County Council - Special Meeting

Good afternoon.

Yeah, there we go. It's off. Good afternoon. I'd like to call this meeting of the Langster County Council to order. I ask that the clerk note for the record that a quorum of council is present. that public notice of the meeting, including the meeting agenda, has been posted the required length of time in the lobby of the county administration building and on the county website and that the news media was notified of the meeting time and place. I welcome you to your county council meeting. I would ask that you take a moment to turn off or place on vibrate any cell phones. Thank you for not wearing any hats or caps in the council chambers. and please be considerate of others in the room by refraining from conversations during the meeting. I ask that you please stand and join council in the pledge of allegiance uh followed by the invitation given this afternoon by council member Billy Mella. 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. Dear father in heaven, thank you for this beautiful day today. Lord, uh be with us today as we go through our county budget and our county business. give us wisdom and guidance through the whole step. Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? Have a motion from Miss McGriff. We have a second. Second.

Second from Mr. Graham. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it is unanimous. Okay. Uh, we did not have anyone sign up for citizens comments, so we're going to go right on into our discussion and action item. Uh, item 6A, scaled down scope of work for the fleet IT facility. Mr. Willis and Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, members of council, while Tim's coming up, um, want to thank just want to say I think you'll be pleased with some of the results. do want to commend Stephanie, Tim, Brandon, and Scott for their work on this. It was certainly a joint work, wasn't anything I pulled off really. Um, want to give credit where credit is due. Um, but um have skimmed down and Tim will cover this. I think a big part is going to the uh design build type method with somebody that's familiar with the Lancaster market, Lancaster County. But Tim,

Lauren, are you moving the slides there? Okay, thank you council and uh good to be back with you. If you remember back on March 23rd, we presented a budget to you for renovating the the Burns building to house it and fleet maintenance. And that's what you see on the screen in front of you. Uh so I won't spend any time on that. So if we can move to the next slide and that's that's the floor p plan that the architect came up with and that budget was based on the estimate that the architect prepared uh for these concept plans. Uh next slide. So what what we did is we met with one of our local on call contractors who reviewed the the estimate prepared by the architect and we went through line by line identifying things that could be cut from the budget. And so that's what you see on the screen in front of you. And I'm sorry the the columns don't line up correctly. Uh must have been in the translation to the new document. But anyway, see the list there. the landscape allowances, removing sidewalk, and I won't read all these, but uh you know, epoxing epoxying the surface bay floors, repainting some of the building, uh some wall demolition, exterior signage, uh the we took out the furniture budget line item for this, but I'll explain a little bit on that in in the next slides. Took out the back the uh backup generator and reduced the contingency. So what remains is what you see in front of you. That's that's from line items from the architect's uh estimate. Uh so those those items um are the ones thing items that we're keeping in the budget. Uh I won't read through those specifically, but but those are the items that are from the architect's estimate. Uh next slide there. Uh the furniture, fixtures, and equipment. Uh when we had the contractor

look at the estimate, he thought the $60,000 for his furniture was too low. So we bumped that number up to 160,000. Next slide. And then this is the floor layout for the IT department that he came up with um with discussions with Scott and the IT folks. So uh anyhow that that comes to the next slide which is the proposed new estimate that we came up with. It trimmed about 100 just lower than a million dollars off the construction budget. Kept the line items that you saw in there before the pole barn. Uh the g geotechnical work and the slab rework that we previously did. The architect's fees are lowered. Of course, if you do do design build, there's still architect fees associated with that. And then there's the number for the furniture fixtures and equipment, 160,000. So that total 2.1 million. And then we reduced the contingency down to about 6.7% that's the 150,000. So say 2.3 million for the work that we kept in there. Uh next slide. So you see there the t the three different numbers. Original estimate 3.4 four, we revised it to come down to 2.3 and then if you take out the pole barn, that gets us down to about $1.6 million.

There any questions? You went through that mighty quick order here. I'm trying to keep up with you. And u the back on the first page or I don't know if it's on your first page or not, but it's on my first page. Uh the data low voltage. What is this for? Is this for the uh IT department? Yes, that's the IT that's the number that Scott put in for IT upgrades for the building, but with the new estimate, he reduced that number down to 100,000. And I think he's going to do some of that work through his through his current budget.

Okay. And let's see if I had any more questions. Anybody else? While I'm still looking, y'all got any questions on anything? Anybody else have any questions or comments? Yes, sir. Mr. Willis,

um, one thing I would note that, yeah, this is just the old public safety guy here. disagree with. We're gonna have to fund at some point in the future is getting an emergency generator for that building because it is, you know, it is an office space, but that's fleet operations and fleet maintenance. And in the event of inclement weather, you know, if we lose power up there, that's where your heavy equipment's coming to be serviced. Um, emergency vehicles, we're going to have to do that in the future. Uh in the original line item going back to the I believe it's the third slide there, Lauren. Uh the backup generator we had we had at $30,000.

Is there currently a backup generator there? No. Yeah. I think that's a necessity that we we've got to have. I don't know if others agree, but you know, the last thing we need is people sitting up there in the dark twiddling their thumbs and not working when when we need them to be working.

That that's my thing. If like I said, if the sheriff brings patrol cars in or if it's heavy equipment out there, you know, whatever, Brandon's got to be able to work on it. If it doesn't have power, he can't work on it. But other than that, I I certainly want to commend the staff. I think they did an outstanding job sharpening their pencils, taking a second look, what's really critical. Um, can't say enough good things about them. And I mean, if we add that back in, you know, if fingers crossed we have a a good construction and everything going, we got enough in contingency to more than cover that. Uh, as long as we don't hit a snag along the way.

We we did do some estimates for generators to put in at Springdale and Indian Land Rec Centers, and that number was a lot higher than $30,000. Uh, but I don't I don't know that we need I don't know what size we exactly need for the Burns billing, but certainly we can investigate that. Yeah, let's let's investigate that so we know the cost on it. Is there any other comments? I do. Uh, go ahead, Mr. On this other stuff here, the uh interior doors. What is that for? Well, that was that the that was the original the original layout. You know, we're gonna keep the Burns offices as they were, trying to minimize the knock wall knockouts

and and the to and the restrooms are staying the same. Yes, the restrooms stay the same. Right. Thank you. We're not adding We're not adding new restrooms with this. Okay. What about the plumbing upgrades and stuff? They're not doing none of that either. Uh well, we didn't we hadn't gotten into the detail of the toilets. We'll make sure. We do want to make sure they're they're operating correctly. And if there's any codes that the the two issues that I discussed with the building department concern the firewall and the toilets that we do we have enough for the uh with to meet code.

Okay. Uh um okay. That just seems like a lot to spin on plumbing and a building that already exists that supposed to been in good shape for Yeah. Well, it's that stuff. So I can't estimate $50,000. Huh? The estimate was based on concept drawings. Just hadn't got into that detail yet. So it's possible that could that could change.

Okay. Cuz we don't we need to save all we can. Uh if something is fine, leave it alone. I don't I don't think we need to just because want to change it, change it. Uh, and the uh the HVA systems, you having the issues with that? I'm sorry, sir.

The HVA systems, HVAC systems, are the issues with that or something? As far as we know, they're operating correctly. But as as Brian will the same AC system operates both sides of the building, operates the the service bays and the showroom or what used to be the showroom. And so I think I think we're wanting to look at splitting that up. Wow. That was that was something that came from council about having the separate air handler systems on the vehicle maintenance side versus didn't come from us. Uh we we didn't bring it or Yeah, we we tal we we did talk about I know it was discussed but

I mean if you got a if you got a service base I mean that that you got to make sure you you got your temperature zone set up correctly otherwise you're going to be freezing in one side and yeah in the other side. I mean it's it's it's been a a shop and a dealership car sales on the other side and it's worked out all this time. I don't know why they a problem now. So I haven't noticed anything and I don't know Brandon noticed you Brandon you want anything you want to add to that we we didn't write we're writing a check a lot of stuff

the the AC systems all the offices run on three AC system the actual service bays they have their own but the problem is that building was built with zone AC control. Well, in the cabinet where the zone controls at, all that's been ripped out and tied together. So, the showroom thermostat runs the office um like in the waiting room and where the service writers sit is run off the thermostat in the showroom. Well, that showroom sailing so high, it'll be 72 in there and 60 in the other office because the zone controls are off. That's what needs to be addressed with the air condition. Okay. So, it's not the whole AC system is smart. They work. It smartest.

From what I can tell, they all of them work like they're supposed to, but the zones at some point were okay. At one point, one air conditioner on the roof didn't work. We got to looking into it. There was no thermostat hooked to it anymore to tell it to come on. Oh, okay. So, we got a we had the on call AC company. They come in and found that and we made that work. But there's a one cabinet and there's just all kinds of thermostat wires and some are loose, some are tied together. So that's basically what it needs. New thermostats and stuff like that. Zone control stuff. I don't know if something broke in it, but it had been disconnected before we bought it.

