we were running that out of the old shelter off Lynwood Drive. Ideally, the perfect solution would be to have them all in one building, but as you know, when we built the new shelter, we scaled it back a little bit. And at the time, we weren't that design wasn't for also housing animal control. So, we're assisting Allan, everyone in house from from budget to project management. We're all looking into that. that. So, I just wanted to come up here and offer uh those comments as well as again too with things getting tight just to to throw in here as we leave the the volunteers and donations. You can't say enough about that. It really helps us keep running a premier shelter down there. Thank you,

Mr. Chair. I have a couple of com well just points for to clarify certain things. Uh, and I guess Steve, this will be directed to either you or Sabrina. And I know it's some request in here for salary increases, but if we do anything, it's going to be across the board. So, we'll look at that separately. Uh, we're going to look at it individual department wise,

anything. Obviously, the cost of living is is across the board, but if there's departments that are going to ask for um in a particular increase in in position then that has to be handled on a case by case. Okay. Do they have the funding in the budget? Uh does the job description match up? Yeah. Functions that that would be on a casebyase basis not just across

because I saw some asked for certain percentages and some uh didn't. So we're going to look at that uh individual as you said. The other is uh Sabrina, uh what causes the what caused the increase? Was it all the things that Allan listed as far as needing to um to meet the budget with animal with uh animal control?

Yes, ma'am. That's part of it. And so, um just to um kind of summarize for all of the budgets that you'll hear today, there is a 2% across the board increase for all staff. Um, aside from the sheriff's sworn staff, the sheriff's sworn is a 6% increase. Finance has calculate that calculated that amount in. The departments didn't do that, but you will see that reflected in that overall amount for each of the line items for wages and salaries. So, that's recommended to us, but we can make any changes.

You can make any changes. you can make any changes, but going into the budget request when we met with administration the um it's not at his recommended budget yet, but he's proposing potentially a 2% across the board um and sheriffs at 6% across the board for sheriffs. And so we factored that in. If something changes by the time we get to um actually presenting the administrator's recommended, we will recalculate and we'll also change the notes to reflect that because right now we're just looking at the request. So it's a very preliminary stage and so it is included there in that dollar amount. The departments won't pull that out separately to talk about it, but we've already factored it in. So if we were to say yes to this budget today, it includes that 2% and 6%.

Mhm. Sorry. So that's going to be my clarification. So the five 5.11% that we're looking at right now, 2% of that is the base increase that you've already calculated. That's correct. And then they have 3.11 on top of that. And then the sheriff's office is going to have 2% plus four for a total of six. Right. You'll see it listed as six in their notes. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Um, one of the questions that I have, so how much space do you need at the shelter? Um, animal controls got that's that's three officers and we they just need a place to kind of work out of courts and stuff like that. It's just enough for three officers. We just the shelter is just it's just packed. We don't

do Well, that's Do how much do you need for the animals to do the job? You were saying you're getting impacted by growth. You're getting impacted by So, what is the need that you're foreseeing? Well, I'm just asking for space for animal control to get them over there because that that when when when donations come in or or a lot of animals come in, only half the animals probably come in through animal control. The other half come in through us in the front door. If they there, they can help bring these animals in. Somebody in need something euthanized right then, I can pull one of them and say, "Do it." on a Friday afternoon, if that has to happen, I just get in the papers and I say do it. If they not there, I I can't do it. And you know, we got 46 runs there. Um it's a constant juggling act to try to keep enough space. You know, on the weekends, that's when we have to cut down because we have to have space for animal control. If they bring animals in over the weekend, they have to have somewhere to put them. We're not there. Um, you know, as time goes on and the county grows, we're going to be like everybody else. I mean, we're going to run out of space, too. And our numbers to keep that 90% is probably get impacted a lot. Some months it does. I mean, we just can't handle

the volume. Okay.

Councilman, if I could just kind of echo what Allan's talking about. A lot of the need and where we'll see the growth is dependent on you know if we see the growth in the urbanized areas which historically we've been seeing over the last number of years and that's really kind of changed the nature um you know Allen's like me goes way back a long time and I got in trouble for saying this one time before but great thing being retired I'll say it again doesn't matter um things have really changed it for animal control and animal shelter um nowadays If somebody sees a stray dog in their yard, they won't, you know, animal picked up, owner sighted, go to court and all that kind of stuff. Years past and still to some extent in certain areas of the county, you see a stray dog out in your yard, it's not a problem for animal control. They shoot it, they bury it, we never hear about it. So, like I said, as the urbanized area grows, that's where, you know, out it's going to really impact Allen's operation.

Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to figure out like just so as we're planning not just for next year but for future years and growth like let's start planning proactively for what the needs are going to be that we need to address and that's why I was asking how much space do you need? Uh but immediately he needs office space whatever he needs for help cuz I mean they that's a 7-day operation 100% not I mean you're going in somebody's going in on weekends

we have we have one person that covers Saturday one's Sunday I would out daily I like to have two just for safety reasons and you know time I don't like one person be over there seven or eight hours on Saturdays.

So, and and know we get, you know, we getting a lot of hype about even operating on the week. I mean, you know, weekends and stuff like that. We're going to have to have the help if we if we we talked about trying to do, you know, one Saturday a month till we make it work. But we have got to have we cannot we can't open up until we get cleaned up. And it takes two people four hours to get cleaned up. So it's just that that one person that doing on the weekend now it's just it's just too much for me.

Mr. Chair Alam, first of all, I meant to say in the beginning, thank you for all you do because you are really dedicated to uh what you do. I've been out there. I've seen it. So I want to thank you uh for that. Now, if you you said you needed space for a personnel and you need additional space for the animal shelter, which one immediately do you need at this point? I know we can plan for additional space years to come. It's the staff. You say you got four staff members. I got three animal control

I mean three animal control people that need space, right? They just don't they don't have nowhere to go and they don't have there's no office space. You seen our lobby is small. I got four girls working out of that that lobby office and there's no room for animal control to come talk to somebody or ideally I want them to be able to talk to these people when they come in when they reclaim something. There's a problem that they brought in. They need to fix that so we don't have that problem over and over again. A lot of it repeat and if they're not there, they just can't do it. Well, you have them there. That's extra help. That's extra help for anything that comes in.

Is it Do our codes allow for like a modular office? That's the same thing. I was thinking I don't know. I did check on that for like a you know modular building and stuff like that with everybody's got their concerns try to make the shelter stay looking like you know building instead of putting building here building here building here. Uh we we are trying to find out some of the best options right now. We did. I think Jill's got some people checking on things that kind of what we can get for the best and the cheapest way to go.

I think that's worth looking into. Uh if even if it's temporarily because right now we're in a crunch and we need the space. Uh so I think it's worth looking into. The additional uh space for the building is another conversation. And do we have space out there to add on any space, Steve, to that animal shelter? You could add on just a little bit, but we would need to acquire property. Okay. I'm also thinking you could lease a construction. Yeah.

And I I think that makes sense to do something that's modular just so that we can get an immediate relief. But then are there existing spaces and this could be crazy, but what are we doing with the detention center once that once they move into the new building? What are they doing with the existing building? Are there opportunities to move animal shelter in there? I don't know. Gabby, the detention center wouldn't be open till probably October 27 at the earliest, but um because it's going to be completed in October. I thought that was their time frame. October, November, something like that.

Move in. Yeah, but the move and doing all and that's why I'm saying like we could do a modular in the time frame and if we look at the detentioner, why not look at existing spaces that we have? I don't know what the plan is for the existing building. And do you know the plans for the up to the new administrator and council? Thank you. Anybody got anything else? I would recommend that we look at leasing. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a good stop gap measure. Yeah. I mean, and it won't I agree. Be good. Mr. Willis can check in on that. So, anybody got anything else for you? Got to move on. Yep. All right.

Thank you.

Okay. We'll move into the Clemson extension now. Brian Beer. Good afternoon. Um, come to talk about our bud budget request. Um, you have the numbers there before you. Um, I will say that our office does house four staff members uh here in the county as our home base office. They were there full-time. Um, we do have three other extension agents that serve Lancaster County. They are housed in other county offices. is we have our home horiculture agent is housed in the York office, forestry agent, and our agonomic crops agent is housed in Camden down at the Kershaw County office, but they are they're also serving the the clientele here in the in Lancaster County. Um the numbers highlighted in this uh in on the slide there and in the report focus on the 4 agents um work. Um, this request has traditionally been for assistance with the salary of the uh of the 4 agent that does work as a full-time 4 agent here in Lancaster County. That's been the case for getting on 20 years now. Uh, that the county has supported that position. Um, it's a partnership. Clemson puts in the rest of the salary money. Uh and and the this portion that's budgeted here goes to uh basically that's the amount of money that field operations tells me that it takes to keep our 4 agent a Lancaster County 4 agent and not get assigned a whole bunch of other duties across the state. Uh so that is that's one thing

that that money is doing it is it is helping keep our local 4 agent local. Um and you can see there the his reach on reaching the youth in this county has been on an upward trend for the past five years. Um you know everybody uses CO at the mark where they we don't want to look past that because CO was just that that's a good place to start looking. Since then, his numbers have been on an upward trend reaching the youth in this county um and has had many successes with with his youth um being successful in regional and state competitions uh in representing Lancaster County. Well, um in addition to those numbers from the 4 agent, I will add that um our the myself and the other rural health agent, I handle the livestock and forages work. Um between the both of us, we have reached an additional $831 citizens with our educational efforts in in the county. Um the reduction in the budget this year, that $2,500 when we were at our former office on French Street, um our office was handling the janitorial services in that building. And that $2,500 was uh again assistance. Clemson was picking up the remainder of the bill. uh and that was a partnership getting genitorial service in that building. Last year when we moved over to the building on Kataba Street uh since we moved in there, county staff has been taking care of the cleaning of that building and if that arrangement remains in place going forward, uh I didn't have any need for that $2,500 for janitorial service. So that is the reason for the reduction back down to $25,000 in our request. And uh just highlight what if if they're not familiar with what Clemson Extension does, uh all all of our educational

programs focuses on supporting the agriculture, forestry, and natural resources industry in the state. Um along with uh helping to improve stewardship of our natural resources, increase the relationship folks have with their food. That's why we have our rural health agents on board now trying to link the two uh link the two things together with with trying to improve the health of of of folks in the rural areas and um and that's our focus is on that agricultural and natural resources area and the youth of course focusing agriculture is going to pick up your science, technology, engineering and math as well in that it meets the STEM requirements uh for some of those in school programs that 4 agent does.

I I have a question. Um, thank you also for your service. I worked with the Clemson Extension Service about a hundred years ago. So, and I'm sure it has changed very much since then. But I do have a question concerning uh the budget for Lancaster County. What is that total budget for Lancaster County uh that we're matching with the $25,000 request?

That would be the the match on that is this is the salary uh portion of of the 4H agent salary and I that is uh I do not have that what extal salary is. Um it it is it is less it it is less than a 50% match. I assure you that um uh when we when you include fringe cost in that uh so it is it is an amount that is just basically keeping him to be a good a local resource and like so the uh the model for most of our agents now is to be more regional cover multiple counties um and we're trying to keep these 4 agents as local as we can keep them because we know that impact is maximized when that agent does not have to focus on a regional concept on the on the programming side.

He covers other counties including Lancaster. He does not he does not he does not is designated. That is correct. The other agents in the office like myself we do we cover multiple counties. Thank you. I got anything else? Councilman KS, do you have anything? Have any contact with him? I do not. Thank you for asking. Okay. All right. We'll move on. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next is the historic commission, Mr. Witherspoon.

This is what you call just in time. But I'm Fred Witherspoon and thank you all for the opportunity to present the information in the budget on behalf of the historical commission. I currently serve as the vice president of the commission. Have been serving in that position. Uh it's my second term past five years. And just a bit of history, I was inspired to serve on the commission by the late uh Lindseay Pettis, uh Mr. Bennett Gunner and Miss Betty Broom. All of them was from my area. I grew up watching them and I'm just honored and humbled to have the opportunity to serve. Uh, as you would note on the slide, uh, if you remember nothing else, number of employees, zero full-time, zero part-time. We are a group of volunteers who are very passionate about Lancaster County and also preserving the history, but more importantly telling the story of Lancaster County to our residents, new residents and visitors. And our strategic priorities as they align with the county's priorities are uh quality development which we sort of look at as quality of life and infrastructure sort of operations and maintaining the building across the street that we know as the uh historical courthouse and the museum. Now, there may or may not be in your packet. Uh, but as I move forward and talk about the highlights, I do have a handout that I want to share with you. Uh, so I'll ask my partner in crime and miss do it all and if you'll pass that out, please

just give them to the clerk. Be fine. She'll pass them out. And I'll talk briefly about three components. Uh highlights uh the value and impact and then our budget request. uh but if you will see the information that's passed out the uh the main thing I want to to point out is our visitors because we consider oursel to be a driver of tourism that also uh transcends into economic development. And so the key number on here is 758 visitors and that's was our number of visitors uh from this fiscal year starting in July up until now. And we are trending ahead of last year uh which is impressive because last year we had this the uh South Carolina 250 exhibit. So our visitorship is increasing uh this year and we attribute that to uh some marketing efforts with the county that we've undertaken and also some other um advertising and promotion and some of our commissioners have taken on some initiatives to invite groups in other areas. So, we continue to see this number trending uh upward and you see 79% of our visitors are from Lancaster County and 3% from neighboring counties. So, we see that as an opportunity when uh even when some visitors uh from Lancaster County come in, they like, I never knew y'all were here and I've been here all my life. So we we see that as an opportunity to um to grow our visitorship not only from Lancaster County but neighboring counties. And in talking with uh Miss Rody and some of

the folks over at the city when they have events they say a lot of the visitors come from Paund Kershaw some of the neighboring areas. When we think of marketing we initially think of Rock Hill, Charlotte, Meckllinmberg but how much is going on in that area? you know, they can pick and choose where they go, but we are targeting uh all the way down to Camden. Uh you get visitors and then we we track our visitors manually. We have an old school signin book where they put their name, the address, zip code. So, we track that and we are also researching moving into the 21st century where we're looking at getting an iPad uh type kiosk where when visitors come in, they can enter their information and we can gather more data so that we can be more uh uh we'll have more information that'll help us in our marketing efforts. And then also another one of the highlights is collaboration and partnership. We're always looking to work with others uh with the uh we have establishing a great relationship with the marketing department within the county it also the Native American center uh the Lang uh county council of arts and the springs house. So, we are kind of putting together a package of when you come visit one of those, go visit our neighbor and then when the cultural arts center and everything is is complete, uh we'll add those as well. So, we're all about collaboration and partnership. And then some of the last year we had the 240th birthday uh exhibit in the lobby. We all know about South Carolina 250. And here's something that I just learned. Uh the con construction of the courthouse started around 1826

and it was finished in 1828. So we're in the process of of maybe developing some type of uh commemorative event to commemorate those dates. So from June 26 all the way up to June 28th, look out for something to commemorate that. Okay. Next is value and impact. Hey, I look at the historical commission as telling stories. We tell the stories of Lancaster County and it's part of what makes Lancaster County unique. Some people look at museums as just a collection of artifacts and it happened way back when. But it is a collection of artifacts, but behind each artifact is a human being and a story. And that is what we we try to uh to tell is we are storytellers. And um one of the key performance indicators we look at is not measurable but we measure smiles. When people leave the museum are they smiling? Did they have a good experience? And did they feel good? And it's not scientific. I asked AI and AI say 95% of the visitors who come to the museum and leave the museum leave with a smile. So um but in all seriousness that is what we try to uh to gauge is have people to have a good experience and we are looking at trying to see how we can improve that experience. And now the numbers um the budget request you've funded us in the past at levels for the our intern and that project has is coming along good because we're trying to get a handle on our inventory. I mean because we have a

lot of inventory that needs to be uh assessed so that we can have a true value of what is in the museum. And then from that, you know, being a good steward that leads to insurance coverage and all of that. So, um, she'll be wrapping that project up hopefully this fiscal year. And then one of our key, uh, projects that we do is we manage the upkeep of 42 markers, historical markers throughout the county. And that's all the way from Harrisburg Road all the way down to the southern end. So, we have a committee who goes around and and and looks at those markers and then assess what if they need painting, if there's been an accident, someone has hit the post. Uh, but we try to keep those markers in in good condition. So, that's what the $5,900 is for. And I'll spend the rest of my time talking about three and four which are the increases museum host because we talked about visitors and driving uh visitorship but we are open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 to 2 and managed by volunteers and uh a lot of people have said we would like to come if you were open on Saturday and I think in the past we may have been open on Saturdays by appointment and then uh before my time we stopped being open on Saturdays. But we see Saturday as an opportunity to uh increase our visitors and of course we can't ask our volunteers who are also board members and advisors you know to give up their Saturdays. So we we are asking for um two people at 6 hours per week at 12

hours per year. And um they can be contractors $1099 or part-time. So no benefits or anything like that. And that comes to $6,912. So that would be an a new u a new line item for us. But as we feel the benefit will offset that through the increase of visitors uh and then also um having paid staff. Now and the big one is um part-time museum director. Um as I said we have a a a good group and a compassionate group and a hardworking uh group of volunteers who manage the museum. But we feel that in order to sustain and grow the museum at some point you have to transition from volunteers to a paid staff. And we feel the best way and the most prudent way to start out with that is by u hiring a part-time museum director. I was up in Highlands, North Carolina last week and talking with a young lady and she said um her mother retired from the director of the of the performing arts center in Tampa, Florida, and she retired in Highlands, but she has taken on the position, the same position she was doing in Tampa, she's doing in Highlands as a retiree. And so there are a lot of people that are moving into the area with with a wide skill set, you know, so we could possibly tap into that. Someone has served as a museum director in another city and they already have the skills

and the expertise and um we maybe could work out something with that. But the uh a sample job description would be to manage the day-to-day operations, marketing and community outreach, which we've never done in a formal process before. And then also a strategic plan, work with the commissioners, work with the council on developing a plan for the museum because we are just I feel personally we're just tapping we're just tapping the the scratching the surface of the potential of that museum across the street. If we have a a director who comes in, gets to know us, the community and the museum and puts together a plan. I mean, and as downtown grows, the county grows, uh, the museum could be one of the centerpieces of Lancaster County. And then the other is paid advertising. As we look to do more online and print advertising across the state of South Carolina, uh, that's the $10,000. So, that's that's our budget request to the uh to you all, the council of county council.

Has anybody got any questions? I just got a comment. Great presentation, Mr. with a spoon. But you're you're not you're not smiling. I'm always smiling. I'm always smiling on the inside. I'm smiling right here.

Yeah. I have a I have a few questions. Um so one of the things, first of all, fantastic presentation. Um I really appreciate everything that you all are doing for the county on a volunteer, let me repeat that, volunteer basis. Um you all I think especially coming up with the 250 celebrations with everything that you're doing with the historic courthouse right now celebrating 200th um anniversary of that I think there is a ton of opportunity that is missed by the county in relation to everything that we have in connection with historical um commission activities. So I have a couple of questions. Is there an opportunity to do a gift shop? A gift shop?

Yeah. Could that be a revenue generator? Is that something that the county could do? We we could. That involve retail license. And yeah, when you start looking at gift shops and the space you allocate to that, that's less space for exhibits. Well, I'm pay I've got ideas for some of that, too. Run it. Yeah.

Wouldn't be too profitable, I don't think. Well, it's it's looking at opportunities that we have to kind of grow some additional resources because you could do it as online as well. One of the other questions that I was going to ask is when you were talking about tracking Okay. Okay. It could be online.

Yeah, it could be online. The other thing that I was looking at and I'm glad marketing just showed up. Um, so one of the things that I believe we already have is the Placer AI. Correct. We have that service already in the county. We had it in one of the other presentations. I thought

this because what I was going to say is I wonder if there's an opportunity you can geo tag the historic courthouse and track mass mobile data and use that to track visitors to the and that way you wouldn't have to use your manual inputs if that's a possibility maybe something that we can look into if we already have a partnership for that that might be a solution and help you all out with that manual make it more efficient Um, the other thing that I was going to ask is we the administrator has an allocation or the right to like move $20,000 in the budget, right? Does that include making salary adjustments on your own?

Like, can you do that? I can do salary adjustments within budgetary authority granted by council.

