County Council - Regular Meeting

It was cut off. Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the Lancaster County Council to order. 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 for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the invocation given this evening by Councilmember Jose Luis.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings you have bestowed upon our nation, our county, and our citizens. As we approach the 250th anniversary of America's founding, we remember the courage, sacrifice, and faith of those who established a nation dedicated to liberty and self government. As we consider budgets and financial decisions tonight, grant us wisdom to be faithful stewards of the resources entrusted to us. Help us balance today's needs with tomorrow's responsibilities, always keeping the well-being of our residents at the center of our deliberations. Give us discernment in our decisions, civility in our discussions, and humility in our service. May our actions honor those who came before us and leave a stronger community for those who will follow. We ask these things in your name. Amen.

We have a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

We have a motion from Mr. McGriff. Do we have a second? Second. Second from Mr. Neal. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it is unanimous. Okay, we're going to... Let's go to citizens comments. We now come to citizens comments. Please bear in mind that this is not a period of dialogue with council or a question and answer period. This is your opportunity to address council with your concerns. I ask that you address your remarks to council as a body and not to any individual council member. Please speak into the microphones, state your name and address for the record, and you will have up to three minutes to address counsel. Your time will not start until you have provided your name and address. Mr. Gordon Johnston.

Council members and staff, good evening. Gordon Johnston, 7401 Carmel Executive Park Drive, Charlotte 28210. Here tonight again representing Century Communities with respect to item 8H on your agenda. This is the third reading for the requested development agreement extension for the Charlotte Woods project. No changes tonight from the prior two readings, but as with those readings, I wanted to let you know that I am here, so if there are any comments I can address or questions I can answer, I'd be happy to come back up at your request. As always, thank you for your time and for your consideration of this request. Thank you. Micah Decker.

Hello, council and staff. Micah Decker. It's 314 West Ashford Way, Irma, South Carolina, 29063. I'm here representing the Old English District Tourism Commission and wanted to give you an update on how we were doing. So in 1982, the South Carolina General Assembly established the Old English District Tourism Commission. For the purpose of instituting and operating programs to improve, enlarge, increase, and otherwise enhance tourism, recreation, and development in the counties of Chester, Chesterfield, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster, Union, and York. We partner with such organizations as the State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism, U.S. Travel Association, and Destinations International. idea of who else. Our primary growth strategy is pretty simple. We want to target overnight visitors to get people to stay here longer and invest more money in your community. Overnight visitors, guests, excuse me, generate on average eight times more economic impact than day trippers. We market Lancaster County and we are driving stays in local B&Bs, asking people to dine in the restaurants and support our local shops and attractions, which in turn generates essential tax revenue for this county's budget. WE ACHIEVE THIS GROWTH STRATEGY BY PERFORMING WITH HIGH PERFORMANCE MARKETING, EXCUSE ME. WE USE DATA DRIVEN TOOLS LIKE ZARDICO, WHICH IS A TOURISM AGGREGATOR THAT COMPILES GEO LOCATION DATA AND CREDIT CARD SPEND. optimize our budget spend, excuse me, and we ensure that every tax dollar is invested in a smart way. Our recent PR efforts this last year secured over 33 national mentions in outlets such as Forbes, Garden and Gun, and Southern Living. We hosted Jennifer Prince, a travel writer, last August, and she wrote an article in Southern Living, which mentioned several properties here in Lancaster County. In the first month of that article running on southernliving.com, it saw over 14 million views. also ran for numerous months and then they again promoted it this past spring so it's a big return on our investment so creating over a million potential impressions in pr and it also come excuse me has uh equals 16 million in spend we target promotion of lancaster and are actively embedding lancaster county into our digital landscape such as the old english district.com From our campaigns to optimizing search results with ChatGPT and Google, Jim and I, you have it. We want to make sure that when people are searching for things to do here or they're planning their trips to the area, that they're considering staying in Lancaster County. Whether it's showcasing agritourism spots like the Hall Family Farm or promoting events like the Red Rose Festival or the Ag and Art Tour, we want to ensure that Lancaster stays top of mind. So without further ado, I just wanna say that we hosted a meet and greet this last Thursday after our board meeting and met with several community stakeholders. It was a fantastic event here at the Native American Study Center. And I will be here in the audience if you have any further questions for us. Thank you so much for what you do and thank you for your investment in the Old English District.

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Toni McCammon.

Good evening, Council. I'm Toni McCammon. I live at 2112 Hartwell Lane in Indian Land. This is the third year that I've sat through discussions on the county budget. And in that time, I have learned a lot. and one concern still stands out for me to a great degree, and it's the money being invested in the airport that continues to haunt my friend Kathy and I. Where's the wisdom in pouring more money into an airport that continues to lose $200,000 a year, at least at this time? We're confused. Here's why. Back in 2024, we felt compelled to seek transparency surrounding the finances of the airport. We discovered through trips to the airport, interviews with personnel, a meeting with Dennis Marstall, and online research that year after year, the airport runs at a $200,000 deficit, which is met by transferring money from the general fund. The former county administrator, Mr. Marstall, told Kathy and I that the airport is the hidden gem of the county. Oh, in our opinion, it's hidden all right. Like us, 90% of the county residents don't even know it exists. To call something a gem implies that there's value or benefit. So who's currently benefiting? In 2023, county tax dollars of 2.5 million, along with federal COVID money, was budgeted for a new terminal building, estimated at a cost of 4.5 million by summer of 2025 when the 6,000 square foot terminal was completed. It seems the consultant made $722,000. The contractors for the building made money as the original estimate went from 4.5 million and ran up to 7.2 million. The contractor for the parking lot made money as the spaces were increased to accommodate three to four times the number of cars. And yet, a year later in 2026, the deficit still looms at $200,000. And on any given day, you might be lucky to see three cars in the parking lot because now the full-time employees has increased from one to three. There have been FOIA requests from me and others to shed some light on the revenue expenditure discrepancy. The airport as an investment may well be justified, but where's the business plan? Since I have heard two councilmen put voice to some of our unanswered questions, I am hopeful that a reasonable response will be forthcoming. In the meantime, Kathy is going to follow me to the microphone to simply state some of our ongoing questions directly to the council. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Kathy Storm.

Good evening, council people. This is better. So now I lost Miss Pop. Okay. Neither Tony nor I are against an airport that contributes to the economic development of our county. We just happen to believe that timing is a critical component to decisions when it comes to tax dollars. The number one challenge in Lancaster County, which we know is infrastructure. and there is no concurrency to date. So, is the airport even remotely close to being considered a stand-alone asset? Existing questions that need responses are, how much revenue is being collected from airplane owners who lease the hangars and the tie downs? What percentage of occupancy exists? We only know what was told to us a year ago. The rental fees are some of the least expensive in South Carolina, and the hangars are about 90% filled. How much revenue is collected via personal property tax on the airplanes? These range in value from several hundred thousand dollars to over a million dollars. Nowhere can those figures be found. How much money comes in from the sale of fuel? I understand there's been some adjusting to the price per gallon. What's the update? where is the research comparing our airport with other small airports in south carolina tony has checked in into two airports within a 20 mile radius these are not running at two hundred thousand dollars in the red and they both came into existence in the 60s just like our airport There's an airport commission made up of appointed members. Where's their reports? In the past, the marketing budget has been a measly $2,500. Is the County Economic Development Commission involved in promoting the airport? What residual businesses have been generated or might be generated in the future that would actually benefit the ordinary citizens? We would like our questions to be taken seriously by the entire council, not just a few. And I would say in considering the importance of infrastructure, it seems foolish to put a lot of money into the airport. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Willis. Mr. Chairman, members of council, Steve Willis, 517 Rock Springs Road here in Lancaster. And I just wanted to take a minute and say thank you all for allowing me to come back and work with council and the greatest employees out there. Most of you all know I served a long time on the board for the Association of Counties, and I think it speaks just volumes. When you look at the elections this year, Lancaster County had three members up for election, no primary opposition, no general opposition, and you don't have to go too far from here. We had one county had 18 people running for four seats on county council. So it's been a privilege to come back, work with y'all, especially the employees. You won't find any better. And y'all know my philosophy has always been, at the end of the day, council members, administrators don't do much for the citizens.

It's the employees that are out there doing things for the citizens.

Really appreciate everything that they do for us on a day in, day out basis. Other thing, I think you hit a home run hiring Brian. I think he's gonna be great. I think you're going about 15 years out of him. Just before you ask, whenever he retires, if I'm still here on this side of the grass, I'll be 85. The answer's no. But anyway, again, I just wanna thank y'all for the opportunity to come back and again, work with y'all and the employees. It's been an honor. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Thank you for agreeing to come back. It made a sticky situation much better. We've enjoyed the time that you have spent with us, and I know you were looking for the bell to ring on this meeting for June the 30th to come, but thank you so much for your service to Lancaster County.

Thank you, Steve. Thank you.

We have one more citizen's comment. Mr. Reverend Eddie Boykin.

I'm Reverend Eddie Boykin, 6275 Charlotte Highway, Lancaster, South Carolina. I am standing before you today because I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was sick and you helped me feel better. I was in prison and you took me in. I come here, I stand before you because I want to speak for the citizens of Lancaster County. I serve on the school board. I'm a pastor in this community. I have a project in this community that serves the Newtown Promise neighborhood community. I work with Habitat for Lancaster. I work with Child Evangelism. I serve the community of Lancaster County. I'm an educator. I just love Lancaster County. I moved here some years ago. And I work with the homeless of Lancaster. I work with Hope. I work with United Way. I serve the people of Lancaster County in so many ways. I served in the military for 25 years. I've been a servant for most of my life and I am concerned about the citizens of Lancaster County. And I believe that servants like you and like the city council and so many others have a responsibility to the citizens of Lancaster. I'm concerned about the scripture that I just read. I am concerned, y'all, and we have got to do something about what's going on, the price of housing in this Lancaster community that we're serving. I'm working with people that can't afford to buy a rent in this community. I'm working with folks that can't afford to eat in this community. I'm working with people every day that are struggling in Lancaster. I know there are people in this community and I believe that we have the solutions in this county. I'm not sure what the solutions are. And I'm looking at y'all and I'm hoping some of y'all will look back at me and look me in the eye. I believe we have the solution in our pocket in this county, in this boardroom, hallelujah. And I'm working hard every day to try to meet the needs of this community. And I talked to some of y'all in person that's on this board. I meet y'all in the streets of Lancaster. And I don't understand why we got so many of us. I took my collar off because I don't want to be a pastor. I want to be a Christian. I know I meet most of y'all at church. I meet most of y'all in Walmart. I see y'all at these different board meetings. We have the ability to solve the problems of our community, regardless of the budget, because I don't have a lot of money at my church. But we're working hard to solve problems. I came to this county meeting to say that we have the ability within Lancaster County to solve our problems. And it ain't just about praying, it's about taking action. And I'm saying, I need y'all's help. So we need to come together. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what church you go to. I don't know what kind of business you run, but I need your help. So I want you to pray with me. I want you to take some action. And in these last few seconds, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So when you see me on the street, help me out. In Jesus' name, amen.

We did have one citizen's comment from Ms. Debbie Peppers. She was writing about her concern about data centers and the need for council to be proactive in setting up ordinance that regulate data centers so that we don't fall under the state ordinances at that point in time. Okay, now we're gonna move on to the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve?

Mr. Chair, I move to approve consent agenda item 7A, 7B, and 7C.

