Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome all to Laramie County. budget session, formal budget meeting. If you have a cell phone, I'd ask you to turn it to silent. And with that, Madam Clerk, first item.

Item one, public hearing. Proposed amendments to the Laramie County fiscal year 26 budget.

Mr. Walker. All right, Adam. Speak loud. It's going to get louder in here.

Okay. All right. Mr. Chair, Board of Commissioners, the proposed budget amendments for the year, there's 35 of them, 22 of which are relating to grants that were awarded after the beginning of the budget year, and the remainder are for projects that were unforeseen at the beginning of the year. This was posted in the newspaper on June 18th. And we have had a copy of it available in our office. We have had no concern for the public to review it. Are there any questions?

Any questions on the budget amendments?

Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Heath.

I received a question as to what the county commissioner's $511,127 appropriation was. Could you please explain that? Sorry, what was the amount on that one?

$511,000.

That's the very first one on there.

No, on the amendments?

No, on the appropriations resolution. Am I on the wrong one?

Yeah, we're on the budget amendments. Sorry about that. No worries. Any other questions? Okay, entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, move to approve. Second. Motion and a second. Discussion by the commission?

Discussion? Just a quick shout out, if I could, Mr. Chairman, through you to, once again, our grants department. It just kind of shows beyond words how awesome that department is and how much they do for us, and they save the taxpayers of Laramie County. As you said, I believe the first 22 of those are all just grants that we didn't expect to receive and we've gotten. So I just want to do a shout out to the grants department. Thank you for all that you do. We appreciate you very much.

Mr. Chairman, this is a public hearing.

Oh, I apologize. Okay, so I will go ahead and open the public hearing. If you'd like to speak on this item, please come forward. Is there anyone online?

There is no one online.

One more time in the room. Anyone like to speak on this? Okay, public hearing is closed. Let's redo the motion. Mr. Chair, move to approve. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? Discussion? Roll call, please.

Commissioner Heath. Aye. Commissioner Thompson.

Aye.

Commissioner Zonitzer.

Aye. Chairman Mom. Aye. And I should note Commissioner Hollingshead is excused. Thank you. Thank you. Next item, please.

Item two, public hearing and consideration of the fiscal year 27 annual budget for Laramie County.

Now, Mr. Walker, Ms.

Clerk Lee. Thank you, Chairman Maum. I'll do a few introductory remarks and then turn it over to Mr. Walker. So Chairman Malm, commissioners, fellow elected officials, department heads, county employees, and members of the public. Good evening. As county clerk, I have the statutory responsibility of serving as Laramie County's budget officer. It is my privilege to present the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. And I will mention this is the last time as clerk that I will be presenting the Laramie County budget. Joining me this evening are Stanley Walker, our Finance Division Director, and Adam Christensen, Deputy Director in the Clerk's Office. Together, they have devoted countless hours over the past several months developing, reviewing, and refining this budget based upon the Board's direction. I also want to recognize our elected officials, department heads, and county staff. Preparing a county budget is truly a collaborative effort. Every department carefully evaluated its operational needs, established priorities, and worked within available resources to produce a budget that reflects both fiscal responsibility and our commitment to serving the citizens of Laramie County. The budget before you is balanced, transparent, and fully compliant with Wyoming law and generally accepted accounting principles. This evening I'll provide a brief overview before turning this presentation over to Mr. Walker for a more detailed review. Laramie County remains Wyoming's largest county by population and continues to experience steady economic growth. More than 100,000 residents depend on county government every day for services that often occur behind the scenes. Our employees maintain roads and bridges, support public safety, conduct elections, process vehicle titles and registrations, maintain public records, issue building permits and marriage licenses, and perform hundreds of other responsibilities required by law. This budget provides the financial framework necessary to continue delivering those essential services while preparing for the demands that accompany continued growth. This marks the eighth consecutive year that Laramie County has adopted its budget before the beginning of the fiscal year. That accomplishment has strengthened our financial operations by allowing departments to begin each year with an approved budget in place and by improving our ability to pursue grant opportunities without unnecessary delays. This is also the first budget prepared entirely within our ClearGov digital budgeting platform. The online budget book makes county finances more accessible and understandable by allowing citizens to easily review revenues, expenditures, capital projects and historical financial information. Transparency remains one of the cornerstones of good government and this budget reflects that commitment. Laramie County has long followed a pragmatic, common sense approach to financial management. We conservatively estimate revenues while realistically budgeting expenditures. That discipline philosophy has allowed the county to maintain financial stability through changing economic conditions, without compromising essential public services. Our revenue projections are based on information from the state of Wyoming, the Wyoming County Commissioners Association, our county assessor, treasurer, historical sales tax collections, and long-term economic trends. This careful approach continues to position Laramie County for long-term financial stability and sustainability. This year's budget was developed during one of the most challenging property tax environments Wyoming counties have faced in decades. And property taxes are the single largest source of revenue for Laramie County. I want to recognize the outstanding work of our county assessor and staff who have successfully adapted to significant legislative changes while continuing to fulfill their constitutional and statutory responsibilities with professionalism. Last year, the Wyoming Legislature enacted legislation limiting annual increases in taxable value for qualifying owner-occupied residences to 4%. While providing tax relief to homeowners is an important public policy objective, implementation of this legislation has created uncertainty for counties and other local governments that depend on property tax revenues to provide essential services. While application of the 4% cap remains the subject of ongoing litigation, this budget assumes current law remains in effect unless otherwise directed by the courts. Until those legal questions are resolved, careful financial planning will remain essential. Here are some highlights of the fiscal year 2027 budget. The proposed fiscal year 2027 budget totals $324.5 million across 32 separate funds. Although the overall budget is approximately $20 million higher than last year, much of that increase reflects one-time capital projects and infrastructure investments rather than ongoing operating costs. Within the general fund, projected revenues total $60.3 million, approximately $1.6 million less than the prior year. This is primarily due to legislative changes affecting property tax collections and lower projected state sales tax distributions. Even with these reductions, however, our budget remains structurally balanced. New recurring revenues exceed ongoing operating expenditures by approximately $301,000, demonstrating that our county continues to live within its means while maintaining the quality services our citizens expect. County government succeeds because of its people. Every service we provide depends on dedicated employees who serve our residents with professionalism every day. This budget includes approximately $2.4 million in market salary adjustments. with $1.4 million in merit increases and bonuses. Funding for previously adopted positions totals approximately $862,000. These investments recognize that attracting and retaining qualified employees is essential to maintaining the high level of public service our community deserves. So let's look ahead. As Laramie County continues to grow, so do the demands placed on our government. Meeting those expectations requires thoughtful planning, strategic investment, and a long-term vision. It's been years since we've had a strategic or facilities master plan. As elected officials, we understand the challenges of growth and changing laws and regulations. Every day we live with increased service demands, while operating with limited staff and in facilities that in some cases are no longer adequate to meet our needs and the needs of our constituents. I greatly appreciate this Board's commitment to developing a comprehensive strategic plan to address those challenges, help guide future decisions, and, most importantly, ensure our financial resources remain aligned with the needs of our growing community. So, in closing, the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget is more than a financial document. It reflects our priorities. It demonstrates responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars while continuing to invest in the people, the facilities, and services that make Laramie County a leader in Wyoming. Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, thank you for your leadership throughout this budget process. Thank you to our elected officials, department heads, finance division staff, and every county employee whose hard work made this budget possible. Most importantly, thank you to the citizens of Laramie County for the trust that you place in us. It's an honor to serve this community. I respectfully, Mr. Chairman, recommend approval of the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. And with that, I will now turn the presentation over to Mr. Walker for a detailed review. Thank you.