Okay, I understand. I appreciate it, Brandon. I mean, that just $60,000 jumped out. You know, if we need thermostats, that number should come down if that's all it needs. And and you know, we had perception builders do the do the look see at this this estimate. So we really hadn't gone into the detail of any of this. I mean that's that's just using the original architect's estimate. So, I think we need to relook at some of that stuff on some of these numbers that's in here, you know, and that's re, you know, re-evaluated. So, but I like the way you got the cost of everything down the design bill and stuff like that. That that saves a lot of money. So, I appreciate what y'all have done on that so far. So, Any other comments?

What is the next step for this? When what's the next step?

So, I just wanted to add um as u Mr. Green stated um uh Chad uh Catlage looked at what we had brought to you before and then looked at what could be be not done like moving walls um offices. We looked at you know essentially not taking down walls and things like that. So, this is going to be really up to council. Is the next step to actually look have him look at what we can do to salvage um maybe some of the the the plumbing and the the systems or are you all comfortable with moving forward um with the numbers because and he essentially looked at what we thought the costs were going to be, paired that down. We met with Brandon and um and Scott and looked at further reductions. So at this point it's either accepting um this estimate that we believe to be good or saying go back and actually look at more um you know drill down further and see what can be salvaged and then bringing um the estimate back to you.

Mr. Go ahead, Miss McGri. I think we're to the point now where we need to move forward, but the concerns is if we have a plumbing issue, what will it affect with the with the some of the uh upgrading that we're doing?

I don't want to speak for for Tim, but I think most of these numbers are the worst case scenario, but they also included the moving of walls and things like that. So, we know that we're going to have to address the HVAC system. Um but again, you know, we're not um experts and so I believe that Chad took a first pass and removed what he could and if it's the will of council, we can get back with him and ask him to look at more of the mechanical, the plumbing and that sort of thing and seeing or we can move forward. But I do think and and I think um Mr. Green can speak to this better. I think this is the worst case scenario

and and I I think it's it's good that we've got the worst case scenario. That means we may not have to do all that, but to keep going back and cutting and deciding on what we need when Chad has given us an idea of what we need. We just need to be cautious about the things that we're not doing. Will we have to do it down the road? Because if if we need to do plumbing, should we do it now or should we put it off? But kicking that can, we just need to make a decision, move forward and get that building where it needs to be.

Well, I think the the revised design um actually will accommodate it as well as Brandon. So, I don't think that I mean that we're essentially using the majority of the structure as is. Um, we know that we will make improvements to the bathrooms, the HVAC system, and again, outside of having um having the contractor do a deep dive into the um the mechanical systems, um I believe that these are are solid numbers and that we won't have a this is essentially the worst case scenario, but we all know the assignment to save systems where we can. So, so it's really going to be council's determination as to whether or not you accept the presentation as is today or direct us to go back and see if we can dig further.

Mr. Chair, as long we don't go over budget from what they're requesting here today. But Charlene, there's there's some stuff on there that that that's not right. I mean, you got $30,000 for toilet upgrades and and then uh 53,000 more for plumbing. They may not $100,000, but but if you if you pass it like it is, they're going to spend all of that in doing that. So, didn't you say that you're you giving the worst case scenario? You may ask for 30, but it may only be 20. That's what at least that's what I'm hearing.

With the time that we had, essentially, it was a higher level look at where we could do cost savings. And again, not to sound like a broken record, but um we can go back and have um the contractor look at all of those, but I think he he felt comfortable um with with the numbers and what we could Is this something are we are we going to have to bid this out or is this something that perception's going to do or I believe that our on call would do it. Um Tim can speak to that.

Tim and Rim submit. I mean, we we could go either way, but you with design build, you got to give the contractor a list of things to do. Um, so that's where I would lean to having our own call give us a proposal for it rather than bidding it out. But go either way. Okay. You said Mr. Neil's asked to make a comment. Go ahead. Two items I'd like to see us take a closer look at. That's the HVAC system and the plumbing. That would be the That would be the two that I'd like to see us dig a little deeper into. Is that one that's not in the budget right now? No, they're in there right now. They're in there, but they're asking to be removed and and I can agree with that.

These interior doors, you said those have been took out. You said something about you were going to use the existing doors that was in there. Use the existing offices. Uh okay. It's $48,000 for interior doors. What? Are are what is that for? If you going to reuse the door the offices that's there. You trying to take all the door? I haven't got into that detail yet. That was just the remaining line items that were from the architect's budget. I

I that I'm I can't support all this stuff here that that's from the original. I mean, it's if you're not going to change the doors, I I don't know why they $48,000 in here for that. And and I I can't I think this whole thing needs bringing back to us. That's my opinion with cleaned up a little bit cuz they just some outrageous numbers in there that I can't support saying just turn you loose on it to spend this. Uh if we need it, we need it, but if we don't, just take it out.

Sure. Well, will we know that uh before we get started or will we get started and find out that yes, we should have kept that in? I do agree with Brian on the fact that we need to include that plumbing piece, but I'm not an architect. I'm not a builder. So, I I leave it up to Chad. He's, you know, he's done a lot of work. If he said this is what we need, we go in, we do it. We may not use all the money. We give you a budget, but I'm not going to nitpick and decide on I I'm not that expert. Yeah.

I mean, Chad, he did go through the building several times. Uh once once with me and Brian, Brandon, and then uh and then he came back at least once more by himself. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Will.

If I could, Sounds like, you know, council may have some questions on particular items we could do. One of the things, and correct me if I'm wrong, Stephanie, we're going to have to go back and amend the budget to do this. So, that's going to take three readings of an ordinance. Yeah, we can be working on that and having the ordinance moving forward at the same time. And and my concern is the nice man sitting in the back corner back there that doesn't carry a gun most of the time, but does on occasion and everything, he's got to have a spot to put his real time crime center, which means we got to get it out of there. So do have a little bit of a time crunch, but I think we can get the answers that y'all are looking for as we go through the three readings of the ordinance to amend the budget. I agree with that.

Well, I mean, we got to go through the three readings ordinance and then you got to mobilize. So, we got we got time to to do this. I do think that we need to go ahead and do the pole barn while we're doing this. I mean, there's no use to break that out. We know what it's going to be used for. We don't really have the the space to do it currently. So, uh, I think we need to go ahead and leave that in there. That was another big question. Do you want, but it sounds like we want to do the poll. We'll bring back, you know, keep working on the questions that have been posed, but bring back a budget or, you know, to amend this because originally it was going to be voter registration. Obviously, things have changed significantly and bring that back to you.

All right. Is there any other comments? hearing. None. We'll move on to the next item. We're going to move on now to item 6B, discussions, uh discussion of administrators recommended budget. Uh Mr. Willis, Miss Harris, and Mr. Pvous.

Mr. Chairman, count while Jamie coming up. Just bring us here if needed. Um couple of just quick comments. Please keep in mind we're still working on the expense side of the budget. We do not have firm revenue numbers yet. We will by first reading, but you know that's that's one of the things you've got to make sure you have the proper data when you start talking about middle value loss local option sales tax credit factors. And we're just not to that point yet. My concern was if we wait till we have all the firm revenue numbers to bring this to you to start with, you only got three weeks to do a budget. that's that's not adequate for y'all to look over that. Um we have gone back and made some further cuts um both in personnel and operations uh in the recommended budget. Um like I've already mentioned about the revenue numbers should be available next meeting. I want to commend the finance staff. They did exactly what they should do when they're looking at preparing a budget. you budget your revenue very very conservatively and you budget your expenses very very liberally so that you never end up in a bind. You're you're not going to be short. And of course the departments have a long history. They don't spend everything that's in the budget. They if they don't need it, it's not spent. Um but once you see the mill value, the mill value that we've been working under was which is basically a forecast. The actual one it's coming out higher. So, of course, that's going to reduce the amount of additional mills that may be needed on some of these things. Also, when you take a look at the cuts, reducing some of that. Um, also keep in mind as Jamie goes through this, some of these are using multiple funding sources. And for example, you we got $20 million. You look, you know, just look at the bottom number. Wow, that's a big number. But 20 million of it is coming out of fund balance for

nothing other than patrol cars and fire trucks. So, you have that. Um, another one just off the top of my head, the Walnut Creek soccer fields. We're proposing go ahead just just do both of them. That's about a little over two million, but 1 million of that is coming from capital project sales tax three. Thank you, Councilman Graham, for that. Um, so, you know, there's a multitude of funding sources. It's not all necessarily coming out of general fund. And of course, you have the Indian Land Fire fee paying for, you know, some of that as well. So Jamie,

thank you for that lead in there, Mr. Willis. Jamie Pervaznak, um, budget director, Lancaster County. Good afternoon. Uh, today's presentation on the administrator's recommended budget is a follow-up conversation from our May 6 presentation. Today's agenda. In your council packet, you should have a couple of items that we heard you raise on the sixth re exhibit A regarding fire services. This is an item that our Chief Nicholson and Deputy County Administrator Stephanie Snowden is working on. It's a 10-year financial plan for the provision of fire services countywide. And so that document is a living document and they update that annually. You have that in your packets. Next item, exhibit B, airport operations. We have heard questions regarding how does the airport operate, its profitability. There is the financial statement in your packet, exhibit B, the audited financial statement for FY25. And then Miss Snowden has also provided some information on fuel sales for you to review. There was also uh questions about okay, how is capital budgeting practiced here in Lancaster County? We'll walk through that briefly as well. Operating budget discussion, that's going to be really honing in on budgeted expenditures in the general fund. And then our CFO, Miss Harris, will come up and review with you uh the minimum wage for existing staff and potentially shifting that floor, what those scenarios are and um how much and the cost associated with those various scenarios. Okay, so budget goals. This is a slide that you'll see on repeat because it's something that we as budget finance staff use to sort of create guard rails around the budget development process. And so these five items are guiding principles for how