Have a second? Second. Have a second from Ms. McGriff. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it is unanimous. We're gonna move on to item eight. a non-consent agenda, item 8A, resolution number 1328-R2026. A resolution to direct county staff to take appropriate action to move forward with the Hazard Mitigation Program grant for Lancaster County Emergency Management issued through FEMA. To execute such other documents as may be necessary and convenient and to take any other action as may be needed to carry into effect this resolution. Mr. Willis and Chief Nicholson, do we have a motion to approve? So moved. I have a motion from Mr. Harper. Do we have a second? Second. Second from Mr. McGriff.

Mr. Chairman, while Greg's coming down, if you have any questions, this is a FEMA grant that they are working on. It's a standard 75% grant, 25% local match. The grant would be $107,131.50. The local match would be $35,710. Great, you will inform council about the generator grant.

Yes, it's for the warehouse warehouse. Yes, so it's a generator for our warehouse to keep it backed up at the EM building so we can function as needed if it's maintenance on apparatus and equipment and things like that.

Have any questions or questions? This will be coming out of our grant match account, right? Okay.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it is unanimous. Okay, we move on to item 8B, first reading of ordinance number 2026-2042. An ordinance of Lancaster County, South Carolina, authorizing the execution of an intergovernmental agreement by and between Lancaster County, South Carolina, and the city of Lancaster, the town of Heath Springs, the town of Pershaw and the town of Van Wack, South Carolina, and other matters relating thereto. Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved.

I have a motion from Mr. Luis to have a second. Second. Second from Mr. Neal and Mr. Willis.

Mr. Chairman, members of council, this is an ordinance to carry into effect an IGA, an intergovernmental agreement with our four municipalities. As council's aware, animal control has recently shifted under the animal shelters, not under the sheriff's office anymore. We need to have the intergovernmental agreement because a county ordinance is totally invalid. It's useless inside the boundaries of the municipality unless that municipality agrees to allow it to be enforced within their boundaries. This would carry that into effect. It's been prepared by our county attorney, recommend approval. Is there any questions?

I've got a question. What are we sharing the cost of what the staff person that's doing the job or how we doing that? I didn't see any of that in the audience.

It would be just utilizing the existing staff. They would, they would handle that. Um, about 92% of the population is in the unincorporated area. So it's, it's not a big stretch.

Okay.

Any other questions? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed? It's unanimous. Okay, we're gonna go on to item 8C, first reading of ordinance number 2026-2043, an ordinance to amend the Lancaster County Code related to the appointment of the county attorney and to provide for other matters related thereto. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Is there a second? second any discussion hearing none i'll call for the vote all those in favor please raise your right hand all those opposed it is unanimous move on to item 8d first reading of an ordinance 2026-2044 an ordinance to approve a temporary construction and permanent easement grant to Duke Energy upon real property owned by Lancaster County and located off of South Carolina Highway 9 bearing tax map number 0068L-0F-023.02 and to authorize county officials to take such action as are necessary to effectuate the grant of the easement and to effectuate the purposes of this ordinance. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

We have a motion from Mr. Mosler. Is there a second? Second. Second from Ms. McGriff. Discussion? Mr. Willis.

Mr. Chairman, members of council, the next three ordinances all relate to the new coroner's office. This one is Duke. This is a little bit unusual from the one we did at the detention center because part of it is overhead along Old Dixie, and then it goes underground in there, so it's a combination of both, but the first one is for Duke Energy. I would note there is not one for the Lancaster County Water and Sewer District. Their water meter will be in the highway right-of-way.

Everything our side of the meter belongs to us, so there's no easement for water and sewers.

Okay, all right. Do we have all those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it's unanimous. Okay, we're gonna go on to item 8E. First reading of ordinance 2026-2045, an ordinance to approve a temporary construction and permanent easement grant to Comporium Communications upon real property owned by Lancaster County and located off of South Carolina Highway 9 bearing tax parcel number 0068L-0F-023.02 and to authorize county officials to take such actions as are necessary to effectuate the grant of the easements and to effectuate the purposes of this ordinance. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. I have a motion from Ms. McGriff. Is there a second? second second from mr harper uh mr willis chairman this is from camporium it's an underground easement any questions i'll call for the vote all those in favor please raise your right hand all those opposed it is unanimous okay we're going to move on to item 8f first reading of ordinance 2026-2046 an ordinance to approve a temporary construction and permanent easement grant to Lancaster County Natural Gas Authority upon real property owned by Lancaster County and located off of South Carolina Highway 9 bearing tax map parcel number 0068L-0F-023.02 and to authorize county officials to take such actions as are necessary to effectuate the grant of the easements and to effectuate the purposes of this ordinance. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Motion from Mr. Neal. Is there a second? Second. Second from Ms. McGriff. Mr. Willis? Mr.

Chair and members of the council, this was for natural gas.

It is an underground easement. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it is unanimous. Go on to item eight G second reading of ordinance number 2026-2039. An ordinance to amend the official zoning map of Lancaster County to rezone approximately 7.09 acres. Tax map number 0016-00-048-00. which is located at 7319 Charlotte Highway from the low density residential LDR district to the neighborhood business NB district. Planning department case number is RZ-2026-0503. The planning commission recommended approval by unanimous vote of five to zero and the planning staff also recommended approval of the rezoning request. This passed seven to zero at the June 8th, 2026 County Council meeting. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. A motion from Mr. Mosteller, is there a second?

Second.

Second from Mr. Graham. Ms. Cato.

Chairman and Council at this first reading you got you one of the applicants they were not here and we reached out and then asked them to be here tonight so they can touch on the curb cut entrance. They emailed at six o'clock and said they're on their way. They do see patients, and they may be closer to seven. I will add that both Charlotte Highway and Charles Pettus, the state DOT roads, so they'll regulate which one they'll be able to use. I feel sure that it's gonna be the Charlotte Highway, but we've not seen anything, so I can't confirm that.

Anybody have any questions? Can we put this on hold until they come here?

Someone can make a motion to table it, and then later in the meeting, you can remove it from the table.

I don't need to table it if we're...

Does anyone have any conversation?

I mean, I think I'd like to just ask from the applicant just to get a little bit more information on what they're doing on that property.

What if we pass it, then let him talk for a third reading? That's fine. Yeah. That's okay with you.

Sure.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it's unanimous. Thank you, Ms. Cato. And we're gonna go on item eight. Thank you, Mr. Harper. Gonna move on to item eight H, public hearing and third reading of ordinance 2026-2035. Ordinance title and ordinance to amend a development agreement with Century Community Southeast LLC in accordance with the unified development ordinance section 9.2.18.C.16.C and Section 5.02 of Ordinance 2025-1987 to extend the effective date of the agreement to September 30, 2026. This passed 4-2 at the May 26, 2026 County Council Meeting. Stuart Graham and Jose Luis opposed. Steve Harper recused. Passed 4-2 at the June 8, 2026 County Council Meeting. Stuart Graham and Jose Luis opposed and Steve Harper recused. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. I have a motion from Ms. McGriff. I have a second. Second. I have a second from Mr. Neal. Ms. Cato. And before you start, there are no one signed up for public hearing, so we'll go on past that.

Chairman and council, there's been no changes since that second reading.

All right, is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed? The vote is four, four, four, and two against. We'll wait for Mr. Harper to get back, okay? we're going to move on to item eight I'm public hearing and third reading of ordinance number 2026 dash 2036 ordinance title and ordinance to appropriate funds and approve a detailed budget for Lancaster county for the fiscal year beginning July the first 2026 and ending June the 30th 2027 our fiscal year 2026 2027. to set millage rates for the levy of ad valorem taxes, to approve a schedule of taxes, fees, and charges for services for fiscal year 2026 to 2027, and to provide for matters related thereto. This passed 6-1 at the May 26th, 2026 County Council meeting. Mr. Mosteller opposed. passed seven to zero at the June 8th, 2026 County Council meeting. We have a public hearing, we have one person signed up for it. We have arrived at the place on the agenda for public hearings. Public hearings provide an opportunity for the public to express to council their views on the matter that is the subject of the public hearing. Each public hearing will be conducted in accordance with the requirements of state and local law. Please keep in mind that a public hearing is not a forum for the public to engage in a discussion or dialogue with council members. Your comments and views are to be addressed to the council as a whole. Each person will be given three minutes to make their comments. Please speak into the microphone. Before you begin your comments, please state your name and address for the record. Your three minutes will start when you have provided your name and address. Ms. Barbara Scannell. And before you start, we need a motion, don't we, or we wait after public hearing? Okay, go ahead.

My printer worked today, so I give you one of everybody. Barbara Scannell, 8016 Carolina Lakesway in Indian Land. Honorable Chairman and members of the County Council, I'm not going to read everything I read last time, but you've got the first two pages that kind of goes over everything. first of all I want to address mrs. McCammon and mrs. storm for the enlightenment I received about the airport so some of this may be a little changed up based on the information they gave them that they provided to us I'm hoping that in the near future that that those concerns are put on the agenda to be addressed and I understand you can't do it this evening but I think that would be very good for the whole not only the county council but the entire communities in lancaster okay so again my concern has been ems and fire i'm also concerned about um the sheriff and the corners but it seems right now ems and fire are the ones that are having the most difficulty as far as long-term capability of for salaries and benefits I understand there's a pot of money that goes into for EMS and fire stations and I know that's being reviewed with the The updates to what we're trying to do with the impact fees that is coming up in July and there's another pot of money to buy vehicles and things like that, however, I to cover both salaries and benefits ongoing because you know throughout the county there is growth so we cannot continue to just keep trying to struggle every year and I know you struggle every year and I appreciate how difficult it is for all of you to come up with this but we' re getting more and more development in all the county areas and the problem we're having is we have so much so many calls in the panhandle area and the central part of lancaster that they draw from other areas meaning other areas don't have coverage because the units are up in the other areas so what i'm proposing is to just look at a long-term solution so as growth develops that we will have a permanent way of funding for the ems and fire for the whole county not just up in indian land so if you look i'm trying to be reasonable here this is just a talking point it's not saying this is what you would be agreeing to but we've got to look at this long term because otherwise they're going to be struggling and you're going to be struggling every year so please again just like i asked for the airport to be brought onto the agenda i'm going to ask that you do the same with looking at long-term funding because growth isn't ending and it's impacting all citizens in this county so i appreciate your time and i hope to hear soon or read soon that both the airport and this issue is on a future agenda very soon thank you for your time and your efforts on behalf thank you mr canal