Thank you, Clerk Lee. And you certainly have done an outstanding job. And you will be sorely missed. So thank you. Mr. Walker.

Thank you, Deborah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Board of County Commissioners, Stanley Walker, Finance Director for the Laramie County Clerk's Office. Today we'll be discussing the financial plan for the county and outline our projected revenues and expenses and financial goals for the year. The budget is an essential part of our strategic planning process. It provides a roadmap for achieving our objectives and assuring the financial stability and success of Laramie County. Throughout this presentation, we'll delve into key components of the budget, including revenue forecasts, expense allocations, and reserves. We'll also discuss some of the underlying assumptions and factors that have influenced our budget decisions. It's important to note that this budget has been developed through a collaborative effort involving all of our county departments. I would like to thank everyone, all the elected officials and department heads, for their input and their assistance with this budget. While developing this budget, we took into account market trends, industry benchmarks, and other internal goals to create a comprehensive and realistic financial plan for the county. Throughout the presentation, I'll address some of the challenges that impacted our budget. But by proactively identifying and managing these risks, we aim to ensure the financial health and stability of the county. And as we go through the presentation, feel free to stop me at any time if you have any questions. Sometimes it's easier to address those while the slides are on the screen rather than waiting till the end. So feel free. So what is the budget? The budget is a plan. It's not fact. We don't know what's going to happen. But this is the plan. And that plan outlines our expected revenues and expenditures for the next year. Why do we take the time to budget? Well, it's required by state statute. But that's not why we do it. We do it for resource allocation. Budgeting ensures that the funds we have available are directed towards our statutorily required and other priority areas that the county has. It allows us financial control. The budget allows our elected officials and department heads to monitor the operations of their departments to prevent deficits and ensure fiscal responsibility. It also provides strategic planning. By budgeting, we can align the county's financial resources with our long-term goals. And it provides transparency and accountability for the public. Proper budgeting builds trust with the community and ensures responsible governance. Our budget process. So our budget process starts with Our elected officials and department heads, they enter their own budgets. We have them into their budgets because nobody knows better than they do what their departments are going to need, what their challenges are, what their upcoming projects are, and what their needs are. So the elected officials and department heads enter their own budgets. As Debra mentioned, we used ClearGov for the entire budgeting project this year. The elected officials and department heads went in through ClearGov to enter their budget requests, and we received a lot of positive feedback on this new system that we have. They said that the process for entering budgets was much easier than with the old system, so a lot of positive feedback there. It also gave them what's called line item itemizations, so they were able to expound on why they're putting in budget requests that they are. So they can add itemizations into a line that explains why they're needing this money if they have projects coming up, equipment they want to purchase, whatever they're doing. So it gives us more clarity, gives finance, it gives the commissioners more clarity as to why they're requesting the amount that they are for their budget. We also use ClearGov for our personnel and capital budgeting. The personnel module allows us to more realistically budget for our salary and benefits for the coming year over the system that we had before. The capital budgeting module has given us the ability to budget for multi-year projects more realistically. So in the past, we would look at a multi-year project. And the only way we could manage the budget is to budget 100% of that project in year one. And then anything that wasn't spent would get rolled over to year two. And anything that wasn't spent would get rolled over to year three. which didn't give us a very realistic approach to how much resources we needed and how we could allocate our limited resources year over year. So the capital budgeting module gives us the ability to forecast that through the life of the project and budget resources appropriately in the year when we need them. The next step is the clerk's finance office. And in finance, we take all of the budget requests and we compile those together. We estimate our revenues. We compile all that. And then we present that to the commissioners, which our next step is meetings with the commissioners. Again, ClearGov shines when it came to our meetings with the commissioners. The personnel and capital budgeting modules made our work sessions with the commissioners much more effective than they have been in the past. We were able to realistically, or excuse me, in real time, turn on and off different position requests, different capital budget requests, and in real time see how that is going to affect the overall budget. So it made our work sessions much more effective and much more proactive. The last step in our process is where we find ourselves tonight, in a public hearing where we can present the budget to the public, invite public comment, and ultimately, hopefully, pass our budget tonight. As Debra mentioned, our overall budget this year for all funds is $324.5 million. And we have 32 active funds. All but six of those funds are restricted in some way by law, voter approval, or commissioner's resolution. Our six unrestricted funds are the general fund, shooting sports, county events department, fair, planning and building, and the 2020 carry fund. The fair fund is new for fiscal year 2027. We created that fund to separate the events, activities from the fair, and provide more transparency to the public as to how much each of those operations cost the county and the taxpayers. As you can see in the graph, the county's budget has remained relatively level with very little increases over the last three years. This year, our overall budget increased by about $20 million. And this increase was primarily from one-time projects, which include building repairs and maintenance for Archer facilities and the 2020 Cary building, as well as public works road projects. This graph highlights the increases and decreases in some of the particular funds in our budget. Top of the list there, the general fund. General fund only increased by 4%. So considering the market adjustments and merit raises that are built into this budget, that's a phenomenal feat for us to do that. So thank you to all the departments as they entered their budgets and were careful with their budget requests this year. Our optional sales tax fund increased by 13%. Now, I know Deborah mentioned the sales tax. We're projecting that to be down, and I'll cover that a little bit later. We are projecting sales tax revenue to be down this year. The increases in that fund are not from new revenue. The increases are from carry forward from prior years that we've budgeted to spend this year. Public works fund increased by 16%. That may take you back a little bit, but that's expected this year. Public Works is planning several road projects this year, primarily the Chalk Bluff Road project, and that's why their budget has increased so much. We'll see later on when we get to their reserve slide how that kind of plays into some of their overall budget. But they've planned for this road project, so their budget is prepped and ready for that. The SPOT 2021 budget decreased this year, or fund, excuse me, decreased by 9% this year. Again, we expect to see that as that SPOT collection ended this last March. And so we expect to see a decrease in that fund as we kind of wrap up some of those projects. The events department, huge decrease, 38% decrease in the events department. If you look just below that, you'll see the new fair fund, which was a zero last year and is $1.2 million this year. So that's a direct result of creating that new fund. If you kind of eyeball that and look at the events and the fair together, it's very close to what it was last year. So their overall budget did not really increase that much. We just split it between two funds. So it looks a little odd this year. But that, again, is expected with the changes that we've made. The other major funds we have are pretty steady. Some increases, some decreases, but nothing more than what we would expect to see. The all other funds at the bottom, you can see there's a $9 million increase in all other funds. The majority of that is from the 2020 carry fund as we transferred $7 million over there. So seven of that $9 million is for 2020 carry for the facade and HVAC projects that we have scheduled to start next year. Again, we'll see that later on as we get to some of the other slides.