It would So, you couldn't do it unilaterally. you would have to get even with that ordinance that talks about the 20,000. Okay. Because I was wondering if there's if there was an opportunity to kind of track that with some of the requests that you're doing and maybe if you're seeing the demand increasing, you can do that on your own. But if you can't do that for the 6,000 or the 20,000 limit that that question goes out. And then one of the other things is we probably should be looking at the creation of a department and a countywide department. So, we start tracking all this and really putting in the resources for historical preservation through the county and make it a big effort because these folks are all doing it as a volunteer basis and we still need them. We still want them to do this, but really have the support that we're going to be able to do through a budgetary allocation, especially as we're talking about salaries and all that and creating that through a department. So,

yeah. And and to piggyback on what uh Jose said, I think some of the things that you requested we'll be able to do like the 200 the celebration with the 250th birthday that's coming up. Uh but the other things you mentioned I think moves into like a director or salary that moves into the department that moves in out of the commission hands into a county department. So if there's any way that we could any of these requests could be moved into departments like the marketing part can be in the marketing department. That's a great suggestion. So we can do it already without having to change

but we've got to work around it because once you leave uh the commission status you're moving into the department status and that's sort of different. But I I like that idea because that would actually get you the resources that you need and get that and it's just built into the marketing department. That's a great idea. That's a great suggestion. Right. And then whatever the whatever the future model would look like uh we feel that there would still be hopefully an opportunity for volunteers because um absolutely it there's value in volunteers. Absolutely. It's it's not changing the model. It's as part of if once we start getting into salaries and jobs and things like that, it starts becoming more of a department. That's where we have to cover it. So you volunteer.

Yeah. And also your strategic plan. It's going to depend on your strategic plan. And when you get that plan, please share it with council because I'm interested to see, you know, the plans in the next five to 10 years. Anybody got anything up? Mr. Kin, do you have anything? All right, Brian. All right. Thank you, Mr. Withersp.

Just one note in closing, just to tag along what Mr. Louise said about the gift shop is uh when we have visitors, visitors get hungry, they get thirsty, you know. So, they're in and I was over in Rock Hill a while back at the uh they're redeveloping all of downtown and they have uh selfs serve uh coffee uh kiosk where no human is required. You walk in, place your order for your coffee, pay for it with your credit card, and then your your your coffee cup is ready. So, uh as Mr. Louis said there there's a lot of opportunities for us to do things but we are space challenged because that's one of the reasons with the inventory is we have a lot of things we would like to display but we simply don't have the space but I said if we can maximize our space you know bring in some new technology that doesn't require any human capital I think uh I think we can we'll see a boost in our numbers

I'm smiling now opportunity always Good. Thank you for listening, Mr. Weathersp. All right. Uh, we're now our auditor, Miss Susette Murphy.

Good afternoon, council members, and Mr. Thank you for this opportunity to come speak on behalf of my department. We're doing things a little different this year. I am going to advocate for a new clerk. I got some figures that I would like for you to listen to. And as far as our figures, I'm going to turn it over to Don Faulenberry, who is my deputy, and she can answer any questions you have about our department as as far as go. So, we all know about the growth in the county. So, I am asking for an additional clerk in my office. I have some numbers that I got together that I that I found to be very interesting. On an average day in our office, we have approximately 192 people that come in our office just registering vehicles. That figure does not include registering vote, paying not registering, excuse me, paying taxes on boats, signing people up for homestead or the phone calls that we get. That is just foot traffic 192 a day for our homestead for this year. We had 1,027 new applicants that we signed up for this year, which brings us to a total of 13,647 people that are currently on Homestead. So that figures equates to a reimbursement that the county receives

that we get from the state for $4.2 million is what we will be getting for reimbursement. along with that. Yeah. Oh, if I could interrupt, could you tell council a little bit before we move off Homestead some of the changes the state proposing is going to really increase some some come back to the county, but it's going to take a lot of work on your staff. Yes, we um

like like Mr. Willis said, there is some legislation in Colombia now. Um there's several bills, versions of the bills that are out there. We have our SCAT organization has tried and tried for years to get them to up the state to up the reimbursement for the homestead instead of 50,000 to go to 100 or 150. The version that they were discussing is they were going to go up to 150,000, but they were putting resident requirements on it as well. They were saying that you had to live here like five years to get the total 150 exemption. If you were here three years, you could get like the 100,000. So, the way that they had it, yes, it was going to be a huge difference. We would need just one person to keep up with who moved in and when they qualified for what amount. Now, that bill has not passed yet. It is just sitting there. It passed the Senate, right? It Yeah, it passed the Senate. It is It's in the House now. Um so, we don't know if it's even going to pass this year. They passed the boat bill, which Don is going to explain that about the boat bill. So, we feel that we won't get the homestead bill passed this year because the boat bill got passed. Um, but with that, if they do pass any type of legislation like that, we need additional space in my office. Something um because the homestead applications, you cannot digitize them. They have to be paper copies and we are running out of file for these copies and there's just and you know there's an influx of

people that are coming in all these 55 and older subdivisions that are being built. They're going to come look that homestead when they get 65. So it's going to be a we just need additional space. Um, the other thing that it this just astounded me. I'm sorry. I I didn't have any idea. So, I asked our IT department to get me a figure on how many emails that we received from July of 2024 to July of 2025. That figure was 41,391. 41,000 emails that my clerks in between answering the phone, waiting on people, they have to answer these emails as well. So, we need an additional clerk just to be a a dedicated person to answering the phone, answering the emails, and signing up people for homestead. Now, I mean, we could keep them busy all day with just those three things. And right now, we have five, we have a a part-time, six um people that are having to do it now. and and two of those are doing billing each month. So, it's it's a lot. We have a lot going on in our office. We really do. um when real estate bills were bailed out this past year and I know it was reassessment year um that the assessor's office sent down

approximately 2,000 abatements that had to be corrected for people appealing it signing the residence and this dedicated person was the one that did 95% of those corrections so I mean It's It's a lot. So, I'm I am pleading with y'all to please approve me for another fulltime clerk. If I can't do the fulltime, I would take part time. I I'll take anything that y'all can that y'all give me. Um but I would appreciate it very much. Now, the the other good stuff, Don is gonna go over that.

I'm not sure what the good stuff is, but um as you can see on the slide, we continue to have uh increases every year. Um our average 3% 8% growth um vehicles grow every single year. We reached almost 120,000 vehicles last year in the calendar year. Um that's the most that we have ever had. Um, and most of those are through billing. And you think billing is all automated, but it's not. We actually have to have, it's so large now, we have to have two clerks working it constantly every single month. And it has to be processed by 45 days of the due date. So, is very, you know, date things. So, they have to kind of step back off that front. And that's another reason it would be helpful to have another clerk. Um, when you look at our numbers, the operating, I mean, personnel of course is that added clerk and then operating just contract rules, software, things like that just automatically go up every year. Um, we have requested a special project that is not on the slide because it'll be part of it. Um, they said that we could present it to y'all. was not part of his presentation, but um it would be a threed department um upgrade for our software and it would include the auditor, the treasurer and delinquent tax and we will be able to scan in supporting documents to homestead vehicles, boats, business, everything. And it'll go directly to that file. So when we pull a file up, it will be there. That supporting document would be there when we have appeals and we have questions and all that. We don't have to go hunt in archives for that anymore. We could scan that in. And of course, it would start from July forward. We would not be archiving past. We just don't have the staff to do that. And if Homestead ever became um where we could do that without having the paper, it become digitized. This would already be set up for that. And we would be able to start scanning in supporting documents

with Homestead. if they start doing the um fiveyear, 10 year, whatever they do for residential on homestead, supporting documents will be a must and it could be possibly part of our requirements for reimbursement. So, this will be a huge step forward so that we're prepared because eventually something will go through whether it passes this year, whether it passes next year. It's already passed Senate, which is the furthest it's ever made it.

So, I I would not be surprised if something happens whether that's, you know, year. Um, so that's kind of our special projects. That cost is not on there, but it's under a h 100,000 and you have to remember that's three departments that it'll be affecting. Um, and that is very much needed. I think it'll be a great asset to all three departments. And for the county, even for stuff, if those come in, we can access those things right then without um having to go to archives and things like that. Um, I think that's all our budgetary stuff. So, um on the boats, I know I believe mic down closer.

I believe the boats were uh talked about um with uh Carrie the treasurer at your last workshop. A question had came up concerning the bill that had passed um that did pass and has been signed by the governor, I believe. and it is a threeyear um discount basically exemption on values for boats and it goes into a three-year period. So it starts January the 1st of 2027 so it'll only affect this fiscal year six months. Um and that's going to be a 14.2857% decrease. Um now I will admit boats are not our huge income provider. We don't have mass bodies of water here. So you're not looking at tremendous amounts of money, but you are work looking at a drop. And then in 2028, and boats are build calendar year, so it'll affect your budgetary year, six months, like every six months you'll be looking at that decrease. Um, but 2028 will be 28.5714% decrease and then the final would be a 42.8571% decrease in 2029. So you we have made finance aware of this and that'll be part of all your calculations and your final revenues and things like that. Okay. It'll be considered for the six months in January. Do you have any questions?

I got anything? I would just say I would fully support anything that we are digitizing. I mean my lord I mean what what do we do? the state home allowed. Well, I mean there's a there's at least I can see there's 11 counties in the state that do digitize homestead exemptions. Um, so it it appears that it's possible. I don't know what kind of secure you know what what's behind that, but it does I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead.

I think you can put it in a digital file, but you still have to have a paper file, too. So, I think you can have both currently, but because they require those signatures and original documents, if they were to come in and audit it, they haven't changed that old, right? I mean, yeah, I I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying it's at least from being able to accept electronic signatures. I just, you know, there's it's just a I don't know. It would be very it's that's crazy to me that you you know, you can do so much with electronic signatures. Now, maybe we don't have the technology in the county to allow the security or however that is, but or or

Sure. Sure. So, I mean, I get that, but I'm I'm just saying long term to me, I mean, there's so many scanner there's so many things you can do with optical scanners and save you so much time and effort and room and all that stuff. Yes. And another thing, they don't allow us to use email. They can't email them to us. They have to get a physical and the reason for that is social security number and birthday. No, I get I get that part. It's you do have to be really careful with that information. I just it I would love to see us figure out how to how to go down that path because that stops people from having to come into your office. It they submit it electronically and you don't have to it's automated.

It's it's more it's a way to make a more automated process. But I know there's challenges there. But yes, go ahead. Not only do they have probably more foot traffic, I mean the treasurer might but the treasurer a transaction in there is a 30 second a minute and a half for most people. Uh you get into dealing with paperwork 10 to 15 minutes is per person. Yes.

Per per person. And and there are people waiting. I mean every day uh and it's very stressful because people are trying to change you and we don't always get correct information and they have to they have to go back to other places. Yeah. So I mean it's they have more interaction with the public than anybody. You have to consider every thing that the treasurer collects. Our staff has to review. Yeah.

Enter it, has to look at it, and has to apply it. So, it takes a lot of time to do that. Even our annual billing, we have to go over every single file. Anybody Anybody else got any support?

Councilman KS, do you have any question? understand pursue a a bill in the general assembly to allow to scan these documents and so that they can be digitized even if we do have to retain the paper once at least we could put could pull them up much quicker if they were digitized. Yes, we agree.

Go ahead. I understand council, you know, has authorized this. I know that, you know, staff is is looking at locations to relocate some, you know, building planning, zoning, you know, type operation, which would give some more space. But the other thing with all the volume they're handling and just the physical layout of the off office because this getting to be an old building. If you want to know what the person next to you bought and how much it's worth and everything, just go on down to the auditor's office because there is no physical separation when you're dealing with sensitive customer client information. Yes. And more space for our clerks and things is definitely a need.

Yeah. because we will have to have room for more in five to 10 years. Our office will have to have more clerks waiting on public. Thank y'all ladies. Appreciate it.

All right, let's move into register of deeds. Brittany Grant. Good afternoon, council. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Um have a pretty simple budget this year. I think you guys would be pleased. We're not really asking for an increase. You'll see a small increase of 2400. Um that's going to be if you approve an across the board raise for staff. Um but I want to share some highlights and impact data with you. Um if you combine the deed stamps, 3% column, and recording fees, this is for fiscal year 25. Our revenue was 1.8 8 million which is a 10 and a half% increase from the prior fiscal year. Um so we're generating more revenue but we're also our workload has increased tremendously at 7.7%. Um with that being said I wish I would have asked for additional staff for this year. So every document that comes in is reviewed by at least two employees. Um but 90% of the time three employees. Um every document that comes in I always review it. um that's very tedious and time consuming. Um so it would be nice to have someone to share those duties with me. I know I guess I'm late to the game this year, but I would like to put that on your radar for next year. Um we're just the documents just keep coming in more and more each year as the county grows. Um just more people are moving to our county. I just wanted to put that on your radar. Um, and also, um, I know I'm comparing fiscal year 24 and 25, but I also ran some numbers, um, from July of this year to current compared to the prior year. And as far as revenue, it's 11 and a half% increase. And as far as recording documents, um, it's a 9.76% increase. So, we're seeing a lot of growth. Um, any questions for me?

Got anything? I know. with with all the fraud that goes on now. I think there was a incident in Lanster County where somebody tried to that's do a deed. So, uh I can understand where we double and triple check and and when it gets to that point.

Yeah. And we are trying to I'm sorry to interrupt on that note. We are trying to get a fraud alert system. I don't really like the the terminology of that because it's not truly um fraud alert. But what what it'll do is um it's free to the end user. I think it's like $2,200 for the county upfront and maybe a hundred per year to maintain it. Um so the end user or the um citizen would sign up um put in every variation of your name and if something's recorded and it has your name tied to it, it will alert you. it may or may not be fraudulent. Um, but at least you'll know then instead of you don't get your tax notice this year and realize that you know your deed's been transferred to someone else. So, we're trying to implement that now.

It won't prevent it, but at least you know you'll know now instead of later. Anybody got anything else? No. Council, do you have anything? No, sir. All right, Mr. with us.

I want to thank y'all because this is probably what five, six years ago when first started some of the automation down there. I I know some of y'all remember, you know, you come up here, you could find half the Lancaster County bar down the hallway because they're down there searching stuff. They do it all electronic now and you see the number 83.6 e filing recording. They have made great strides with the investment that council has graciously um funded. Yeah, we appreciate that. Pick up a plan or something now that it used to be digging through those books trying to figure out. Thank you for what you do. 83.6 be higher if we get Daryl to you sign off. Yeah.

Yeah. He's an employee, you know. Thank you. Thank you guys. All right, move into procurement. Tracy Raymond,

pull that mic down a little bit for you. There you go. Thank you, Tracy. Before you start, uh, council, I'd like to point out this is one of those I want to point out. Procurement requested two positions. I'm I'm recommending one to hire procurement uh clerk, but I do want to point out, you know, Tracy's going to cover some of her needs. And if this is one of those areas, you know, council just says, "Yeah, the old fat guy missed it. We've got to add it back in." Council adopts budgets, I recommend. Go ahead, Trace.

Thank you, Steve, and thank you, council, for um having us up here to listen to our request. Um we greatly appreciate it. This is my first complete fiscal year cycle that I've been able to be with the county. The last time I was up here, I was only here for a couple of months. I didn't really ask for anything because I didn't know what where the need was. I know where the need's at now. Um over the past year, I've taken a close look at our procurement operation, what's working, where we're falling short, and and and where the risk actually are. Um unfortunately, what I found was we were completely operating in a complete reactive mode. We are keeping up with daily demand, but we're not positioned to support Growth County in a strategic or sustainable way. Um, like um, Mr. Willis was saying, we are not a we are not a citizen facing department. However, we support all of those departments. Um, our department touches every single department in this county at some point. Um but the pro one of the main problems that I did notice that come to my attention pretty much immediately was that we have very limited local vendor participation in our solicitation. The total vendors that we have in our e- procurement system is 2260 which sounds great. Um but only 2% of those are local vendors. Um which is only 45 vendors in Lancaster have signed up to get any of our solicitation notifications.

Wow. That's not good. we we've got to do better than that. Um, so I pulled I went back and pulled some of our recent solicitations to see exactly the numbers. Um, and I was able to pull a couple of the ones that are in evaluation mode. We have one that had 17 applicants with no local vendor participation. Another one had six applicants with no local vendor participation. And another one had 18 applicants with only one local vendor participant. Um, and as y'all know, local vendors mean tax dollars stay here. They're not going to Charlotte or Rock Hill or Fort Mill. They're staying here. So, I'm sorry. You said 45 out of how many? 2,260.

But, but we of course have not stood still and let this go by. We have been very um focused on compliance. Um we over the past year we have standardized solicitation templates which creates a better flow, implemented an evaluator's guide, created a solicitation checklist in and a complete intake process. We have improved the PO approval workflow and strengthen compliance in general. Um these changes improve compliance. However, they did not solve the core issue which is our capacity. I I do want to give a shout out right now to um my coworker. We do have typically we have we have three employees. We are down one. So, it's just me and Melissa right now. Melissa has been my rockstar. She stepped up immediately when our last um employee left and she took over every bit of her responsibilities. So, right now she is doing the two positions and she is doing an amazing job. But I'm going to lose her if I if we don't do something about that. Um, so my request for this for this cycle is a procurement specialist one and a procurement specialist two. And I I labeled them that because in procurement you're going to do a little bit of everything. However, these two positions are very um distinct and necessary in their roles. um with the procure with the procurement specialist too. Um it's going to be more of a vendor outreach to get those vendors in to look at our solicitations to participate to keep our our local dollars here and able to do that. We're going to need a vehicle. Our department is not located here. We are located in Barnett building. Um so we have no way to to utilize the fleet here. we would have to come here every time and go back and get and it would just be better if we had a vehicle. Don't care what kind. Don't care if it's new. Just some just something to get us where we need to go. Um but the procurement specialist is

typically going to focus on vendor outreach with a heavy focus on local vendors. doing this. She will be attending she or he will be attending reversed vendor fairs, visiting local businesses, working with our internal department such as our marketing department, the building department, planning department, as well as outside vendors or outside partners like the Chamber of Commer commerce to get to get us out there to get our our um solicitations out there to let people know what we're about and how to do business because it is an e- procurement platform. It's not a standard you bring in your bid and here you go. You've got to register and you've got to know what you're doing. Some of these smaller mom and pops may not have the time to deal with that. We want to be able to help them with that. This position will also focus on the comprehensive solicitation development. Um well-developed solicitations attract more qualified vendors. Strong terms upfront prevent change orders and delays in the overall project. Um and work with the evaluation committees. And I, as y'all so saw when we had the um Pecard audit, going through those evaluations, we have to go through every single one of those before it even makes it to the evaluation committee to be evaluated. We got to make sure everything is there. That takes time and time that we just don't have the person that'll do it. I'm doing it. We just I I just we just don't have the time, but it's got to be done, so we have to do it. Um, but if we if we have a solid solicit a solid solicitation, everything that comes after that flows so much easier. The project runs smoother. Um, like I said, less change orders. So, that was that's the one position. The other position is a procurement specialist. One is more of a compliance market research position. So this position will keep keep us in line with our state procurement code, county code and federal mandates and any changes in um any procurement laws. They

would maintain audit readiness and accountability, ensure transparency and public trust and ensure employees are trained. As far as market research, this is this is critical. Um we all know research is critical but research in in the market and what we have available here is critical. Um we will this position will provide procurement with relevant and current information to make the best decision regarding purchasing. It will also make sure that the county spends taxpayer money wisely and understands the market. We'll stay up to date with co-op and state contracts and ensures that employees know that those are out there for their benefit. We also work um with Gov deals to sell some of our um surplus items and I have that up there. This 13,182, it has now we just had two sales yesterday. So, it is now at a $15,000 that we have brought in and we are fixing to actually pay some post some drones on there which I think will bring bring in a good bit. Um, and I know you're thinking, well, why should we do this? What what does this give the county? So, a return on investment is faster turnaround times, increased local vendors, and economic impact with additional staff solicitations will be published quicker. It will be the project will get done quicker. Um, vendor outreach to begin building relationships with small and local businesses who may not otherwise know how to engage with the county. They may know we're here. They know we have projects, but they may not know how to get that that first step in the door. Um, which also will in turn strengthen our economy. Um, and cost savings through increased competition. Even adding a one or two additional biders per solicitation could potentially save us thousands because

when it's listed in in Open Gov, I make it to where you can see all the v all the vendors that are that are watching it. It doesn't say whether they they bid it or whether they post anything, but it says they're watching it. So if if you got a business and you know this other business over here is also watching it, you're more likely to bring your price down a little bit if if you're bidden. So that helps us in overall. Um the risk of not having these um if we maintain the current staffing level with growing county staff, from what I've heard, a lot of people are asking for positions and y'all got a lot of decisions to make and I get it. Um but as the as the staff increases for the overall county, our work increases. We are direct reflection of what you give to other departments. That's going to come to us. Um but if we maintain current staffing levels, the cycle times will continue to increase. The vendor participation will remain limited. Pricing will be less competitive and compliant risk will grow due to the increased um workload. um over resilience, over reliance on current vendors, solicitation scope being built without market knowledge, no vendor performance documentation, um slower project delivery, and staff just stuck reacting instead of planning. We've got to be strategic. We are just reacting at this point, but we've got to take that next step. Um, but at the end of the day, procurement touches every dollar that the county spends. Every PECARD transaction up there, the 9,76, which has increased to over 10,000 now, um, is reviewed by our staff. It is reviewed for compliance with our procurement policy. It is reviewed for the correct attachments. We we got to make sure everything is correct. Um, the purchase order is the same way. We are we are looking at every bit of this. Um and inventory tickets we do house at our

office um paper products your toilet paper trash bags um all that stuff is housed and we manage that inventory. Um so basically strengthening strengthening procurement just means spending smarter, moving faster and reducing risk. This is this request is about making sure we are good stewards of taxpayer dollars not just today but as the as the county continues to grow. I thank you for listening to my spiel. Any any questions?