Do we have a motion to approve item 8I? So moved. I have a motion from Ms. McGriff. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second from Mr. Graham. Ms. Prabhu is next.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Jamie Provosnak, budget director, Lancaster County. Tonight, I am very pleased to present you with your FY27 annual operating budget. This is the third reading of your ordinance. Tonight's agenda, twofold. We've conducted our public hearing, our second public hearing, and we are also asking for motions to adopt the budget, including the proposed changes to the annual fee schedule, and then also to make a motion to select your tourism designee or designees for the state accommodations tax allocation. This particular slide includes the five goals which serve as guardrails for the annual budget development cycle for Lancaster County. The general fund at a glance. So the general fund is the county's largest operating fund for FY27. There are 37 new positions added to the general fund. There are across the board salary increases for both existing full and part-time staff, 4% for non-sworn staff, and then the 5% for existing public safety and sworn staff. Regarding EMS, this budget includes a change to how emergency medical services are delivered in this county. The new model is a dramatic shift. from 24 to 48 hours to 24 to 72 hours for some EMS staff. This budget includes a one-time fund balance appropriation of $36.4 million for specific non-recurring expenditures, and the travel per diem for existing employees is increased, and the increase is consistent with like jurisdictions throughout the state. millage rates. The last column represents the millage rates for FY27. The county operating millage rate for the general fund is 82.7. The county debt millage rate decreased from the current year because the county did not issue new debt proceeds and we are paying principal and interest payments on existing debt annually. The capital replacement fund and the mandated courthouse security fund have designated millage rates with no increase for FY27. The total county millage is 94.1, and this represents the increase of 1.5 mills, which was discussed at our meeting on the 10th. The school system is its own separate entity and is not reported. Total county millage, this trend line shows the total county millage for 10 years. The slight increase from calendar year 2025 to 2026 is the 1.5 mil increase. The sharp decrease from calendar year 2024 to 2025 represents the year of reassessment of real property. Last year, staff calculated the rollback millage formula to maintain revenue neutrality. And council adopted the rollback millage rates for FY26. This particular line graph shows the increase year over year of the value of a single mill. The county auditor calculates and certifies the value of one mill. For calendar year 2026, one mill equals $674,794. Moving on to the general fund and breaking through the logistics of the general fund. There are 37 new positions added to the general fund for fiscal year 27. This table will list each department, the position, what the total amount is for the position, and the position count. First position from the auditor, the clerk, full time for the Homestead Exemption Act. There are 15 new positions for emergency medical services. Those three in the middle there, the paramedics, the EMTs reflect that model change for EMS starting on January 1, 2027. And then the paramedic, the one paramedic in the middle is the partnership with fire services starting on January 1, 2027. The ERP specialist, this is a live person, and so we are funding the full 12 months in the fiscal year 27. Lancaster County firefighters, there are three new positions. The firefighter engineers have the start on January 1, 2027. regarding the sheriff's office and specific to detention center and the opening of the detention center, 12 positions. We have corrections officers, there's a total of eight with six of them at the full year, two at the January 1 start point and the booking clerks are non-sworn and they start on January 1, 2027, all four. Regarding the sheriff, the first two positions are, they're on a grant right now. The grant is ending for the federal fiscal year. So we are taking on the full cost with local dollars. the real-time crime center manager, and the staff attorney with the start date of January 1, 2027. Finally, the Veterans Affairs receptionist, that was a part-time position converted to full-time, adding the benefits on top. You have 37 total positions, new positions in the general fund at 2.8 million. Regarding fund balance, Per fund balance policy, we are using our reserves in the general fund for appropriating one-time non-recurring expenditures. So we had a lot of conversation in the last few months about how to use fund balance. The following tables will list the department, what the appropriation is, how much is it. The new piece highlighted in yellow relates to fire. And so the positions, those new positions for fire that are brought on, the firefighter engineers, this is the vehicle, the F-350 truck, for that team. Uh-oh.

Oh, hey.

We're laying it on here. OK. I guess you got to laugh. OK. Lauren, I do need help. I don't know what happened.

Okay, we're gonna take a short break until we can get this IT issue solved. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Carnes. Regarding fund balance appropriation, this is the $36.4 million number, and what you see highlighted in yellow there is the truck. That's an add from the 10th, and that's related to the two positions for fire services. All right. Working our way through the fund balance appropriations table. Finally, on the sheriff's office, there is an ad of one vehicle for $66,000 for the staff attorney position for sheriff that's starting January 1, 2027. 36.4 million in one-time non-recurring fund balance appropriation from reserves. So when we walk through this list, we're often asked, how much do we have available in unassigned fund balance? And so what we consider our start is the close of the audit fiscal year. And so that would be FY 2025. And so on June 30, 2025, in reserves, we had available $72 million. So this time last year, council appropriated a little over $5 million during the FY26 budget process from reserves. So there you see the deduction of $5 million. Then during the budget fiscal year, we had various and sundry budget amendments where you appropriated one-time reserves, and those are listed for the solicitor and emergency medical services. This next number, this $4.6 million number, is an unaudited estimate of what we believe we will contribute back to fund balance reserves in the 13th and 14th month of the fiscal year, $4.6 million, which leaves us with $70.2 million. So the first question is, OK, how much do we have available in reserves for the upcoming budget year that we can use? So you have $70.2 million unaudited estimate. Then you withdraw your $36.4 million, which is on the previous tables, and you're left with, in reserves, $33.7 million. And we want to keep that balance within a specific range per our fund balance policy. of 28 to 32% of the total general funds operating budget?" And the answer is yes. You've met the range. It's 30.66, 31%. So you are within that range. Why is that important? Because when you go out and borrow, you want to get a good interest rate and credit agencies are looking at what you have available in reserves. Next item, external agencies. These are organizations in your community where you have longstanding financial partnerships with. Each agency is listed alphabetically. If they have an adopted budget, it's listed. What the third reading budget is, the change from the third reading, from adoption to the third reading, and then we have a justification column which is explaining the request and any changes. Council on Aging, you received an updated presentation from the Executive Director regarding the Council on Aging. You did agree to fully fund their request at 200,000. That's reflected here. Adding an additional 100K to fully fund $200,000. Lancaster soil and water conservation this group the executive director participates in the salary increase for existing County employees so we adjusted the executive directors position from two to four percent which is consistent with our non-sworn staff Similarly with the public defender and those attorneys and staff that are representing Lancaster County working in Lancaster County We did the increase from two to four percent for the public defender's office Lancaster County staff likewise with the solicitor same situation for the Lancaster County staff in the solicitor's office the increase from two to four percent and General fund summary overall, we are now at a millage of 82.7. And so when we want to look at, we've talked often about what that recurring dollar amount is, and we set aside the reserves. So we're setting aside out of the 139.1, we set aside the 36.4 million one-time fund balance appropriation and just look at what's recurring year over year. And that's approximately $110 million. So, what is using up the new money? The new money of 6 million plus the 1.5 mil. You're talking about 37 positions are using the new money and you're talking about the raises for existing employees at 5 and 4%. Summary table, we are at $144.1 million for the general fund, an increase over the current year adopted budget of $41.1 million, 40% increase, and knowing that that dollar increase represents that $36.4 million in the fund balance one-time appropriation. Special revenue funds. We have 18 special revenue funds. following slides list each fund alphabetically what the adopted budget is what the budget is for FY 27 the change and then a description in the last column regarding the airport this group did receive a 4% salary increase as they are non public safety staff Capital replacement, this particular fund has its own dedicated millage. It is not increasing the millage. This is where you're replacing large heavy equipment such as ambulances, brush trucks, solid waste, roads and bridges equipment is replaced here, the sheriff's office vehicles, most of them replaced out of Fund 11. Capital Project Sales Tax 2, we don't collect any money on Capital Project Sales Tax 2 anymore. We are using reserves, $214,000 for the forensic lab for the sheriff's office. Capital Project Sales Tax 3, we have banked enough money to finish the voter approved project list in this upcoming fiscal year per the ordinance in 2020. County debt service, that's going down. So we don't require as much mill, right? So we have a decrease in the millage rate from 7.2 in FY26 to 2.5. And that represents the payment of principal and interest on existing debt. County impact fees, we are appropriating more in county impact fees this year, specifically the fire impact fee to purchase one engine for the Indian Land Consolidated Fire Service District, Station 3 engine. We are also appropriating park and rec impact fees for the regional park and some EMS impact fees. County Transportation Committee, we have lowered this budget. We haven't collected as much from the South Carolina DOT, the C program dollars. So Jeff and I have lowered. So you have 1.9. These are road projects that are determined by the CTC, that committee. court-mandated security that has its own millage rate. They're across the board salary adjustment of 5%. These are sworn staff in this fund. There are also two new staff in this fund, new positions, judicial transport officers and one vehicle to transport individuals in custody to and fro. And then there's some AV equipment for the new detention center and courtrooms for first appearance and stuff like that. That fund is balanced with its own millage rate. Fund 49, special revenue fund. This is a fund that you created in February 2026 for the family court and also for the sheriff's office civil process paper. E911, this is public safety staff. The amount reflects a 5% salary adjustment. Hospitality tax, the revenue that we collect for this, we use to pay principal and interest payments for the regional park. That's an existing bond. Indian Land Consolidated Fire Protection Service District. This reflects a 5% salary adjustment. These are sworn staff. There is also 10 new positions in this fund, nine of which have the hard start of January 1, 2027, and Chief's Logistics Officer is funded at full 12 months, full year. We did remove the one-time major request to build the Station 3. And then the last three funds, local accommodations, state accommodations, state aid to libraries remain the same. Stormwater, this particular fund reflects the 4% salary adjustment for county staff and we also removed major capital projects that were funded for FY26. Van Wack reflects the 5% salary adjustment for staff, and there is one new Firefighter II position added. They had a fee increase this time last year, which allowed them to add one new position. Finally, Victims Assistance, and for those 18 funds, you have a total of $57.9 million. This is overall all 19 funds. Each fund is listed alphabetized on the left. The total appropriation is listed. You're looking at $202.1 million for the fiscal year 27. $202.1 million for fiscal year 27. That is an increase over the current year for all funds of $41.9 million, 26% increase. Knowing that in that $41.9 million is a 36.4 is the one-time fund balance appropriation for non-recurring expenditures. Finally, your tourism agency designee. This is what you will do every year during your budget development cycle where you select one or more agencies to perform this function in the community and regionally. During second reading, you voted and you moved and voted on two particular agencies, the Old English District and the Lancaster County 250 Committee. And you also split the allocation 50-50, 60,000 is the total available estimate, half to one, half to the other. So tonight we are asking for you to move to approve and adopt the annual operating budget ordinance including the proposed changes to the fee schedule which you have in your packet. And then we are also calling for the motion which you had already passed at second reading to select the designees and then to split the estimated allocation of $60,000.

Are there any questions for Jamie? Any discussion?

Yeah, I think so.

You wanna go over yours first?

I've got a couple one I think that are pretty straightforward. I think the one I keep coming back to is the HR nurse that was moving basically departments to where it's allocated. The thing that has thrown me is that the requested amount is 142,000, but the current expenditure for this year is 54,000. So I guess I'm asking staff, does it really need to be 142,000 or can we reduce that down?

So the short answer is yes, you could reduce it, but my understanding is there are other items, and I can't account to tell you tonight exactly what those items are. But in FY24, the nurse practitioner alone, the actual cost was about $67,000. And then in FY25-26, it looked like it was budgeted for $137,000. And I believe that, um, finance and budget are looking at possible cost escalation. So there's something in there other than just the nurse practitioner we've put, um, I've looked at the contract that doesn't spell it out and we've reached out to MUSC.

I mean, the last two years, I mean, it's been 67 and 54. which is a big difference. I mean, we're just, we're not spending it. Is there something else in that?

That's what I'm saying is that per Ms. Provosnack, there's something else in there, but I don't know that she knows exactly what it is.

Are you suggesting there's something hidden in there that we don't know about?

No, I'm not. I'm just I'm not suggesting anything. I mean, you certainly I mean, from a policy perspective, you all can may reduce it. But my understanding is there's something in there so that if we don't know what it is, I'm saying that we don't. But there may be. We don't either. Contractual contractual.

If you look at it just from a high level, my understanding is that that nurse practitioner is available to the county for three days of the week. It's not necessarily reasonable to think that it would be $140,000 of expense for three days for a nurse practitioner.

that doesn't make sense i looked at the contract and it look it's a per hour and so in looking at um the budget you are correct it's not a total of 140 000 i have reached out to musc um and i just don't know if we do that what what the effect would be but i think for not for not for tonight's purposes i think we would be comfortable looking at um the 67 000 okay if you were to reduce okay

I'm just rounding it up to like the $70,000 so that it's a $72,000 reduction on that line item.