General fund revenue comparison.

This is a comparison of our revenues over the last four years in the general fund. So this graph does not include cash carry forward. This is just our new revenues that we've seen. So you can see we've seen some consistent growth over the last few years. And if we go ahead and overlay our actuals on top of that, This highlights our conservative budgeting process that we have. Our revenues always come in higher than what we expect. We always budget for worst case scenario. It's always easier to have more at the end of the year than be short at the end of the year. You might notice that as the budget has increased over the years, the actual has also increased slightly over the years, but not quite as much. We're trying to maintain conservative budgeting and make sure that we are still budgeting conservative on our revenues. But we are trying to tighten up that gap a little bit so we don't have quite the discrepancy every year. So that's why you're seeing that excess revenue kind of tighten up a little bit as we go through those three years. The fiscal year 2027 bar on there is obviously not an actual. That's our budget for next year. Again, the actual revenues will come in higher than that when we... get towards the end of the year. So in the general fund, where do our revenues come from? As Debra mentioned, our largest source of revenue is our property tax. And property taxes this year are projected to be down a little bit. Our budget is down about $2 million from current year's property tax. And that is due to some of the changes that we've seen in legislation. We've worked with the assessor's office, and as Debra mentioned, we are assuming that the pending lawsuits with the state will be resolved, and we are budgeting based on what current state statute is. That's the best we can go with for now. The intergovernmental revenue, that's our second largest source of revenue for the general fund, which includes our share of the state 4% state sales tax. It's considered intergovernmental revenue because the county does not impose that tax. That is a state tax that then they share with the county. So that comes through as intergovernmental revenue. We're also projecting that that's going to be down a little bit this year. Think about $750,000 or $800,000 is what we're projecting that's going to be down this year. Our next largest source of revenue is our charges for service and we're projecting that that's going to be up slightly this year. I do want to note that the increases in our charges for service is not from fee increases. This is from increases in the volume of work that the county employees are doing and our offices are handling. Services like our auto titles and real estate recordings, those are way up this year. And so those are driving some of those changes in our charges for services. This graph highlights how the general fund revenue sources compare with one another. As I mentioned, property tax being our largest source of revenue. 41% of our general fund revenue comes from property taxes. That's why when there's changes to the property tax distributions, it hits us and we feel it. Intergovernmental revenues, again, 33% of our revenue comes from that, the majority of which is the state sales tax. So between those two, 74% of our general fund revenue comes from those two sources. And then you can see that yellow wedge up there is our charges for services at 11.6% of our general fund revenue comes from our charges for services. So thank you to those departments for providing those services to the public. This is a graph of our sales tax over the last four years. As I noted earlier, it's one of our largest sources of revenue. This graph shows the fluctuation in our sales and use tax since 2023. And even though it fluctuates, you can see that our distributions follow a fairly predictable pattern and fairly consistent pattern. The last three years, those Lines on the graphs have been much closer than we normally see, and in a lot of cases overlapping. The red line, which is this year, started off low. But the last eight months, it's kind of bounced back a little bit. We've seen some steady distributions in our sales tax. So even though we're seeing that, we're still expecting a decrease as we go into next year. So that's why we budgeted a slight decrease in that. That brings us to our general fund expenditures. So this is a four year comparison of our general fund expense budget. So with the exception of fiscal year 2025, our general fund expense budget has seen moderate growth, which we would expect to see due to inflation and expansion of services. 2025 is higher because that was the year that we purchased the 2020 Cary building. We had to make a, you know, we used general fund reserves to do that. So that's showing that a little bit higher that year. If we look at our actual expenses, again, we're going to see our conservative nature in our budgeting. Our actual expenses come in lower than what we budget. We try to budget for our worst-case scenario. Thankfully, those worst-case scenarios rarely happen, and our actual budgets are a little bit lower. Our actual expenditures are lower than our budget. That point of that... portion of the purple bar that is above the red bar there, that excess budget, that flows through the next year as cash carry forward. So that's available the next year as one-time revenue for projects and other equipment and other things of that nature. In the general fund, we break down our expenditures in the general fund. Total expenditures are $72 million. And as you can see, our salary and benefits take up the majority of our expenditures, which is expected for a government, as we are a service-oriented agency. And our whole purpose is to provide service to the public. So the majority of our expense goes into our staff providing those services, followed by the operations, Which is everything that takes to keep our offices running? That's our supplies contracts training You know the utilities that takes to keep the the power on in the buildings things like that, so that's all the operations and then our transfers again this year This year our transfers are a little bit higher at 16%. Again, we'll see that later. We had to transfer from some general fund, some of that excess that we had roll over from last year for the 2020 carry projects. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. The overall salary and benefits, about 55% roughly of our general fund budget is for personnel. So it's tough when we have tight years and we talk to our departments and we say we need to tighten things up and we're short this year so we need to try to cut back. It's hard to cut back when the majority of our expenditures are our people. But my hat's off to our department heads and elected officials for being responsible with their budget through this whole process. One of the things that we watch very closely during our budgeting process is our ongoing operations versus our new revenue. So this is leaving out our cash carry forward. This is leaving out all of our one-time expenses for equipment and reserves and things like that. It leaves all that out. This is just what does it take to run our county for another year. One of our budget philosophies is to not use one-time money for ongoing operations. So this is how well we're doing at that philosophy. So this is our new revenue year over year. You can see, again, that steady growth the last several years. Fiscal year 26 is our estimation. We still have some revenues to collect. Obviously, we're not quite to the end of June yet. And there'll still be some stuff coming in during July and August that will be accrued back into this year that is part of this year's revenue. So that's our estimation of where we think we'll be. Fiscal year 2027 is our budget. And as we saw before, hopefully that comes in higher than our budget. So hopefully we see a nice, steady incline in our graph. We'll see at the end of the year how we do. If we look at our expenses on top of that, so here's our ongoing expenses versus our new revenue. We have done very well at maintaining, paying for our ongoing expenses. with new revenues and not paying for that with one-time money. Again, in 2026, that's an estimation of where we're going to be at the end of the year. And then in 2027, that's our budget. And it was tight this year. I know Troy and I, we had a lot of conversations about that, about our ongoing revenue and continuing operations. And as Debra mentioned, it's $301,000 is that gap between that purple bar and the red bar. But we are in there, our budget is balanced, and we are not budgeting to pay for any ongoing operations with one-time money. And that includes all of our market adjustments and other pay adjustments that we'll talk about later. That's all built into there. That leads us to our reserves. Total county reserves, $108 million, which is a decrease overall of $4.8 million in reserves. Starting with the general fund, you can see most of our reserve lines are pretty much even with where they were last year. Very little change, with the exception of our infrastructure reserve. In fiscal year 26, we had $4 million. Going into fiscal year 27, we're budgeting $0 in infrastructure reserves. That $4 million was part of the transfer for the 2020 carry projects. Just below that, you'll see the 2020 Cary Fund. Current year, they had a $4 million reserve. Next year, they're looking at a $687,000 reserve. Again, we appropriated a lot of their reserves for those projects. The HVAC and the facade projects are going to be major projects over the next couple years. A few other reserves I'd like to point out. I do want to mention the abandoned vehicle there went from $20,000 to zero. I have to take credit or a hit on that one. That was an oversight on my part. I missed that. I didn't catch it till I was putting my slide presentation together. Obviously by then it was too late to amend the budget before the public hearing. That will go back to $20,000 for fiscal year 28.