we're developing each budget for Lancaster County. Next slide. Capital budgeting at a glance. So we we've heard questions around, okay, this is a capital asset. Where does it live? How do we budget for it? And if you could visualize in your head or try and create a picture in your head of stairs. And so the first item um being okay what is that asset? How much is it? What is its useful life? And then um from there it begins to have to generate the conversation around is this going to live in the general fund in the special revenue fund. Where are we going to pull that revenue source from? Because to Mr. For Willis's point, these capital assets are we could use a variety of resources that we have available to us to spend. So, let's take an example here. Let's say we want there's two groups. You're thinking about a new capital project, brand new on our fixed asset inventory, or we're looking at replacing and maintaining what we currently own. So, we want to keep the public's assets in great working condition. So, a new capital project, we could even take the Burns building. So, we're looking at the budget. Where is that budget could going to live? Well, in this case, you know, we're still making those conversations about where it would live, but it would live in either the general fund or in a special revenue fund. If it if we decide, okay, we want to put that new capital project in the general fund, more than likely it's going to land in a department budget and it and something like a building is going to sit in the special projects account. Okay, flip the map. Let's say we already own this thing and we want to maintain and replace it. Where do these things live in the county's budget? And what we use is fund 11 to do that. And so fund 11 or the

capital replacement fund is something that you every year are going to appropriate dollars to. It has its own dedicated millage. Let me not get lose sight here. And so what things would live in the replacement fund? Well, there's existing vehicles. We heard about our our sheriff's patrol deputy vehicles. Ambulances live in there. We're replacing those. Clay does a great job there. And even hardware, heavy equipment. we have Jeff Ko replacing and it depends on the asset for the life the useful life of that asset how often we're going to replace but the Caterpillar those big pieces of equipment that we use um Jeff handles the replacement of and also uh computers are considered assets and the hardware and so all of those things are assets that live in fund 11 and so that's money that we're not using the general fund for we're using the dedicated millage in fund 11 to fund these things. And so right now we have an adopted millage rate of five and we know that we have proposed recommended budgeted expenditures that are a little little over 5 million. Now to Mr. Willis's point, we're still working on refining our revenue strategy. So this is just an estimated millage. If you decide to go at 5 million, you would likely have to raise the millage rate to get the revenue to get the 5 million. Okay. So here's a table and we heard you from last week around okay let's do the delta between what's recommended and what's adopted and so we've got that dollar change easy in there for you and the first column is the department what the budget is currently July 1 2025 what do we have in there for fire services chief Nicholson comes in requests 283,000 that's for the brush truck replacements there's two of

And there's a decrease there from recommended to adoptive of 20,000 and so on. So I'm going to show you everything that's going to be living as proposed in fund 11. Got the ambulances in there. Clay does a great job. We've got parks and recreation. Now Chris is not going to ask every year to replace gym floors and the wall pads on gym floors. He goes every other year. So this year he's coming in with Springdale Recreation Center. And if you remember, we did some roof repair in Springdale. So, we're beyond the roof repair. We're ready to replace the floor, take care of our assets, road maintenance. There's Jeffrey Sheriff's Office. This is where our sheriff does a good job replacing the uh vehicles that are within his motorpool. And in this case, this is a good example because we have two revenue sources to support replacing the sheriff's office vehicles. We could do this. Part of them 10 at 676 66,000 a pop lives in fund 11. The 15 we're going to it's going to live in the general fund. It's going to live in the sheriff's equipment capitalized account line and we're going to use fund balance savings reserves to appropriate money to get the ne the 15 to get the 25. Similarly, uh solid waste collections. Jeff does a great job replacing those refuge trucks. the rolloff cans, etc. So, bottom line, we know for the recommendation a little over five million. We know that at adopted July 1, 2025, it was 3.9 million and that's a million dollar increase as of proposed. Moving on, operating budget discussion. So, we heard you on the 6th uh talking about, you know, the airport, fire services. Today, the majority of the conversation is going to be around hearing from you at this point. What

would you like to see brought before you on Tuesday, May 26th for your first reading budget-wise? Okay, this particular uh table, this table is going to move and shift, but these are new requests. So, in addition to what we're doing currently with the operating budget, here's what's new. And so back in early March, the uh personnel requests, new positions adding to both the general fund and for um fund 52 uh the Indian Land Consolidated Fire Protection Service District Fund. 91 new positions being requested. Mr. Willis has done two cuts. So he's done his homework. He hasn't done this in a vacuum. He's gone back and worked with department directors and discussed, you know, okay, if I remove this, what's going to happen? Okay, the if then. So he has done two cuts, Mr. Willis on the personnel list and that's the total where we are as of the seventh. And then of course Mr. Willis is going in and doing the same exercise on new requests related to building maintenance fleet capital technology going through and talking with department directors and seeing if I remove this then what? So the last two columns on this table will shift as we move to first reading on Tuesday the 26th. There was also a lot of conversation around okay so we have capital assets living in the operating budget. What if we lift those out and just look at operations? So the next series of tables includes increases that are non-personnel in nature and non- capital in nature. So we needed to come up with a dollar threshold. So we wanted to look at okay what are those operational increases non- capital non-personnel that are over $50,000 and then we filtered and here they land and this is specific to the general

fund. So you'll see the department you'll see the account line what was adopted what's being recommended as of today and that change between recommended and adopted that you all are interested in. And then that last um line and this is at the account line level and you have your line item budget detail. So you can go through and find this but um this is the snapshot and then it'll tell you what that increase is for. So in the case of building maintenance and maintenance service agreements, we see an increase in the recommendation of 77,000. What's that for? Well, we need to have contracts to repair elevators, to repair HVAC systems, plumbing, etc. That's what Tyler's working on to maintain our assets. And so as we go through, you can see each department and the associated count line, the dollar change, and what's that for. Uh on this particular slide, we're going to strike the legal professional services. Uh that is no longer relevant. Uh next slide. Whoops. Whoopsy doodle. Hold on. Yes. uh registration and elections that could change because we know that we have an ordinance that's what we did our second reading of that ordinance so that related to temporary employees contract services for Maryanne is going to shift and change

excuse me a minute back up yes sir to the uh legal professional services you said the 75,000 is taken out that that was my mistake it okay it it it never should have been in there to start with caught it as we were going through right thank you all Go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. So, you'll see in the next iteration, gone. And we know we spelled council and that's inappropriate. So, gone. Gone. Okay. That should be an S there. An E.

Uh, regarding and we went through elections. That's the big piece here. Road maintenance and stone is the supplies there for um our Mr. Ko. And so, he's got his finger on the pulse of the price of stone. So, materials have gone up. contract services to do the roadway work has gone up. But the good news is this is one of your priorities that was identified during your annual retreat early this year to maintain our roadways and relieve traffic congestion. So budget here is supporting your strategy as noted at the retreat. Uh paving projects that is also it's cheaper for us to pave and repave our own parking lots. Jeff keeps his pulse there. Um, and then we've also got contract services for sheriff and solid waste collections. I do want to lift that up with the conversation regarding the city of Lancaster and the tipping and fees and such and our relationship with them. So just those major operational increases that are non- capital non-personnel in nature you see an increase in that fourth column of 3 million. Okay that's the delta between recommended and adopted.

Mr. Chairman if I s go back just a second to the paving and the stone. I'd love to be able to sit up here and tell you that's because we're doing more. We're not. That's to maintain what we're doing now. It's just the cost of materials has gone up and that's just, you know, if we don't do this, then we're cutting back on the miles we maintain every year. Go ahead.

Okay. My pleasure, sir. Uh, external agencies. These are groups where you have longstanding financial partnerships with, and Mr. Willis is doing a good job going back scrubbing down the request and seeing what's relevant. Council on aging, you know, that is just the price for Lars and less the nutritionbased program for seniors. Jamie, if I could Yes, sir. as we go through some of this, if you'll make some notes and let us know because this is where we really, really need input from council,

you know, just because I recommend it, you know, I only recommend a budget. Council adopts budgets and if you see something in there, well, hey, you cut this and you really shouldn't have cut it or you put this in and it really shouldn't be in there, please give us feedback. So, we do. have a bottom line as to how much we need to cut.

Well, we heard from you on the 6th that we're looking at a range between 115 and 120 million for the general fund. So, when Mr. Willis went through, he's cutting personnel and we've got, you know, a di an ongoing dialogue with him to try and get it into that range from 157 million. But we but obviously we need your input on what's appropriate so that we get in the right range. Uh the historical commission their request did increase dramatically but Mr. Willis is taking looks and that last note there is um no not funding the museum director and the intern to curate the inventory. Didn't we when we looking at the historical commission didn't we say something about um marketing is done inhouse? Is that 10 will that 10 be going to our marketing department or outside marketing?