Yes. All right. Thank you.

One other one with HR would be the contract services. So it's listed at 130. And I just, you know, When you look at this spend, I think the spend was like 4,000 or something like that for last year or for this year. I know there's gonna be some other things in there or additional expenses, but I really think we need to look at that one and reduce that down fairly significantly.

Sure.

Go ahead, Mr. Williams. Jamie, y'all might want to. I know one big thing we're looking at this year is actually implementing the driver's checks we should have been doing, so I don't know how much of that may be allocated.

I had a conversation with Ms. Jessica related to that, and that is not it. I mean, the driver's checks are not that expensive, and we're already doing it in other parts of the county departments. So it wasn't really that. The drug screenings, the driver check, all that stuff was adding up roughly to about $20,000.

And if I understand correctly, some of the other departments, especially EMS, the sheriff's office, may be doing that independently, that they're required to do so? No.

Council chair and council. I just wanted the sheriff just reminded me that with the M USC contract that the psyche valuations come out of that.

I think there's another line item for that in the sheriff's department. Unless in that one.

No. So that is what that is. That is contracted so that that includes that that's in the sheriff's in the HR. on the MUSC 140 that we talked about the reduction for the nurse practitioner.

That's the medical director.

Keep on going, I'll look for it. Yeah, I think it should be under the sheriff's office.

Councilman, it may have all been under admin, and I think what budget and finance are trying to do is actually right-size that and put it where it needs to be. If we need to move that into the Sheriff's Department's budget, we can, the specific psych evals.

I think what we're trying to just make sure that it's not being double-counted somewhere.

And, yeah, I mean, that would have to be, I mean, that would be a pretty significant amount for, as a valuation.

The contract itself, my understanding, had, for the last several years, been in the admin bucket, which probably did not make as much sense as placing it in HR, but we can look at it.

I'm looking through the sheriff.

Mr. Willis, would you comment?

Mr. Chair, members of the council, if you look at 1260410 in the jail budget, it's showing, includes an increase for 24-7 medical coverage, 1.4 million Yeah.

That's where. What page was that in?

That is on page 450 of 643.

No, no, no.

Right near the bottom of page 450.

No, no, no, but in the line item of the general fund.

It's in account 120-604-10, medical. Medical.

I thought I saw it.

We had already cut the MUSC for the sheriff because he said he wouldn't use that much.

Yeah, I mean, that was another question for me too. I mean, that medical, I thought that medical was, I see it at 1.1 as recommended. But I mean, we've talked about that a couple of times and it should be like 600. Yeah. That was throwing me off in this line item budget is, Has that been adjusted or not?

That was adjusted based on the sheriff's work with me.

By like half.

Thank you, Mr. Willis. That is exactly the line item that it is in.

Council members, if I might, and speaking with the sheriff, the psych evaluations that are included in the HR budget, the transfer, those are for new deputies. And then the county gets reimbursed once they actually complete the academy. But we have to pay for that up front. And for whatever reason, that was lumped in with the MUSC contract in admin.

We're getting it back if they pass.

Yes, once they get through. We have to actually pay that up front. So that is indeed for new deputies or recruits. But I believe what you were referring to was for our detainee services at the detention center.

Correct. So is there a credit then for that item if we're getting the reimbursement?

I can't speak to the credit on how we are doing.

We're budgeting it. Yes, you can.

You can pay it up front.

we dropped that down when the sheriff kind of spoke about it we're talking about two different yeah two different things we're talking about the nurse kind of in-house staff that they had which is in that line item that you said the 604 210 then we're talking about psych evaluations as part of their hr kind of processing and hiring onboarding process yes sir for county staff And I think we could, so if we have an item that we're anticipating expenses for, we can also have a line item for anticipated revenue, correct? And reimbursements.

Yes.

So we should see that somewhere.

Yeah, I can't speak to where that is. Is that revenue included? Anticipated revenue back from?

I don't know how we are accounting for that if it's going back into the general fund. So that's something that we can make a note of and try to have that information.

Because the actual that we only had for this past year was 4,700 and we're budgeting 130. Right, that's what I'm saying. But that's the HR piece, I thought, for the psych evaluations.

No, the HR piece was for testing. The 130 was drug testing, driver screening. I'm talking about the 140 for MUSC that we were discussing.

The nurse practitioner? The nurse practitioner. Yes.

we don't know what we don't know what that broken out psych evaluation for is then right i do not know that off the top but we can definitely look at researching that and seeing do you say we get reimbursed for it the sheriff just said that once they um once the new recruits go through the academy we have to pay it up front and then it's um reimbursable who's it reimbursable from I'm sure it's probably maybe the Criminal Justice Academy.

Sheriff Bell, can you come up and maybe shed some light on all this?

When we hire somebody, they have to do a psyche vow. We send that person, and we have to pay the upfront cost. Once that person completes the academy or goes to the academy, they will reimburse us up to $350 of that. I think the psych eval costs $400 for the deputies and like $50 for the detention officers.

Right. So it's not a $70,000 a year expense, basically.

No.

I mean, you would have to hire.

So that's what we already have covered, the $70,000.

I think we pay the money up front. I know we do. We pay the money up front, and it might be two months. It might be six months before they do the reimbursement. but we do have to budget for it because we're having to pay it up front.

Right, but what I'm trying to get to is that we spent $67,000 on the nurse practitioner for that, and then you've got this psych evaluation. I mean, we're budgeting right now $140,000 for it, which means there's $90,000 that is hanging out there. We're not paying $90,000 for psych evaluations at $400 a pop.

Well, here's the question. Where was that budgeted in 26?

So last year. Years ago, that money was in our budget. When they brought on the nurse practitioner, they took that from us, created their own line item.

So it should be in that 67 that was from 2425 or in the 55 that's for 2026. Either way, it's already included in either of those numbers. Those are the actuals for the nurse practitioner.

Sheriff May, on the... You said the mental health thing, is that part of that same pot of money or is that in your budget?

We don't have a line item. We did years ago when the county brought the nurse practitioner on several years ago. They took that from us and put it in that place. Wherever it is today.

It's got, I just, I feel comfortable with taking out the 72,000 in that line. I'm cause we're already, if that's what the process that we're already doing and it's in that line item, line item to line item, if we match it up with the 70,000, which was the highest amount, the high bar from 24, 25, and we make it 70,000, we should be good.

Let me ask a question. If we find out after we pass the third reading that the other numbers are included in there, we will have to do a revision to put it back in. But we really need to know what's causing that 100 and how much?

142. 162, sorry.

And we can vote at 70 knowing that?

No, sorry. 142.

Knowing that if it's something that we didn't include, we just have to do a revision, Mr. Chair. Can we do that? um we can now that the mental health support is much i mean it it's pretty much that the nurse doesn't do that you've got a mental health specialist that's doing that but right now we can't find we can't match the numbers it's just a matter of finding what's included in that once we've been we're on the third reading can't do it tonight but we need to pass this budget. Let's go with the amount that we see. Next meeting, July, I'm sure Sabrina, you all have that clear and bring it back to us as a revision.

Good evening, council members. I just wanted to add for context. The 140, I don't even have the amount in front of me but the 140 plus thousand that is currently in the HR budget was transferred from the admins budget, it's been 137,000 in the admins budget for as far back as 2020. And so we've never hit it when we never used never hit us because the highest high end I see is about 102,000. And that was also back in 2020. Since then, which makes sense because of COVID 22 was right about 93,000. So when we've transferred or realigned it from the admin's budget to HR for the current year, we did factor in the inflation for the current year, 2.63%. And so that is the amount that's factored in there as well. We can adjust it down, and like we do with any other expenses, if during the interim there's an increase, we'll come back to you with an amendment.

Okay.

I think that makes sense. I can live with that.

Thank you, Mr. Harris. Thank you.

Okay, and then, so the next, the question I was asking was HR contract services is requested 130, and I feel pretty strongly that that needs to come down pretty significantly. I don't know what that number.

What line item is that, Stuart?

That is 107024600. It's the HR contract services. Okay.

So do we have any history on that number also? Can we go back last year and see what?

Last year was.

So this past year was 4,700. 24, 25 was 56,000. And we budgeted about 56,000 this year. Pretty much on target. No, no, no, we only used up 4,700 of the 50.

No. So I mean, I guess I would just throw out a number of 60 just to 60,000.

Reduce it by 70,000.

And I guess we do the same with that number also. We can find that we didn't include something So Brandon, we can bring that back and make an adjustment, right?

Okay. The other one that was throwing me off too was BZA legal services. So the requested amount is 160. What line item is that? BZA, it is.

Was that in legal? Or admin services?

It's under planning and zoning. we spent in 2024 we spent 10 2025 we spent 43 and then we went up to 160. i just i'm not i'm missing i don't know if there's an explanation that that one's a big one it's 110 000 over actual

Does that come out of your budget, Jenny, or is that on your budget?

There's several budgets legal, yeah, throughout that we probably should consolidate.

We could talk about the other ones, the economic development one, and Jenny's the legal team too. There seems to be some duplication there.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I'm paying all out of my line item. I'm paying all of these. If departments have legal service budgets, they're not paying these legal invoices for attorneys. They're coming out of the county attorney's budget.

Which makes sense because based on actuals, they're not coming out of those

there's something being charged because it's 43,000.

For example, economic development, I pay all of those to Burr Foreman. In some years, those are $90,000 and $100,000 worth of legal fees.

This year, the actual is $4,200. for economic development.

So I would suggest that we cut that one down and make it 50,000 in our budget and reduce the recommended budget by 110,000 for that line item. And that's 107032600. I'm writing these down so we can remember.

And then the economic development one

is what can we talk about while we're still at yeah the traffic impact analysis we have actual of about 27 000 but we're budgeting a hundred thousand can we adjust that one fifty thousand

That would be a development services question. Those are the ones where they get outside reviews on the TIAs. Public Works doesn't really review those and do those.

So what it makes, I mean, if we looked at for 24, 25, it was about 50,000 that was actually used. Maybe we use that at 50,000. 60. So reduce 50.

250.

No, no, no. Reduce it by just to make it 50, which is a reduction of 50,000.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm with you. 2TO50.

I guess the question is, why was it recommended? Because...

I think they're just looking at the prior year budget.

Prior year budget is recommended at 100,000.

Yeah, prior year budget was 100.

I'm sure they looked at the years before that. I don't think so. I think that's the problem. If you look at... Steve made the recommendation. Hold on. Steve, in these recommendations, when you made the recommendations, how did you go about making that recommendation? Was it off of history, or what we paid in the past, or something that we knew was coming up?

Well, some of it's trend analysis, certainly. But then also you have the unexpected expenses. Just for example, one y'all just talked about, legal expenses. That's a crap shoot every year, because if you have economic development projects coming up, something comes up, and there might be some kind of litigation involved. You budget enough to try to have a little bit of a cushion in there. If something comes up, you hope for the best. And if it doesn't get spent, it just doesn't get spent. It rolls into fund balance. It goes back in.

You know, we've got to at least have some wiggle room here. We just can't budget down to the penny. Because if just like Steve said. If you don't spend it, it's going back in the next year where we will probably need it again.

Yes.

Oh, so I don't think we need to budget to the down. Let me finish. I think there's a couple of things in there worth discussing. But if we're going to go through line item line, I'm looking actual. We don't know the discussions around what happened, what might happen, the problems that they may have that they had with Steve. He made the recommendations to us. This is third reading. Why are we just not bringing this up?