I I got a comment. I I do appreciate you uh getting more local businesses involved uh and letting some of them know how they can, you know, do county business or whatever. So, that's great. I I really appreciate y'all doing that. Uh Council K, do you have anything? And I was going to say basically saying you thing you said to my sellers that you know we need to try to encourage to get more businesses in the county to uh participate. Uh as as was stated before if we've got people in the county that's doing the business then our tax dollars are staying in the county and being recycled and you know helping the whole county.

All right. Anybody care? That's good. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Probate court, judge. Good afternoon. Hope y'all are all well. Um, mine should be quick and easy. I'm not really asking for anything additional. Um the personnel items that are listed are the 2% cost of living that is going to be recommended by the administrator. Um in my transmitt letter, if you notice, there was a statemandated 2% cost of living for probate judges across the state. This personnel number does not include an additional 2%. You asked that question earlier, so I just want to clarify. 2% across the board for me and my staff. That's all that includes. Um and then with the operating it decreased my um amount for my case management software by about $622 and increased um my copier lease amount by a couple hundred. So overall it's a decrease in everything. Um, so I really just want to highlight some things that we've done over the past year. We added 885 new estate cases for 2025. Um, we had a 21% decrease in our overall pending cases. 21% doesn't really sound like a lot, but when you consider that we've added 885 for one year and we only have 1,071 total cases, it means we're staying on track and keeping things moving as they're supposed to move. Um, for the behavioral

health side, that's mental illness, chemical dependency. We added 925 new cases. That's about average what we do every year. Um, I have changed up the way I do things with the behavioral health side of things. So, I kind of want to highlight that a little bit for you. In the last six to eight months, I've started paying more attention to people that are being non-compliant with court orders. and instead of waiting on them for for the court to be notified of their non-compliance, I get ahead of the game and I'm doing review hearings on them. Um, I think that's helped. So, we've got a few positives. I've got one person that has now finished her bachelor's degree and she's looking into getting her masters in social work. Um, I've also had a baby that's been born, not addicted to substances. So, that's a positive. She's still getting help through our court, but having a baby that's not addicted or possibly dead is a huge positive. We've had another person that was severe alcoholic that's no longer under a core order is maintaining a steady job and I equate all of that to staying on top of these people more and just holding them more accountable. Um, as far as staff goes, nothing has changed. I've maintained the same staff members the entire time I've been off in office. I do have one staff member that is now signed up to obtain her parallegal certification. That is a requirement for her to move up to the next level of case manager. Um and then I have another staff member that is now signed up to be an interpreter for the court. So I look forward to them

completing those certifications and having them advance in the court. Um, looking at the future, storage is going to be a problem. We have to keep our records just like the auditor said, we're not allowed to get rid of them. Original wheels, things like that. I've got to have room to keep them. Um, I am going to be speaking with Mr. Watkins about that and what kind of space he has available in the courthouse, but I know he's running out of space as well, so we're looking into that. Um, I've just been made aware in the last month that court administration is looking into a statemandated case management software for all probate courts. So, I'll keep you notified of that as I hear things. It's in the very early stages and it may not even go through, but that's something to keep our eye on. And then one other issue is the Darlington County probate judge is retiring. And with the behavioral health side of things, if rebound, for instance, in our county, I hold cases for other counties, if their resident comes to rebound. The Darlington County judge does the same for 10 hospitals. He is going to stop doing that in October. So, I will be getting my people that go to his hospitals back and which I'm glad of. I would like to have more oversight over them, but depending on how that goes next year, I may need to add another position to get a handle on that. Um, but overall, I think probate court's doing a great job. We're keeping things under control. Um, any questions? I'm going to just give you some props because I think when you were talking

about the number of cases that you're processing what you referenced about a 20% that's one of all the cases that's a huge number um and everything that I hear about the efficiencies that you're implementing how you're being accountable and proactive about all the cases that you're seeing before you so that you're preventing things from coming further along which will eventually then get worse. So you have more work to do. So that goes into the efforts that you and your staff are putting into the probates office. So really good job. Appreciate all that you are doing for the county. Thank you. Councilman Ken, do you have anything? Yes, sir. All right, Mr. Willis.

Just real quickly before we get break, don't know if y'all know or not, but in addition to all the great stuff going on in probate court, she volunteers with the drug court. That's true. Thank you for that. Yeah, I do have just a curiosity question. Um, meaning you have to keep paper records. Do those do you have to access those paper records or can you digitize them and you know as long as you have them on site wherever that site might be? How how does how does that play in?

So, we do digitize. We scan everything in. Um, people sometimes have to reopen in a state and we would would have like we could technically send all of our case files to the state archives, but then if somebody reopens, we've got a request to get the right and get it back and I'm scared that they're going to lose it and falls on me, you know. Um

and I was just thinking about because of the auditor um making that statement as well. I mean there are other sol I mean there are company there's other companies or you can centralize within Lancaster County somehow or within the a county building where you could have a centralized storage place but have everything digitized and if you do happen to go get it I know it's a big trust issue as well. Once you turn it over are you going to be able to get it back? So I I get that. I'm just Thank you.

Yeah, we So we do digitize everything. It's all scanned in. We do have a few years several years ago when they changed over to a new case management software. Some of the stuff did not get transferred properly. So we're going back when staff may have some downtime. We pull cases year by year and look through them and make sure everything is scanned in. So, we're almost done with those. It was probably about a fiveyear period that not everything got scanned in, but we're working towards getting that done as well. So, we'll have everything in. All right. Is that everything, everybody? Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you. At this time, we'll take a little short break. Uh our next presentation is 2:34, so a little bit behind. Uh if we could just get you use the restroom, get you something to drink and get back quickly as possible. We'll get started back. So

We'll let Mr. Willis come in when he I'd like to call this meeting back to order. Uh let's move back on into planning and zoning. Miss Kato.

Good afternoon, chairman and councilman. I'm here and I'm going to represent and present the planning and zoning budget. Um we um typically has been um the budget's been done and presented by the development services director. Um so I'm going to be presenting for planning and zoning. Um and in that department we have 13 full-time employees. Um our strategic priorities are public safety, quality development, infrastructure. Um some of the highlights and the impact data for the 2020 25 has been the management of the comprehensive plan the implementation um staff's planning commission board of appeals um created subdivision data a database of 239 subdivisions and year to date um the planning commission reviews is up to 11% and the yearto date the zon board of appeal bills reports up to 57%. Um the budget, so we have a 12% decrease in our personnel. Um our operating cost um has increased $7,200. And the reason for that is previous planning director wanted a separate line item for planning a BZA board members. Um, and then we also have the $4 million capital improvement that's part of this budget that was for a location for development services which would include building, zoning, planning, um, and storm water. Um, that's all I have. I'd be glad to answer

any more questions if you have those. Anybody got any questions? pretty straightforward. But Mr. K, do you have any questions? Uh, no questions, but I I would make a statement. I think we definitely need to have a space for all the departments that in development services and so that it makes it easier for our citizens to be able to access those services and for those departments to uh coordinate with each other. You going to get that? All right. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you. Going to get it.

All right. Now, we'll move into the magistrates. I agree.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to present before you briefly this afternoon. Um, we have 15 full-time positions within our department. um consisting of the four magistrate positions, seven clerks and four constables. Our strategic priorities are high performance, public safety and resource optimization. Um I have included some impact data which reflects um the number of filings in our court as well as the number of cases we have disposed for calendar years 2022 to 2025. I will highlight the more recent data from 2025. We had 2,960 civil filings within our department and 2,973 cases were disposed. On the criminal traffic side, we had 12,841 filings and 13,028 disposed cases. Um, our mission has always been um to provide the citizens of Lancaster with a fair and impartial summary court. Um, but in addition to that, we also want to make sure that the work we're doing is timely. Um, so let me um just give you a snapshot of where we are as of today. Currently, cases older than 18 months, those are considered backlog cases. So cases older than 18 months comprise about 7% of all pending criminal and traffic cases. Um to give you actual numbers, there are 3,114 pending criminal traffic cases with 2137 of those being older than 18 months. On the civil side, we have 437 pending civil cases with only two of those being older than 18 months. So, there is room for improvement, but we are definitely working. Um, we are

requesting, we have, um, two requests for you this year. Um, and they are for increases in both the supplies and the, um, travel and mileage line items. Um, we are requesting $8,230 to go towards supplies. Um, this would support ongoing needs associated with case processing and especially postage. um last fiscal year out of an approximate $22,000 supplies budget about 16 of that went to postage alone. Over the last two years, we have averaged about a $5,000 deficit in that particular line item. Um and this proposed budget increase addresses prior deficits, the anticipated postage rate hikes, as well as other necessary items needed within the department. Um there are minor replacements of office furniture, primarily chairs um that are expected, but no major purchases are anticipated for the upcoming fiscal year. Um as to the um training and mileage request, um that was requested $5,920. Judges are required to maintain a certain number of continuing legal education requirements each year. Um we receive the bulk of these trainings through a conference that we attend hosted by the South Carolina Summary Court Judges Association. Um over the years we have seen um a increase in registration fees as well as you can imagine hotel fees have steadily increased. Um we generally just attend the one off-site training per year. So, this additional funding, if granted, um would make provision for us to um um would make provision for us to um have enough allocated for those increases as far as hotel fees go, as well as allowing us to take advantage of

additional training opportunities that are offered throughout the state for the judiciary and summary court staff members. Ongoing education ensures that we are maintaining um ethical standards and staying a breast of all legal updates and changes um which supports our our strategic priority of high performance. Um so those are my requests. Um if you have any questions I'll be happy to entertain those. Anybody got any questions? No, I was going to just make a comment and similar to Judge Rafel, um you all are doing a fantastic job in processing these cases. Um looking at the last few years, you are processing more than you're actually getting in. So, I know you were talking about the backlog numbers that you have, but you're getting through those and that is an incredible feat um considering the amount of cases that are coming through. So, great job in doing that. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Uh yes, M

just just information for council. Um sometime in the next probably two three years Lancaster's population is going to hit the point that we're finally going to trigger having another magistrate judge that is governed by state law um appointed by the by the state delegation. this you all the work they're doing is pretty amazing when you figure you know Lancaster County is one of the if not the lowest percentage of municipal residents in count in in the state because you know if Indian Land would ever incorporate we'd be like most other counties but they haven't and so judge takes care of most of that so

so Steve what's that number what's that number that we will have to hire another master judge. Do you I' I'd have to ask court administration. They they they govern all that. It's based on population uh square miles and and um revenue I believe for um is it hotel revenue something might be tied to there. There's a kicker in there for the coastal counties. They get additional magistrates because of the the tourism and all that. Okay.

Uh, I got one question. The, uh, this $143,175 increase in personnel. Is that raises you're asking for? Those are across the board raises. Nothing I've specifically asked for. Say that's across 15 people is what you're saying? Yes, sir.

That's about $9,500 per person. Is that what you I mean, that's about what I calculated out. Um, I haven't done the exact math. It's not a request that I specifically put in for um, but I I I'm not sure exactly what it would calculate to per person, but I would be the I just took the 143,000 divided it by 15 people and it come up to like $9,500 or so. So that's a little more in our normal

arena, you know, finance can check on that. The one thing I would note for council, the one exception are the four magistrate judges. Their salaries are tied to a percentage of of uh social supreme court justice um salary. So when the state tinkers with that salary, their salaries may go above, you know, whatever a county may recommend. Gotcha. That's that's again governed by state law. Can you find out that when we'll know a little more about this numbers when we go to calculate it? Anybody else got any question? Councilman KS, do you have anything?

I don't have any questions. Mr. Willis covered the one question I had asking when he said we are moving towards getting another probate, another judge in the future. I will say my battery is starting to run down on the laptop. So, if you call me and I don't answer, it's because the laptop's gone dead. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate it. Uh, public defender William Frick.

Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you'all for having me here again this year. Always enjoy seeing y'all. I try to fly under the radar, so we see each other once a year. also find a lot of people feel the same way about me uh coming to my office. I I do need to correct one thing and I didn't catch it till I was reviewing the uh the packet. Uh we we we have five full-time lawyers. Um but we also have an office manager. I've got three administrative assistants and one investigator. So our total number of full-time staff is going to be nine.

Um I do apologize. I didn't catch that until I was looking at it uh this afternoon. Um, so when I'm talking about salary increases, I don't want you to think we're just talking about five people. There there several people there. Um, grab my glasses real quick. So, as far as the staffing on that, I am asking for those five lawyers. Um, we have step increases which average it's about 4%. Uh, is what it what it comes out to, but that's the the salary ladder that we put in place a few years ago when we were found ourselves into a very uncompetitive position where we were offering about $49,000 starting salary um and getting beat in recruiting. We are now at $70,000 uh with step increases for each year of service. So when you're looking at that, I've got two different numbers. There is the step increases for the lawyers and then the I believe the county is looking to do 2% for for staff. So 2% for those my my office manager, the AAS and the investigator. Um so that that sums up what we're looking for on the on the current staffing. I am requesting two new staff. um one new attorney and an additional law clerk. So the way it used to be is you had to graduate law school, you had to pass the bar and then you can get a job as a lawyer. They are coming out of law school now with jobs or at least job offers. So Clistister and I have found ourselves uh to become like football coaches and we have to go on campus and start recruiting in their first and second year and start bringing them in their first and second year of law school and to get them familiar with the office and see if they like you and you like them. Um we did that last year for the first time. Uh and you used to

be able to do that and you didn't have to pay them. Well, even uh if you're doing public service, you got to pay them now. Um, so we're paying our law clerks it's 20 $20 an hour, $25 an hour um for up to 29 hours. So we don't have to deal with benefits. Um, and they averaging about four days a week in the office for the summer. So we'll have them from about May to about August. Uh, I've already done my recruiting. I've done my offers. I've got four coming in for this year. I'm going to have three in Lancaster and I've got one that's going to be in our Chester office. Um, so we we've recruited them and we're we're we're trying to stay competitive with that. I am asking for one additional one this year. Um, as far as the additional attorney, um, we are required to be in magistrate's court. Uh, we have to handle whatever cases we get appointed to in magistrate's court. Uh, if we don't do that, then y'all are going to hear from um from from civil action agencies who uh who pursue those things. So we we have to be there and handle cases in magistrate's court. Um so I'm I'm asking for an attorney to do that. Now I have somebody who's doing that now, but it's on a contractual basis. Um so kind of in a nutshell with that, I contract with private attorneys who have their own firms to help us out. As you can imagine, it's difficult sometimes to balance um a court docket in your own office. Um so I I'd like to get somebody that would be full-time in that area. As you see there, we do a we we've moved a fair number of cases in magistrate's court. Um it's, you know, and just to give you an idea on the number because it's it's very difficult to compare these things. I I liken it to

to barbecue sauce. In South Carolina, when you talk about cases, there's about three different types. We go by people. Uh some folks go by indictments, some folks go by warrants. So, when you're when you're trying to make a comparison between what what we're saying we move and what other people are saying we move, it's not necessarily an apples to apples. So, when you're looking at ours, that's the number of clients uh that we dealt with. Most clients are going to have more than one uh ticket or warrant. Um so, when you're looking at our general sessions there, that's well over 900 cases that were disposed of. That's going to be more like 2,000 actual warrants. Uh same thing with the magistrate court there. So, the case load we've got in magistrate court, I was looking at the numbers of our attorneys, our full-time attorneys, and and the number of cases we've got in magistrate court. It equates to about what a full-time attorney has as far as a case load. So, that's why I'm looking for an attorney to deal with that situation. Uh, additionally, um, we we are required to be in the diversion courts, and we're very fortunate in this circuit to have, uh, adult drug court, uh, and and, uh, veterans court. You also have a juvenile drug court, but, I don't have the staff to participate in that. I I do have an attorney who is volunttoled that they have to go handle drug court or veterans court on a weekly basis. Um, but that that can be problematic because you have to kind of rotate. Uh, and I would like to have a little more stability because you you get involved with the cases. I mean, you got the same folks that are coming in week after week. You get to know them. You get involved with with the cases and you you trying to figure out what the best way to handle their situation. So, when you have people

rotating in and out, they don't necessarily know know what's going on with that case. So, I would kind of diversify this this position by handling magistrate court and being involved in the diversion courts as well and hopefully allowing us to participate again uh in the juvenile drug court, which as I said, we're unable to participate in right now. So, the salary that I'm looking at there, as I told you, our starting salary is $70,000, but I'm the number I'm basing this off of is a salary of $80,000. So, I could hopefully get somebody that's got a little bit of experience. That would be a few years of experience. Not not the most experienced attorney, but somebody who's got a little experience and don't necessarily have to be with them and hold their hand in court. Um, is what I'm looking for there. So, that's about all I got. Any questions? Happy to take them.

Just Sorry if I missed it. How much are you spending? You're saying with the contracted services for, you know, you're bringing in contracted attorneys, how much are you how much you

So, it varies. Um, typically when I'm I I contract with them, it's just a flat fee that we negotiate amongst ourselves. Um, it can be from $50,000 per year, uh, with no limitations on what you receive as far as cases, uh, to whatever we we we need to negotiate. If if I've got somebody that's that's got more experience or going to handle more difficult cases, we'll probably pay them a little bit more because it's going to take a little bit more time and they've been doing it a little bit longer. Um, and the number of contracts I've got varies. So, right now, I've got I've got a person who handles my juvenile cases. They're on a contract. I got a person that handles the magistrate cases. They're on a contract. And then I've got two attorneys that I contract with to help us uh with the five attorneys that are full-time attorneys. I hope that somewhat

I mean what I'm looking for is like are we spending the money already? Like if we're not going to contract that out and replace it with somebody that's in house, there's certainly value in that. You know what's what's the difference? I mean it

right. So and and and that is good. I do need to explain that a little bit better. So understand that we cover three counties. So our my magistrate attorney that I'm contracting with is handling magistrate court in Lancaster County, Chester County, and Fairfield County and the municipalities. So you got Winssburg, Great Falls, Chester, and Lancaster Municipal Court that they're also involved with. What I'm asking for here is because of the case load I've got in Lancaster, I can have a full-time attorney that would be dedicated just to Lancaster County. the contract attorney would still be able to do the other counties. Does that slightly clear that up?

Not at all. No, I'm just kidding. Mr. Frick, I understand your pain and you know, the the CJCC committee that we sit on together, you know, we pretty much see the whole picture. And I understand your pain. understand Ry's pain and the sheriff because you know we've discussed in that meeting is that we've got to come to some sort of uh we've got to develop some sort of plan that is going to help with either because if Randy is busy you are busy if you're busy the sheriff is busy so we've got to come up with the way that when we increase one we got to find a way to increase the other

right uh and I don't know how we do that But hopefully after we continue to meet and discuss, we'll be able to at least come up with some sort of plan, right? Understand what?

Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. And and just kind of piggy backing off of you said there, as I told you, we we have to handle whatever cases we're assigned to in magistrate and municipal court. U in general sessions court, high court, um right across the street there, we average having about 75 to 80% of the docket. So, when you look at a docket and see Lancaster County's got about 5,000 or so pending warrants, 75% to 80% of those are ours. Um, so it is a tremendous case load that we're managing there. And I heard it said again today, South Carolina's the fastest growing state in the country and Lancaster is one of the fastest growing counties in the state of South Carolina. So, we are one of the fastest growing counties in the country. And unfortunately, more people, people get in trouble. So, the sheriff has more business, the solister has more business, and I have more business as the county continues to grow. Anybody got anything else? Mr. KS, are you still there?

He's out. Okay. All right. Mr. with us.

U councilwoman, I'm I'm trying to get the uh CJCC report finished up. The the court administration website on magistrate's courts messed up. So hopefully I have a report for y'all may may be missing magistrate's court tomorrow, but just wanted to let you know that as of April 1st, the general sessions court, and I'll throw this in because like you said, it's a partnership. pays an old police officer like me to say good things about a defense lawyer, but they they work together with a solicister. Down to 5,562 char individual charges on the docket. And through July, they're down 729 cases on the backlog. They're really making some good progress. And as of April 1st, Lancaster County is no longer the lowest county in meeting the Supreme Court um guidelines for timeliness on cases.