Uh I don't think Ann is here but Jenny you want to come up? I I know they work with y'all, but then they've got to fund production once design's done.

Hello everybody. Um, so we are doing all of the design work for them. So saving them an exuberant cost there. Um, because believe it or not, graphic design does cost a lot of money. Um, but so the what's allotted there is actually for ad run. So when they're running in magazines or digital ad spend and things like that, that funds that that portion of the advertising. So it's the actual if it's $5,000 to run in Southern Living magazine or something like that that covers that cost.

Steve, what's this museum director 208? Well, that that's that's some of that was a request and we we reduce all this out. Yeah. But again, if y'all think we need to put it back in, I don't I don't think we can. We having to make some cuts. That's something that can be left out. So,

and how much of that marketing and advertising we need, I don't know. That's something we need to look at also. Okay. And a lot of that ties back, you know, the reason I I left that in, I've heard council talk about for the next several years, we're celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence. And they work closely with the 250 committee and just again mar a lot of this is online marketing. It could be brochures that are going to be put out at welcome centers trying to get folks come here, things like that.

Go ahead. Uh, moving through the remaining external agencies. I'll I'll go slowly so you can digest, but there aren't that many changes from when you received this on the 6th. Of course, now the solicitor and the capital project, we do have Greg Bass is working with us to refine this number. And so um working in the sense of on the capital project budget for the third floor and so we'll this number is going to change for uh FY27. know if you do you want me to address that Steve or just

Yeah,

council members if I could this is time I have to give you my annual reminder you know used to do it all the time there are certain agencies solister public defender and all that when we increase the budget it's forever and ever amen under state law we're not getting it back so again just just keep in it's like grants chance for an elected official. It's forever and ever. You know, just always like to just remind you and you know, this is needed. We got another circuit judge coming, you know, sometime late next fiscal year because the legislaturator's got to elect them. Um, but if we're going to move cases, they got to have solicitor and public defender to move the cases in front of the judge. One more to come there. Uh, and so you have the bottom line there from what's recom Go ahead, sir.

The the capital project. Um, this be a good time to mention that. I mean, we've got to revive the capital pro the solisters expansion up on third floor. the original number and this is you know this is third thirdand hearsay information I readily admit that was it it was a swag we've got an actual hard number now working with Chad it's going to be more still working to finalize that we'll have that as a budget but that's what it's going to take if we're going to do that and include the upgrades for the master and equity which you're going to have to do after the 2030 census. We know that. So, go ahead and get those offices that now wouldn't put furniture in them. Just lock the doors and the clerk can keep the doors locked, but whenever it's time y'all say, "Hey, we're funding the master and the administrative assistant and putting that in operation in accordance with state law." He's got a place to put them.

So, what was that original budget for the uh renovation of the third floor? I have absolutely no idea, but we can get that for you. We would have to go back, Mr. Willis, and pull that original. I don't remember. It was 600,000. That's That's what I thought. Stephanie to the rescue. That was Snowden. 600,000 for that particular project. And Greg Bass is in that effort and refining those numbers.

Okay. Go ahead. Okay. And so I will turn the floor over now to our CFO, Miss Harris. She's going to walk you through minimum wage, which we heard you raise at your last meeting, and the scenarios and costs associated with doing one scenario over another for existing staff. Thank you.

All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, um chairman, council members. All right. All right. Previously, council requested um additional information on scenarios related to the county's minimum pay structure. Um and so today, I'll walk through just an overview of a model similar to what we did last year when we increased the minimum to the $15 an hour. And so the scenarios that we're looking at are the potential for going to a minimum of $17 an hour um or $19 an hour or $21 an hour, excuse me. Um the purpose is um not to make a recommendation of either, but to actually just look at what the um impact would be. Um it's not just taking into account the increase of the minimum salary, but compression as well for each of those tiers. All right. And so what we're looking at on the screen right now is of the 372 employees that would be impacted by the rate increase, there are 240 that right now are below the $17 an hour. The next tier of employees that are 17 to $19 an hour is 74. And then the final tier that's between the 1901 and 2150, there are 58 employees. And so each of these assumes a um an annual hours of 280. Um we know that within this mix um there are folks that might only do the 1950, but just for the sake of the calculation to have a starting place for the discussion, everyone in this group is assumed nonsworn and at the 2080 hours per year. Would this be when you increased it up to 17 or 17 to 19? What percentage was that to to each employee?

Um, just to get to the 17, that group of 240, that's about an 11% increase. Um, those that would be impacted by compression. Um there's a a a tiered, you know, kind of phased in compression group as well that I'll um kind of show as we walk through this, but it just the $17 an hour that 240 is right about an 11% increase.

Okay. And and I don't know how we're going to, you know, what we're going to decide or how much, but I keep saying we need our employees at this low level to be at a within a livable wage simply because they pay the same as everybody else. They don't get reduction on gas, groceries, utilities. And we know how the economy is and we know they are struggling because the ones who are making the money, living wage, they are struggling. So I'm hoping that we're able to do something to our employees who are struggling and that's that's my comment.

Thank you for that. Mr. Chairman, if I could go ahead, Mr. Willis.

Is is Sabrina walks y'all through these various options? Um, those of you that had been on council for a while remember the phrase. Um, I can't take credit for inventing it, but I thoroughly, you know, believed in it. Larry McCullik always said, "We got to do something and get our people out of the mud." We're focusing the options that she's come up with. Sabrina's come up with options that that will focus on our lower paid employees that, you know, do a lot of the work. you know, do far more than I do as administrator. Trust me on that. Um, so we certainly commend her for looking at this and hope all will embrace that.

Just a quick question. What's our rough employee count overall? Roughly, how many employees do we have currently? I think between full-time and part-time and and this is a very rough estimate because in that pool when we extract um extract employees out of our system it's going to include all employees regardless of the status. So we're looking at a little over 1100. We know that that number includes pole workers. It it's also going to pull in any season or fulltime and so um this this number these numbers here include part-time and fulltime. It is part-time and full-time. any of our staff, our regular staff that are less than 17 for that.

And do we have any idea how that breaks down? Like like can you give us an idea of what generally those those job types are? Um I don't have it on hand immediately, but I can definitely prepare that. I would like to see that also. Yes, sir. Because I think our full-time employees, we need to really concentrate on if we if we do something versus the part-time. Sir,

you know, I always go back to road maintenance. Jeff's uh staff, they have the hardest, worst job in this county and they they are at $16 an hour. That is totally uh embarrassing. Chester pays 20 and I'm like, what? City pays more. So, I just don't understand how we think. And they're loyal. They're loyal to what they do and we're not paying them according to what they, you know, the services they provide to this county.

Okay. Yeah. Just to be able to share and I know this is um um looks like as of the date that we did the retreat, but um this was part-time and seasonal workers at that time was 440 part-time election workers 376 full-time employees 707. So that's a total of 1523. I've I've seen that kind of go up and down just depending on what is active in the system at the time we pull the report. Okay. What was those numbers again? I can write them down.

Um I don't know the date that this was effective, but it was um part-time January 27th. Okay. January 26. 440 that were considered part-time or seasonal. 376 that were part-time, specifically election workers. And then 707 full-time employee employees 707. Yes, sir. And so that's a total of 1523.

And this would only account for um field positions at the time this report is run. It's not um accounting for authorized positions. So wherever there might be vacancies, it wouldn't be reflected in this breakdown. Thank you.

All right. So when we look at the different scenarios and again focusing on the $17 an hour minimum if we were to increase that 250 um employees to the 17,000 $17 an hour the budgetary impact and this is including the associated benefits for um social security retirement and any um applicable work um calculation that needs to be included um as well as the compression component. We're looking at just for that 250 employees um that 1.2 million Okay. And so the other scenarios are just there for reference that if we were to take all of the employees that are below 19 up to 19, it would include that 250 plus another another 274 employees. And then in the final scenario, if we were to increase everyone below 20 up to 21, it would include the first two groups and an additional 58. you see the budgetary

increase. You know what um Billy said about the fulltime, I would be more focused on the fulltime uh and I know part-time is struggling too, but the full-time workers seems to me to be that's the only thing that they do the best uh income for their families. So, I think we need to focus on that fulltime and try to give them get them out of the mud. And that's just, you know, my opinion. Yes, ma'am.

We'd like to see a start with the fulltime and if we can go down help the part-time some, I'd like to do that also, but we definitely got to take care of our full-time people. Me ask for clarification again, Mr. Harris. Yes, sir. Hey, you've got 250. That would be moving up to 17. Now, are you saying if we went from 17 to 19 for everybody, there's another 74 people or is there 74 people that would need to go to 19 because of pay compression?

Okay. So, I'll talk through them again. Starting at the 19. If we went to 19 instead of 17, we would be looking at all of the employees at this point in time that are below 19. It includes all those that are below the 17 that 250 plus an additional 74 people. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask So just for clarification, what is that 312 31,200 number? That is the rate at $17 an hour at a number of the 280 hours per year. I I think that number is actually 35360 which is the number that you had in the prior slide.