I can answer all of those questions. Number one, I think this isn't just getting us to an even budget. There are still a ton of opportunities that I haven't mentioned. So as you can see, I went through the entire budget and highlighted all the variances. A lot of them are the ones that Mr. Graham has already brought up. The reason why it's coming up in third reading is because this is when we got it. So we did not have these numbers as we talked about at the prior two meetings. We did not have a full accounting of what the numbers looked like and where they were at. We had some. We had some, but it was like picking Powerball out of a hat.

We had the majority of those numbers.

We did not have the majority. No, you did not.

Yes, I did.

Did you review these numbers? I did. You've gone through this?

You've gone through this with this detail.

Can you let me finish? I was speaking.

Go right ahead and then I'll speak.

All right. If someone has done that review, because I have done that for every single one of these budget reviews, I have gone through the analysis. I went through the one, Sabrina, that you had sent me on the Excel spreadsheet. And after I had gone through it, then I checked this one, which was the one that we got this past week, and it was very different from what I had already reviewed. So this is the third time that I've reviewed this in detail. And this is the first time that I've gotten the information.

Jose this is not something new you do it every year and every year we get to this and we realize that you are nitpicking budgets and we know that if they over if they it's actual 50,000 error requests 75,000 they've had a discussion with the administrator as to why they think it needs to be that way and if they don't use it it goes into the next year general fund and I know the They do good on their budgets because a lot of times they don't use what we give them. They need wiggle room. Give them some wiggle room.

Mr. Chair, I think in this case, at least for me, is that we I think we have an opportunity to either use the funds more efficiently and reallocate to other places that it might be needed more. or specifically we may not have to go to our constituents and ask for a tax increase. So it's not that it rolls back, it doesn't roll, I mean, the money's coming from somewhere. We aren't taking it from them. Right.

So if they need the money in the years that we've cut them, they're going to come back to us to do a revision. Where would that put the taxpayers in? We're going to go back to general fund.

think there's still plenty of money left in the budget even with the amendments that we're doing because i haven't even started into all the smaller amounts that if the 50 000 72 000 70 000 is nitpicking i don't want to hear any conversations about how much we're adjusting for county council salaries Well, you know what, you took that long ago.

So we will not, hey, hey, you took that. We will not have that kind of outburst. You took that long ago. We're not even talking about that. We're talking about other departments that you're trying to strip.

I'm just talking about nitpicking. I'm just talking about nitpicking.

Okay. And like I said before, stay out of my pocketbook.

stay out of the constituents pocketbook no you stay out of mine let's have an adult conversation here so i i am having an adult conversation i am going through this budget line item by line item which is what should have happened a long time ago if we had had the visibility that i know all council members have requested go ahead miss so

Can you, okay, I'm sorry. So chairman and council, I just wanna actually make a point of clarification. When you looked at the planning department budget on line item 10-7-32-600 that had 93,000 in there, that was for contractual services. And that was related to the UDO. I believe that there was a revision. That was the original number that we had that we thought would get us through to, I believe, August or September. And I think that number is closer to 77,000. But prior to you all amending that, I just wanted to make that clarification that the funding was not for legal services, but that's contractual services. And that was for UDO, the UDO I just want to make sure that you're aware of that.

The amounts that are already there showing up as actuals?

No, no, no, for actually for the additional services. I think the original estimate we got might have been $93,000, and now it's closer to like $77,000 for the UDO consultant. I just wanted to make sure that you were aware prior to amending that. That was in the planning and zoning budget. You just discussed it.

The one that had the tag for BZA legal? Right.

It really should be planning and zoning, and that's the funding. That's where the funding for the UDO was placed. The 93, I think, is more than what we will need. I think it's closer to like 77,000. But I just wanted to make sure that before you all amend it, that you're aware of that. That is where the funding was placed to complete the project.

So if we did 80,000? yes we would have you'd be good okay all right thank you so as i'm looking at wages and salaries I think we we had spoken about not adding new positions. And if they've been vacant for a long time that we weren't going to add them back in. And as I'm looking through these, there are several departments that have fairly significant variances way above the 4% that we've been talking about, so I'm not sure what those mean. So for example. Um? This is building inspections. We have actuals that are showing up for 6-30-2026 of 787,850, but what we're budgeting is 1,046,000. That's about 33% to actual.

Councilman, some of this is churn when you get departments, especially the larger departments. Some of it is churned, but in building inspections, one I'm working with HR on now is the commercial inspector. Yeah. What we were offering, we were never going to hire anybody. We're going to have to increase that salary, and that's what I'm looking at trying to get it back up after looking at surrounding counties, what they're paying. I mean, we can leave the salary where it is, and we'll never, ever fail it.

I guess my question is, we've been talking about increasing the 4%, but we haven't had a conversation about what those new salaries that you're talking about now, that's news to me. So if those adjustments are gonna happen, I'd rather have a conversation transparently in front of the constituents and the citizens, as opposed to having it hidden in some budget line item and having to discover it because we're calling out the variances from actual.

That's one that, just so you'll know, I started looking into it when y'all mentioned it earlier and found out that the current software that we're using, the ERP will allow position control on our employees. Current software doesn't have it. It's just a matter of having to go back and hunt. Once the ERP is started July 1, we'll have position control for every authorized position we don't have.

I guess my question is, so even if we did the 4% increase adjustment to the actuals and there's probably some wiggle room in there because it's not the full month and completing the year, I'm seeing about a $220,000 over actual that's with even if we added 4% to that.

And in order to get that commercial inspector slot filled, we're gonna be upwards of 90 to 92,000 just on base salary, not fringe and all that.

And this is just the base because it doesn't include all the fringe stuff. So do you think we can cut 100,000 then from that $220,000 overage?

I don't know if Darren has any current vacancies or not within his inspectors. I just don't know.

I hear you, but I think that's one of the things that we talked about was if there's been vacancies over and over for the past few years, because if you look at the 24-25 budget, it's 726-180 was the actual. Then this year was 787-850. So we've already made some adjustments. I imagine we've made some salary adjustments already in that one. So I'm trying to figure out, is it realistic to have a 220,000 over when we're talking about just doing a $90,000 increase? That would already cover a new salary.

That one position I know. I just don't know in the building inspections, has there been some churn where some folks left? New folks came in, we paid them a little bit less. Those things happen in the departments.

I get it, but what I'm saying is the history, you've talked about reviewing the history, the history shows that it's under 800,000. So what I'm trying to figure out is why are we budgeting a million if we can cut out that 200,000? Or at least split the difference, make it 100 so we have some wiggle room.

Well, what we do is we look at authorized positions, we budget as if everything was gonna be there. It probably isn't. People are gonna come and people are gonna go. We hit that off year and lo and behold, jobs get tight and everybody wants to stick around. We gotta have the funding for it.

And we can make those adjustments as Ms. McGrives mentioned later if we needed to.

Now Jose, don't put that back on me because I don't want you going through the budget. line item by line item so we can make the adjustments because I say it and Mr. Chairman will say it as delicately as I can. These directors and head of departments, they know their budget. They know whether they have positions open. They budget for that. So during the year, if they have to fill those positions, the money is there. I trust that these directors and heads of departments know their budget better than I do.

Go ahead. All right. I've got a couple more that I think are worthy at least of a conversation. The one is poll workers, temporary poll workers. And I know we were going back and forth on if that process was gonna change and how that was gonna work. What I'm seeing in the line item budget is 230,000. I just wanna make sure that

is the acu is that what we're using in the budget or has that number been updated because i don't think we need 230 000 old workers i can answer a little bit being on the election commission when that budget is submitted we look at what does the state say we need to run our elections we'd love to have that number you know we we're out begging people to come to work and yeah this year You know, it was almost close. We might have to consolidate some polls in the runoffs, but you know, again, we're trying to go with what the state says. This is the number of poll workers you should have for your elections. Do we hit it all the time? No, we don't.

I guess for the, I mean, the election process will be in November. I just want to make sure that that 230,000 is the accurate number that we're working with and not the question that we have using another service.

This is not, this is another service. This is in-house, the way we've always done it, poll workers.

And that 230 is a good number.

I just. Put it in there, it's a good number, yes, sir.

Okay. Um the the other one is this there's a worker's comp um there's only it was 40,000. It is under non-departmental expenditure workers comp assessment and it was for request includes workers comp for um contract for volunteers. The reason why I'm bringing this one up is there has been no spending in this one for two years. I just wanna make sure this is something that is still needed as a line item.

The last two years I can't answer. I can tell you that four years ago that was put in because when we have contractors, when we have the audit comes up from the insurance trust If they find we've used a contractor that did not have their own workers' comp coverage, we get popped for it. So that's the history on that. Now what happened the last two years, I can't tell.

Okay another one that didn't have any spend over the last two years is a solid waste collection for 146. I had very limited spend so I don't know if there's something I don't know Jeff if that's something you could shed some light on but It's under solid waste collections. It says maintenance, general maintenance, general maintenance, general maintenance levels. And the spend last year was $809. And this year before it was $139.

Councilman, what page is that on?

I don't know what page it's on. I can tell you the fund.

General maintenance, is that what you're looking at?

Yeah, it says solid waste and there's a expenditure for, I mean last year, this year it was $800.

Each site has between two and three hydraulic compactors. And so rather than, we don't have a agreement per se for that and that's a little bit more technical work that Tyler and them have to do or Public Works has to do. So we use that line item to contract like a service account for that. But for the last couple of years, we've been good on the compactors. We haven't had them go down. We had some newer ones bought two to three years ago, got those installed. So we're looking pretty good on that. So that's why the money was there, but it just wasn't spent because there wasn't a need to bid out contracted work on the compactors themselves.

Would you be okay bringing that down a bit? As long as they don't tear up, I'd be fine. I know how that, I mean, right. But I don't want to, again, I think what we're trying to figure out is like, you know, yeah, you can't determine, like, if something's gonna break, but if we haven't used something over the next couple years, could we use that somewhere else, or, you know, is that something that could go back? I mean, with 75 or something?

Because that particular thing for that department, that's more of a specialized thing that we don't, when we have to do it, it is fairly expensive to get someone to do it. We don't have a, to be truthful, we don't have a ton of local on calls that we use that use that. We're trying to get into that a little more and more. But like I said, past couple years we've done fairly fine with them. But as long as they don't tear up. But now too, that is pretty much the compactors. That's your household garbage motion. And that's the lifeblood of your convenience. If those go down, we are going to fix it.

If it breaks down this year, we need it this year. You may not have used it in two years, but this might be the year. It could be, yes ma'am. We hope not, but that's why it's there, yes ma'am. That's why it's there.

I don't know if we put the economic development legal fees to bed. It's at 80. I mean, are we comfortable with moving that down a bit since? I guess there's the economic legal fees and there's Jenny's, what she's paying out.

Are they showing up in the department budgets but they're still being paid by you?

I'm assuming that's what happened. All the invoices come to me and I pay them out of my contractual services line item. So I'm not sure why Economic Development has a line item for legal services since they're paid out of my budget.

so we should reduce it to zero i mean what what should we do jenny that's what i was gonna ask so does your budget when you were looking at it include the legal services for economic development it should include all county legal services okay so let's see yes ryan come up please

It has nothing to do with legal services. These are monies that we often have to spend either to get property appraised or to do studies done and that sort of thing. Often we don't spend it. This year we were working at Heath Springs and so that money will get spent appropriately. But it doesn't have anything to do with legal services.