Wonderful. Great. No longer 46, we're 44th. Well, that's an improvement. We're moving up. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Uh

move on to the solister, Mr. Randy Newman. Sorry about that. I think uh we may have had a small mathematical error. She's working on it. She's going to let me know, but I can go ahead and start. Appreciate y'all having me. Um Steve, thank you for that update. I was going to say that you stole my thunder, but uh thanks. Um so what I'm asking for first of all is the career ladder that we continue to ask for each year. Uh this year it will affect four attorneys. Uh and then the cost of living at 2% uh for the rest of the staff that are not not those four attorneys on the career ladder, everybody else. Um the big ask this year is is our veterans court grant. Uh it will be ending in

October. That is a major uh grant for us. It was about a $600,000 grant. Lasted for four years. Uh we have two full-time employees on that grant that essentially run the veterans court. Um and and what I told Steve and and when Dennis was here uh two years ago, we got additional funding from the state to add attorneys. uh and I brought those attorneys to Lancaster County versus the other county with the understanding that I will get some help with some parallegals when the when once the positions were filled. Uh, so I think with this Veterans Court grant, if you will fund those two full-time employees, those folks can can do double duty and work also as a parallegal in victim services as well as cover the veterans court. Um, so that's the biggest of the ask. That's 136 248. That's salary and fringe for two full-time employees. Um and then the last ask is the Axon Justice. Um so Axon Justice is a is a computer storage digital evidence program uh that our sheriff's office uses uh in all three counties. And initially when our sheriff's office and our city police departments started using Axon, we were told it's fine. You can send digital discovery to your solicitor. It won't be an issue. They can access it. No problem. We've been doing that for several years. Now, Axon has come to every solicitor in the state and said, "It's time to pony up. If you don't pay us, we're going to cut you off." Problem with that is, if they cut us off, it's

going to cost the sheriff a lot more time in downloading and uploading all this digital evidence. You're talking about body camera, dash camera, uh on scene, uh whether it be proprietary Walmart videos or wherever camera system you have uploading all of that data. Sometimes just one body cam can upload overnight. So, if you think about a murder scene where you got 15 officers on scene, they're all wearing body cams. You're talking about a week of work just to upload this digital evidence. It'll be a nightmare for his office and for my office. The ask is that each county in the circuit cover onethird of the true cost of the axon. And that is the bare the the bare basic uh is is 55,000 a year. I'm asking Lanster County cover 18,334 of that. Um we didn't even look at the premier package which is 75,000. So but I do think that is uh going to be a must for us uh because without it it's a nightmare scenario for discovery. Um, and on these numbers, we did not list magistrate court because my system does not specifically track magistrate's court. We do cover magistr's court jury trials. I imagine my numbers are going to be close to the same as Mr. Frrick's magistrate numbers. Uh, but everything else is uh as you see it. Happy to answer any questions you have.

Got anything? Alrighty. Thank you, Mr. Newman. We appreciate it. All right. Registration elections. Maryanne Hudson. So Ronnie is my u chairman of Hold that mic. There you go. Thank you.

Chairman of my board. And so um in case we have any questions, um he can help. But one thing I want to say as far as my um y'all still got the I still got the solister. I was thinking I don't have that. Um, so we do have three full-time and we have two part-time in that um those two part-time people are not uh full-time part-time people. They uh help during the elections um and when we're preparing for elections. So, it's not like that they're um that they're full-time all the time, part-time staff. So, I just want I don't want you to think that um that we paying them um all of the time as far as uh part-time. So, I think that um my numbers may not be the same depending on what we talk about. So, I just I just want to I just want to um I'm going let y'all read the numbers, but I'm going to um talk about one of the things that um we have the most trouble with in our elections office is having enough poll workers. Um, y'all probably don't understand poll workers, but um, I know you see them at the polls, but I don't know if you realize that every time that we have pole workers that if we need 300 pole workers, we're lucky if we can get 200 225 and then um, you get those pole workers trained and a couple of weeks before the election, you're lucky if you don't have 35 to 50 pole workers that don't wind up showing for up for elections. And so the two weeks during elections, I am constantly um calling people and saying, "Can you do without a pole worker?" I'm moving a pole worker. Even the night before, I'm moving uh pole workers to try to staff the elections. Um and then mo a lots of times I get phone calls at 4:00 and 4:30 in the morning. I'm meeting people. I

met clerks in the mornings, but because I have to um take it to somebody else and it's always just one of those things where you never know if you're going to have enough pole workers to staff the polls. I've had to call polls and send from one polling location to another where one's a little bit busier. So, that is a constant issue. So me being the person that I am, um I solve a whole lot of issues um during elections and during this whole process. I feel like that um if if I got paid for the issues I solved, then I would make a lot of money. But so when I thought of the an of a solution for the poleworker problem, um we had a vendor that came to our scare conference and they're a vendor that because if you read in the newspapers and you read about all of the pole worker staffing issues all over South Carolina and how there's not enough pole workers, then um they they come up with that, you know, that they would help as far as that issue. Um they've helped several counties in South Carolina. Um and and those those counties have had um a lot of success with using that company and they come in and they hire the pole workers, they work for them and um they do the workers comp. um they scheduled a training and so we used to when I first came we never had to hire pole workers. We had our pole workers that stayed with us the whole time. Now I think that we hired um 121 in uh 2024 and I would say that we were probably still 75 to 100 people short as far as

what we needed. And so I thought that if we went with that temp company because places like especially Charleston and some of those that that really had issues and they had success. I thought that that would be a good idea. Part of our problem now is our pole workers are all they're they're they're aging out and we're not replacing them. And a lots of times when you hire people, you don't they don't they don't stay for one they they they may not even work that election. We've got in the county where as far as our new human resources policy that you have the drug test and the background check. And so I was thinking that, you know, that to lessen the the problem for hiring so many people for human resources and the payroll and the W2s and all that go with that that a staffing temp staffing company may be a solution for us. Um, and a lot of our problem is that we we need to hire all those people in a short window of time. You think that we got a November election come up and coming up and there's a lot of people that are standing in line that asking to be poll workers, but what they do is they call you usually at the it's in September, the 1st of October, and that's when we find our most po most poll workers. And we've tried sending out cards. Um we have flyers at the polls. We put little cards in our voter registration um um when we mail their voter registration cards. We advertise on our Langster County Facebook page, but we do not seem to be getting enough pole workers. I thought that that would be a good solution. Maybe it's not. Um, it was just a thought process and I'm just going to I'm going to leave y'all with

that thought process because the numbers that you see would depend on if we go with um that then you know then then then that would be the numbers. If not then we'll just move it back and we'll do it like we've been doing it and and I don't have a problem with that. Y'all would just have to work out the as far as with hiring that many people, the drug test, the background, how we can get all that done in a short amount of time because just so we'll have enough pole workers. But I was just thinking that I've got an issue. What can I do to solve the issue, which is what I do? And um and that was my thought process behind it. and and nothing else changes. And if we don't if we don't go with that, then we'll just we'll just go with, you know, and we'll just keep, you know, the numbers like we did before that we'll just do what we've been doing and and y'all would have to figure out as far as like I said some of that. Um,

Mr. Chair, go ahead. Just a few things and Marian, thank you. you you do an awesome job with, you know, with what you have to deal with and I understand your pain. I really do. Uh, some questions concerning u contract contractual workers. I think that's something that the county would have to look at and do a cost comparison there. But I don't know with and Steve, you may be ask able to answer this with our pole workers. Do we do background checks and drug tests and all that? Historically, we never have. So,

they work three days every two years. If we did drug testing, as Maryanne indicated, most of them are my age group. You could you going to pick up cholesterol meds and blood pressure meds and an occasional dose of Viagra? I mean, that's you don't pick up. So, is the state requiring that at this point? I I'm not understanding. Well, the 2024 policy manual that was redone put those put the pole workers in the same as that. Yeah, that's impossible. We got how many pole workers, Mary? I think there's um over 500 that are on the um as far as

do a drug test and a back that's for a couple of days a year. We going to have we can deal with policy. Well, like I said, if you know, if we're going to bring it in house, we we're going to have to add the cost for that. Either that or we amend the policy. And and I understand, but it's going to continue to change because poll work has changed from year to year, election to election. You will do background checks and drug tests for this 200 and then it may be 150 the next year. Uh, I mean that's they're admin under the under the new policy, they're administratively separated at the end of that election. So you do it every cycle

and I'm sure there's a way around that. I think if we do policy I mean that's it's our policy. Huh. It's that's what I'm saying. It's our policy. We can deal with that. Maryanne, I'm just I am curious and is what what are other counties do in terms of this? Are they is it kind of split or in terms of drug drug testing and and background checks or do you have any insight on what I I don't know of another county but I don't know that I've ever asked that question but I don't know in speaking with people that I've ever that I know another county that that that does that. But but but all counties do their pole workers different as far as how they're

But you're not aware of any counties that are actually explicitly asking for a background check for every as a requirement. Not aware. It was our policy that will make this happen. So just like it was our policy, we can change those policies when it comes to pole workers. once a year. You may work once a year as a pole worker and the cost of drug testing and background checks will cover the cost of what you pay to hire them for how many hours? So,

can I ask a question about the contract workers? How many counties did you say? So currently Charleston and Richland and Pickkins and and Greenville are using now Greenville's using it for their early voting workers now. Not everyone, but they've had so much response to it that they're not they're not taking anymore right now. It just happened to be it it happened to be a need and and you know they they decided to to try to meet that need. He's not taking any who's not taking anymore that

they're not going to do any more this year. um that um just because that I think they hire probably I don't know probably 3,000 pole workers for uh Charleston and I mean getting the bigger counties but it just was something that they just they just saw and it's really working out for the counties that that do it and the cost of it you know you don't you don't have your human resources or your payroll or you know your you know that's that's they do their workers comp. They um they like I said they would do the W2s. They would they would get um in touch with them as far as you know to to schedule them you know do they want to work the election and the training and stuff like that. So they so they do all that and then you also you know they would handle any HR issues that they had you know you know we've had people that's had to be taken out you know of a polling location because something had happened you know they've had had to call EMS and so you know like I said they would have you would they buy their workers comp it wouldn't be our workers comp. I got a question. The company that these people work for that you contract contract with, they they don't vet these people, background check them and stuff. I mean, do they just hire anybody off the streets?

Well, they just have they just have their questions and I guess that's their hiring process, but they but what they would do is they would take all of our pole workers. So all of our pole workers would just become

uh their employees and then if you called and you said that you know you wanted to work the election and then we would just send their name and so um to them and then and I'm still going to look over that list. It it all would remain in our control and you know I would be doing the training and I would be doing the scheduling. It's just that all of those HR, payroll, admin, things like that that they would be doing. And then if you were 25 pole workers short, you would just, you know, they would be responsible for that. Um, you know, recruiting um that they would do those that advertising and and you know, recruiting those pole workers, which is a lot of what they're doing for other counties. But, you know, I don't we can do what we do. I mean, we can do what we do and I don't mind doing what we're doing. It's just that we h we're having a we're having an issue with with finding pole workers and it it's, you know, we have a lot of pole workers that work one election or we have a lot of pole workers that sign up and they go to training and they never work any election. So I understand as far as the drug screen, but I also understand from our human resources that that is our policy that that and it it doesn't it doesn't exclude pole workers.

I think we should look at that. So make sense especially if it's not especially if it's not common place in other places. So I have several questions. Um so in 2024 the policy was changed. Correct. We just That's what we're talking about. So, my understanding is is that somehow that was Did we have a temp agency in 2025 in the November election? No. So, we hired those pole workers. So, I don't hire them. So, I mean, but it it's it's not my understanding that they have

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the Langster County Council to order. Go right ahead. We're going to do it. So So it's So I to answer your question, I No, I don't I don't think that they were drug screened, but we only send out I didn't I just I just asked if we hired them. Yeah. So we did hire people in in we hired those pole workers and we did not

drug test them or have background checks. They were hired by Langster County, not by me. But um so so I guess the answer to that question is I mean that would be human resources question, but I'm not thinking that they were um I mean

Okay. Um and I guess for me I have concerns and and we haven't heard whether that is a practice amongst all the state voter registration offices and what they're doing. Um, so that would be great information to have to understand. I guess for me, how do we ensure safe and secure elections if we aren't checking that the people working those elections aren't on drugs or don't have a criminal background?

Well, you know, I don't know how to answer that question. Obviously, I don't I know that we have not we have not been doing that. And so, if if that's what you know, if that's what you that Langster County wants to do, then I'm going to do what Langster County wants to do. I I mean, you know, I don't

I think it's I think it's more a question for the residents and what the residents would would wish and desire and the voters. Um because I think the way that elections are being handled and and the media inquiries and the attention that it is getting a lot these days, I think it would be concerning that if people question that we haven't verified whether pole workers are on drugs and it's not Viagra. Um that's not the drugs that they're checking. So I think there's some legitimate concerns there and how do we ensure that those elections are safe and secure if we aren't checking for that? Um the other question is how many pole workers do you need?

So that depends on each election the state. So for this puts that number. So I would say probably 175 for the June election and probably about 250 for the November election.

Okay. Because part of it is, and I'm sure Mr. Graham hears it as well, there's a lot of folks in our districts that are willing to volunteer that I think are interested in volunteering. So maybe there's a little more media attention around that and maybe we invest in some marketing to get more volunteers to come in that would solve that question. And the only issue sometimes we have with that is that when when people are in a certain location, they only want to work certain precincts. And and so sometimes it makes it more difficult that certain people if they say, "I only want to go to one of these three precincts." And um so

I get that, but we can we can we can help with that and encourage people county I guess is what I'm saying. Um the other question is the temp agency that we're looking at, where is it headquartered? So I don't know where it's headquartered. The people that we work with are out of South Carolina. I mean out of Colombia. They have different I guess different offices wherever that they um but is the company Apple One and it's and and it's and the group we deal with is out of Colombia. I I I never you know I I'm not Is the company Apple One? It is.

Okay. It is. It's headquartered in North Carolina. It's formed in North Carolina. It's a North Carolina company. Um, so I think that's a concern. So I'm I'm just wondering if we are moving towards a temp agency model, have we looked into any South Carolina temp agencies that could do the same work?

So the the reason that that when I look because that one is on state contract and I know that that that that I mean that that keeps you from having to do that. However, um where you're doing that that uh different uh quote thing and so with them being on state contract and these other counties that I've talked to that have been successful with using them. No, I have not. I I don't think there's one in Lancaster that um that that could handle that amount of people. And so I was only suggesting that

No, Maryanne, don't don't take any like these are questions and we're just trying to to find out to do what's in the best interest for our county. So I know you do a great job. I I know you're doing the best that you can. Um so we're just trying to find out more information. And one of the questions that I had too was as we're looking to this temp agencies, are there other opportunities? Are there any any other things that they could be doing in addition to the hiring? So they if that's a model that we're looking to.

So in in other counties they'll actually um ask the question, you know, as far as helping schedule and so they help with that scheduling process and then they'll send them list and say this is what we got left. And so um so so they'll help they'll they'll help with the scheduling. And as far as scheduling the training and um and then like I said um getting that they would call and they would tell them when elections were uh coming up and want to work. And they also if you had if you had a person that for some reason that um maybe they couldn't do the job, maybe they didn't work the whole day, maybe whatever that come up that they would handle those HR issues also. Well, it it'd be a great analysis to look at the amount that we're paying for temp a potential temp agency and for staff that we're pulling in on a part-time basis during these seasonal fluctuations.

So, I think here's here's here's my concern. If no, if the other counties aren't requiring a background track and drug testing, then are they requiring that for their is Charleston require or is Apple 1 doing that for Charleston? If they're not, this is a completely different screw ball situation for Apple one and we have no idea. I mean, that's a completely different scenario. Like it's I see what you're s solving for and that you're basically outsourcing the HR part of and I could see that the the curveball for this county right now until I guess we would change that is that you're adding in the background track and the drug testing. So if someone is working, you know, working the polls in Van White, South Carolina for the last 20 years and they're used to doing it in a certain way and then you go, "Oh, by the way, you got to go do a drug test and we're going to do a background check on you." They may you might exacerbate the problem because they might go like, "Hey, you know what? I'm out." Because yeah, I would work that day, but I'm certainly not doing all this to do that. You're

already hard enough to get I've been voting my polls since 70s in the election commission. I mean, the there's no history in Lancaster County. Most of the people down there are retired school employees or or younger, you know, just wanting something to do and fulfilling their civic duties. And if uh I I've been on here 13 years and I don't know if any of us is have ever taken a drug test or been asked to

and I sure am not going to go ask an 80year-old poworker to take a drug test. That's right. You know what what I think is Maryanne is that's what we want to tell the public. That's that's she's making a recommendation for things to come. This is just a suggestion if we ever in that position. Right now, I don't think we're we're in need of a contractual service uh position, but it's good to have the information and have a conversation. And if we need to go in that direction, so it's no it's no problem in getting the cost comparison and getting the information needed. Yeah, we are not doing that. We're going to have to move on, y'all. We we getting farther behind.

We'll have to we'll have to do this contractual thing at a later date. Look at it. So, Maryann, you got anything else on your budget? Well, no. The only and and I think that the only thing that they'll fix as far as because the part-time would have to go back into the part-time budget and I don't think that y'all got that fixed on our I don't think on here that we we Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Marian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I I do I think I do think we need to address the drug testing and the background check at some point. I mean, not at some point, probably in short pretty short order before the June 9th election because if we do that, that is certainly going to create a quite a um an internal

HR thing that they would need to know about and plan for. So, I do think we need to address that in council. So, so council, the way that we can handle that is it's part of your personnel manual at the moment, which you all have decided has to be amended by ordinance. So, if we needed to do that, the way it's listed at the moment, how this came up is because they are considered temporary employees. And there is language in that section that says temporary employees are subject to the same things regular employees are subject to, which is the background checks and the and the drug testing. So, therefore, to officially change it, we'll have to change the personnel manual via an ordinance. So to do it in time for June, we'd have to start at the next council meeting in April to have the three readings.

Then I I think we should do that. So So the only problem with that is that we got to start training in the at we got about 40 people that we're we're waiting on and we got to you got to start training at the 1 of May. We can't you there's no way that you can wait until what would that third? You're training them. They're not yet on the job. You get paid, right? or how you get paid while they're training. You get paid. Um that's a different story. As Jenny had indicated, you know, this it's policy. It's got to be Ch and we can certainly move through that. But in the interim, hey, I'm retired. I'll I'll put my neck on the line. I'll send HR a memo. Say we're not doing that. This, you know, council's made real clear this fixing to change.

We and we can't we can't do that. I understand you want to issue a memo. That's not a legal process. That would be illegal. We cannot do that. We are violating an ordinance that we have in place. You can't write a memo to change something like that. Unless I'm incorrect. You're correct. I'm just covering trying to cover HR. I I wouldn't even suggest that that's an option. Let's move on.

What options do we have, Jenny? So, so I would say and and just knowing hearing what Marian's saying right now, if they're starting to do your training in May, they're not actually working the polls until June. So, if you get this personnel change made by that point, that ensures you've got the background check. So, you've got everything done for them to actually work the polls. The training is just that. It's training. They take oaths. They have to do certain things to do all that. So, you'll have all that in place, but you should have, if you make this change, you will have the you won't have to have the other done by the time they hit the polls in June and actually work them. How How long does it take to do a background check and a drug test?

No, we we going to have to move this to another meeting.

Yes. Um, so for background checks, it depends on how many counties the employee has lived in, but normally no more than maybe one to two business days. For drug screens, normally they come back the same day. Um, if it's later in the evening, it may be the next morning sometime. But um something that we could do that would be helpful if we're going to do the backgrounds and drug screens is um we spoke with Maryanne and when they have their training um we're more than happy to try to coordinate with MUSC to see if we could get a site a nurse on site to do those drug screens the day of the training to kind of cut down on um transportation for those that are volunteering. that might be a faster solution rather than trying to get the ordinance changed in this amount of time, especially as you're getting through the training. And then we could find out if there are enough volunteers that are coming in and are willing to take the background check and the the drug testing because I I will be sure to start marketing that information and getting people out there.

Just one more comment. You're not going to have enough pole workers when you start making these. Absolutely. They going you're good. Uh your group may not cut them in half. Thank y'all. Thank you. I can tell you that. But all right. Uh Human Resources is next. Yes, sir.