So yeah, that was an oversight on my part.

Public Works budget reserves decreased by 49%. This, as I mentioned before, was expected and planned in their budget. This is due to the road projects that they have scheduled for this year. Actually, the $14 million that we had in the budget for fiscal year 26 is the anomaly. That's much higher than it normally is. Because we collected some excess revenue, there was a private road match for the Chalk Bluff Road that we received that we hadn't spent yet. So that was part of their reserves. So now we've budgeted to spend those. The $7 million is much more in line with where their reserves typically are. So while it shows a drastic decrease, that's, like I said, that was expected. It's not anything to be concerned about. It is planned for the projects that they have coming up this year. The SPOT O&M and the SPOT 2017 O&M, those funds, historically we have not budgeted a reserve. I have appropriated all available funds for those projects. This is a change we put in for this year using our capital budgeting module in ClearGov that I mentioned earlier. We budgeted out all the projects that were requested from spot O&N funds. And so we only budgeted for the projects that the departments requested. Anything that was not requested was put into reserves. Those reserves are still tracked with the ballot initiative that they belong to. So those dollars will be spent on the appropriate things. It's just they'll be used in another year when they're needed. They weren't needed this year, so we didn't appropriate them this year. But they are still being tracked with their appropriate projects. Any questions on reserves before we go on?

Okay.

Payroll changes. As I mentioned, we had market adjustments, and we had some new personnel additions this year. There were 14... new positions and reclassifications totaling $862,000 this year that were approved. And our market adjustments that we built into the budget this year were $2.4 million to kind of bring all of our positions up to market so we can remain competitive with other industries in the community. This budget also has merit raises and bonuses built in, as we have done in past years, totaling $1.4 million.

The bonuses that are built into there... Can we go back to the reserve slide?

The bonuses that are built in there, I want to point this out, that is part of our employee retention reserve. So we have... This coming year, $22.7 million. What we do with that reserve is all of the interest is collected on that reserve account throughout the year. Half of that interest goes back into that reserve to build the balance. The other half is pulled out and paid out in bonuses to our employees every year. So that's where the bonuses in the budget comes from, comes directly from that employee retention reserve. Thank you. So I just wanted to point that out. With that, any questions on the overall budget?

Any questions from the commission? Commissioner Heath, did you get your answer?

Yes. In looking at the proposed budget, and the appropriations listing. There is a difference in the commissioner's budget. The appropriation is $511,127, and the 27 proposed budget is $506,427. And I'm curious as to why the difference between the two.