Go back. 208 hours time what? $17. That's what you're doing. Yeah. 17 time 2080. Oh, the 35 339. Yeah, it's 35360 was what I got. But so I'm trying to figure out what that 31,200 is. Okay. That's an error on my part. I apologize for that. The 35360 is at 17. That 3539 would be like at the 1699. That's 35 360. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then there's a head there's the headcount. You had 240 in the prior one and then 250 in the second one.

All the numbers seem to be based off of 240, not 250. But then what's the difference in store? Well, this is this has had count the the slide counts are a little off. There's one that says 240 and there's one that says 250. But if you add option two and three together, it's 240 + 74 + 58 = 372, not 250. That's up on the slide before it says tier one. Yeah, tier two and tier three. Right. It should be the 240. I'll correct that.

So, what's correct? What we need to do? The 240 is correct.

Yeah. I mean, I I think just the thoughts that run through my head, which is that's a dangerous place to be, but um kind of what Charlene's saying is that, you know, to me there could be two issues at play. One is yes, you want to set a minimum um hourly rate, but it could be that those jobs are not priced according correctly and until you do a salary study and understand what that price should be, you're just arbitrarily moving things around. Um so to me, the in a perfect world, you're figuring out if your if your pay rate is priced correctly. in a perfect world,

right? And that is something that can be pursued if that's the interest of council. I know that's been under discuss.

I know. Yeah. And so I mean it really is that if there's a true desire to address where we stand in comparison to ourselves as well as in comparison to the market with our jobs, the rating of our jobs, how they're priced, how we're compare how we compare competitively um internally and externally. Um, I mean, I I would recommend going the route of the compensation in class study because they're going to capture things that we can't see just going using this model of just the arbitrary increase. I mean, it is truly just an increase. And even to try to address the compression, it's not even coming close to being able to address, you know, folks that have seniority, folks that have credentials. It it really is just a calculation to move the needle, but not necessarily as as we need to or to address these specific job categories because it does matter.

That's what we need to do. I don't think we can do that between now and time we got to pass this budget, but we need to probably plan for doing that in the next fiscal year. But we don't know what the cost of that is. I guess we could go ahead ask people that do that to give us a proposal. But um so and just for clarification so that 240 includes full-time and part-time

and our minimum right now entry point is $15 because we changed that. So if I do $15 time 2080* 240 I get to 7,488. And if I do the same thing for $17, the total is 8,486400, which is a difference of about a million dollars. So there seems to be like a $250,000 variance that I'm not understanding.

In this number that we're looking at, what's included in that are the associated benefits as well as the compression. And so the compression that we really haven't talked through yet is really kind of broken out here. So it's not just those numbers, but also the increases that we need to do across the board to adjust for any discrepancies that may show up as a result of the increase. Exactly. Okay. And what that compression looks like is in that tier of um folks that are between $17 and 19, it would be an additional 5% increase. And then for those that are in the 1901 to 2150, an additional 3% increase.

Okay. Is is there a um a document or something that shows kind of like what class our workers are in in terms of is that I don't know right way to say that we've seen it before. I don't know whether it's been updated or changed but we've looked at that the categories like the bands. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's something that if we want to see an updated copy, we can Yeah, that would be really helpful to see that obtain what we have.

Um I don't know how that compares specifically to the actual salary schedule that we have, but we can show you the reality of folks that are in the system filling the jobs and what their pay rate is. That would be very helpful. There any other questions? Go on ahead, Miss Harris.

All right. So um really we would be um looking at where we would go from here steps. Um we looked at the administrator's recommended budget. It included new positions. Um we have gone back to the drawing board twice with that to whittle that down. Um you have a revised version of that, the detailed copy of that that was attached as a supplemental handout. Um we've looked at the interdep departmental request that included um requests for new software, new capital or new building maintenance. Um, we've also gone back and revisited that as well. Um, do we have the revised copy? Have you already shared the revised copy of the Okay, we have a revised copy of that interdep departmental um, piece for you to be able to um, review as well. Um, we've looked at the um, capital improvement plan, potential revisions to capital improvement, as well as a list of um, items that haveident um, been identified to fund with a fund balance appropriation. Um, we've also gone in and pulled out for this presentation other items that did not come by way of an interdep departmental request, but we did um classify as significant changes within the department. Um, something that the department requested in their departmental request at $50,000 or above. We've highlighted on slides and detailed those for you to be able to review. Um, we've gone over changes to the fee schedule. Um, you have a copy of that as well. Um, we've discussed the potential for a 2% across the board salary increase for our nonsworn. We've um also calculated a 6% increase for the share of sworn. Um, we've talked through the increase to the um increasing the minimum wage. And so, um, I mean, I know it's a lot of moving pieces, but, um, you know, we'll want to be able to have at least decisions from council as far as what you have seen, if there's anything that you want to see

differently, if there is there anything that you feel like is missing that um, has not been included already. I've got a couple of questions on the the previous slides. Um, one of them is um related to fleet maintenance. So, it's under the capital replacement fund fleet maintenance. What page is that?

Um, and then there is a I just want to make sure I understand there under the operating budget under new requests there's a there's a fleet line item too. I just want to understand what what those differences are or are they the same thing? So, under capital replacement fund, there's fleet maintenance and then it says includes all replacement requests by department and the it's like $1.5 million. And then under the new requ new request under the operating budget discussion there's a fleet and it has an uh amount recommended of 1.675 Jamie provos budget director. So I see you Mr. Graham on page six regarding or slide six, maybe it's not your slide, but fleet maintenance 1.5 million under capital replacement and the increase is 953,000. Is that where you're at?

Yes. That is Brandon does a great job here. This is replacing vehicles that are currently in the county's motor pool. So, he has his running list of what are those vehicles, how old are they, um what's the year, how many miles, and whether or not they're coming in or they're coming out of the county's motorpool. Okay. So, replacing existing vehicles in our county motor pool. Got it. And then, please remind me, are you on major departmental requests, fleet operations, special projects? I'm under it's a slide nine. New request under operating budget discussion. Yeah,

slide nine. Oh, you mean capital the 16? Oh, those that's a Okay, those are 16 different new capital requests. So, in exhibit I think it's exhibit D that you have hopefully in your agenda packet, you will see a sheet a handout that has capital and each of those 16 listed and what the amount is that rolls up to the 14 million number. So, what is that capital request? How much is it? And whether or not Mr. Willis is or is not recommending it for this budget. So, it should be exhibit D.

Okay. So the fleet maintenance is just our big big pool of of vehicles. Then this other one's just I guess specific vehicles that are that would be new. Anything that if somebody is asking if let's say oh they're new requests,

right? So I'm sorry you're on the fleet line. Yes, sir. There's 16. That means that a department has come and said to Brandon, "Hey, Brandon, I'd like to replace this vehicle. I want a Dodge Durango. I'm going to use it for X, Y, and Z." Brandon then goes prices it, tells us what the upfit, the unit cost of the car is. And so 16 new, so expanding the pool. This is expanding. This is Brandon's got his one. He's got This is ones we need to replace. These are additional requests specifically from each from departments that are saying, "Hey, I really need this." Yes. Okay,

that's exactly right. You're expanding the pool on this slide. You're maintaining the existing pool in the capital replacement fund for Brandon, the motor pool. One just one other question along those lines. I understand the cap capital replacement pool. I mean, theoretically, we could use that those funds or we could use an assigned fund balance. Would there be anything that would limit us in that scenario?

Okay. So, when you're thinking about fund accounting, there would be an unassigned fund balance in fund 11 as of the FY25 audit. Now I don't have the audit document in front of me but you would sure in that specific fund right and we'd have to come back to give you that number but it is in your afer and that is on the internet as well. So you would see the what that fund closed at on June 30th 2025 but in this I'm just trying to get this together. So in that scenario, you're using capital replacement and these new requests here, we're saying we would use some kind of form of general fund or unassigned fund balance.

Yeah, exactly. Because that would live in the general fund for Brandon. Um, and it would also live in his fleet operations general fund budget. So Brandon's got a foot in two places. So he's got it in the general fund and he's got work in the capital report. I guess where I'm going is if we were we were uneasy about raising the the millage rate for capital uh replacement could we move could we use other funds to accomplish the same thing is really what I'm asking you you asking that are you asking

if we are uncomfortable with raising the millage on the capital replacement fund could we use unassigned find fund balance for example to supplement. Yes. And the example for that is with our sheriff. So our beloved sheriff, he is doing work with replacing 25 vehicles, right? So he's doing 10 in the capital replacement fund and to alleviate the capital replacement fund, we're using general fund unassigned fund balance to fund the remaining 15. So then we get the 25 for him. Yes, you can do that exercise. So um to alleviate fund 11 and the millillage associated with fund 11.