I want to make sure.

so brian if we're looking at that then there's what you've used up in 26 through june of 26 is 4256 that is correct and then prior year was 32 000. so could that one be an adjustment of 50 000

that money and it will be an investment in the county investment in the future trying to attract a new company we we got our appropriation was released by two million dollars we need all the money we can to try to develop sites so we we will spend that this year but we didn't we didn't the prior year just happened and the reason why I'm asking is because the budget for last year was 80,000 and we were delayed in starting some processes. So we didn't use any of that. I guess that goes back into the fund, but we will use it this year.

So while we're in economic development, Brian, sorry, there's 110,000 that we're budgeting for travel training and dues. What was spent in 26 was about 69,000, let's just call it 70,000. Is that an adjustment that we can do? Yeah, please. I'm trying to cover it. When somebody comes up, I'm trying to go back

As Dr. Griff said, we look at these budgets carefully and we try to plan and put the right numbers in there. Typically, this was a budget item that was in there before I arrived, $110,000, something like that. We ended up spending a good portion of that and a good portion we get back, but we have to spend it first. I-77 Alliance reimburses us 100% for travel. promotional economic conferences and that sort of thing. So we spend it and then we get it back. There is some money in there extra each year. Last year or the year before, the county administrator asked me for that money so we could do a special magazine. So yeah, there's probably 20,000 in there that will not get spent.

I'm sorry, so when you, that's 70,000, it's basically you're using, it's like the 110,000 is a credit and you're kind of fronting the funds and then you're getting a reimbursement that then shows up on that line item. So when the total comes out, the total spent is about 70,000, but you're moving around about a hundred thousand or 80,000, whatever.

That's correct. Okay.

Um, I do. So wages and salaries is about $100,000 over the actuals that we have.

We were minus one employee for almost a full year.

Okay.

We now are fully staffed so that will most of that money except for $10,000 or $20,000 will get used in the fully staffed.

Okay. So that was only one year that was not fully staffed. and then that got you to the 256 the year before. That's what I had for economic development.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. So how would be the best way to address the wages and salary discrepancies that we see throughout? Because I think road maintenance had some building inspections had some. There were a few other departments.

So I do want to make sure that we're understanding what you're defining as a discrepancy. When we look at the budget, we're budgeting and also factoring in those increases based on authorized positions, those positions that have been approved, whether they're filled or vacant. And so what Steve was talking about earlier with regard to those vacant positions, If they're vacant all year, just like what we heard with economic development, it's going to show there as a variance. There are departments that have multiple vacancies that they're going to show us significant variances at year end if they're not filled. If we are talking about estimating just based on the actuals and doing increases based on the actuals, then we'll potentially be hiring people after the fiscal year that we have not factored in moving the rate along with all the other positions. Right. And so we factor that in when we do the increase. It's not just based on field positions, but it's based on positions that council has authorized, whether they're filled or vacant. And so that equates to about, I think it's just under 1200 positions based on what's in the budget book.

And it could be because as I'm looking, so for example, recreation operations for wages and salaries part time, this is just wages, benefits, anything like that. In 24, 25, it was about 690. In 26, we're about 700,000, but we're budgeting a million. That's about a $300,000 difference. So even if you include the 4%,

think there's probably a lot of opportunities there to make up some of the difference that's there maybe recreation operations yes sir also included in the budgeted number um there is oftentimes flexibility especially if you've had a long time person in position they retire out and then you bring someone in at a lesser pay we're not um you know ongoing with adjusting positions to the actual pay and so some of those salaries are budgeted i mean they may be at an increased level That is something that we do attend to address with our going into the ERP process and being able to budget and have that position control in place. We will budget based on the actual salaries, but it's also we'll have to factor in where there are vacancies. The way that we estimate a vacancy is based on the average of a like position or we'll try to average it based on what's in the market if we don't have a like position. Look at the pay band. Yes.

I guess my question is, is that an opportunity to make an adjustment on that line item?

I would say that's a council decision because if we adjust it down, what we're in effect doing is potentially eliminating the potential to be able to hire someone in that position at a full salary.

We haven't done that in two years.

We got to call Chris up here. He could answer that.

Mr. Gladden, could you come up?

What would you like to know? Are we likely to hire $300,000 worth of part time positions for the next year when we haven't done it in the last two years?

That depends on how many kids sign up for after school and summer camp.

Are we expecting? 150% compared to what we've done last year.

I can't answer that question for something that's 12 months in the future.

Is it likely? No idea.

No idea, no, I mean.

Why don't we just budget 1,500,000? Sure. If you don't know, I mean, it could be, I mean, maybe we get 5,000 more percent.

And maybe we don't. This is all part of the trying to figure out how many kids we get.

That's why I'm asking as the department head, what's the reasonable expectation? Is it a reasonable expectation to have $300,000 more than what we currently have. Because the predicament we're in is we're trying to get to a number, I'm not even gonna speak for everyone else. I'm trying to get to a number where we don't increase the millage for our constituents. So I'm trying, I mean, this was a lot of work. I went through each line item and just identifying where I saw some discrepancies or potential discrepancies.

I do have a question though for staff for finance. When I'm looking at the notes, it still mentions the $17. And we didn't actually make a motion to remove that in second reading, which we need to clean up in this reading. So I just wanted to make sure that some of those adjustments which would have definitely affected parks and rec going to a $17 minimum salary, was that reflected in these numbers or how was that kind of sorted out? Because that, That was one thing that kept popping up when I'm going through the item detail.

If I may, regarding the 15 to 17 in the tiers, that was removed at your second reading, but you are seeing all of the notes. It's cumulative, it's billed. I just wanted to make sure since we didn't actually- The most frequent, the most up-to-date note third reading note and then all the history. So we don't lose that history.

So we need to make a motion to remove that because it had been added at some point or is it? So we don't even though we didn't make a motion to remove it.

Previously, we made a motion on the increase. We never voted on the 17th.

We made a motion to increase across the board.

Four percent. Four percent.

But you had mentioned and what was in the. But we never passed it. But we never passed an amendment to remove that.

It was never voted on.

Yes. The first reading was in there.

We did, but I could be incorrect.

in second reading we voted we didn't vote we didn't we didn't move it that's why that's why i was clarifying that because i had made a specific i made a specific note during that meeting did you hear the discussion over here about that uh 17 yes ma'am i'm looking at your minutes that that you just adopted there was discussion about that but the actual motion does not have it included in the official minutes because i had made a specific notation that we forgot to make

I think that was, I do recall that being that we need to clean that up on third reading. So there's no problem with cleaning it up with a motion right now.

You brought it up, you might.

I think it'd be good to put all that stuff together again instead of.

Yeah, that's fine. So one thing just, I think it's important for everybody to understand. One thing we are working with budget on for really this, the end of this year going into next year is that part-time line, has always been inclusive of our seasonal staff. And so it throws our numbers off. We don't know what our true spend is. So we're trying to separate that out. So we know that what we have from a year-round spending standpoint with our part-time staff is going to be in one bucket. And then we're going to try and put the seasonal, which is lifeguard and summer camp staff, their true seasonal. Because right now, that's just one number. So that's why it's hard to break it apart right now. I think if we can go through another year and transition to workday, I think it'll help us play with these numbers a little better. Is that a little high? It could be, yes. But that number is one big number

that we need to break out so we have a better sense of our spending does that make sense it does and i get it it's it's i'm not trying to indicate that this is easy i do budgets all the time and you're kind of forecasting and we all know how good our weather forecasters are we're basically doing the same thing with budgets right um so it is a challenge i'm just trying to figure out from a reasonableness standard does it does that make sense is that an opportunity for us to make an adjustment

it is an opportunity to talk about it and see. We have to run some numbers. What is the wage, the hours? We are 70 to 75 part-time staff and then you add in the seasonal staff. It just depends on where we are. A lot of it is going to be dictated by the summer camp staff because they take up a lot of the budget because we hire so many people on for that and the lifeguards. That is a bigger number for us.

I'm just gonna get to the, I'm gonna get to the big one. So Mr. Cato, in the road maintenance, there was under contract services, we typically budget the 3 million, that we budgeted 3,150,000. We spent 2 million last year. We spent 2,500,000 the year before. We're budgeting 3,500,000 this year. So that's about a million five more. And I know you had an indication for the 350,000 for additional contract roadway work. But if we add that to the 2 million 28, we'd still have about a million two in savings on that line item.

Yeah, well, we fully intend to, again, like you said, projecting. We're projecting a full million dollars more of roadway work, and we're going to tell you why. Because, number one, you saw in the line item, all we have left now for a funding source once the capital sales three roads are done is going to be the CTC. The CTC is programmed out already. They're two years out of what they have programmed. $2 million a year when you add not just county roads, but CTC also does roads on the DOT system. So that's where that increase is coming from. We do fully intend to spend the full $1.2 million or have it procured and under contract now, especially with it being county work. We can utilize our own calls instead of a huge package bid like we do with the larger contracts. We fully anticipate to utilize all that money. We still don't have an in-house paving crew. And then again, too, with everything, asphalt is directly related to fuel. So we're now seeing asphalt prices higher than they've ever been. Don't know when they're going to go down. So we've kind of figured. There's at least an extra $1.2 million of roadway work contracted in the county that will be done in FY26-27.

Okay, so you think that work will be done and completed in FY27?

I think it will. I think the needs are out there. We're seeing more and more every day. Okay. Thank you.

I'm sorry, Jeff. Are those roads going to be county roads only, or are they going to be state roads? What I want to hear is, from my perspective, those should only be county roads.

Those will only be county roads. That funding there is only county roads. Where you see the other ones is roads that were on your sales tax ballot, voted on by the voters, or CTC selections. That's where we partner with the DOT.

Jeff, before you run, I got one. You're quick. The solid waste collections, my question is more, there was one, it's the solid waste collections, it's the... It talks about special projects, maintain project level, solid waste study, Joshua Tree site upgrade, PW facility site study, convenient site maintenance. And the actuals is 362,000, requesting almost $2 million, so it's a $1.5 million. My question is, is any of that stuff maybe capital that we could maybe pull out of fund balance versus, or is out, maybe that's a question for Jim.

Special projects line item is mostly fund balance.

Is it all? Yes, that is the- That is fund balance?

That's correct. That's the upgrade for the past couple of years on two convenience sites. again design and and all that's been going on they are tied to the udo so we are having trouble with the setbacks on those that's why they're both carried pretty much carry forwards a fun balance okay hold on jeff going back to solid waste this is solid waste collections on the special projects

We spent 66, 24, 25, 362 this year, but we're budgeting 1,095,000. And what I'm seeing, it's saying maintain project levels, which would be the 362, then having a solid waste study, Joshua Tree site upgrade.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's 1,000,006 for all that.

$1.6 million for Joshua Tree and Irwin Farm if we can get them both done. So they're both in there.

It's coming out of fund balance.

That's fund balance, yes, sir.

Not coming out of operation.

The disposal contract, the same thing? Yes, disposal. $200,000? Yes. Over the current, which would put us at $2 million, but we're budgeting $2.5 million.

Yes, that's full anticipation of the tipping fees for either a Continuation with the city of Lancaster are hauling our own. We've talked about that. That's gonna happen this next year. That's why we asked for the additional funding. Tipping fees are going up regardless.

That's the additional 400,000? Yes, sir. So if we did the 400,000 to the 1,000,006, would put us at 2,000,000. Is there a 500,000 that we could cut?

wouldn't recommend it because the 400 000 is just for msw solid waste we have c and d solid waste we also pay tipping fees on and of course too maintaining the level of the waste tires is very expensive as well i mean we are if i'm not mistaken right now current budget is 2.1 in solid waste

The budget is 2.1 and we've only spent 1.65.