I would have to look at that and look into that and let you know. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. There's about 7,000 lines in our budget. I just can't tell you off the top of my head what the change in every one of them is, so I'm sorry.

The reason I'm asking is I did have a citizen question the $511,000 number, and I got to looking at the budget, and I said, okay, let's compare here, and I did notice a difference in that.

And that's in the Commissioner's Department?

What's that?

That's in the Commissioner's Department? Yes. Okay. I'll look into that and get back with you so you can respond to that question. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions before we open the public hearing? Okay. This is a public hearing. If you'd like to speak on this item, please come forward.

Good evening. I'm Erin LeBlanc, and I'm the director of the Laramie County Senior Center, and I've had the privilege of working at the Senior Center for seven years. Back in 2021, following the community's positive vote in support of a new Senior Center and later Brown breaking in 2023, we anticipated that relocating to a larger, modern facility would be an exciting transition and create opportunities for significant growth in our programs, services and community impact. I am pleased to report that over the past year, things have exceeded our expectations. Since moving into our new facility, we have experienced substantial growth in participation, expanded programming opportunities and increased community engagement. The new center has provided a welcoming, accessible and vibrant space where older adults can connect with others, learn new skills and access vital services that support their health, independence and quality of life. At the Laramie County Senior Center, our mission is simple, to keep seniors healthy, active, connected, and engaged. We all hope to live longer, but we also want those years to be meaningful. We operate two programs through the Wyoming Department of Health Aging Division under the Older Americans Act, and that's our Title 3B, which is our social services and activities, and our Title C1, which is our nutrition program. Since opening our new facility at 4100 East Pershing Boulevard on July 7th, our activity participation has increased 134%. Program offerings have increased by 65%, and we now offer over 30 classes and activities. Our quarterly newsletter, which we call Now the Fun Starts, keeps seniors informed about programs and events. Before moving into the new center, we were mailing out about 280 subscriptions. I took to bulk mail yesterday almost 900 subscribers. So we are very excited about that. We maintain a very active website and Facebook page. Our website includes a comprehensive resource guide connecting seniors and caregivers to local services such as transportation, home health, and community agencies. A strong senior center benefits the entire community. Cities thrive when older adults have access to a vibrant, well-supported senior center that fosters connection, activity, and engagement. For families in the sandwich generation who are considering relocating aging parents closer to home, an active senior center is often a major factor in that decision. For older adults who may not have a family nearby or who face the challenges that come with relocating later in life, a senior center provides critical social connections, access to resources, and meaningful opportunities for engagement. When seniors feel supported and connected within their community, they are more likely to remain active and contribute to the local economy through spending on food services, health care, retail, and other businesses. I'm here tonight to thank you for your support, your guidance, and investment in the future of our senior center. Your commitment has helped transform a vision into a thriving community resource. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions or comments for Ms. LeBlanc?

Commissioner Thompson. Mr. Chair, if I could just make a comment on that. So Erin, like she had mentioned, has been at the Senior Center for seven years. She's the new Executive Director, replacing Katie Brady. Katie did a phenomenal job for us, and Erin is going to take this and just run with it. But my hat is off to her and to the Board of Directors. There were some challenges there getting this open and getting it built and getting the transition and And you guys have done just an absolutely phenomenal job. And so my heartfelt appreciation to you and to the board for all of the work you've done on that. And this is one of those kind of easy ones. You know, the county subsidizes this a little bit and hopefully less as time goes on. But this is one of those easy ones that we're providing just a fantastic service to our community. So thank you for all that you do.

Thank you, Commissioner Thompson. Anyone else? OK. Thank you, Aaron. Public hearing again, if anyone would like to come forward and speak. Miss Tenney.

How are you? Good. So thank you, Chairman and Board of Commissioners. I'm Misty Tinney, the auto titles manager in the clerk's office. I stand before you today, along with the amazing staff of the auto titles, to respectively ask you reconsider our request for two deputy clerk positions. our office experienced a significant increase in workload due to population growth, statuatorial changes, increased cases of fraud, with the most recent one being a car dealer which is now facing 15 felony charges, as well as catastrophic events such as the August 1st hailstorm, which resulted in well over 1,000 salvaged vehicles requiring processing. As demand has increased, it has become more difficult for us to provide the level of service that our public deserves. We currently have a backlog of approximately two months representing nearly 2,500 titles that still need to be processed. Adding two deputy clerk positions would significantly reduce this backlog, improve processing times, and allow us to provide more timely and efficient services to our citizens. It would also help to ensure that we can keep pace with Laramie County's continued growth while maintaining accuracy and compliance with state requirements. Our staff works diligently every day to meet the needs of the public, but the current workload has exceeded our existing capacity. These additional positions are not simply an investment to our office. They are an investment in better service for our residents of our community. I respectfully ask for your support and reconsideration of our request for two deputy clerk positions. I thank you for your time and your consideration.

Any questions for Ms. Tinney? Thank you.

Hi, I'm Cheryl Saharski. I'm one of the clerks in the Titles Office. I understand that the last time that there was another position added to the clerk's office for an actual clerk on the line was in 2013. We had 95,000 people in Laramie County in 2013. 13 years later, we have approximately 10,000 more people, and we haven't increased that. Our workload has increased immensely. I've been in the titles office coming up on eight years now, and the workload every year is more and more. The mail-in that we get, we don't have the opportunity to work on on a daily basis, typically, other than if the customer directly comes into the office and then we pull it. If we don't have time to do that, it just keeps accumulating. I come in most weekends and early every day so that I have time to do some of that work. I think two extra people would make a huge difference in our office. It would make it so much easier for us to maintain the level of service that we need to do for our community and it would lessen the anger from the customers that have to wait in line for us. We get a lot of that. How come you're so busy? that we can't answer it we're doing as fast as we can do so i again misty pretty much said what i wanted to say we respectfully ask if you would reconsider adding a couple more clerks we really need them thank you