Go ahead Mr. Willis. Um to the councilman's point I think that you know ultimately it's council decision but capital items vehicles you know one-time request that's that's the classic example of what you use fund balance for. It's nonrecurring. But I guess the other thing is I there's no in the capital replacement fund. Is there a benefit to having an unassigned fund balance in the capital replacement fund? I mean, I mean, theoretically, you wouldn't really want to have one, right? Am I thinking about that correctly? Yeah, you would. I mean, I know it would never actually, right? I mean,

I I I just want us I wouldn't want us to sit there with a $3 million unassigned in that fund. Is Is that a fair statement? I I I see what you're saying and I don't the afer is on the website so you would be able to see what that fund closed at for the fiscal year 2025 and what the unassigned fund 11 and we could bring that back to you as well. I just don't want to misspeak on what that balance would be. I guess from a budgeting standpoint what you've got left in accounts at the end of the year are those not washed over into the general fund fund balance? they fall back into the fund that it lives in into it to live in the capital replacement fund. Yeah.

I just want to make sure that we don't have like we just need to look and make sure there's

just a little bit of history. The you know the capital replacement fund came about ages ago. Council decided there were some things ambulances, patrol cars, you might as well treat it as an operating expense because you're buying those every single year without fail. And so we did that, but you know to the extent you have you know trying to catch up on some things um some additional patrol cars fun balance would be a perfectly appropriate use at that so decides I've got a question or we was talking about these this these vehicles fleet replacements and stuff some of these ve what is the time period that they're taking these out of service? Uh

well there there's minimums there's not a maximum. Um and one of the things that you know I don't know what's been done the last couple of years but I did this year um because I saw some of the things there and I called up Brandon and said Brandon have you reviewed all these? I just I want to make sure you know what's in here before. And he said nope he hadn't been asked. So I don't know what's happened the last couple of years. Historically, I always called Brandon. If Brandon said they don't need to be replaced, they're not. And he gave me a couple of examples this year and I I cut them that it met the you older than 10 years, right?

But yeah, we had one pickup truck that was only about 10 years old, only had 61,000 miles. Said it's You don't need to take something like that out of service. We're not replacing that.

That's right. It's a good idea. That that's what I was talking about, you know, taking some vehicles out. When I was going through the budget, I was noticing there's some new requests for vehicles and stuff. It look like some of these departments ain't going to be running no long distance or anything from building to building or whatever. But we can't let them some of these vehicles that they're talking about taking out pass down to them instead of just buying all these new vehicles. And uh to me I think we need to cars nowadays used to a car I had 100,000 mile on it was wore out but it's not the more I mean you can put two or 300,000 mile on the car now we

keep them service new administrator but we used to work with Brandon and Brandon would sit there you know and take a look at the fleet holistically where do we have something that was being underutilized maybe we could move it to another department where it would get utilized more because it did have some age on it but relative relatively low miles and go ahead and and transition those and you know classic example um you know used to be an administration car um before the you know I know chap always had the the car allowance I never had one but we set that up but just didn't get driven that much after that we started you know it's in the motor pool

yeah I noticed parks and wreck had a lot of uh vehicles in there they're asking for new ones are the ones that they got we had we had some this year that asked departments asked for it is like no they just use motorpool and again going back well apparently he's wandered off unless he's moved but you know Brandon always kind of looks after that and you know said okay he's the one I go to and say this thing really do we need this or do we need to be replaced or what we need to do that every year I know uh the sheriff and the and the ambulances and stuff you that run uh code three stuff they have to be replaced

absolely Yeah, I understand that. But but some of these vehicles they just taking and run to do a little something. All those those vehicles are last a lot longer. We had Brand's input and I hope the new administrator will continue that. Good. Mr. Chair, go ahead. And I think council expects by the time it gets to us that we've gone through that process of what needs to be replaced and not need to be replaced. And we're leaving that up to the hopefully the new administrator. That was in the second that when it gets to us, it's already done. We have a computerized record where all of this maintenance and everything Steve done it this year.

I'm assuming Brandon has that, but I I don't want to speak for him. I just I just know enough to call Brandon said, "Brandon, tell me about this vehicle. Do we need to replace it or not?" He's he's the subject matter expert. And do we have guidelines on the non-emergency vehicles? Yes, ma'am. We have there's a guideline that council adopted ages ago still in effect um that sets a minimum age and a minimum number of miles. But you know the caveat that's always in there if the fleet management director deems it safe to operate and I hope that's in there. Yes, ma'am.

I do want to add for the record that we do have a policy as well in place that Brandon follows. So Brandon is doing his scrubbing before he even comes in front of finance staff and looking at his policy and the age of the vehicle. So um but for the record, we do have a policy and we can always bring that forward if need have any other questions? Yeah, Mr. Sure.

Um it does, unless I'm completely off, it looks like we got $2.5 million in the capital replacement fund, which I mean I just would ask that we utilize that and make sure that we're thinking about that as we're thinking about what our millage would be for for next year. The the other one I I just wanted to have a clarification under the major department request is the human resources contract services. Um there was there was a a change of $73,000 and it with the background checks potential employees of site 11. Um

let me get to you sir. I I can speak to that on behalf of Jessica as well. You know we heard you here with regarding uh driver history checks, background checks, you know, for employees or potential employees that are applying. Um, and those contracts, they have third parties that are doing this for us, drug screenings on our behalf. And so those contracts have increased in value or for their annual increase. And so that 73,000 represents the increase to do those checks for existing and potent possibly new employees. So, but that wasn't including like the pole worker. No, that's like a normal full. And

that's Yeah, that was just It was just like That's like more than 200. That's That's a That's a lot. I was just I was just trying to figure out like I understand stuff goes up, but that was I was trying to figure out like if we doing are we anticipating doing a lot more or what? You know that that was over 200%. That's a lot. I mean, I can we can come back. Yeah, I that was one that just because she'll have to probably go back and look at her contracts and what those agreements are and um the increases there.

Yeah, that was one that just jumped out jumped out me as well. it it probably would be helpful just to see what the actuals were on that line item because we could have underbudgeted for 25 26 and then it's more in line and it's it I guess it alo also requires how many uh times do we do a review on the driving record because I'm sure you just don't have a get a driving record and don't do it anymore. It may be every 5 years, every 10 years or what? There may be some reoccurring expenses in there that we're not looking at. Something we were not not doing that we should be doing. Be doing. Yes.

Current policy on that is should be reviewed annually. Um, occasionally people will go out and do something they shouldn't do and lose their license and not tell us and it we certainly go to different number of years, but again to your point, my understanding hadn't been done at all. That's what we may be doing something that we had not been doing and I think that might be a reason. We have a policy to do random testing. Random drug testing, sir. Um, we could take that as a I you don't know.

Um, you know, I'm outside of my wheelhouse, but we can certainly talk. We thought you knew everything operation James do not know everything. Um but certainly that's something we can address too. Especially people that are operating vehicles. So yeah really when she got on board really scrubbed her budget a lot of those um new account lines for tuition assistance and professional services. She really wants to take a look at what she was budgeting. So, we worked hard with her there.

I I got I'm sorry. I got one more question. Um the the just curious the the on slide um 10 under general fund major department request um the fire service equipment. Yeah. Just I I know we're talking about doing something for apparatus. I'm just curious, you know, would that make sense to be part of that request or, you know, what I'm just trying to figure out why it would be in here versus I gota a a big a big request. Yeah. Of a lump sum.

Great question, Mr. Graham. Equipment general, that's not equipment that we're going to be capitalizing, right? So, um it's it it's not as monetarily where we're depreciating it, but I know uh Chief Nicholson wants to make sure that each station countywide has a small budget. Oh, it's for replacing equipment. Um yeah, I'm sorry. I misread that. I got you. For some reason, I thought it was like for a brush truck or something. No, no, no, no. That brush truck is in your fund 11, but this is just in um it's giving each department a extra for Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Mr. Willis.

Greg, could you come up? Is that's part of the funds that we give to each department for their general whether it be an air pack or whatever and we propose to increase it this year?

Yes. So, um each department each each fire department gets a certain amount. I want to say it's 10,000 or 12,000 uh for equipment. That's where we do our equipment catalog and each department gets to buy whatever equipment as in gear, um you know, truck supplies, things like that. And uh used to we we took the taxes and shipping and all that. And now we have to it's went up considerably. So, we're asking for a thousand more for each department to raise that up just and it's really only going to cover their shipping cost on the stuff they're buying now.

That ship is going crazy much higher. If we could go higher, we'd love to just because equipment. I mean, and just just gear for one firefighter is about $6,000 now where it used to be about two. That's one thing that the fire department's done for a long time is they do the catalog. They can't go out and just buy it wherever they want. They've got to buy out of the catalog through the county and it's county county owned equipment.

It's bid out through all the vendors and that satisfies the procurement side of it that it's been bid out. So, anytime they want to buy something, most of the vendors will hold it for six months um of pricing to help us out, but not all of them, but most of them will. But that is definitely just the increase uh for each department.

Mr. Luis, for your information, I don't think you were here when we talked about this, but on slide 11, which is page 257, um the professional services general for legal that 75,000 should be zero and the recommended for 2026 2027 is 225,000 same as it was last year. The leg the legal was my error. Jenny caught it and reminded me and I I thanked her and finance thanked her because that's less we have to put in there.