Well, good afternoon council. Thank you for having me today. Um I'll be going through a couple things that I've requested on my budget for this year or this upcoming year fiscal year. Um and just to start we have our four HR employees that includes a payroll coordinator um myself and then two HR generalists that we have in the department. Um and with that as we look at the requests that I have there is a big jump um from last fiscal year until this year about 49.51%. Um, and that includes me asking for two additional positions. So, currently, I mentioned we have the four employees. Um, but that does not include um an employee that I have on loan right now that has been loan to me prior to my arrival to help keep HR afloat. Um, so that employee has been taken care of on boarding, making initial contact with all of our candidates that are coming through the door, scheduling those backgrounds and drug screens, and doing all the pre-boarding work that's required before they get to their department. So, it's been a crucial um role that she has taken over um that'll be critical to try and keep if possible. So, that is included in the one of the two positions that I'm requesting. Um the operating expenses have also increased um and that's based on a couple different things that we have um including the backgrounds and the drug screens. So for backgrounds previously we were running only the background no MVR but we should indeed be running an MVR with the background as well. So that increases our cost from 14.45 per background check to 3170 per background check to include the MVR. So a difference of about $1725 per check that we do for new employees coming through the door.

We also have our annual um driving history records that we should be running. um we will be beginning to implement those as well. So for all employees um that require um driving of a vehicle um those have to be completed annually um so we will be running a report with Ryan um Whitaker because he does the um training currently to see who needs to be on that list so that we can also run those so that is included in that increase of cost as well as well as any potential new hires that we have that will increase from the previous year. Um, as well, if we do have to include pole workers, that will also include that increase of the background check and the drug screens. If we go down just a little bit further, we have um tuition reimbursement, tuition assistance. Um, that did increase slightly. Um, we sent out a survey a few months ago to just see how educated employees were on the process, what it looks like, um, what benefits they have available to them, and we got a pretty good response rate on that to see who would potentially be interested in the new year and taking advantage of the tuition assistance. Um, so there was slightly an increase there. Um, employees can get up to $3,000 if they make all A's in one year. Um so we accounted for about 20 employees participating next year hopefully. Now if we go back to the positions that I am um requesting one will be an HR generalist too. The other will be an HR support tech which will be similar to the duties that I mentioned earlier the more administrative task but still very much HR and compliance focused. Um, currently our HR generalists are handling all of our leave programs, FMLA, any paid parental leave that's running concurrently with the FMLA. Um, lower level employee relations concerns that we we may get from employees or

departments. Um, day-to-day departmental assistance, um, on board and new hires, benefits administration, and we've also implemented retirement counseling as well. So, we've been matching some processes to the policies that we currently have, but also trying to advertise ourselves as being available to employees to come seek us for assistance and try to be a little bit more proactive instead of reactive in our approach. Um, so we've been heavily focused on our compliance with different state and federal programs and reporting and auditing and making sure that we we're available to um to the employees. You all have any questions for me? Any questions?

I I had a Is the tuition assistance currently available? Is that a program that's currently available? Yes, sir, it is. Um, so we have about maybe six employees who are participating in that right now. Um, when I did complete the survey, um, the survey results kind of gave us an idea of who was really knowledgeable with the program and what they needed to do to participate in it. So about 45% of 136 responses were not very familiar. um 37 were slightly familiar and then we had um 3% were very familiar with the program. The the reason why I'm asking is that when I'm looking at the

the budget or actuals like for the past two I just don't see any expenditures or budget items for tuition. So I don't know if it was Yes sir. It was in another um in another line. I asked that it be separated so that we could definitely set money aside for it so we would only Yes, sir. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else got anything else? And can I just add one one more thing? Yes, go ahead.

Um, as we looked at kind of like the data, we've been doing a little bit more data tracking and trying to see where does our time go when we're when we're in our office. Um, and in comparison to last FY, I only did it from July 1 to current date for last year and this year. Um, we've had about a 33% increase in new hires, about a 20% increase in terminations, and about a 62% increase in process and payroll changes, which could include promotions, demotions, transfers, or anything that would track a personnel change. Um, so we're really trying to make sure that we can sustain like this high level of service that we've been able been able to provide, of course, with the loan position that we have. So, I ask that you if you could please consider um even if I can't have two positions, at least one that would kind of keep us afloat and allow us to be outside of the transactional piece of HR, but actually be able to um interact with our employees through programs and training and things.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you.

All right. Next is building inspections, Darren Robson. So, uh, good afternoon. Uh, I'm Darren, the building official, and, uh, let me start by, uh, saying that our office, uh, is mandated by the state for all the functions that we, uh, perform from inspections to plan reviews and and everything associated with that. Uh and with that, our staff is made up of 15 15 full-time employees and one part-time. Uh and I definitely want to give a big thanks to our staff uh because it is a race every day to uh do what we do and keep up uh with the uh growth and the construction and the inspections and the processing and permitting and everything involved with that. uh to recap some uh data from uh key inform uh key performance indicators and some of that same data that we saw in the uh uh budget workshop in January the retreat. We uh did see a 22% increase in building permits in fiscal year 25 last year. Um, I highlighted this in that budget retreat that that was a 60% increase since what I called the boom start of uh much increased growth in construction uh in FY 2016. Building inspections increased 41% in the fiscal year 25.

plan reviews, that's construction uh plan reviews increase 20 22% in FY25 overall. That's about a 90% increase in construction plan reviews since 2014, even before the uh the heavy growth start. we reached a peak and it's kind of been our our target or the climax that we base everything on in FY 2021 of 4,400 building permits were issued. U so we hadn't reached that again since uh kind of as the benchmark to go over the budget requests for next fiscal year. Um and you can see some of this is again justified in the uh impact data. I am requesting uh two personnel positions. Uh I kind of beat myself up for not having done that last year in this year's ISO uh report that uh I had to complete by the end of uh last calendar year opened my eyes to a few things. One of those being the residential plans examiner. Um there was a 21% increase in individual residential construction plan reviews in fiscal year 25. That's a 62% increase since fiscal year uh 2019. This is a critical role. Um it helps us maintain that ISO rating level helps us deal with gross growth become uh stay more efficient is mostly as related to customer service and education and that education being the fact that

um it's necessary as we deal with homeowners performing a lot of their own construction work. state law allows that under homeowner exemption. Uh, and that takes a lot of time. We're we're educating and assisting homeowners in that way. And and how that needs to start is with a residential plans examiner. We do perform I don't want you to think we don't perform that task. We do perform that task currently uh with our uh chief building inspector. uh it needs to become its own job role because it it is certainly full-time. Um secondly, second position is a technical assistant to our uh requested for our development services coordinator. Um this person performs all types of task. Uh our development service coordinator is heavily overworked. Um these task that we're requesting in the uh position of an assistant would include anything such as uh intake uploading of all kind of documents uh as she does now uh such as encroachment permits such as uh review of minor subdivision plat um assisting in tracking of data and reporting. uh we we share reporting with a lot of other departments and such and it's become a necessity to keep up with that throughout the throughout the years. Um processing land development permits and all the vertical construction and all the details involved with that uh from intake to completion

u resolving issues as as would be expected. uh having that uh contact with um engineers, architects for that submitt process and tracking that through through the process, serving as a backup to our permit technicians, uh dealing with impact fees, our uh online credit card payment system. So you can see that the job description is multifaceted and the need for some assistance there. Um travel and training is a another request requesting uh an amount of 7500 increase for that line item account. We had an overrun of 2600 in last fiscal year. Um in the past year we've had three new hires on the commercial inspection side. So a lot of train training still to occur with th those employees and then the anticipation of the training and certifications that will be required with the two new uh employee requests. Uh lastly in terms of budget requests, our contractual services for our uh commercial construction plan review. Uh it's an attempt to recoup the 10,000 that was uh reduced. I think it was fiscal year 23 or 24 by administrator at that time. We underwent a renewal of our contract with that third party group last year, started July of uh 2025, and it incurred a 22% increase in those

contractual services. To date, we're about $130,000 year to date now. We are going to uh use up that full budget mostly due to that increase in the contra contractual cost. Um so trying to recoup some of that. I'm a little concerned that that may not be enough. Uh some of that driving that is certainly the number of con uh commercial construction projects. Uh we set a new max last year of 308 commercial uh construction plan reviews themselves that were performed and uh right now this fiscal year I mean this uh year to date we're just under a hundred that is actually in this calendar year. I said fiscal year that's actually in this calendar year. Last year we did 308 in the calendar year. Uh those numbers seem to keep increasing. Uh so that is a steady 300 a year. Now I remember in 2016 which I called the the boom year when we started uh we were at 168. a little little that did I think that would reach 300 now plus a few things to highlight some of our challenges is certainly complexity and details of the projects let's see the commercial projects training is always ongoing that is a major uh standard we need to uh continue to achieve and improve upon uh hiring of those advanced positions and retention of of positions

and uh some always trying to achieve that uh faster delivery time. Uh you can see and I'm very very pleased with some of our impact data. Uh you can see we still maintain uh things such as the next day inspections uh which we've been able to do with with our staff by numbers. Um but training is training is very important in that regard. So with that I I don't have anything else to add and certainly entertain any questions. I got any questions? Are you typically fully staffed?

We are we are fully staffed. Uh I mentioned that we have three new hires within the past year on our inspections. We're fully staffed on that side. We are still vacant on the commercial inhouse uh commercial construction plan reviewer. Anybody else? I I just wanted to say I'd appreciate your consideration making sure we fund the assistant development service coordinator because you can talk to any builder, contractor, anybody around. You mentioned Shanda's name, they love her, you know, does a fantastic job. We got to get her some help. Make sure we can

Yeah, Shandra's here with us in the audience today. So, uh, yeah, she is my right hand and, um, her knowledge and and expertise and experience is unwarranted and she she really stands out and needs some assistance in in especially in all the processing of our uh, project review side. I appreciate it, Darren. Thanks.

Thank you. presentation. We're going to building maintenance. Tyler Love. Thank y'all. Um we are seven got seven staffs in our department as custodial under our two. Um looking to add three more to the custodial department to try to give them more help. We got about not not just this building, but they got about 15 other buildings that they clean and they're adding we're keep adding more to them. Not just the cleaning, but also the supplies that they take to the departments. Um, between me and my partner Scott, we've for 2025 we kept under we had about a,80 work orders. Kept that at 90% just the two of us. And um that's just the ticket systems coming through the ticket system, not phone calls, not emails, just wide open. Um so the personnel that's the big jump is the personnel is adding the three custodials to to them and then the operating is also adding for increase of supply and demand of supplies. So,

anybody got any questions for Todd? No. All I can say is they done a thousand work orders. That's at least $2 million right there. Yeah. This is a uh you have to start subbing this stuff out. it it really gets expensive and you know there's a lot of stuff they can't do but whatever we can keep in the house I'm all for the staffing of this absolutely definitely underst staffed with all the the buildings

buildings have been added you expect them to be clean and wellmaintained but haven't given Tyler any more help got to give him some this year I I was going to make two comments one I'm going to echo what Mr. Harper said there is an incredible savings for doing the work inhouse. And number two, I am extremely happy to see you standing there and doing this job because you were doing that job for a very long time. You had earned it. You deserved it. So congratulations and I'm glad to see you there. Thank you. Anybody else?

And he's also expanded his his depth of knowledge and all that. It's not part of his official job description, but Tyler is a midwife now. We're not going into that. And and and just to say something for what Miss McGriff had just echoed. So when Mr. Harper's talking about the amount of work orders that you are completing, 90% of those are in 24 hours or less and that's out of the,079. Yeah. Excellent job. Thank you. Yeah. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. Fleet maintenance. Brandon Aid. Good afternoon everyone. Um our staffing level we got nine total employees but we are short one. We had one leave. Um so we're maintaining 700 around 700 vehicles with three mechanics right now. So we we we we slow right now. Just sheriff let me know I was three weeks behind on some things. But we getting there. Uh last year we replaced 56 vehicles or added to what we had. Um we did over 3,000 work orders last year with three mechanics. Um and it's going to probably be more this year cuz the complexity in vehicles have it's you you just can't walk in off the street and repair a vehicle anymore. If you don't understand electronics and computers, you're almost lost. Um, uh, our total budget increase this year is is 87% over last year. Um, big driver is capital request. There was 198% increase in capital request funding from last year. That's what department heads sent to me requesting vehicles. Um, that's not a number that I created. That was just from the request from departments wanting vehicles. Um, I I just for y'all the number. Y'all have to tell me what y'all want me to buy. So, um, on our operating we it's a 70% increase also, but I'm asking for money to resurface the concrete in the building to reap epoxy the floors to help keep it cleaner. Um, and then I

want to add a floor scrubber to clean the all the concrete in the building because that's a lot bigger space to clean than what we had before. And I want to do a hydraulic hose system cuz right now if we have to go to Rockill to get hydraulic hoses made for equipment or for trash trucks, that's three hours out of the day that we spend gone just to get a hose or two made that we could do inhouse. and that that's about $11,000 cost. Um fleets expanding um every year. I know there's been a lot of vehicles asked for this year. So, next year I will probably be asking for several employees, but I got some other things I need before I can do that that I asked for this year.

Anybody got any questions? Nope. No, I completely I support you the hydraulic hoses. That's another one of those. Uh uh not only are you paying a lot, you're you're well over $100 a trip to send somebody to Rock Hill. Yeah. And I got if I can't go, I got to pull one of the mechanic them to do it. So that's something else not getting done. Yep. Thank you, M. All right, we got landfill solid waste, Joe Kato.

Afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of council. Uh, landfill accounts pretty straightforward. Uh, couple years ago, we did transition out. We had always stationed a part-time or seasonal employee, excuse me, out there. we have transferred that employee to a part-time position in the 312 solid waste account. So, we do not we did not have any uh position in that account this year. There's a little bit of uh capital contractual services involved to go out and monitor the wells because we are still under inspection. Even though closure uh probably 28 29 somewhere around in there, the the landfill will be fully under closure. It will be one among many in the state. So there's not really a template on how that goes, but uh everything looks to be going well and then the uh you know landfill will be done with the postclosure. So that's it for the landfill account. And do you have any pretty straightforward on that one?

Jeff, you might want to mention even once we get past postclosure status, you're still going to have to have some funding every year just for cap maintenance and all that for the sales.

Yes, that is correct. unless we sell it. Okay, next slide is the solid waste department. Okay, get there. There we go. Okay, this this is one as we as we talked about last year. Uh one of the departments that a lot of transition going on in there, a lot of changing, a lot of things that will change. Uh we have full-time employees, not asking for any more. We're managing fairly well with that. We are, as of last year, we will be opening the convenience sites a few days longer, but with some delays. We tried to get through the holidays and do that half a year this year. Our target goal, I think Sunny's got to hire about five more attendants and we want to get them hired in, trained up. The goal of that is the week after Memorial Day is to have the six other sites, the six busiest sites open Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then that'll be uh six days a week. We will only be open half days on Wednesdays. Good day in the middle of the week to make sure they get cleaned out. We'll probably open them from 1 to six on Wednesdays. The other four days, they will be open 9:00 to 6 o'clock. So that's again that's a service little costly of a service but it's one that's been you know recommended and asked for from our customers for years. So thank you for the opportunity to get to do that. So we just got to get the people hired on. Uh again we have some increases there in contractual. Again that's for the the grinding and some maintenance to the sites, gates, fences, things like that. They they are all a little bit older of sites and have some problems there. Uh the big one is obviously we want to ask for another increase in tipping fees because that's that's still where we are. Uh we're

getting close to finalizing a deal. What we have with our agreements in the past with the city of Lancaster is again we're a unique county. We don't own nor operate the transfer station. The city does. We've partnered under agreement with them for years and years and that's where we take all of our MSW and we also take some CND there if it's too wet to get into the mining road landfill where we take most of it. Uh we need to get together and simplify that agreement. It has many many layers. Uh we're working on that now. Uh Mr. Willis and I and and the city were we're talking about that when we get the information finalized. We do plan to bring that to the county, but either way, tipping fees are going to go up and you just have to keep keep uh going up with it or or we're going to be in bad shape there. Same thing with like I said, the MSW is the lynch pin coming in behind that. You have electronics, waste tires, like I said, everything, every vendor, the tipping fees go up. So, we've asked for an additional uh funding in that area there. And then some other little things, just some cleanup uh supplies. Again, Sunny's maintaining 12 sites and you know, general supplies to keep those running. Trend data just with that one. Historically, we've gotten like $3,000 a year for that. It goes over budget every year, but fortunately, you know, we make up for it somewhere else. Again, that was just a cleanup. Same as the uniforms. We're under a uniform contract, have a very good contract. In fact, procurement just renewed it. Problem is is we've always been under budgeted in that line item. So, we've taken trend data and and plug that in to hopefully that makes it. Again, that's more of a cleanup. But that's kind of it for solid waste. If you have any questions,

can I ask a couple?

Yeah, go ahead. A couple issues we have around Lancaster and south of town is the lack of companies that'll pick up garbage. Now, I mean, you got it. It my dad's old house, my brother's living in now, the the one company didn't show up for 3 weeks when the fuel went up cuz they're, you know, it's hard. The other one I got a call from, they're worried about these tipping fees, you know, cuz diesel has gone up to $6 a gallon. And and at one point, at what point is it make sense for us, if the city keeps going up, does the county get into the business of a station? What you call it? a uh

transfer station. transfer station.

Yeah. And that's what we're looking at now, like I said, as an option. Obviously, first and foremost is is we have benefited as a county uh and as an area and the municipalities have benefited tremendously from this agreement. I think the city would sit here and tell you the same thing. But there are a lot of layers in with it. And the other thing too is the the other two municipalities and how they get transfer their waste. Uh the county has built into this agreement and another later we've somewhat subsidized for that over the years. Same with the private haulers. We got to get all that together and decide what we want to do because the cost it's going up for all of us. But like you said, if it's if it becomes too much for a tipping fee, whether it's the city or another landfill, we're going to have to look for the best and most viable option.

If if if it gets too expensive for people to take off their trash, I know what's going to happen. Yeah. It's going to it's going to be catastrophic.

And you could see Yes. Yes, sir. Absolutely. You could see because I've I've I've been here 20 years now. you can go back when this plan came into place and and when we got more centers and got them open is we had a tremendous amount of trash on our county roads. Now 20 years later at having better service and having programs like KLCB and the and the volunteer groups with the cleanups, you see it that way. But if it gets too expensive for everyone to dump or pay to dump or what have you, then that's exactly what it's headed back out to and that's what we're trying to prevent. Any more questions on that for Jeff?

Jeff, do you have an update for council yet on um closure plan for Fort? Yes, closure plan for the fort will close uh the week after Memorial Day. same week we start we the goal is too is to offer the attendant that works there one of the positions to to move to another site as well. So that kind of coincides there. I know July 1st is when we were told to be out or June the 30th, but we want to give plenty of time so that we can do that. And we're working with uh the marketing department and social media and stuff to make sure that people are aware that the fort convenience center will be closing probably the week after Memorial Day.

That's good. On road maintenance.

All right. Next, we'll move to road maintenance. And again with road maintenance, road maintenance is uh still 35 full-time employees. We we're not asking for any additional employees because again for like the fifth year running, we're still two to three employees uh vacancies there. And again, it's not so much when when we get employees out at public works, we tend to keep them. So we don't have a lot of turnover thankfully. But the problem is is when we do have openings, it's getting harder to feel like everyone else that'll tell you probably because of the wages and and what we rely on out there with the uh most of the work being outside and CDL drivers, heavy equipment experience. We tend to like to go more towards experience, you know, try to get the most experienced person we can, but uh at this tech at this state in the game, we'll take warm bodies. But again, we'll set our goal same as this year as we did last year as hopefully next year when we're up here presenting, we will be fully staffed. So, we did not ask for any positions there. Uh we did ask for some increases in the operating cost. And again, that's mostly one big line item was the the stone. I mean, I know we've had some increases in the stone. We've had some of the road fee dedicated to the stone. And we went back and looked, we didn't really use more stone in the past year. It's just again the pricing on it. Every quarry has gone up every year. We just got our notices again. Come June the 1st, they're all going up again. So, it's it's just the pricing of it. And we haven't, like I said, that's not that we're using more stone, it's just costing that much more. So, we asked for an increase there, as well as in some of our other contractual line items. Uh, one being just like some small maintenance road paving again with now that we're kind of back at looking

for a future future ways to fund our transportation and road projects. If we can do a few a couple roads in house or so, it kind of takes a little bit of pressure off CTC or as CTC likes to say, we want to match with the county some like they do like we do with DOT. So, we we've asked for additional $500,000 in that to to kind of get that program back going. Uh we still successful with the preservation and the road fee. We did ask for some other special project again like one-time things with contractual and uh one being a a large drainage project in the Arowwood development that we looked at and got funding for last year. But I remember because I stood here and made you say it twice. She said come back if it wasn't going to be enough because we were finding out then that the problem is now on both sides of the road where we have to do the work and we're going to have to get an easement. So that's going to run the price up. So we've we've asked for an additional $400,000 to fund that project in Arowwood get it bid out. But there's a uh kind of another thing with that is there is a smaller thank goodness RAIA grant available this September. We intend to apply for that as well and we will include this project in there to you know hopefully offset some of the cost. So we we'll be working with the cog on that. Again that's a much smaller than the one we're trying to complete now from a few years back but it is drainage projects and this project would be obviously our our highest priority because we've been dealing with that one for a long time.