I'm Sarah, a senator. I'm another title clerk office. I'm just here to request the additional positions as well. I also come in most weekends to help with our backlog. I've only been in the position for about a year, but it does, it takes a lot for us to get the stuff done, either staying late, coming in, early or coming in on our weekends off and sometimes the customers they get frustrated and we take the brunt of it and there's not much we can do with that backlog that's now about two months behind so again we're just here to ask for the help thank you thank you anyone else want to speak

Hello, thank you for your time and attention. My name is Rita Shepherd. I've worked in titles for about three years now. I have a total of almost 20 years in public service through Laramie County. In my three years here, for this office i've seen an increase just in the three years i've been there before i used to be able to work on some of the backlogs some of the mail stuff coming in but with eight positions if you have somebody on vacation somebody who has an accident or an injury or health crisis That leaves us with less staff to deal with. There are days now in this past year that I can't touch any of the incoming mail because there's 50 people in line. And sometimes we can't even answer the phone now. When I first started, we were able to answer the phone and do something and then take a customer. The other day we had 48, 50 people in line and some of them stood in line for three hours. So when we're short and then you have people on vacation, it's very difficult. I mean, you feel like you're drowning because you're going to come in the next day and now you have the next day's mail and added to what was sitting back there that you couldn't touch yesterday. And I don't see a other way to resolve it other than to have additional staff. And that's just all, I mean, that's important. And you will have people who stand in line for hours and they complain, and then they go tell their friends, and then they come in, and then they get frustrated with us. And it's like, that's not in our control. You know, we can be nice and provide them their title, but it's kind of a reflection on... everybody here for a service that's not being provided as well as it could be. You know, you have, you can't answer the phone, so people are calling and complaining that nobody's answering the phone. I've called for days, nobody's answering the phone. I sent in my request for a duplicate title six, you know, like three, six weeks ago, and I haven't heard anything. And it's like, those things just are building. And every day when we come in, they're building up further and getting pushed back. And so with no positions, no additional positions, I don't see a way forward. It's only going to get worse. And that's kind of what I've seen over my three years in this department. But thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello, guys. I work in the hallway of the title office. I'm not in the title office, but I deal with the people, the complaints. How busy? There's only two people working. There's only three people working. Why is it so busy? I don't know the answer. The other day, we had 50 people in line. Our kiosk shut down completely. We couldn't add any more people to the line. We really need more help. People complain, and they say, well, I'm going to go to Laramie. I can go to Laramie and get my title faster than Laramie County. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, thank you. Anyone else in the room want to speak on this item? Okay, public hearing having met its purpose, the public hearing is closed. Commissioners? Mr. Chair, I move to approve.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Discussion by the commission? Commissioner Thompson?

Yeah, Mr. Chair, thank you. So to kind of duplicate on what um clerk lee had stated um but but to make it a little bit shorter and it'd be easy just to say ditto but um i really appreciate um the work that the clerk's office and finance has done um the the 20 or so work sessions that we've had on the budgets um you know sitting down with stanley and adam and going through line by line and there's 7 000 lines to this budget um and going through line by line and peppering these guys with questions on multiple occasions. I know it gets old for you guys, but for me to be comfortable with passing a budget, I've got to be able to wrap my mind around it. And so I really appreciate the time and effort you guys put into this. There's no doubt that we have really strived in the past to be conservative with this and to be conservative with our budgeting process. You know, we don't make it through the pandemic as one of the only entities in this region that didn't have to lay off people by accident. We did that by being able to be conservative, to have money in reserves and to use those reserves. when it rained. And so while this budget I don't think is as conservative as the ones that we've had in the past, we still have the point where our revenues are better than our expenses. And so that's what we ask for. I worry about the next year or two. You know, we look at the oil and gas revenues, how they have diminished our sales tax revenues, how they've diminished. So I think we need to be cautious. Obviously, I'm optimistic about what's going on in Laramie County, optimistic about the data centers that are coming in. You know, we've got Microsoft as our number one or number two property taxpayer every year. When we get the other data centers online, obviously that's going to be a boost to the revenue as well. I think until that happens, we need to be cautious because it's really easy to sit up here with $100 million in reserves and say, well, that's great. Let's do a lot. But we have to be careful that we're not sitting in a situation two to three years down the road where we're talking about laying people off. And so, yeah, we need to keep that conservative mindset moving forward. And so I think we've done that with this budget. And again, my hat is off to the finance department, to Clerk Lee, and especially to all the employees in Laramie County. I mean, when you have the ability to have projected expenses coming in, actual expenses coming in significantly lower than projected expenses. That speaks volumes about the people that work in Laramie County and the ability for them to do their jobs and do their jobs under budget. So my hat is off to the folks in Laramie County. I do want to address the the new position question. We had $1,911,831 in new position requests this year. So we went through with every single department head and every elected official and we talked about their budget and we talked about every single position request. And so Those are tough decisions to make because every single department head, every single elected official makes the same impassioned plea that they do for their employees. The clerk of district court did it, the coroner did it, the sheriff did it, the clerk did it, the assessor did it. Fact of the matter is we cannot approve $1.9 million in new position requests when we have a $300 difference between our projected revenue and our expenses. We just can't. We can't deficit spend to the tune of $1.6 million. That goes against everything that we have worked on in this budget for the past year. few years. So I understand that everybody's busy. I get it. I truly understand that. But we gave a lot of time, a lot of thought into these position requests. And I'm sorry that we just can't afford to do all of them. And it's not just the clerk's office. I mean, there are other positions. I mean, $1.2 million in new position requests that we aren't able to do this year. And again, that's in every single department. We weren't able to do that. So I guess that's my comments on that. But thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Commissioner Thompson. Anything else, Commissioner Heath? Nothing?

Commissioners wanted to? Hey, just to piggyback through you on what Commissioner Thompson said, I just wanted to kind of shout out to the Sheriff's Department that's here. We're looking for creative ways to kind of expand all the time, and they were able to get a contract with LCCC to get us two new officers out there, which was essentially at no expense to the county. So hats off to them for finding creative ways and solutions. We appreciate that, and we will continue to look for those and put you guys on the top of the priority list because we know how hard you work down there. Just because we don't have it on this budget doesn't mean we're not diligently trying to help you out down there as best we can, and we will continue to do that as the time moves on, and hopefully we can find some other creative ways to mold this, or not necessarily rob from Peter to pay Paul, but to not use those one-time fees to increase positions. So I just wanted to give a shout-out.