My my qu I did I wrote it is around the brush trucks on the capital replacement fund. So is so it says annual brush replacement of two trucks. I I don't my guess or is that the actual cost of those trucks? Amy, while while the chief is coming up, what we used to do is the the trucks that are assigned to the uh firefighters that are, you know, the county firefighters, they rotate those at. When they rotate them out, they have a system that the fire commission, you know, selects which two departments are worse, their brush trucks are most need of replacement, and then they take those trucks, throw a skid unit in it, and I'm assuming that's still the same thing.

Yes, sir. So all the county trucks that you see running around checking out all the volunteer departments running calls um those those are the trucks we replace uh because they get a lot of miles on them and as we replace those vehicles the two that we replace goes into the brush trucks and makes brush trucks. Uh for years it was just a hodgepodge of brush trucks and we finally getting close to having every fire department a very nice brush truck. Um so we just kind of reutilized the staff trucks and and make them brush trucks.

That's been a good program going on for years. We don't need to continue as many departments as we have as as when we get the last one. The first one we replaced is it's time to change them out. That's back to what we was talking about them vehicles taken out of service. Can we put them somewhere else? And that's exactly Yes. And how that's done. I'm sorry. And the price for those that includes because they're new vehicles, we have to put lighting on them, striping, all the equipment, things like that, winches, everything those trucks uh need. and they're at 111 Covenant Street if anybody ever wants to come by. They're usually there in the mornings and evenings that you welcome come by and look and see what we have. Thank you. Thank you.

So, I had a question just on the delegation dispersements. I don't know if you've all already covered that, but what that variance was

for the Jamie, I'll take I'll take that one. the the delegation is dispersement is something that gosh knows 15 years ago or so. Um in lie of us having to provide an office and a staff person for the delegation. Um the delegation decided they would just take the funding and they would do their own services, constituent local services. Um, at the time we only had two House members that did that. Uh, Senator Gregory said, "Nah, he he didn't really want it." Um, Senator Blackman said, "Yeah, he does want it." So, now we currently have uh our two resident House Representative members that received that, plus our resident senator.

So, where where are they? Yeah, we used to have an office here that day. There there was an office downstairs. It's currently the downstairs conference room. I don't know what they do with it. And they do that in li of, you know, a lot some some number of counties provide office space and staff their delegation. We don't we don't do that. Yeah. I haven't seen my house representative use the space or quite frankly in a while. So, I'm just trying to figure out what we're using those funds for. And if there is office space, we do have office spaces throughout our county. So is there opportunities for that that we just use our own

funds down to use them for like mailings and things like that? They they can do mailings. It's it's it's basically dispersement to the to the House members and the senator and they use it for constituent services. Yeah. I'd I'd just like to get more information on that. That that seems like if you're using it for mailings, I mean, they have services that provide that. I'm I'm not sure why we would be providing that. I don't it was simply a long time ago looked at the cost of what would it cost to provide each of them an office and half person and this was a heck of a lot cheaper. Okay.

Yeah. So, just if you could get me some more detail on what they're using and where the funds are going. I I can certainly ask delegation. We provide that for Okay. Yeah, I'll get an answer. Miss McGriff would like that as well. She's been asking for years. I said I asked years ago and uh it's the same answer.

Is there any additional questions? Hearing none. Um, we we've moved around the slides. Which slide are we actually at? At this point in time, we actually complete we actually completed this portion of the presentation. So, if there are like specific, you know,

I do have an additional question on the old English district. So there's recommended 72,500. How much of that is an allocation of what we're providing versus other areas like because they're serving other territories as well. That's right. I believe they were here um Old English District at an earlier meeting. Uh we'll have to come back with you to provide like what's truly ours versus the work they're doing elsewhere regionally because you know I can't I can't speak to that. We can certainly provide you with their transmitter letter. There might be information.

We can provide the agency letter, but this was related to the Revolutionary War Trail that they're doing. And of course, we've got everything from Hanging Rock up to AJ State Park and a lot in between. So, right, I'm just trying to figure out what's the allocation for stuff that's serving constituents in our county versus other areas. Um, because it's significantly more than what we're doing for the 250 committee or what we're doing for our own historical commission. You know, that discussion came up previously

as to exactly what do they do with our money and I know it's maybe brochures and other offices in Chester County, but uh I don't know whether we know exactly how that money is spent and is it relevant to what the services in Lancaster? I think just an justification. Yeah, because quite frankly, I'd rather spend more money for the historical commission that's serving our county. Now, what the Old English District does is they advertise. So, any if you're coming back into the state or somebody's coming into the state, you go to the rest area, there's a there's a setup thing there where you can pick up brochures and it'll have brochures about Lanster County and all the the things that um

Can we have our marketing department do that, Jenna? I think they have contracts with the state. We'd have to They're in the visiting visitor centers and stuff. Yeah, but can we can we enter into those contracts? Can we do that ourselves? If you can come up, Jenna. Sorry. this way for so long.

So I will I can answer the question of yes, we do have the capability of doing that and we can um most certainly develop those contracts and things like that. So yes, we do have the capabilities, we do have the talent to do all that. However, I don't know if the funds are allocated from a different bound like a different funding source like a tax or something like that. It is something that my team and I have wanted to pursue just because Lancaster County has a lot of wonderful things to offer for tourists. Um, but that is something that I'm trying to get my foot in the door with. But yes, to your answer, yes, we could do that. But I guess we would have to figure out how that works in regards to a tax funds and allocating those funds and things like that.

I think it's worth I mean it's worth a discussion. I know that you can also there are brochures they put together that are a brochure that's about the whole Old English district and it's got stuff for each individual county and then there's individual county information that that is put together as well. It just it'd be interesting to see kind of what the return on that investment, how many tourists are we actually getting from those

council. It may be a little late this year, but just just as information to council for, you know, next year. Um, basically this year we stuck with old English and the Lancaster 250 because that's what you did this this year. It's like I hadn't heard council say me make any changes so we're sticking with it. There are counties that do things otherwise. For example, Chester, they give everything. I'm going to disagree with that. I think I think the four members, as you've me mentioned multiple times, four members on this council can change that. So, Janice has got something else.

Sorry, just in regards to like advertising, whether it be digital print, um, media advertising or anything like that. So our department absolutely has the capabilities of running a digital ad campaign, of running a print ad campaign, so on and so forth. That's that is the purpose of our department is to whether it be draw people into the county or to communicate to our citizens what's going on, all the good work that's being done. And whether that's set to them on social media or running a digital ad campaign, for example, for tourism, whether it be to visit the museum or um if we're hosting, this is just a what if, but if we're hosting a specific sporting event or something that comes here, our department absolutely has those capabilities. It's it's uh you it's not hard. It's just a matter of having the design talent, but then also having the knowhow to run an a digital ad campaign or print or media or anything like that. And you're able to track all that and there's detailed metrics that go into all that. So they can track how many times somebody has looked into a a a program or an event whether they have clicked inside that event whether it's just scrolling through it all the impressions that you're getting on Facebook or Instagram and all those things.

Absolutely. Yes. So, for example, like a digital ad campaign. Let's say we ran one for springports for parks and recreation and we just geoargeted um the zip codes here in Lancaster County and we ran it for a six-month period. Um we would be able to absolutely go in there and see the number of clicks, so the number of actually the impressions, so the number of times people viewed it, the uh interaction, so the number of time people's clicked. And then we would actually be able to break that down and see like did they spend 30 seconds, did they spend 10 minutes or or did they lead into reces and actually sign up for the program. So yes,

and then we can tie that. So if you see additional impressions or additional clicks that you're seeing from social media and you're seeing an increase in enrollment or visitors, then you can tie those relationships. It's not directly, but you can get some sort of idea that it's

there's a correlation between the two. Exactly. And so, same thing for a print ad. We can run a print ad. Now, you can't see how many times people actually looked at the print ad, but let's see. Let's say that the specific print ad uh distributor has 47,000 subscribers. We know that that ad was at least served to 47 people. And then that's when we would include a QR code in that ad for them to be able to click through and visit some sort of landing page. So, yes, we we can do all of that.

Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Yes, we are at the next steps page. Am I correct?

Yes. Excuse me. Yes, Mr. KS. Let's get back to this calendar. So, here we are on this is a Tuesday, May 26th. We've got the Memorial Day on Monday where we will be back here for your first reading of the budget ordinance and also the CIP the capital improvement plan. So it would be useful if you want to use some of your time uh providing any insight or direction on fund no fund concentrate here you know would be useful for us to bring you back a product you know is something to react to that you feel good about not to put you all on the spot but

Mr. Chairman, just I could mention this is just strictly personal preference. Council is free to do whatever you want to do. Always ask council if you got to make changes and all that. Please let us know ahead of time. Do it on first, do it on second because you you've got the public hearing and all that. I hated seeing amendments come up on third reading because citizens didn't have a chance to know it was coming and react to it. Do do we need to have another workshop of 4 to 26? I mean, I don't think we know we're near close to decide what we want yet. That's what worries me. I don't want to take too much into the first reading. I'd like to have at least a good idea of what we're wanting by then. But

was the revenue not being available? No, that's what worries me. Don't know. We don't know how much we can spend. Yeah. Well, I missed that. So, we haven't gotten the When's that said within the next two weeks, right? Last time you talked. Last time she said two weeks. Last week. That'll be one week left. Come on up, Susette.