We have encumbered out. We still have two more months of two landfills, the city, a C&D landfill left to play. We're thinking about we're having to transfer money to that account. That account is going to hit 2.1 million before June 30th.

Before June 30th? Yeah. In a week? Again, we're only paying. We're going to spend $450,000.

Oh, yeah, we're going to spend it because we haven't paid. Those are just whatever you've got up to date is more than likely just Mays. You still have the whole month of June. You spend about $200,000 in disposal a month.

But that'll be $450,000. We're just looking at one month. You're looking at $450,000 on MSW, yeah.

You have the other ones. You have waste tires you have to pay for. You have C&D we haul off. We have electronics you have to pay for. Or we could not. I mean, again.

I don't think we're going to spend 400. I mean, it's possible. But that would be we're spending 25% of our entire budget in the last month of June. That would seem odd to me.

no but you don't it's encumbered that's why i said it's not what we spent it's encumbered on purchase orders so we could be three four five months behind yes you could okay but you it's yeah it's a you know jeff does this every day i i kind of take his word of what it's going to be jeff has always been if we don't spend it i i would be i would be thrilled That's saving more money than this is.

Very few go on his budgets. If he needs money, he comes back to council, tell us what he wants. How am I gonna question this man on a budget line item that he does every day and he knows his job? I'm not doing it.

Mr. Chair.

Go ahead, Mr. Chair.

Okay, I got, for the finance team, I got one I just want a clarification on. There was the nonprofit awards. was one in there so there was there's a lot there's a budget item non-profit awards that was a hundred thousand dollars um and i just want to make sure there's another one under the county council department under special projects um and it's it's got a recommended of 111 and the in the note there it says it covers 100 for council non-profit expenditure i just want to make sure they're not double

May I?

Sure.

So we placed 100,000 for local awards and non-departmental. So you might be reading a note. Yeah, sure. That would be useful if we added language, this was not recommended, et cetera. Give me one second to get with you, please. Here comes my boss.

I can't tell you exactly the number line item it's in, but we originally budgeted that in council's budget. And to make sure that it didn't inadvertently get used on any other expense, we moved that to non-departmental, just to make sure that when it was time to pay out those nonprofit awards, that the funds were there. We ran into a conflict this year, and so we just wanted to make sure that it didn't get inadvertently commingled with the regular departmental budget.

And I just wanted to make sure that that county council special projects doesn't include that $100,000 now.

It should not, but that's what Jamie is checking right now. It should not.

And then Mr Willis, did we add? Are there any missing positions for the coroner's office that we need to account for?

I'd have to go back and look, hold on.

So I think we were bringing someone in house or at least having that conversation.

Okay, I see where you're talking about now. Currently the budget is as it was originally proposed. We'd have contractual services now. Should council find favor with the idea of bringing that in house, we could certainly do that, but it would involve a transfer of funds because you're moving contractual into wages and salaries. I know the coroner has proposed bringing that in-house. It could be some pretty nice savings there, but as of right now, it's what was proposed at first.

I can't tell Brian to get Carla up here, because I don't think we're there yet. I think Carla was going to let us know if that comes to fruition with bringing a person in-house.

I think the presentation that Carla made, and she's standing there, but I'll try to you brief on this was what she was talking about was taking contractual services we got now and paying a salary for it. So if it's in the budget is contractual services, we need to, it will be moved at some point in time if we were to do that.

if we move forward with it, right? Correct. So right now, instead of sending our money to another facility, we would have it here, which also, in turn, our law enforcement, if they have to go to the autopsy, you're going to be saving that money as well. They won't be traveling. And all the way to our solicitor's office, at the end of whatever case that we're prosecuting, they have to pay gas mileage for the pathologist to come here. so that would eliminate that as well. It would also give our EMS and our fire an opportunity to come witness The medical process of autopsy in house right here in Lancaster County rather than pay for them to travel and train somewhere else. So he would be here and he would be an employee of Lincoln. So are we there yet? As far as making that happen? That's up to you guys. I have a person who just I found the unicorn.

You are ready.

I'm ready and he's ready.

I think we need to make that change.

That means we have funds in the budget. We just have to change the. They have to move. Yes. Title of the line.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with her in changing this over. But let's get through the budget because there's a lot to this when you bring in that type of service because they actually testify in these cases. if we contract, I mean, if we have that employee and autopsies are brought in from other places, they could end up in court and other,

We're not at a point right now. He would be our employee only and do only our autopsies. In order for him to do autopsies for another county, that would require some type of ordinance. We would have to sit down and really figure that out. Before we start worrying about making money, we need to get him on board as Lancaster counties.

I just want to make sure we... legally have our, you know, everything crossed because when you start doing autopsies, that's a different, I guess the next level of

of uh what am i trying to say responsibility responsibility that the county has taken on and you know and i talked to carl about the liability to that and i followed up with you and i consulted with our county attorney he is actually covered under this insurance here because he is not a practicing physician who will be issuing prescriptions or triaging live people that's not what he's doing so he won't need a medical malpractice insurance like you you and I had talked about you wanted to ensure that we I would tell you there are less than 700 of them in the United States there are less than 400 that practice uh charleston is having a really hard time getting one and we have an opportunity to get one if we don't get him we may not because i i'll just be very fair and honest with you he's currently employed right over the state line and they're going to try to battle me to get him so there's his value i know his worth i just want to make sure you you're ready to take all this responsibility i'm ready okay and our new facility our new facility is ready it's actually built out long term so that probably after i'm retired two of them can actually work there but i would like for us to start off on that foot we will be setting a standard that only a couple of coroner's offices in south carolina have that now thank you thank you any other questions any other questions for the coroner thank you thank you

I had one for Jamie. Where is the sheriff's mental health request in the budget? I could have missed it.

The sheriff's mental health request?

Yes.

Is that for the 24-7 medical care?

Yeah, just his normal.

Or is that for the psych?

No, for his wellness program. This is for his personnel? Yeah, just for his personnel.

One that serves deputies?

Yes, that's what he's talking about.

I don't want to misspeak on behalf of Sheriff. So I might need an assist from our Sheriff.

Sheriff Bell, could you come up again?

That's kind of what I figured. I just didn't see it.

I would think it would be in contractual services, but I'm not sure about that.

$85,000.

Yeah.

Mayor's 7-7-1.

But it's not calculated in these numbers.

Not in these.

In the third reading. But I just, I don't look at it.

I knew it was not here. I was looking at it.

We need to update the note accordingly, but it's in 110 embedded mental health contract for sheriff's offices and 110-600-00 contract services for sheriff.

All right. Thank you. You're welcome. But the note needs to be added in.

Okay, we're gonna take a short break and we'll come back about 8.35. We're back in order. Before we start the discussion again, I want to add one thing that is in the opposite direction. Chief Nicholson approached me tonight and as for the County Fire Service and they have lost about $82,000 in funding for their maintenance for their vehicles out of the budget. and they're already over budget on that this year. And so that's something we need to look into adding for next year is adding that back into the budget. Let's begin with our discussions again.

I think, Jamie, were you able to determine if that $100,000 for the nonprofit, was that double counted or was it, it was, okay.

It is not double-counted, sir. That's related to a contract for audiovisual equipment.

Okay.

It lives in non-departmental, though, for this year, so you can track it easier.

I'm not sure. I think that was for the non-profit thing from this budget. Carry it over. Is that what?

It's reoccurring.

I don't know if we're going to have a budget for it. I mean, as tight as we run this year, I don't know if we can afford to give away $100,000 this coming year. My personal opinion. Jamie, you have $100,000 in now for the nonprofits again.

We do. We have $100,000 for FY27 in the non-departmental account line that says non-profit awards. So that should be early on in your annual budget estimate. The answer is yes.

I think as tight as we are this year, I don't know that we got, me personally, I don't know if we got $100,000 to give. That's my opinion to give away this year. as tight as things is running. $100,000 to go a long way toward our employees or this fire service needing this budget for fixing these vehicles and stuff like that. I think we need to revert these funds this year.

Well, y'all know how I feel about nonprofits and the fact that nonprofits does so much in this county to offset what the county can't do or not willing to do. If you would just go into your community and see what nonprofits do for this community, uh, counts on agent, uh, give to council of agents i'm saying council on agent counseling services um powerhouse the soup kitchen all of these all of these non-profits do a service for the county and we're only saying a hundred thousand dollars to go through to all of these agencies and i wish y'all would know your community. I wish you would get out there and see what goes on in this community and not be in a box, not even know what they do. I know what they do. You know what some of them do, Bill. I'm out there and I see the need and I see the struggle and I see what they need. And as a county, we can't give up $100,000 every county in the state gives to nonprofits. And I don't understand why we can't take $100,000 of a $202 million budget to help those who are less fortunate than us.

If we had the money, it would be different. We do. We don't have it.

We have the money for the things that you all want.

We haven't raised taxes, or we're looking to raise taxes a mil or so, and $100,000 would help not have to do that. So, I mean...

Yeah and another thing y'all at some point we're going to have to realize that this is a growing county and at some point we're going to have to increase the meals or it's going to hit us in the face down the road when we don't increase this budget on an annual basis the millage on an annual basis it's going to hit us and it's going to hit us hard.

So are you saying that because of the growth we have to increase the millage for everyone else that's here?

No, I'm saying, because this is a growing County in order for us to provide services to this County, efficient and services that, uh, are that they expect. We're going to have to, we got over 107 million, I mean, thousand people in this County, and we still trying to live off last year. We're going to have to understand that it's going to take, uh, revenue to do it and if we're not bringing the revenue in with with uh industry and taxes uh not enough taxes we're gonna have to do something and and i know better than all y'all like i said i'm i'm just an average citizen if we raise taxes i'm gonna have to pay it too i'm not doing anything that i know i won't have to do And if you talk to people, they understand that we've got to raise taxes to meet budgets sometimes.

I'm just saying that if I hear you correctly, you're saying because of the growth. And I'm saying, well, perhaps we should stop the growth unless it starts paying for itself. That's all I'm saying.

So we don't have to grow.

We don't approve them. We don't approve rezonings.

That's not going to stop it, Jose. Moratorium is not going to stop it.

I didn't say a moratorium. I just said not approve rezonings. I think we just need to look at how we're approving developments and ensure that they're paying for themselves so that we're not putting the burden of growth on everyone else in the county.

But, Jose, we're here now. We're at that level where the growth is here. How you gonna stop it, I don't know.

Go ahead, Mr. Graham. My only comment towards that conversation would be that we continue to have a surplus when we get to the end of the budget year. This year we're estimating it being $4.5 million. My goal is to make sure that we're efficient in how we're using those funds and how we're using taxpayer money and so that we can close that gap so we're actually using that and allocating it. My question is, I think I'm ready to make a motion.

Before you comment on what you're just saying. The reason why we're in our general fund we had 72 plus million dollars. This year we used 36 million of it. That's not going to be the case next year.

Agreed.

You're not going to. Next year we're not going to have that surplus. Next year we're going to have to do something about raising the millage. because we won't be able to meet budgets otherwise.

All right, Mr. Graham, we have a motion on the floor. So if you're making a motion other than a motion to approve, it'll be a substitutionary motion.

My question is when I make this motion, I'm gonna talk about different, I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to identify the funds that we're talking about. I can use the numbers, I guess they're GL numbers, but I'm just asking council or maybe finance what the best way to identify those funds so it's clear about what those are.

Mr. Chairman, I'd rather vote on a lot of stuff one at a time. If you've got multiple, then some might pass and some might not. That's just my thought, whatever you want to do.