Can I comment on that airwood project? Yes sir. If if that project is done, is that going to are they going to take out all those pipes that all us builders and homeowners put in? Well, in that one section put in 20 years ago in that one section. We we you are and again, you know, we we always look back to the Arowwood area there because that's we have other areas like that, too. Uh it's it's back then you could develop something. The county didn't even have a planning department.

Yeah. So like you said, builders would put a pipe in here there and no engineering behind it. And again, as growth around the area, runoff, you know, runoff got more. So that that's what we're looking at there. But that's a good place to start. And again, leading up to not this year, but possibly next year, we may ask to, you know, fund some drainage basin studies outside of the MS4. I know we have funding in the MS4, but to look at the other areas, the county never has done much on on master storm water master planning for your basins, you know, countywide. You got basins out in the in the Buford area that that take a lot of rain, you know, down south, this, that, and the other. So, we'd like to look into that. Uh, one other item, too, we're close to completing our our road inventory. So, we'll try to complete that this year, and it's already come back. That was a number we didn't put in there, but uh the last go round I think we said we had like 2,200 individual county maintained roads. We're 80% finished with the inventory now and and a lot better with, you know, GIS capability and such. We're already at 3500 county roads. That's roads maintained by the county whether they're got one house on them or a hundred. A lot of them, of course, would be our prior inventory didn't include the the roads in Sun City, Walnut Creek, and the developments we accepted. That's probably where the majority of that number came from. But that's a lot of when you're talking about probably 600 miles or so of county maintained road that is split over almost 3,500 roads. That was that was an eye opener there. But that's what we're working towards. And uh lastly too, I know they'll address it later. There are two with solid waste

and and road maintenance. We do have uh two items in the fee schedule. Again, just while we're up here talking, just to mention it, one's going to be to amend uh the encroachment permit fee to add language for a fiber encroachment permit fee of $1.50 per foot. And that should cover all the costs of you know utilizing a third party to help us with the reviews, the inspections and the communication of that work. The other two is to convert in the solid waste. We do have fees to charge for undocumented and documented waste tires. Been some change in in in policies and things and recommendations from the association of counties. We don't have scales and we probably won't be getting scales anytime soon. So, we're just going to propose to change that on the per ton per tire back to a per tire fee. And again, that's information we'll bring forward to you all as well because that's going to get some some attention as well.

Questions for Jeff on this? Mr. Chair, um I'm scared to ask this question. On the Arowwood project, what is that going to bring that total to? That'll bring it close to a probably again concept only because all the design we're still dealing the the sewer lines giving us a fit down there to design the elevations of the of the new pipes and all but you're looking at probably that's probably $800,000 project in total. Thanks.

Okay. The other piece of it is, and this isn't I mean the title of of this is road maintenance, but I I I'm guess it's not it's not part of what we do today, but it's again my appeal to to council. I mean, when you start talking about infrastructure, people talk about fire, EMS, fire, excuse me, police, but roads is a big piece of that. And you know I I I think we're missing we we are missing opportunity for not being proactive on roads whether it's our road or whether it's a stateowned road in terms of planning for the future when we have growth and whether we take care of you know when we have developers that come in and and we see that an area is going to be developed and we see heavy development pressure on it whether we're We're contractually taking somebody that can help us understand what the future may hold and what should we should be doing on that road today so we don't have massive problems with traffic tomorrow that's going to cost so much more money. I mean, I we we really need to consider and and and move ahead to being more proactive with I know you have a great relationship with SC DOT, but understanding how we can plan better for the future for those for those sections of the county that we know are going to see heavy development pressures. We know what happened in Indianland. We can see that with 521. That's that was that was what we've done in the past. But as we see the growth going down 521 and down other areas of the county and Edgewarter and and such, what are we going to do to be proactive to understand how to plan for roads in the future?

Yes sir. Uh that would be you know good question and a collective answer was obviously involves us planning do any anyone with you know transportation interest but one thing that we are doing that we will be presenting in the summer is you know we have applied for a safe streets for all grant and that has planning aspects and you know part of our contractual that we're request requesting to is we'll be using some of that and once that is done it does not just opens up lots of funding for projects, but it's also a way to I talked about a storm water master plan a few minutes ago, but this also kind of opens up for a transportation plan. I mean, we would want it to show what roads to pave and where the areas are, but it could be used as a tool countywide like like say over in the the planning and development services to address things like that where the growth areas are and you know, like I said, one of the first roads on capital sales tax 2 was Henry Harris Road. Why we didn't widen it then? You know, and when we went back a few years ago with CTC and and and resurfaced possum hollow road, you know, we if we' have had the funding number one, but had the inside there, there there was a way because I'm still big on those collector. Well, I mean, I I'm just, you know, reflecting on on when a developer comes in, like we had a recent development that was approved on Monday and, you know, there we're we're trying you're trying I just didn't feel like when we're negotiating or we're talking about a development agreement like what roads or what should we be asking for. I just didn't feel like we had the information. Um, and it's not a reflection of of you and you do a great job. It's more of a reflection of putting assets in the county that can get us to that those answers. And and I I think I mean I don't think I know we we need to devote more money to that

because it's going to save us a lot more money in the in the long term. Else thank you Jeff. Thank you. Let's take a five minute break.

into our veterans affairs. Miss Miss Harris is going to is filling in on behalf of Miss Jan. Go ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. I will um present for uh veterans affairs. You could flip to slide one, please. All right. Thank you. All right. Just a quick snapshot of the Veterans Affairs departments and and um I do want to say before I start, I am very privileged to do this on behalf of Veterans Affairs. I'm a veteran, my husband's a veteran, and I know these services are critical um for veterans in this county. And so, they are a small shop um four staff um four full-time staff, one part-time. And um just to highlight some of the things that are happening in the department um you know I thought it was great that um you know Robin shared that right now they've secured what they call the wall that heals is for the community. It recognizes um and honors those who have served. Um that's a project an ongoing project um out of that department. They've conducted 12 active outreach events across Kershaw and Indian land. It included claims clinics u making sure veterans have direct access to benefits and assistance and they brought bought the valor program to the county in April. And so this offers veterans free services to um put together wills support with power of attorneys and enhancing other critical legal services that they need. And so some of the short-term challenges that they have um they only have that one part-time receptionist and they have a high client volume about seven interactions per hour. So there's a shortage of front desk help and phone coverage there. They also have limitations with their capacity um with the staff capacity. And so, um, they have with the four full-time staff, they are pretty much at capacity. Not a lot of flexibility to be able to take care of administrative tasks, do followup or, um, unexpected demands with just trying to manage the people flowing through that department for services. Um, in addition to that,

um, increased weight times. The rising in-person visits have increased weight times about 22.9%. um they have about just a little over 4,200 um calls that create pressures and um timely response for their client satisfaction. And so what they're proposing in their budget request is to um upgrade that part-time position to full-time with a net increase there of just over 41,000. They're also asking for 23,000 for um a replacement van. The van that they have currently is over 10 years old. um they want to be able to get funding to support um as part of a grants match and so they have federal funding and funding from Ford to be able to purchase that van. So the 23,000 would help them to be able to replace it. And then lastly in their request there's a um thou $3,000 that will help to support the um the wall that heals initiative that they manage through their department.

I can answer any questions you have about their department services. Any questions for veterans?

I think you look at the numbers with the calls and the client appointments, everything. That's why I recommended, you know, the receptionist spot. They they really need it because when the receptionist is not there, they're having to pull somebody that provides service to the vets off their job to be at the front desk. All right. No question. Thank you, ma'am. Economic development, Brian Faulk. Good afternoon, council members and everyone. And thank you. I just want to say first off, thank you to the finance department and budgeting department. All your help that you gave us this year. Appreciate it very much. So, economic development, we um when we're fully staffed, we have uh three full-time employees and one part-time employee. We have two people now. We're missing a person. and we've been missing them for a year and we're trying to replace that person actively. In terms of strategic priorities, uh we have quality development, high performance and resource optimization. I'd like to start out just giving you a few highlights and we'll go down this quickly. Amy, if you want to start with the first one.

Um so we um submitted the Heath Spring site for the Palmetto site certification and we were granted um $49,000 um dollars as you can see. So that's a a 50% match will um pay the other half. Um they have finalized I believe everything. There were a few little pieces but I think they have everything meet and hunt and they uh will finish up everything um probably in the next no more than month and then we'll submit for um reimbursement on that. So everything looks good. They didn't find any you know artifacts or any endangered species or any other issues. So, um, that's good to know and we can move forward with the next phases on that.

And just as a reminder, this is part of the, uh, Palmet Palmetto sites South Carolina program that they encourage all the counties to try to have at least one or two sites certified. It helps in the marketing in terms of bringing people to South Carolina, saying this particular site has been looked at in terms of environmental issues and whatever. It hadn't been graded necessarily, but at least these preliminary issues have been resolved. The second um highlight is the comportium infra infrastructure tax credit fund. They uh gave us $165,000 specifically for the Heath Spring site. So that's good. Uh project Janice Atlas Copco just as an update there. I talked recently with the project manager, the governmental controls uh governmental contact manager and uh this project's expanding. It will probably be over 50 million initially in the first phase. First phase. They have another building they want to build later. So this could expand to 75 or 100 million is great company. I've known them a long time. 125 jobs I think is what we have in our fo agreement, but they're targeting currently 100 170 jobs.

Um another um highlight was the most recent project Alpine 2, which we now know is US strapping. So they expanded from the aviation um drive over to the Grace Avenue. Um so there invested 25 million and 45 job creation. So again, thank you for um agreeing to sign off on that agreement. Industry.

Oh, sorry. Um so the second we had our second annual industry spotlight. So um of course without the presence of a full staff in economic development um things weren't being done and one was an appreciation for the existing industries that are here in Lancaster County and that's something that we felt was very very vital when you consider approximately about 75% of investment comes from those existing industries and we see that in the uh expansions that have occurred most recently and and in the um past year. So, we have did a second an um industry spotlight where we um invite everyone to come. We do get some sponsorships to kind of help offset some of the costs, but we really just want them to come have a nice time and feel appreciated. So, it's just like a big thank you um from Lancaster County Economic Development to have them there and not we they've loved it. They keep coming back and it keeps growing. So, I think we're doing something right there. Um then also for the second year we co-sponsored a job fair with SC works. This was also in conjunction with the manufacturing week industry industry spotlight that we've kind of put together. Um so as you can see there was 14 employers. Um we'd like to keep it more local. We like to I think I like to say u quality versus quantity. Um there were also 101 job seekers. So definitely meeting the needs there. Um and then I think one thing I didn't include is we also in that week we also uh co-sponsor an industry roundt breakfast with SE Commerce and SEMEP and so that's been wellreceived and we'll just keep growing with that as well

and uh again these are just highlights and not all um inclusive but I did want to mention two more uh project CC this has not been announced and I there's a limited amount of data that I can give you but I did talked to the uh project manager recently. This is a uh a service company that's moving into Indian land and will occupy four floors. They're going to do this in stages uh the second and fourth floor I think this year by the end of the fourth quarter. They will have an announcement and a ribbon ribbon cutting at the end of December, the 1 of January. It will be well in excess of $5 million. That was just a placeholder number, but the 300 jobs I think is accurate if not if not going to be higher. And then St. John's properties, uh, another Indian land property they're moving uh, ahead there. Uh, the 10 jobs again is a placeholder because that's going to depend on who they lease the the building the building out to. I mean, turning to the budget on personnel side, there's no uh increase asked for. The 2% is the uh uh across the board increase that was included in everybody's budget. In terms of operating budget, you see the increase of 2,9002 million $9,50. I'm going to talk about the $9,50 first. Uh couple items there. I think it was supplies perhaps. And the bigger item was an $8,000 increase in advertising. This came about to $15,000. This came about in conjunction with a conversation we had with with marketing and Jenna and it was uh the suggestion that we needed to raise our advertising as we we continue to go over budget. We can't do quite all we want to do in terms of print u social media and such and we think that's uh that will be beneficial um from a return on investment standpoint. Um the 2 million

is part of the 4 million uh capital allocation that was granted back in 200 uh 21

2021. 4 million was allocated to uh the department for the um uh focus on developing land with the idea of maybe eventually having a spec building, but at least getting certain uh land sections available. We don't need that four million this year. And so we're we're going to use two million of it. Hopefully not even that if we can get a grant. Um our focus is probably going to be exclusively on Heath Springs Park um to to further that uh that development. And the 41,000 uh we had a automobile uh an explorer that was assigned to uh the business retention expansion officer. uh he resigned that went back into the pool and we would simply like to replace that automobile for the current business retention and expansion officer. Happy to ask answer any questions. Right. Right.

I can tell you right Oh, I can tell you right now. So, what we did was manufacturing week. It's always the Friday to say October 2nd through the 9th, but it's already set. So, I use that as a marker because what I say is at the heart of Lancaster County was manufacturing. And so, we do want to um acknowledge that, but celebrate how far we've come. So, that's the plan is to always keep it.

No, just say so. But others have attended. I mean, you know, the others have been able to and I've always missed you.

We're going to get you there this time, even if I have to drive up and get you. Okay. I hear you. And we've actually talked a little bit about that. Maybe even talked about separately. Maybe I just have a a casual conversation or lunch with you and and somebody else, not a formal thing, just so we we have more communication. And maybe we could utilize the uh presentations that we do at the economic development advisory board to intersperse between the other ones.

Any more questions for that? Uh yeah, Mr. Chair. Uh so you mentioned um a couple of times and and when we talking about is is that a limited capacity but you've got an open position. So I guess my question is I mean that I think it's been what is it been open a year maybe? I don't what's the primary reason why it's not filled like

well honestly there probably probably two reasons. Uh, one, my standards for the person I want there are pretty high and I don't want a body. I don't need a warm body. I need a smart person. I'd like to have a dedicated person that likes economic development. I'd settle for a very good administr administrative person. I'm trying to fill her shoes. So, it's hard. So, we got 50some applications and we're having early conversations or some conversations with two or three currently. we need to get on the schedule and get uh them in for an interview. The second reason is I'm slammed and so I'm I'm not an HR person and I it's hard for me sometimes to react to every um you fully as as much as I want to to every request somebody submits an application. So I look at it and um you know anyway we're going to get that resolved. I mean I've resolved to get that done within the next couple months and put it to bed. And and you also have a part-time position.

We we have a part-time position that was is unfilled that gives us some optionality during the summer to have a summer intern. Okay. And is that something you're going to do as we head into the summer? We're talking about it now. It's difficult because also our schedules don't allow for us to always be in the offices 8:30 to 5 and we don't want to have somebody in there by themselves, right? Sure. You know, so it's just kind of navigating all of that.

But that that position, even though it's during the summer and it's brief, is an important one because that's where we use that person really to research and target and specifically write companies that we look at and say, "Hey, this looks like somebody that would fit here. They're growing. Let's target that company." Right now, we're visiting more with consultants and uh or site site selectors or prospects that are located, you know, somewhere somewhere around the country. I mean, I I think I don't want to speak for council, but in the priorities that we did in the retreat um in February and um other priorities, economic development and job creation in the in the county. I mean, it's largely um considered the most important thing that is that is that is there for Lancaster County. Um, and so I'm going to very frankly, and we've had some of these conversations, my concern is that we're not devoting enough money and resources as a county to economic development. And um, you know, I I I think I'm would look to y'all to figure out what that is. What not necessarily is a spec building, but maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's buying land. Maybe it's maybe it's offering incentives to and to put us over the top. But um you know that that's that's what I mean what I'm looking for. Again, my concern is that we're not putting enough money. When I look at our total budget and just even on in in our general fund and see that we're spending less than 1% on economic development, frankly, that that's that's not good enough. I mean, I I don't know what our expectations are. we need to spend more money on economic development, but we need to know what those things and those options are um from from from you guys.

I think part of the problem you have with the two of us is we think we can do it all and we will do it all all that we can. But yeah, it'd be great to have somebody who was dedicated to small business, for example, entrepreneurship and small business, you know, a dedicated staff there. That's that's an empty spot that we we need. We do need

Well, you've got an open position, right? I mean, how how can you you got an open position. How can you best use that? I mean, again, that's kind of what I'm saying is I I mean, what what should we be doing as a county? I mean, that's um what what I mean, we we know we feel good about the county. We feel like the countyy's got a lot to offer. Um so, what should we be doing? Should we have a I mean we've got a what a I don't remember what it's called. Is it a gold fund or something that's out there? How much money is in that gold fund right now? How is that been used? I mean that that's what I'm haven't had access to it.

So I mean yeah so those are those are the things that are very concerning to me that we we you know what should we be doing and um we we've got to create jobs. I got a follow up to Stuart's question. The position that's open what is that job title? the economic development coordinator coordinator. And do you absolutely need that or do you need a small uh small No, we need it because I'm still doing that job and I'm not I'm neglecting my existing industries. I can't move forward because I still have to do that. All of that. Yeah.

Well, I go back to what Stuart said. We if we if you're number one on our budget, I mean our needs without our area. People are saying econom economic development is what we want. What do we in order to do the job correctly? We need to understand from your department your plans on how to get from AV and move forward. Okay.

I mean I I don't want to be circling the dream but there are opportunities in temp agencies. So that and you're laughing but that's an opportunity to the other. We got to figure it out. Find somebody immediately at least to do all of those administrative tasks. If you're having a challenge finding someone internally or or on your own the only right so the only issue is then if I I would train the individual that's a lot of knowledge that if they're not going to stay and they walk out you know I'd rather have some permanent but it that's exactly what I was going to say. It could be attempt to permanent. So, you hire someone, you're testing them out. If they're working out, you already know this person works. This is this is good. Let's give them a permanent offer.

Yeah. I I mean, I that seems to make sense to me if if you need the immediate help because it is hindering your current job. We cannot have that. We need you out there on economic development, especially because it's been I mean, it's been a year. So, okay. Anything else for him? All right. Thank y'all. Thank Thank you all. All right. Next, the sheriff's office. Sheriff Fail.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Council for the opportunity to come speak to you tonight. Uh as we were preparing our budget this year, we focused on three different uh three key priorities. One was investment u investing in recruitment, retention, and our career ladder to stay competitive throughout our region. We want to leverage technology as a force multiplier and utilizing AI to enhance efficiency. Two things I want you to keep in mind as we go over these things or these requests is the U comparison of the service population. You'll see on the chart, the green uh lines represent the comparison counties. The red line represents us. You can see that we serve a much larger population than these other jurisdictions. And also the the officers per capita in those areas. uh we have much less officers than these other jurisdictions do to serve uh a a less population. Uh the things that uh we have requested this year uh I'll go over manpower to start with. We have four grants uh that are expiring. Two I'm confident that we will not get uh uh funding again. that is the gang investigator and the CJCC criminal justice uh coordinator. Uh they will not be funded again. Uh the two traffic officers, I I'm confident uh pretty confident that we'll get that funding again. The two that we won't get uh funding for are multi-year grants. The traffic or one-year grants that we have to apply for each year. Uh the two other officers is a full-time staff attorney. Uh I I've told you all that uh our current staff attorney is is looking to go part-time, maybe two days a week.