Thank you, Commissioner Vaughn. Commissioner Heath?

I want to speak a little bit to the requested positions by the clerks. Thank you for coming in and sharing with us your concerns and the issues that you're facing down there. I have received a very impassioned contact from one of our residents concerning what's going on down there in Titles. And I am willing at some point in time, if it comes into the next few months, to reconsider those positions. I don't know that we're ready to right now, but I do believe that perhaps we need to address the issues of growth here in Laramie County and how that has impacted the county clerk's and the titles section down there. It's not easy dealing with the public when they're tired of waiting. If you come in with children and the children are getting tired and cranky, it makes Mama and Daddy kind of tired and cranky too. So I would be willing to look at those positions here in the next few months and see if there's some way that we can maybe make some kind of a compromise to help you out.

Okay, thank you Commissioner Heath. So yeah, this is a conservative budget. This is what good government looks like and what it does. And it doesn't happen just because of five people sitting up on this dais. It happens because 450 county employees and elected officials make decisions every single day to do what they can for the residents of our community and do it fiscally responsibly and look for the betterment and the future of our entire community. So I'm extremely proud of our finance department and the clerk's office for putting together this budget. All of our employees, my fellow elected officials who make very difficult decisions every day. And we are in a good spot that a lot of other communities are not in, right? These conversations go a lot different in a lot of places across Wyoming, especially in the last two years. We have been able to weather the storms that the legislature has thrown our way, and we've done it well. And we will continue to do it well because we have 450 dedicated people that know that they are here to serve the residents of Laramie County. That being said, I am disappointed. that as I look around this room today, I do not see any Wyoming legislators or candidates for office who frequently question this board's budgeting principles, our financial stewardship, and the dedication of my employees. As before, I again extend an invitation to sit down with any of them and walk through our budget line by line. If they choose to comment publicly after this hearing, I would simply note that they decline the opportunity to participate in this public hearing or any of the nearly 20 work sessions that we held with department heads and elected officials across this community. And so again, I welcome them to reach out, happy to discuss at any point in time, but I'm disappointed that you're not in the room tonight. With that, roll call, please.

OK. Commissioner Heath? Aye. Commissioner Thompson? Aye. Commissioner Zoellner? Aye. Chairman Lamont?

Aye. Next item, please.

Item three, public hearing on the fiscal year 27 annual budget for the Laramie County Library. No action required.