We can either do that or we can propose a percentage of a meal or a meal or whatever that we want to reduce the budget and then allow staff to be able to go through or take the information that Mr. Graham and Mr. Luis have compiled

I don't think we can do it that way.

I don't think we as staff have that authority.

Right, staff doesn't have the authority to do that within the budget.

We need a proposal on what we're going to do so we can go forward because we've had enough discussion on this. We need to decide what direction we're going in.

Well, I guess I will make, do I need to determine as a substitute motion? Yes. I think you're making a motion to amend the budget. I'm gonna make a motion to amend the budget. And I'm gonna, I'm just gonna do it in one shot. And if we don't agree, then we can peel that off. Um, the first one is, um, let me go ahead and get this out of the way just to clean this one up to remove the $17 an hour minimum wage. Um, and I believe we need to remove the salary study. I don't know. I don't think we did that last time either.

I didn't see it in the notes.

I didn't see in the minutes. We talked about it, but it wasn't in the motion. It definitely needs to be removed. Those two items and then the HR, I shouldn't say that, the nurse practitioner is reducing from 142,000 to 70,000. H.R. CONTRACT SERVICES FROM 130,000 TO 80,000. THE BUDGET ITEM THAT WAS TERMED BZA LEGAL SERVICES WHICH IS PART OF THE UDO CONTRACT SERVICES, I BELIEVE IT WAS AROUND 160. I'm sorry, that's 80 to, it needs to go down to 80. The solid waste collections, this one was where there was, nothing was broken over the last two years, is budgeted currently at $146,000, reduce it to $75,000. Planning and zoning traffic impact analysis is currently budgeted $100,000, reducing it to $50,000. I don't know where the one that Mr. Clarence just brought up with county fire services, which would result, I believe you said in an 82,000?

82,000 increase.

I don't know what line item that is, but that would be an $82,000 increase.

it's for the fire service maintenance funds is that sufficient the fire service maintenance funds yeah is that enough to identify what line what i think for our for our purposes calling out the last five digits of the account line and stating the department if you know the department would help us be able to reduce it at the line item level and make the appropriate note.

Okay. Chief Nicholson gave me the names. One was the maintenance general. And maintenance vehicles. And then contractual services.

So is that just a net increase of Chief?

Maintenance general was $18,750. Maintenance vehicle was $25,000. And then contractual services is $37,675.

So what Mr. Carn said, just as a note that when we- That's actually 81,375.

I just rounded to 82.

The net of what we just talked about there would be somewhere around $350,000 reduction.

That's your motion, amended motion.

That's my amended motion.

Second. We have an amended motion and a second on the floor. Is there any discussion?

I've got a few questions. I need some clarification on that UDO cost. I wasn't sure about that cost. Stuart, what was that UDO cost? You reduced it from what to what?

From 160 to 80.

Is that going to cover the additional? That's what I know. Is that going to be enough?

Ms. Snowden indicated that that would be enough to cover. Correct. Okay.

The other thing is the solid waste. Why are we reducing that from 146 to 75?

The intention behind that one is that we haven't had anything break in the last two years and, you know, I just, I would, it's something that we're throwing out there as a number just because it's been budgeted for a number of years. It could break this year, it might not break this year, but I just felt like that was something that we could reduce. I mean, certainly if something happens where we have to replace something, then, you know, maybe it's more appropriate to be capital anyway, but.

Something does break. I mean, we don't have no fund balance to pay for it. I mean.

I'm not, I'm not, uh in favor of that if if it's 146 and something happens it's covered i don't know why we want to cut something like serving as an insurance again again it's because we haven't spent any money in that line item in two years always first time store That's my question, two questions concerning that.

If you do this, if we do have some breakdowns, where are we going to get the money from?

I think it would be just like anything else. If we had a tornado come through and wipe something out or if something happened to one of our buildings or anything, I think we would do it like we would do anything else. We would bring it out as a budget amendment.

Well, guess what? We'll spend it anyway. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Go ahead, Jeff. Yes, Mr. Chairman, if it did, that, again, that's a specialized account item for maintenance. If we had major problems in that, we would probably take that out of the regular contractual, which is what we use for debris grinding and things like that. So that would be plan one. That would be our intent. If that helps, thank you.

so the city could take it elsewhere else.

And get out of a different account.

Might have to reduce services in that account.

I'm not trying to be blunt. I mean, we could play the what if game all night about different things. It doesn't really, I'm just looking at what's happened the last two years.

Every budget is what if.

Exactly, so you do the best you can.

Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor. Is there any other discussion?

Would you go back over those numbers one more time, please?

Yes. The nurse practitioner budgeted at 142,000 right now. Proposed would be 70. HR contract services went from 130 to 80,000. The BZA legal services, which is really the UDO contractual from 160 to 80. The solid waste collections from 146 to 75. And the traffic impact analysis from 100 to 50. And then a net increase over three different line items for county fire that results in a roughly an $82,000 increase.

And you've taken the study out.

Salary study. And removing the salary study out of.

Yeah, we just gotta vote on that. I think it's not in the.

In the $17 an hour.

In the $17 an hour. I'm just putting it all together as one motion and then whatever the will of council we can. Yes.

May I add a point of clarity? Yes, ma'am. 125, that was removed. It is. Yeah, 125,000 was in HR's special projects budget. That was 690-00 in Department 24.

I'm just saying, I don't think we actually, it wasn't in the minutes that we actually removed it in the second reading. We didn't vote on it. I know we talked about it, but we never actually formalized it

Is that the salary study you're talking about?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

$125,000 for the class and college.

Thank you. All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussion?

So the net deduction? The net is roughly $325,000. 353,000 roughly, let's just call it 350. Percentage-wise of a mill, that would be how much?

Not quite a half percent of a mill.

Does that motion need to be made to include a mill? Yes, I can include that as part of the motion to reduce the millage increase from one and a half to one mill.

otherwise you'll be out of balance and i'll and i'll second that okay so we've added to it to reduce the meal from the additional meals from one and a half to one all right uh any other discussion hearing them we're gonna what what will that give us a balanced budget That will if we take this out and take the half a mil out.

It'll be within $20,000 or $30,000. It's very close.

But it's still got to be balanced. Right?

We got to have a balanced budget, y'all. I don't care about the numbers. It's got to balance.

What are we missing? $30,000?

I'd tell you what I would take out. I'd take out the $40,000, $41,000 for that workers comp that we haven't used in two years. That would balance you for sure.

What would it take to balance us out to one meal? Take that half a meal, which is whatever, that's the number we need because we got to have a balanced budget.

So you're taking out that? workers comp.

In other words, what's half of the meal?

Half a meal is $337,000. Yeah, we're balanced. We're balanced. We're balanced. Half a meal is $337,000. We're a little above $350,000.

Well, we need the numbers to reflect whether it's $17 or $10. It's got to balance, y'all.

We're in the positive. We're in the positive.

We're good.

Okay. Is there any other discussion? We're gonna call for the motion or the vote. Wait, wait, wait.

Are the numbers balanced? We've got to have a balanced budget before we make this motion, y'all.

We just need to be positive. Is that correct? So we would be positive with this. Okay.

Positive for $13.00.

about thirteen dollars thirteen thousand not thirteen thousand thirteen thousand we got thirteen thousand to play with can you take a vote all those in favor of the amendment please raise your right hand all those opposed it passes unanimously okay we're going to go back to the

main motion as amended hold on a second i'm going to make a motion to amend to move the ps medical from the coroner's office to wages and salaries in the coroner's office i'll second it discussion

That's not gonna affect the budget, it's just for money moving.

Well, it's going to affect the budget until we hire this person. We're still gonna have those expenses for the contractual services, are we not? I mean, this would be more handled as a budget amendment once the budget's approved and we can negotiate all the contracts and everything like that, I would think. Carly, you can come up too.

Yeah, I did just want to make sure that we add context to the adjustment to move funds out of the PS Medical and for the salary position. So the salary position, as I understand it, is the salary alone is $370,000. Wait a minute, 310,000. Yes. 310,000 for the position. I had a chance to sit with Colleen and talk through what her proposed realignment is of her budget. She would still need to have funds in that PS medical line item for ongoing costs for autopsies and toxicology and other related expenses. At the time we spoke about it, we were only adjusting out of that line item 153,500.

when you said I would need money left for autopsies and tox, that is in the in-between time. After he comes on board, he's doing all the autopsies, tox is still a separate service for somebody else. All that will be left in that PS medical budget will be the equipment, like our body bags, our syringes, those kind of, the work equipment that we must have to make that. When you initially said 370,000, he has to have an autopsy tech. I was not gonna ask for another person at all for another employee. I can take the 60,000 and disperse it among three different employees and have them do that tech job for him we would not bring him probably on board until october a lot that has to be worked in between there so from now until october we'll still stay on the same track where we are then it would move over to a salary for him how much do you need between now and october in that ps medical Probably, but we do have like what Jeff came up earlier and he has bills that compound like that. MUSC bills us like that as well. I don't want to take a guess at a number because they don't bill us for the autopsy until it is fully complete. If it is a complicated homicide, we may not get a bill for six to eight months. and then surprised we have a bill from something back in December. I don't wanna guess at that. I don't know.

So Jenny, would it make the most sense, withdraw the motion as long as Mr. Harper agrees, but allow Carla to negotiate this contract with this party and then make an adjustment afterwards?

That would be fine.

Yeah, I mean, the money's there, it's just gonna be in a different account. Correct. But we're gonna need to have the money in that account until we hire the person.

Correct.

So I'm gonna withdraw my motion.

I'll withdraw a second.

all right thank you i just need clarification that that means i can still move forward with i think you would need a motion to allow carla to move forward with negotiations offering him a position and then doing something we'll have to do that after this is that could we do that jenny after this conversation because we're still in budget right right once you finish the budget then we can do that motion to let you do that okay yeah thank you

All right, we're back to the budget as amended. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. We're voting on the budget as amended. We're back to voting on the full budget.

So the amendment that Council Member Graham made, that's where we are, back to the budget with that amendment.

With the amendment, okay. So is everybody clear what we're voting on? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed? Motion passes six to one.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if you would like to deal with the coroner's.

Yes.

A motion there would be appropriate.

We'll take a motion now to deal with the coroner being able to negotiate a new position. Is there someone who'd like to make that motion?

I'll make that motion.

We have a motion from Mr. Luis. Is there a second? Second. We have a second from Mr. Mosteller. Is there any discussion? Yes, Ms. Harris.

I just want to make sure to have on note the total cost for the position all in with the associated benefits. And so with a salary of $310,000, the associated benefits will bring that to $427,913. And then it would just be a matter of if it's approved during the interim, then we would re-estimate the cost based on when that person actually started.

Yep. Right. We're all ready to vote on the motion. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, it's unanimous. Okay, we're gonna move on to item 8J now, third reading of ordinance number 2026-2037. Mr.

Chair, I think we have another, we had a vote on the, we have to vote on the, The split, the hospitality tax, the, or the.

You all had already done that. That's in the ordinance. So it's there.

Okay.

Okay. An ordinance to amend ordinance number 2021-1726 relating to the adoption of a revised Lancaster County capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2021 through 2022 through 2030 to 2031 is recommended by the Lancaster County Planning Commission. This passed 6-1 at the May 26, 2026 County Council meeting. Mr. Mosteller opposed. Passed 6-1 at the June 8, 2026 County Council member. Mr. Mosteller opposed. Do we have a motion to approve? So moved. I have a motion from Ms. McGriff. Do we have a second? Second. I have a second from Mr. Graham. Go ahead, Mr. Park.