Uh so he is easing his way out and I need a full-time staff attorney and and I hope you guys understand the importance of that position. Uh officers call this person every day and ask them about uh the cases that they're working. This uh attorney can file motions for us in in in magistrate's court or general sessions court. Uh he also handles all of the foyer requests. Uh just a tremendous amount of those but very vital to to our organization. Uh you also heard uh about the federal earmark that we got to create a real-time crime center. So I'm asking for a manager to be able to run that center once it gets opened. Um moving on the career ladder adjustments. I'm asking for a lump sum of money to apply toward the career ladder so that we can be competitive in this region here when it comes to our salaries. Um, a few things uh as far as equipment is concerned. We're asking for additional drones. Uh those have been a huge success for us as we're out there at crime scenes or even searching for people. Um, we want every jurisdiction or every district to have a drone in in their area, stop sticks. Our goal is for every officer to have stop sticks in our priority zones. Uh, we're beginning to have lots of chases. And just to be honest with you, we terminate a lot of these chases due to safety reasons. But if we all had stop sticks, our goal is to uh use that tool to stop these folks and apprehend the people in the car. Uh a few contractual issues that I'll go over. The Indian Land substation, uh the the rent is going up 3%. Uh a few uh things that I want to

mention that is in I the IT budget. Uh Clear View facial recognition that was bought on a grant three years ago, but that grant is has expired. So we need the funding for that. Uh also the drone software uh again the grant funding has expired and and we have uh software increases that are contractual uh increases. Data works which is our fingerprint system in the jail. Tyler Technologies which is our RMS system at the sheriff's office and leads online which tracks all of our pawn shops and things of that nature. Uh, one more that is in the uh, IT budget is the flock safety OS. U, that just allows us to narrow the search using these flock cameras. Uh, collecting the data, getting the officers the information a whole lot quicker so they can get back out on the street. We are asking for an additional 20 flock cameras and the goal is to have one flock camera per sworn officer at the sheriff's office. This will bring us up to 80 if we awarded these 20 here. Uh I think all of you have heard the success stories of us using flock cameras. We're asking for a training increase uh due to the high cost to get people in here to to teach specific skills training and also when we send someone off to u uh the body farm or to Atlanta for polygraph school, it's just a huge expense. uh that we have. Um the last few things in the sheriff's office budget was the embedded mental health. Last year we had a grant that paid 45,000. Uh you guys funded 40 allows to have this person two days a week. Uh been a huge success within the

office. They have logged over 3,000 hours dealing with our uh employees. The grant funding has run out. So, we're asking for the full 85, which would be the 40 you already gave us, and the 45 that the grant funded uh last year. Uh bodywn cameras, uh we're asking for an increase there. Since 2017, we've been getting state money for this and and have gotten about $600,000 over the years. Uh but that money is dwindling down. They were $11,000 short on what they provided for for this year's contract and and we've added additional SRO. So, I'm asking for nine additional cameras uh to be able to have one on every SRO. We are asking for Trullio software. Um this Trulio software is is AI uh software that integrates with our records management system. It integrates with our bodywn cameras. uh with our jail phone calls. It it just allows our officers to collect data a whole lot quicker. Uh get the investigative reports and be able to stay out in the field rather than in the office behind a computer. Great tool for us. And the last two things is we talk to you every year about our vehicle fleet. Um you know, we're trying to get to where we can only we only need 23 vehicles per year. If we get 25 this year, uh, then next year that'll put us on that 23 every five year on a five-year rotation. And we're asking for the parking lot upgrades. Um, we have had a a person to come out or Jeff did uh and give us a price on that and they can reconfigure the parking lot, pave it, and give us 20 to 25 more spaces, which we desperately

need out there at the sheriff's office. That's pretty much all of the sheriff's office. Any questions about about that? I I've got um a couple of questions. Uh sheriff. Yes, ma'am. Um what's the number of uh detention workers you need? Uh total number. I was going to go over that when we go over the jail, but we currently have 46. I was looking at 46, right? Let me let me go back and I'll get to that later. Okay. Number of deputies. How many do you need uh as far as to bring you up to uh

Well, we have 154 currently uh positions. Now, I'm not full. I have uh a few vacancies. Um, I I think I could always ask for more people, but but the AI technology that that's available to us today, if we have that and the results that we've been able to show over the last year, I think this is the route for us to go and and other positions here. I I kind of got ahead of myself with the detentions and I guess I'm eager to get to that. Um, but you've got positions here that you're requesting within the sheriff's department.

That's right. That's the gang investigator that the grant has expired. We're asking for a full-time staff attorney, the real time crime manager that will run the uh real time crime center and and the criminal justice coordinating council coordinator. That's the CJC coordinator, which was hired on a grant a few years back and that grant is expiring. and two traffic deputies. Those two traffic deputies are on grants as well, and I feel pretty certain we'll get those two grants again, but I know we won't get the gang investigator or the CJCC coordinator. Well, I'll just hold my other question till you get to the detention center.

Okay. Other questions on the chair part of I'm going to wait till the end as well.

All right. What we're going to now go to uh to the detention center now. Uh you know, you guys have really been good to us back there and we have have actually started hiring some extra people to prepare for the new facility that we hope will open up in uh January or February of next year. Uh but the three things we're focusing on back there are the four things that we're focusing on. One is stab vest. We want to buy stab vest for every officer to try to keep them safe as they go into these sales. Believe it or not, these inmates will make a weapon out of anything and try to harm not only themselves, but the officers that come through there. We want to offer 24-hour medical um and you'll see on on the budget uh that we prepared and turned in that we were proposing n over $900,000 for that. Well, MUSC has already turned their um packet in and was awarded the uh contract with a little less than $600,000 and that is with 24-hour medical care. Uh and I think all of you know that the current contract uh is with Southern Health Partners and they're trying to get out of that contract early. Uh the career ladder enhancements as well. Um and and and we're asking for more staff. Uh when you talk to the Association of Counties, uh you know, there is a formula that they use and they tell you the number of people that you have to have to work inside of a a jail, a detention center, and they're telling us it's 84 for a facility that size. But we're confident that we can go in there with between 55 and 60 staff members and open that facility up which would need

we will are asking for eight correctional officers and four booking officers be able to do that and that's the total request for the jail. Well, that's where I was getting at because I know you need so many to get in that new detention center, right? And we are scheduled to open it when I'm hoping in February. So, if we whatever we approve, do we need to approve the total number in this budget year so you can get them trained or in January where it be half of a year? So, talk to talk a little bit about that.

I take them any way you want to give them to me. uh you you know the ideal situation would be to get those positions in in July. Uh but the difficult part is going to be able to hire that many people and and and and just to be honest with you, I'm not sure we can find that many people before January.

Absolutely. U I just want to say what what the flocks I think are very important because I know what it has helped uh you with in the county with the drones very important mental health. I I think we need to continue with the mental health and continue with the cycle on the cars because we got off schedule. And I think if we're back on schedule, we'll see in the years to come that we won't have to be spending so much money trying to catch up, right? Staff Fest and medical I think also important, right? Thank you, Charlene. Uh

I just want to say I want to echo that Miss McGriff is agreeing with me. What's wrong? I'm loving I'm I'm loving this. I I think these are things that we need to do. I think these are services that we've agreed to provide as part of the overall capital investments that we've made. This is a logical plan. I think you have proven to show that when you're conducting your operations, you are making them as efficient as possible. these numbers that you talk about, your officers per population density has consistently been below our region, our geography in in our area. Um,

saying that, you know, and kudos to these guys here, you know, we're solving over 80% of the violent crime and over 50% of the property crime. And when you do the comparison statewide, these these agencies that we compare ourselves to, nowhere close. Yeah. So, I I think you're doing a great job in analyzing what your future needs are going to be, the use of technology, the AI tools that you're looking at. You're probably further ahead of the curve than most people um that are in your area. So, kudos to you. I think I I I think these are things that we need to support the infrastructure needs that we have and that we're continuing to have.

He agreed with me. I'm not agreeing with him. Any other questions for his verif I I don't know about the current department of corrections inspectors but you you remember Blake Taylor that man's son um you know was there for 40 some odd years trainees don't count so I think we got to get sheriff people in July yeah I I just wanted to make sure he explained that to if that he needed to hire him as soon as possible get them trained I just wanted him to to say that openly and open say

I I think there's a schedule and and you've talked about this when we first started planning for the detention center and kind of starting the scheduling process and I think there's an opportunity where you can stagger these positions because you know you're not going to hire all of them at the same point. So I I think there's a way to do that and I I'm feel very confident you've thought through that and have a plan for that.

Uh couple other things. The Kershaw budget I I won't don't even want to discuss it. I'll go to Kershaw and talk about that, but that's strictly about the career ladder advancements. Uh the school district, I I'll do the same with them. Uh won't cost the county anything, but the judicial officers um it will cost the county, but there is a pot of money sitting there that that it shouldn't hurt or interfere with anything other than judicial services.

That's a special assessment we we put years ago for court security. Sheriff, before we move up, can you tell council in 30 seconds or less about the what it cost you to have an inmate sitting over at the hospital and the advantages of 247 coverage?

Oh man, you know, they don't get sick till the nurse leaves in the evening and then I have to once they get sick, we have to call the hotline and they always say carry them to the ER. So, we call EMS over there. EMS is tying two or three people up on the ambulance by transporting the inmate. we have to have a deputy inside the ambulance to go over there with them. And that deputy may sit there from, you know, all an hour to to 24 hours or or longer. Uh so you can imagine the cost of of, you know, the deputy and the EMS work and and we're already in talks with MUSC to take over the contract early and and it's sounding pretty promising right now. Anything else? Hey, I appreciate you guys.

Thank you for what you do. Thank y'all. All right, pretty much sums up all of our uh department heads. We'll move into item C, discussion of operating budget and personnel updates. Steve Willis. That'll be Sabrina and Jamie.

Okay. Thank you everyone. Uh Jamie Puzznak, budget director, Lancaster County. And this next section is dedic dedicated to providing a compilation of all of the requests that you have received. So, we're going to try we're going to summarize this for you and pull it all together. Um, first off, I do want to say a brief thank you to all of our department directors, elected officials, external agency partners because they were very thoughtful in their approach in providing request information and answering follow-up questions. So I think everyone has done a great job here this budget cycle. Uh briefly this is the agenda for this presentation and um and I'll drive here and budget goals. So we want all of those budget goals as you can see to align to the strategic plan and it's very important to us to maintain the county's fiscal health and we do that with conservative budgeting and forecasting. uh we want to take care of our employees by providing competitive pay and benefits packages. So the recruit and retention and then we touched upon this about we've need to continue to support technology specifically ERP is there and then as we're bringing on new facilities either renovating or purchasing to take care of what we have and then the impacts of growth. So this particular slide is a review and we're just going to talk about us as a county and so we have um across the top

the three fiscal years for comparison purposes and then our millage rates are listed. And so that last column is where we are today 92.6 total millage for just our county. And then our county auditor will provide us with will calculate and then certify the value of what one mill will bring in. And so for today one mill brings in that number at the bottom of the slide. $599,000 976. And so our Susette and Dawn will do this exercise again and we'll get an updated number of what one mill generates. So you do the mathematics, 1 mil, 599 times 76.5, you're in the neighborhood of $44 million. And so this particular Oops, got ahead of myself. Here is the um that p picture of the county mill and you can see from 2016 to 2025 what is happening with that millillage and then you can see that drop from 24 to 25 and what is that representing? Last year at this time we were doing that roll back calculation exercise. So when we apply that formula that resulted in the decrease and we do the roll back calculation in a year where we are reassessing real property and the value of real property. Can

you repeat that? Sure. So am I walking into something now? No, I just want to hear it again just for those in the back.

Okay. Um so for this particular line graphic you can see the decrease from 2024 to 2025 for the mill for Lancaster County. That decrease represents the exercise that we did last year of performing the roll back calculation. We do that in a year where we reassess real property. And so that's reflected here. And so as we're pulling together all of the information that you received on the 1st and also on the 15th, what does that total look like of all these requests? And so that's the 237.3 million number. Okay. So, of everything that you've seen, it's unwashed, unfiltered. Mr. Willis received it in early March. You're receiving it now in April. We're all on the same page. So, on July 1, 2025, you adopted an original budget of 160.1 million all funds. Okay. So, then we do the math. We have that increase of 77.1 million. and it's a 48% increase this request over what you adopted July 1, 2025. So if we're going to peel back the onion and of course this is unwashed. Okay everybody? So let's peel back the onion and we want to see okay what's in this 237 million number. Okay, we want to look at those expenditure types, common expenditure types that you're familiar with, personnel, operating capital,

where are the numbers falling? And so this slide represents just that. And so you can see in that request increase column and the 77.1, you've got that increase really living in your operating budget. And so that shouldn't surprise you given what you've heard the last two workshops. You also see for debt service there's a dramatic decrease there. This is good news. We're paying off our debt, our existing debt, our principal and interest payments. So that's going down which also tells us you do have some capacity to borrow. Okay. So now we're going to take another cut of the picture. And let's see. Okay. The Yes, sir.

Are you going with it? Yeah, I'm going I'm at slide You're there. Yeah, same page. Um the 15 million in capital increase. I thought it looked like there was more that was requested in capital than just that across the board. So what's was trolling me is a couple of times in presentations and the the easiest one I can think of is the the fleet one where he was he had he was talking about operations but it was basically to reconrete the floor and it was in operations but to me that would be a a a capital expense and there was a number of times where I'm thinking it's capital but it's in operations. So can you just talk about

I could I could talk to that because I think what you're finding live is and if I may say it is a deficiency of smart fusion and how we're defining capital. Okay. We think I hope that when we implement ERP, there's a capital planning function in ERP that would better be able to far it out what's truly capital and what's truly operating so we're not having to try and peel apart this onion. So, it isn't it is a it is a deficiency in So, that that operating's got a lot of capital in it. Yeah, it does.

Can we take it out and put it where it needs to go? That's it's got to be a manual that you all have to do back because you would be peeling out and I don't know if Sabrina wants me to go down this level of detail this rabbit hole. Okay, but honestly you're peeling out the it's the way we define a special project and a special project in our general ledger is categorized as operating. And so within special projects, someone like Brian's building is sitting in there, right? So could we get a subcategory of operating that shows special projects because that would tell us that that that's capital.

I think if I may, Mr. Graham, Mr. Steller, that when you hear Josiah present the capital improvement plan, you'll be able to see what's pure capital. Okay. So, and maybe not the perfect answer, but I think you'll get a better idea of what it is when you see him present later today. I remember the fire was only was 10 million just on their buildings.

Okay. So, stepping away briefly from Capitol and rolling into the personnel requests tonight, you received an updated document from um Mr. Willis. And so, but this is the original of what was requested. So, we're working the M we're working to layer in Mr. Willis's um column. So, you'll see the original, then you'll see what's recommended. But here, what you're seeing is each department is listed. You're going to then see whether or not this is a full or a part-time request. You'll see the position title and then you'll see the total amount for the position. So that everything to bring on this position uh salary, benefits, equipment, technology is sometimes a vehicle is in that number. And so I'll let you lay your eyes on these and Mr. Willis is doing the exercise of of pairing this back. Now, when you're thinking about, okay, where's the majority of these personnel requests, it should not surprise you, EMS, right? You've had a lot of presentations from EMS and fire around how they what their vision is and to revision how we administer fire and EMS in this community. And so, these positions are reflecting that. Of course, all of our colleagues have touched upon these position requests in their individual presentations. Indian Land Consolidated Fire, don't forget these positions live in the Indian Land Consolidated Fire District fund. That's a fully self-supporting fund. And then, of course, Lancaster Fire. you heard from Chief Nicholson

and then Sheriff you heard from as well tonight. And sheriff does a great job with telling us ahead of time, hey, this is a position that's grant funded. The grant is going to be ending in the upcoming fiscal year. I I don't want to discontinue the service or program I'm offering. I'd like to bring this position on with using local dollars. So, he's done a great job uh putting the flag up and letting us know so we don't have a break in services and then parks and recreation and then of course you see the bottom line. So the of the original request of what came in the door 91 to the tune of the total position of 9.9 and then the next layer that is will be what Mr. Willis has paired back. So you can almost envision that column going next to that amount and what Willis is recommending new personnel requests. Okay. So now we're we do fund accounting here as you know. So we're going to peel back and just look at the general fund. We pick out the general fund because this is where the majority of your personnel are. This is where you do the majority of business. And so of that 237 million, 165.1 million is requests for the general fund. And if you remember what you adopted, and you could go back to your original ordinance for this current year and see that 102.9 million was adopted original budget for FY26. So this request is a 62.1 million increase. just the general fund. So, if you could

get your brain just we're talking about the general fund. Okay, same rhetoric. Let's peel back the onion and see what's in this 165. We're going to see how it goes over personnel and our expenditure lines. The same problem is going to happen here, Mr. Louise with um how in the general ledger we're defining things account lines, but this particular request budget is really going to be capital and operating services. And so a lot of your brain power is going to be around capital and operating whereas last year a lot of your brain power was around personnel. Excuse me. Each department now is listed. So, we're gonna look at the cake. We're going to cut the cake a different way and talk about, okay, we know what the increase is. Where does it live in terms of the department? And so, each department's listed, what their budget was adopted. Sometimes you are going to see decreases because our colleagues have done a good job of looking at their budget and decreasing where appropriate. you'll see the request and then the percent change. So, I'm just going to lift up and call out a few that are major. Clerk of court, you see that 215,000 decrease. That's a capital project. We Mike Watkins is working hard with um upgrading audio visual in his courtrooms. And so, that we're taking out. The upgrades complete. The capital's been purchased. And so that's where you're seeing that 28% decrease. Detention center. A lot of what's there for detention center in that 2.5 you

heard from sheriff already. I will mimic that. That is his personnel, his corrections officers. He's got some nonsworn folks there. He's got the need for 247 medical care. And then we also have to pay attention to the DJJ, Department of Juvenile Justice contract, and the daily rate. I'm sorry, I'm I'm just going back to county council. So, there's a $433,000 increase for that one.

Yes, sir. That's a great question. So, in there, um, and this is up to you all. It is bringing up your part-time employees. There's a pay increase in there for part-time employees. And so that is what's being reflected mostly there in the 433. And we can certainly talk more about um and talk with Mr. Willis around the pay increase for um for council. Also what is in there sir is that RAI match. So you match grants when you do a match that local grant match is in there as well. And so that's Jeff as well showing up there and moving forward uh with and I spoke to detention center economic development. You already heard from Brian and Amy. That's the building is that major increase. And he's also done a good job, Brian, with redefining the scope of that project and providing us with a new cost. And there it is. the 34 million for Lancaster County firefighters is carrying that increased load and that's for two capital projects that our um Mr. Player had submitted in early March for the training center and for the Riverchase fire station. So that's where you're seeing that pop up. EMS, you've heard from EMS and there is a, you know, there's a vision, a

revisioning, reimagining of how to administer EMS services. And so that's representing the positions and the equipment associated with uh with um Clayton's work. the landfill solid waste. You heard from Jeffrey. That decrease is just moving the part-time employees out of the landfill solid waste department and adding that amount to solid waste collections. So, it's not actually going away there. It's just being moved, relocated. 3 million you heard from Shannon Ko tonight. And so the majority of that number is the development services building that was back in 2021 planned for a hard start in FY27 to bring everybody together under one roof. Public safety communications. Mr. Perer has some major capital requests. Uh one-time C equipment capitalized purchases that's showing up in the 2.8. and eight solid waste collections. There you are. We're pushing part-time employees into the solid waste collections department in addition to tipping town of Kershaw. Mr. Willis touched upon this and right now a town of Kershaw fire that's a 50/50 uh deal that was negotiated for three positions and some uh operating costs. So this year what we've proposed is twothirds one-third and for those three positions we would take on twothirds of the cost for the town of Kershaw whereas the town of Kershaw would take on a third based on call volume and then there's the breakdown the total

165.1 million for the general fund requested and I touched on this but these are just major major um items projects that are pushing that number up to the 77.1. And so you're really seeing this being a lot of your capital projects that are being pulled out to show you what's driving that increase. So you have your department listed, the specific project, and then the amount I do want to touch on parks and wreck and the Walnut Creek soccer fields. This particular project is a capital project sales tax 3 project approved by the voters. So that particular project could potentially have two funding sources. We know one is capital project sales tax 3 and we know the second could be the general fund if you decide to fund the difference. So Chris is quoting this project at over 2 million. Capital project sales tax 3 will support part of the 2 million request. 1.1 million is unfunded in the general fund in Christopher's special projects account line. ERP. That's very important to us and the way that we do business. It is a multi-year contract. It will dramatically shift how we report out and also shift. It'll be a cultural shift for all of us. Sheriff's department. Our sheriff already spoke to uh what's driving his request. The coroner's office expansion. You did hear from our Carla on the first and

that $850,000. Uh that project as you know is an ARPA project, but to finish the project out, we would ask for a reserves appropriation. And then you heard from Jeffrey earlier about solid waste and tipping and ton uh tonnage increases for the disposal contract. So those are those major requests that are driving the bottom line up for FY27. And so this picture is um and this is a great layout if you want to call it a menu of things. So the range you could you could theoretically fund the entire request, right? You could or you could begin to peel apart and pick the items that you're choosing to fund. So what we would ask is that on the low end to do 2.4 4 million over what's been adopted because the 2.4 million would represent the utility costs and just keeping the lights on and then funding us to ERP. So on the low end, you could do 2.4 million. But then it when you start to move along that range and you want to take care of employees, what does that cola increase or a cost of living adjustment look like? Right now it's 1.1 where you have um staff except for the sheriff's office getting a 2% increase which is based on what the state is proposing and the sheriff's office doing the six. If you did all 91 positions as is, that would be 9.9 million personnel and operating expenses. Or you could dig into the non-personnel requests and really peel back on, okay, what are we doing with capital?