Susette Murphy, Langster County Auditor. Um, we do have the mill value set. Okay, I cannot certify this right now, but we will not go under this. I will say that we're looking at Y'all ready? Yes.

674 64. Pretty good. Pretty good. Okay, we are currently working on the lost credit factor and the debt service. Uh we're still having to get with other departments about those figures. So I cannot verify anything of that. Like I say, this is a big jump from last year. So I will give you that figure to go work with for now until we can certify the other ones. Thank you. Thank you. That was extremely that was very helpful.

That was good. Okay. And I do want to say something else about my department, too. We We ran into a situation um with our budget for this year. We have build out over a 100,000 vehicles for this last fiscal year, y'all. That as of this month, and we still got two months to go. 100,000 vehicles as compared to what last year because I saw those numbers. Yeah, we did 85 expected 85.

Yeah. And we did over a hundred. So, the vehicles are really going up. So, and we still don't know about the Homestead Act yet. So, but we keep on hearing that it's it's going to be passed. So, we still need our other clerk. That's what I'm getting to. Yes. Mr. chairman. Just a hint hit, right? Do right. Yeah, that's right. You might as well go and hit it while I'm here. So, yeah, if I could next year when you don't see as big a jump, please do not fuss it. Suzette, don't you fuss it.

We had some big ticket items come on this year. Target, Costco, things of that nature. And you've got, as you recall, if it's not on the ground, finished and occupied December 31st, you don't see it the next year. It's the year after before you see it on your property taxes. That's right. So, if you don't see that big of an increase next year, it's not the auditor's fault. It's not our It's brand. Thank y'all.

All right. What were we on this? All right. Um, we'll go on. Are there any additional questions? I think we we we shot a lot of question at at Miss Perusnak. So um you want to come up and talk to us um about the fire long range financial plan for fire service. Who was doing that or is this just in here for information? Doing that and then I think Mr. Moella had had a question about a potential additional meeting just to get information to see where we stand. Yes,

we certainly work on that. I I certainly wouldn't want to commit to anything without touching base with Sabrina, Jamie, and Jaziah. Make sure you know we have something productive. But sounds like y'all, you know, what would a potential first reading ordinance look like having having the actual data? So, you know, I think when we can get some definite pretty close to definite revenue numbers, I think we need to have a workshop at that point and not the first reading because if we get some definite numbers, we can make some decisions before we go into that first reading.

Even if we had to move kind of that first reading for the budget and maybe have an extra meeting for a budget, that might be way to do it. Yeah. revenue numbers will probably make it's going to make a difference in what we decide. We if the revenue numbers is not ready next week, we don't need to have it next week. We need those revenue numbers even if we have to have a special meeting. So, yeah, we've always got flexibility depending on what council decides.

Long as we got 24 hours between first and second reading, we're golden. and and at least for me at a minimum I am looking for a flat millage. I don't want to increase anything for our constituents and ideally it would be lower than what we currently have. I agree. No warranties expressed or implied. I don't see how you get a lower millage with all the personnel that having Oh, I I can show you. No, no, no. We don't want No, I can definitely show you. No.

Okay. Are we going to talk about the um the 10ear fire plan or is that just information only? Stephanie, you that is um information only. Chairman, um I have provided that document um with um some of our public safety folks and so I know that Chief Nicholson is working on updating it. Um, so that is just for information only. Okay. Think we can look at that. You send it to us with some bigger.

I can print it out larger like I have done in the past, but I wanted to give you updated. I just put that there as a as a a frame of reference. I I do have I have a I do have a comment or a question on it because one of the things that I'm I'm seeing here just on the station side. I mean the the I'm I'm assuming the regional fire station is the one that Lonar has donated the land for and we know about the station number three in Indand but I don't see anything on here for like Edgewater and I cannot imagine us going 10 years without doing something in Edgewater related to fire

and that was um presented during the FY25 cycle and that's why Chief Nicholson is actually up okay so this is up to this This needs to be updated. I got just that was just a frame of reference of what you know the extensiveness of the work but uh uh Chief Nicholson and I will get together and look at all because it may be that you decide that you don't want to do um the regional stations. So those those are the things that he's looking at. Go ahead. I would appreciate you uh enlarging this writing here, these numbers and stuff. I I got reading glasses and I can't read it. I need a magnif magnifying glass.

I'll make sure you all have big copies. That was just that was just a placeholder. 11 by 17 would be nice. I will I I understand spread it out and enlarge the numbers a little bit. Stephanie, this total number at the bottom does not include edgewater and some of the additional things we may want in this uh and there may be some things that actually are removed. Okay. example, if you all do fund the apparati, that that is going to that's going to go away.

That is that is the question I have is when will we see that the the apparatus list and and look at at at actually committing to that? Do we know roughly when that would happen? Chief, you want to come up and talk to that? I think they're finalizing their specs and everything or getting close.

Yes, we are. We met with the vendor uh Monday uh just our specs since it's been such a long time before we since we've bought trucks. We just wanted to make sure they're narrowed down because you've given us a a dollar amount. We want to make sure we don't want to come back in the 11th hour and be asking for a couple million more. So, we're trying to narrow the specs down to get exactly what we need and where it's at. Um, I would say in the next probably two weeks, we should have that. Okay. And, um, any questions? I do have one question, Greg. When they're looking at specs on trucks, please make them fit the buildings.

Yes, sir, we are. We Oh, we got to build a new building. I mean fit truck doesn't fit in it. Wow. I know that's funny, but we do have buildings that that was built in the back in the 50s and 60s and the fire trucks was extremely small. So, we we do look at that. We actually had an issue with one of our tankers. Uh the new tankers are a little bit longer, so we're having to modify some of those for certain stations. Good. But we are looking at all of that. Looking at needs, call run, call volume, things like that. Good. Thank you.

Yes. And and on the station side, like Miss Snowden said, um you know, we're required for the uh Riverchase development, we've got to have one there. We got Edgewater and the uh North Haven. Uh if we're looking at all of those, um you know, and once we get this settled, I I'd hope to uh be able to speak with y'all about, you know, what what y'all are looking for. uh staffing wise, stationwise, things like that. So, and I think when we get to this uh Mr. Chair, we need a meeting just about this. The only thing we discussed is is uh

well we we have a whole another running thing that needs to go with this and that's the yeah that was districts and everything that Jenny's been along with the yeah they don't I mean the apparatus lives on its own but pretty much but the all the other stuff does not and and even the apparatus probably needs to be in its own the apparatus and stations would be in that capital district the attorneys proposed which you know it's great program hope y'all forward on it soon. Yeah, we we we've heard and listened and talked a lot about it, but we just need to emphasize to move county

definitely. Station I'll go ahead since she got her plug, I'll go ahead and plug it. Our station three is extremely needed. So, u if we could get to a number on that and of uh where it needs to be or what y'all would fund so we could look at funding the rest of it, however we need to do it. Any other question? I think there was some comments last meeting about giving you5 or $6 million and you come up with the the difference. So, we would absolutely entertain that. Well, how do we make that happen? Payment on portion.

What's I'd be very interested in in in what we need to do to make that happen. I mean, we we really need to we've talked about this for a long time. So, how can what do we need to do to actually take some action on it? Specifically, station three,

as we get into the budget process, we already have within the budget process fund balance money that we're going to spend for fire trucks and other things that at that point in time in that discussion, I think, is where you enter that in as a amendment to that because we've got the fund balance to cover it. Okay, thank you. We have any other good of the um the citizens? If not, I guess we can go ahead and go into executive do our executive session. Correct. All right. Uh we're going to move on to item 5A. Uh discussion of a personnel matter pursuant to South Carolina Code of Laws 30-4-7A1 regarding the county administrator interviews. Do we have a motion to go into executive session?

So move. Have a motion from Miss McGriff, a second from Mr. Le Louise. All those in favor raise your right hand. All those opposed, it's unanimous. We are in executive session.

All right. Is there a motion to come out of executive session? Have a motion from Mr. Moscell or a second from Mr. Neil. All those in favor coming out of executive session is unanimous. Uh we have a motion. Uh, Miss Merk Dupont, uh, you can do your little your speech. Well, for the record, I was not in executive session, but council met in executive session in regards to one item, the discussion of a personnel matter pursuant to South Carolina Code of Laws 30-4-781 relative to the office of the county administrator. I am assuming no motions were made and no votes were taken.

That that was correct. Uh, I have a motion to make um coming out of executive session. Uh, council is going is making a motion to extend an employment contract to Mr. Brian Tucker. Um, effective today. Well, the the contract won't be effective today. He has to work a notice, but we're making a motion to hire him as our new county administrator. Second.

Okay, we have multiple seconds. Is there any discussion? I would like to say uh as far as discussion u want to thank all those people that were involved in the process. I think it was a very good process and uh very much enjoyed working with fine great people. They have done a a really good job on that. Uh I don't know if there's any kind of email list uh for all the employees, but we would like to make sure that this announcement is sent out to all the employees affected today because we will have a news release that will probably be released tomorrow and I don't want employees finding it out in the media.

Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, I'm going to call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed. It is unanimous. Um we have a new a new administrator in the wings. So uh is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Have a motion