Thank you for having me here. I don't get to visit with you all often, so my presentation will not only be presenting on the budget, but speaking a little bit about what we have done this past fiscal year. So please give me the liberty to do that just a little bit. This last fiscal year was gangbusters for our library. Our staff incredibly not only completed and adopted a five-year master plan for the library, but began to implement it in great stride. We updated our mission statement. We adopted new organizational values. We overhauled our performance review system for employees, which was a values-based system. Establish a new outreach and engagement division. As you all know, we acquired a new building in Pine Bluffs and added to our portfolio for the first time in many decades. We accepted the delivery of a new mobile library and got it out on the road. We turned on self-service libraries in Eastern Laramie County. We turned on online room booking, which is one of our most popular services to the county. We launched a new website, a new user-friendly and easy access website for our patrons. It was the inaugural year of One Book, One Laramie County. We celebrated our 10th anniversary of a seed library. We installed a team makerspace, and it was the first annual library card art contest, among many other things. So just hats off to our staff members and really, really big compliments to how much engagement and excitement we have seen from the people who visit our libraries. And with that, let me move into the budget for fiscal year 27. The only thing I want to point out on this slide, and as you all are probably familiar with, the last check we got for fiscal year 26 was an unpleasant surprise. about, let's see, $425,000 short of what we anticipated. So we adjusted our expected income for fiscal year 27 around $300,000. So that's the difference you see in the millage, and we adjusted the optional sales tax and our license fees modestly. So our total tax income is expected to come in at a very conservative rate. For our total income amounts, the only thing I'd point out here is the major difference you might see on the miscellaneous income. That looks a lot bigger because it includes an insurance income payment that we have for the roof here in Cheyenne, which will cover only about a third of the coverage of the cost of replacing the roof. We hope to cover the rest of it through the six penny. The other change you'll see in comparison with the FY26 budget is the change in the reserve amount. Our board of directors has approved a one-time expenditure for some capital improvement projects, which I'll discuss here in a minute. So the change in the total income really is just reflected in the difference in that in that expenditure from our reserve account. So when you look at our overall balanced budget, some things to note here is that just like the county, we have made a priority in reserved expenditure for merit increases for our employees as well as the increased cost of the Wyoming retirement system. We have made it a priority to include some expenditure for marketing and advertisement because our community members have told us through extensive community engagement and outreach that surprisingly, a good portion of them don't know what's all available to them through their county library. So we have it as a high priority to reach out to them, particularly those underserved populations, and let them know what services are available. We have a slight increase in library materials with a shift, and I will explain that here in a little bit. And then minus the expenditures coming out for one-time projects out of our reserve, we actually cut our budget by about $170,000 for FY27. So when we look at what those budget impacts mean for us, We have to shift some spending and utilities and facilities service contracts will come out of our operation and maintenance fund for the upcoming year. As I mentioned, the library is utilizing $350,000 from reserve funds to complete one-time strategic plan projects. This is very similar to what the city and the county are doing in their approach. These two projects include long-term repair and maintenance, a small project here in Cheyenne, and then some capital improvement in our Pine Bluffs Annex facility, the very minimum that it will take to get that that facility open to the public. So it's things like an ADA accessible restroom, upgraded electrical and mechanical, and a safety railing on a loft and a hand railing on stairs, a new roof, and the installation of some heating and cooling. So that will allow us to open that building to the public immediately. We do hope that we're able to reimburse ourselves through the six penny, but if that doesn't pass, we have made these projects minimal that we are able to take that out of our reserve without it being too detrimental for us in the future. but in the long term. We're going to, the other things that we adjusted in our budget moving forward that was a pretty big shift from FY26 to FY27 was that our first steps early literacy program that always has operated as a grant project, we had to move it under operations and that was a pretty big shift. We have also shifted our materials budget significantly towards e-materials. And if you're not a library dork like I am, you'll realize that that's a pretty big deal because print materials and e-materials have shifted so much in the last few years that it's almost 50% to 50%. And when you buy an actual print book, you can check that thing out until the wheels come off of it, right? But when you buy an e-book, you can only check it out maybe 20 times before you have to buy it all over again. So this is a major impact on libraries across our country, and it's going to impact our budget in the long term. So we are having to deal with that increased demand from our customers, and our budget will show that in the years to come. And then as I mentioned, in order to balance our budget from this last year, we did end up using $241,000 from our emergency fund. Because we have planned so fiscally conservative for the last five to ten years, we have this emergency fund to withstand these ups and downs, this turbulence in the economy, particularly from oil and gas, that this is what this is specifically intended for. so that we don't have to lay people off, so that we don't have to cut back on services and programs. Our board of directors feels confident that we can use this and that it's not going to impact our reserves in the long term. If we continue to see trends like we have this last collection of FY26, we may have to make some changes moving forward. So what do we have coming up for FY27? Because our operating budget keeps the lights on, keeps our staff employed, and keeps books on the shelf, we have to be creative and innovative to do things outside of that. And that's exactly what our staff does. We look for supplemental funding to do anything flashy and fancy and things that really pull people in. So the top few things you see on the list here, we are pulling out all the stops, but it's all funded through grants and donations and creative avenues. So we'll be bringing online hold pickup lockers, telehealth booths in Burns and Pine Bluffs. The annex in Pine Bluffs will be a self-service station for a meeting room, event space, co-working space, a community room for Pine Bluffs. All of that is done through grants that we have secured. The next two are really exciting because they are increasingly able to meet the needs of underserved parts of our county, either the rural parts or the parts that are growing, the southern part of Cheyenne and the east Cheyenne. So parts that I know that you all are very interested in is our literacy partnership. So this is the same targeted early literacy program that is based off of the building blocks of early reading. that our First Steps program is, but it's done in a more sustainable way. So through the agency and partnership format, we teach early literacy skills to kids, as well as skill building and print awareness to caregivers, making our most vulnerable kids print aware and book ready before kindergarten. You may not be aware that 60% of kids enter kindergarten with limited early literacy skills. 81% of low-income kids live in households with limited access to books. So by moving this kind of functionality into our operations budget, we're ensuring that these most vulnerable kids in Laramie County not only enter kindergarten with awareness of early literacy skills, but access to book-rich environments. They'll grow up with books in their home. And that's from the programs that we do with partnerships and agencies that we will be able to extend for years to come. So that will move into our operating budget. The other program that we will be pioneering, and this is from private donations and grants, is Career Online High School. So you're also probably aware that nearly 20% of Wyoming students are in need of services to help them obtain credential to allow them to enter post-secondary school or to obtain employment that requires a high school diploma. That brings us to the bottom in the Rocky Mountain region and the lower end of the U.S. There's a lot of barriers that make people not able to have a high school diploma or equivalency, right? It may be the cost, the test, the transportation, childcare, all these kinds of things. We help bridge that gap for them by providing a scholarship of $1,300 that allows them to take the test online, take practice tests, and get an online tutor to obtain their high school equivalency. So we will be launching this in FY27 for a select group of Laramie County residents, and that's all done through private donations. We will be bringing on from very generous donors a library lending machine, hopefully two of them, one of them at Laramie County Senior Center. We also will be hitting the road, hopefully in the 4th of July parade and for sure in CFD with a library book bike. And we are currently doing a staffing and service model assessment. The whole intention of this is to analyze our programs, our services, our staffing, and our operations to make sure that we are doing it as efficient as possible and that we are properly aligned and organized to utilize existing resources to achieve master plan and strategic plan goals. The reason is because you can tell from these projects that all of these things expand our services without increasing our operating budget. That is the intention. We can't add new staff. We can't build new buildings. But how can we meet the needs of Laramie County residents in new and innovative ways that reach people who haven't been impacted by library programs previously? And that's what we're looking to do. So, as always, thank you very much for your support. Now that I have been here for a couple of years, I've gotten to know library systems across the state, and I know that not every county has the support from their commissioners like we do. And not every county has the type of support from their community leaders and representatives like we do. So I thank you very much for that. And I can't tell you how much it means to our library system and to our residents to have a strong and robust public library. So with that, any questions you have, I'd be happy to take them.

Any questions for Antonio? Commissioner Thompson?

Just a comment. My appreciation to you and the library board. Again, our boards do so much for the people of Laramie County, and they do them as volunteers. And our library board is right up there in the work that they're doing. And, Antonio, you're doing a fantastic job as our librarian. So I really appreciate you and the work that you're doing. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yeah, I would just say I have the honor and privilege of being the liaison to the library board for the last year and a half, I believe. I think it's been that long. But it has just been fantastic. And I say this, and I told them that I would say this because I've done it every time since I've become a commissioner. Early literacy matters, and it matters to a community because the sheriff who left after the budget hearing, his jail budget could be determined utilizing the factor of adolescent reading and literacy rates in our community in 20 years. Like you'll know your potential jail population because the lack of literacy is an early indicator of the potential for ending up in the system like that. And so I think that beyond what the library does with just books, I think that's what people often think, librarians and books, our library does so much more and as shown in the presentation, strives to do even more It is just an amazing community asset, and I would note that it is probably as much infrastructure as just about anything in Laramie County. And so I'm very proud of you and all of your staff and the work that you do, and so thank you very much. And I have to open this as a public hearing in case anybody here wants to come talk about the library. It's a public hearing one time, two times. Anybody? Anybody online?

There's nobody online.

Okay. Public hearing having met its purpose, the public hearing is closed. Is there anything else to come before us?

Mr. Chairman, there's no further business. All right.

With that, we are adjourned. Thank you.