Again, isn't it fair to say that the 49 and a half isn't most of that capital? Yes. Non-personnel. Wouldn't really consider that in the general fund. We would consider well you are funding a lot of projects in the general fund sir. So the thing being that you don't you don't have a capital reserve fund that's generating its own millillage. So one option is to fund it in the general fund using a millillage or you could borrow. Well no I mean we have we have money and I mean or reserves. We have we have reserves that we need to use at one time cost. You have the one-time costs that would hit, but then you would also plan for the recurring.

I mean, but most of these are one-time costs. I mean, they're I mean, it looks like we don't have 49 million to get rid of. No, no, no. I'm not I'm not I'm not suggesting that. I'm trying to peel back to what our general fund in impact actually would look like. And I'm having trouble because there's so much capital one time expense in there. That's what's throwing me off. Sorry. Yes, sir. You move off one thing.

The fire apparatus, y'all recently, you know, told the fire commission we're going. They're working on that. They wanted to, you know, take one last look at the list, work with procurement to get some pricing. That is not in here. the fire service training center is. I hadn't heard any discussion about that. So, I'm presuming that's probably not moving any this year. But,

you know, I think uh what what Stuart is um I'm hoping he's going in the same direction I'm going in is that we need those costs separated. We know, you know, whether it's a special project, a one time uh uh uh one time uh um what word I'm looking recurring costs. Uh we need those numbers separated out because it's it's confusing us as to how much we have in general fund, how much we have in special projects, how much we have in one time uh return, how much can we pull out of that general fund to cover some of those other things. So, I think that's what I'm looking for

to to me at this point, we've we've heard all the everybody's request and before we go any further, I need a recommended budget so I can cuz I think I'm just going around and around in circles until we see real see what recommendations are and go from there. coming. We can cuz you know this is not we we all know this is not realistic. That's the next step, right? Yeah.

The next step is you know you've asked for the requests and to hear from everybody. So we've done that. You've heard from everybody. Mr. Willis has heard from everybody. So it's unscruped. It is what it is. Your next step is to get a balanced recommended budget as produced by you know finance budget with Mr. Willis to react to no the revenue the bottom line on our revenue do we I would like I'd like some info on revenue in this point because we can't do anything until we understand what our revenue is. I'm going to I'm going to cut short where I think everyone is gone. Let me finish just cuz you g you going to mess me up

and you wanted to know some of the things that we wanted and I know we can't can't balance those expenses until we understand the the revenue part. But I can say that some of the recommendations Steve made of 100%. Some of the recommendations some of the department heads made I'm in support but we got to balance that budget. But I do want to see, and I think we talked about this at our retreat, I want to see some of our employees are not at a liveable wage. That concerns me when we expect that they can live off $15 an hour and raise a family in this economy. That's not even reasonably reasonable thinking. So, I want us to also look at that. So, I'm I'm finished. You can go ahead. I I was just going to say I I think what we're all getting at is I don't know if it's useful to continue going down this presentation just because the information is all mashed together. It's not really helpful to be reviewing it. At least for me, it's just numbers and then considering what Mr. Harper just said, we still haven't even got what the suggested or recommended budget is going to look. So it I I just I appreciate it. I know what you all were doing, but I just don't think it's worth the effort to to go through it right now.

Sounds like I need to spend some quality time with finance. Let's go through Yes. I think the capital and and the revenue y'all back. I think if we sharpen

Yeah. I I will say this is this is the first stage of the budget development process. It's it's it's the literal request of what departments are asking for. Yeah. The next step is to start to pair it down. There are no funding sources assigned to anything that's in that 49.5 million as a part of the um administrator's recommended when we come back to make the recommendation with that balanced budget because right now it would be balanced like if we said today this is what we want to go with. The next decision would be well how are we going to pay for it? And there's a combination of things that we could do um including u millillage borrowing um you know in the fire service areas if we opt to go that route a potential adjustment to rooftop fees and things of that nature. And so we haven't gotten that far in the process yet. This one we would have gone over on the first um night that we listen to departmental budgets but we ran out of time. So we were circling back to this. The next conversation will be Josiah will come through and talk about um CIP and then immediately following that is um revenue. And so if we continue on today, the last thing we'll talk about is revenue.

Listen, because one of my quirks I always hated back when I was just an employee 40 some odd years ago. Council never saw the whole picture. And I've always tried to make sure y'all see everything that the departments have asked for. Yeah. In case and and uh I recommend something y'all don't agree with. You can put it back in. You can cut something out. It's when we see that revenue compared to the expenses, we will have a conversation about what we will fund and what we can't fund. And I think the priority list will come, the list will come from Steve and then we will come up with our priorities and we'll trim it some more until we get to a balanced budget.

Right. That's exactly right. This is really just a snapshot of total request. That's it. Nothing more. All right. All right. Jamie, what else you got? Or do you want me to keep going or is it I would love just to see the revenue snapshot. the revenue is the one I'm saying this presentation I think that's on

through this and I think it's great information but I will I don't want to put y'all to to any more work but next year this book here is wonderful but if let's say we've got the carer's office we want that breakdown of the carer's office right behind it where you got the breakdown and and all of this because I kept flipping back and forth to let us know each position, why they're asking, what, you know, they're asking it for, the supplies, the fringe, all of that. I went through all of that, but I would love for it to be right right after the uh whatever the department is.

I I want to thank finance for doing the line item budget that I'm using. Wonderful. But we just helped tremendously for it. Yeah, it we can come up with a Yeah, I I'll talk to you about it. But I was flipping and he was flipping. You know, he was trying to keep me straight. And I will tell you a part of the challenge on our part, definitely not an excuse, but it's a challenge, is that if you want it the way you're asking for it, we will have to manipulate it manually. That is the only option. And so that's where we started time because I know Yeah. this year we've already gone through it. Yeah. Okay. I think the capital improvement plan.

Do you want to divert to that presentation? Okay. That would be my recommendation. I'll let skip to the revenue piece. I mean, how late are we going to stay, I guess, is what I'm saying. How how long how long do you have for the capital plan? Jazai, I'm good with that. That will be him. All right, let's move into the capital improvement plan. Good afternoon everybody. I will endeavor to be brief.

Okay, we're just going to briefly recap the capital planning timeline as well as uh listing all approved and new capital requests for the 2026 2027 fiscal year. Uh just a reminder, no action is requested at this time and it will serve for information only. So brief recap. As a government, one way we foster a thriving community is to build and maintain infrastructure to deliver public services and support residents. As a part of this process, residents, county staff, and other boards and agencies assist the county council in identifying problems and needs related to infrastructure. County council then identifies priorities, in this case capital project needs, sets the agenda or selects projects as priority, and appropriates funding for the project. County staff implements and manages the project through its life cycle, manages the dollars, and reports out on all project statuses. The main instrument county council can use in this effort is the capital improvement plan. It is important to understand however that it is only a plan and so council is not committed to the funding sources and amounts as identified in the CIP. However, there are future operating budget implications when a project or piece of equipment is completed or purchased such as utilities maintenance and costs. The CIP is amended each year as part of the annual operating budget development process and the revised CIP ordinance was adopted um for this year in June of 2025. There are variety of ways to fund capital investments. These include borrowing through a general obligation bond or other similar instrument, taxes, fees through a millage rate or impact fee, and the appropriation of cash savings. Projects are heavy equipment with $100,000 or greater in value and a useful life of more than one year are consider considered eligible for identification and possible inclusion in the CIP. Again, funding for these projects can come from multiple sources such as a special revenue tax, millage, impact fees, fund balance, or the use of borrowing.

The CIP process begins with department directors, council members, and others reviewing existing projects and evaluating the future capital needs of the community. Departments then submit capital project requests, which are then reviewed and compiled by finance staff. These requests are also evaluated for likely one-time and recurring cost requirements by support departments such as IT, fleet maintenance, and building maintenance staff. Separately, the planning commission and county administrator review and rank by priority all capital project requests for the upcoming fiscal year. New for this fiscal year, the planning commission may now also suggest projects for inclusion on their ranked list. These rankings are then provided to county council before the first reading of the budget ordinance. County Council then in similar fashion evaluates these priority lists and considers them in the process of identifying new capital projects for inclusion on the 10-year CIP as well as identifying those projects by adopting the CIP ordinance to select projects to receive funding for the next fiscal year. County Council adopts capital appropriations as part of the operating budget. Again, no financial commitment is made for 10-year CIP projects until they are funded through the operating budget. Funding sources are likewise identified at that stage. Finally, capital projects are carried out with county staff and others managing and monitoring their progress. So this year we have 41 total capital improvement plan projects for review in this budget budget cycle with 26 approved projects scheduled for funding in the 2026 2027 fiscal year. These include projects that are already in progress whose funding must be reappropriated each year as part of the operating budget ordinance. 15 new projects are also listed for funding consideration in FY27. All right, I'm going to click through these slides and just understand that these are reflected updated cost

estimates um as compared to those that were already on the 10-year CIP uh document. If you have any specific questions about um projects, I'll do my best with to give you answers or I will follow up with the project manager or planning. So on this first slide, we can see our third year ERP um as well as uh other projects like replacing two ambulances for EMS. Please stop me if you have any questions. We have EMS stations three and six. Um we see apparatus both uh countywide and for new stations. Those are from the 10-year CIP uh document. Uh those are again echoing what Mr. Willis says those are not the ones that are um we were in discussion about earlier. We also have the Walnut Creek soccer fields um and the regional park is on here simply for the appropriation of the impact fee money that we have to do this year. You also see the Arowwood project and patrol vehicle replacements and road paving new requests for this year. Um these are the ones that you've heard from our department directors and I'll click through these as well. Um the public safety dispatch and records management as well as the fire service county training Fire Service County Training Center um and then also the Riverchase Development Agreement Station. Two projects that might um catch your attention here are the planning commission ones. Again, that's new this year. They were um allowed to um suggest their own projects for consideration for

their ranking exercise as well. I've included them here.

Okay. Our next steps in this process are to I'm going to go and present these projects to the planning commission on the uh April 21st meeting. Uh commissioners are then going to rank the projects into a priority list which then will be presented uh along with the interim county administrators list as part of the presentation of the administrator's recommended budget on May 6th. You can see the 41 project funding request. Any questions? There a lot of stuff in here I don't agree with. Which is going to have to be whittleled down some. I'm not going to support some of this. Yep. Thank you.

All right. We'll move on into the re uh review of revenue. Okay, we should have a presentation there. Thank you, Sher. So this is going to be a continuation of the initial conversation in January on revenue or February rather when we approach you with this topic at your retreat. So we're going to go through collections for revenue from July 1, 2025 through March 30th, 2026. We do continuous monitoring monthly. We'll talk about forecasting and then some of the economic influences that will be driving uh revenue. So this is all funds and you can see you have a line a column chart here that's giving you actuals revenue for all funds over the last three years. And then you see that last column is from July 1 to end of month March what we've collected in revenue. And of course the general fund is going to be that fund that's going to collect the majority of the revenue. So we'll talk just exclusively about the general fund and these slides you should be familiar with. we've pulled. Now, there are a variety of revenue sources within the general fund, but these are the major revenue sources that are pulling in that 81 what is it that 81 the 81.4 million in collections. These are the major revenue sources that are pulling in that number.

Of course, adorum is very important to us. So, you have the revenue source listed and a description of And these charts are going to line graph each major revenue source within the general fund. And so you'll see at the bottom that footnote there will tell you what the actual collection is for Adalorum. And so as of March 31st, 2026, we've collected 37.7 million. We've budgeted, as you can see, the 38.5. And that's good news because our treasur collects 98% of um of the budget. And

when you're looking at these numbers, um, what would be helpful for me is to show not just what the actuals are, but kind of a forecasted for the remainder of the year as well, so that you can get an idea of like are we on track at obviously this one we're going to hit, but where and how much more do we think we're going to we're going to go over from the budgeted. Yeah. Based off of like the percentage of what the trend lines look like. Okay, third question. I do have a question about the the Trenton line and the estimate for FY27.

Just walk me through why that's a pretty flat number.

This is when we talk about properties that get on to the tax rules. when are they actually hitting the tax role where we can realize the dollars? So Brad, our assessor will have okay, this is what we've assessed. It's going to come on to the tax roles maybe in calendar year 2027, 2028. So that's why we're conservatively projecting for 27, but then you see the uptick in uh fiscal year 28 29 to get because now we've got this new property that we can tax.

So I get that I get that. But every year the the property we we received, you know, 21, 22, 23, we're going up 23 million. So, I was just I was just wondering why in 26 to 27 we're were flat and then the next years were going up $3 million. In in particular with that, what I'm looking at is Costco Target and all those opened in October of 2025. Is that correct? Yes. And I agree being conservative. I just But I do want to see I mean I'm very interested in a real number.

Okay. So what I was so what I was saying so when you go 2025 and then you look at 2026 those taxes wouldn't have been implicated in 2026 but they certainly are going to impact 2027. So I would think that that increase would be fairly substantial going into 2027.

When you're looking at that actual that 37.7 at the bottom is a real number of what we've collected. So, it's not at the 38.5, which is what we budgeted for, but it is 98% collected. And so, we now know that we've collected and we're moving on to collecting delinquent taxes. So, we can be pretty sure this may go up a little bit for the last quarter, but it's a pretty but it's pretty fixed in time for this revenue source for I completely agree for 26. I'm just saying in 27 it I wouldn't I would not expect that number to be flat.

I I think part of the the issue is the reassessment supposed to be revenue neutral. I don't think we were figured the 3% growth in the county part of the reassessment did we actually less and it should have been 3% more. And and that's what I was saying. I think when the valuation comes in for all those new properties that were built but weren't included as part of the valuation for the numbers in 2026 now will have completed a full year so it will be valued for 2027. Right. I mean

yeah. So I think I think those numbers once we start looking a little more I think they're probably going to be I I would assume significantly higher. Yeah. Are we ready to move forward or

so for the personal property tax? This is a um what we're looking at with vehicles and we're looking at how many vehicles are registered. We're looking at how many vehicles you know we're billing and so there is um you know a 7 to 8% growth here and we are and you can look at the bottom and see what has actually been collected which is 4.2 million. So we do expect that number to increase and so we are looking at estimating 5.8 8 million as a potential budget for FY27. Building permits is sporadic as you can see. So, uh, you know, we do, um, we do we've talked to each other as a group. uh Brad KS with Carrie, Susette, Darren is all influencing these projections. So with building permits, Darren has laid his eyes on this particular number. And so thus far from July 1 to March 31st, we've collected in building permit revenue 3.7. We are estimating that a budget could be around 4.5 million and we could potentially have some wiggle room there as well and we know we're in the middle of a residential moratorum. So commercial would be carrying this. Interest rates is another major revenue source within the general fund. And so when we first discussed interest income on idle cash, the um interest rate for

our accounts with the local government investment pool was 4%. We know that interest rate has dropped to 3.8 for March. So we bring in roughly 188,000 low 200s in interest monthly. And so that would be an estimate budget of 3.8 8 million for FY27 road improvement fee. This should mimic the uh personal property tax uh projection and the line. Uh Jeffrey is not requesting an increase to the fee of $40 and that's noted at the bottom of the slide. What we've collected to date is a little over three million for the road improvement fee. And so we're estimating a little over four million 78 increase. So I'm I'm sorry. You said the road improvement fee should mimic the personal but the trend lines don't exactly look the same.

So there's a So you're going to see a slight uptick from 26 to 27. Yeah. But I'm saying across the board when you're looking if you're looking at the trend lines over the years for the person, it had a a greater upswing from 24 to 25 than the road improvement did from 24 to 25.

And that could reflect how many I mean we have a lot of with our methodology. We use the number of vehicles that are registered. we use how many bills. So, um I can certainly go back and speak with the auditor's office on what could have been happening that year, but we are we do know that we have more cars that are being registered here. So, we would overall see an increase on this particular revenue source and the use of our roads. uh the ambulance charge. Uh this is something Clay Ko has laid his eyes on. Um it does vary. It depends on the user of the service. And so um right as of March 31st, uh we have a 2.9 million collected for ambulance charges. Uh we do anticipate that we would catch up here um after talking with Clay so that we would get closer to what we've budgeted for this year at 3.9. But we do also know that this is driven from um reimbursement rates from the user's health insurance paying for the service. the health insurance paying for the user of the service.

So now we can shift away from the general fund and move towards special revenue funds. And what does revenue collections look like for your appropriated special revenue funds? And so each fund is listed. You've got what was adopted. You've got your collections from July 1 through March 31st and then the variance and then the percent collected of the budget. I'll lift up just a few. That capital improvement fund has its own millillage and that's where you're doing your major capital replacements such as that the things that move the assets that move ambulances uh your um deputy vehicles are in the capital improvement fund for the capital project sales tax we get roughly 4.8 8 4.9 quarterly in a rears for the capital project sales tax. So we're about halfway collected. the impact fees. You can see CTC were not Jeff doesn't anticipate receiving as much revenue as we had planned from the state C program, the SC DOT program. Courtmandated Security has its own millillage and it's self-supporting. Sheriff manages this particular fund. The DSS special revenue fund. You just created this fund in February. So we're tracking revenue there. Hospitality tax. Currently we're using those revenue collections to retire debt for the regional park. Indian land consolidated fire. That's

really self-supporting as well with its rooftop fees. The local and state accommodations tax we'll talk about in a moment because you will um designate an agency to get that money as part of the operating budget process. State aid to libraries. There was um some um the SCAC says there may be an increase here for state aid to libraries. storm water, those fees, that is a fully self-supporting fund as well. Van WAC, um you see that increase there in collections and that's as a result of increasing the rooftop fee this time last year. And so what is driving or you know to that question of okay, where are we with revenue and now we know how much has been requested. What do we need to start thinking about? while we're developing that budget, that recommended budget. And so this is just this is a summary slide of what to consider knowing, you know, where we are with revenue and what we've collected and knowing what has been asked for. Similarly with operations which includes capital, you know what has been asked for. We know that number and now let's start to look at our revenue and what we've collected thus far. And so trying to tie this all together. We are um we know about inflation. I believe Steve sent us an article related to inflation. And so the cost of goods and services

for individuals and families is going up. the cost of local government is going up and you can see that with the requests. Uh the state provides us with a growth factor component the 2.63 and we get that in February. Similarly, population is growing and we just got a memo with our new population count. It is 2.69% increased over our last census count. So, you've got population growing, you've got inflation going up, you know what your revenue picture looks like at a at a glance, and you know what that request is. The good news is that we we are fiscally responsible in the sense of having healthy reserves as an option to fund some of these requests. you do have some debt capacity because you're retiring your existing debt. So that's creating more capacity to borrow. That's a viable option for funding some of these requests. And so our next steps to sort of summarize, bring it all together from your two presentations on the 1st and the 15th is, you know, where are we in our lanes? So our role as staff would be to return to you with a balanced recommended budget and but where we would work collaboratively with you is what is that direction? You see the body of requests are in front of you. Where do we go from here? What is that? What is our revenue strategy? The source we and how do we move forward? And so the next conversation is,

excuse me, is on May 6th where you will receive the recommended budget request that ties some of this initial work together. Then you will in miday have the conversation on the recommended budget. And so that's a cow session that's 100% dedicated to okay, we've seen the requests and now we've seen the recommendation. What's next? And then we begin to roll out with the three readings in May and June to get your adopted budget for 27 um in late June. And so that's the lay of the land from where we go from here. If

I could please ask council, give us your feedback over the next week or two on things you like, things you don't like, so that we can try to craft something so you're not having to make massive changes when we bring you a recommended budget. We'll have something pretty close. It's not going to be perfect, but fairly close to what council wants to see.

Can I ask one question? I want to get some clarity on. So, with reassessment, that's revenue neutral. Uh, but we are allowed for like a 3% growth in our projected tax revenue. Did we actually take that or were we actually less than our 2025 collection? You know, we do you understand what I'm trying to ask? Did we did Did we Are we getting additional uh revenue uh property tax revenue? I think I understand what you're saying and and

I don't think the best way I would describe it is that for for operations the millillage what the taxpayer the individual taxpayers saw they saw a couple of dollars decrease. Yeah. You know it wasn't perfect. It wasn't like dollar for dollar like if you paid $100 to the county operations you you were paying like $98. Did did we initially so we were it was a slight decrease. I think the billing was like it was decrease of like $150,000

total. So every every property owner residential wise I can speak to that saw a slight decrease in county operations dollars coming out. So that would have been on all new ones too. So it would Okay. Anything else? I need a motion for an adjournment. So moved. Ajourn. Thank you all.