Commissioners - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. At this time, I'd like to call to order the April gosh, April 14th Mon County Board of Commission meeting. I don't know if anybody's driven by the high school lately, but uh it's pretty impressive. There's some massive progress and that's really exciting to see. Uh we've got some beautiful weather, but we are praying for rain. So, real quick to get this meeting started, um we have some special guests in here, and I would like to ask Miss Amy Owens to come right on up and uh and maybe introduce you.

Sounds good. Good evening, chairman, commissioners. I'm Amy Owens. I'm the town manager for the town of Franklin and I am very excited to say that I am part of the Mon County 250th celebration. Um we are doing some special events related to our nation's 250th birthday. Um starting with we had um partnered with the school system and did an essay contest on what does America mean to me. So we had three individuals who we want to recognize tonight. Um, the first one is Luke Krebs. So, is Luke here? Luke's not here. Well, that's okay. We'll make sure he gets his. And then Natalie or

No, Natalie. Well, that's okay, too. And then our first place winner is Madison Claus. Come on up, MADISON. So Madison's going to get this plaque that's first place in what does America mean to me contest. And we actually have your essay here and we'd like for you to read it if you'd like to.

Just read it into the microphone. That'll be fine. 250 years of America means a long story of people trying to build a better place. It reminds me that America did not start perfect, but it has changed a lot over time. When America first began, people wanted freedom and a chance to make their own choices. Even though not everyone was treated fairly at first, many people kept fighting to make things better. Over 250 years, America has faced many hard times like wars, protest, and disagreements. But each time, people stood up and worked together to improve the country. Slavery was ended. Women earned the right to vote and laws were made to protect protect people's rights. These changes show that America learns from its mistakes and keeps moving forward. To me, 250 years of America means growth. It means learning how to treat others with respect and sta standing up for others for what is is right. It also means having the freedom to speak and go to school and dream about the future. Many people came to America hoping for a better life and their hard work helped build the country we live in today. Oops. America's 20050 years is not just about the past, but about the future, too. It reminds me that my generation has a role to play.

We can help make America kinder, fairer, and stronger. By learning from history and making good choices, that is what 250 years of America means to to me. I love I love our world. If bad things happen or good things happen.

Miss Orange, what was her name? What was her name? Madison Claus. Is it Claus? Okay. And so you can see why she won the essay contest. She pretty much hit the nail on the head of what it means for America. So, the other thing that we partnered with the school system with was to do a logo contest for Mon County specifically. So, we've got quite a few individuals to recognize who submitted artwork for that. So, I'm going to start with Satie Hicks. Come on up, Satie. If you'll hold up your artwork for everybody to see. Wow.

Good job. RIGHT HERE. SO, we've got certificates for all of the individuals. The first it says certificate of recognition in appreciation for your outstanding artistic talent. This certificate is presented to Satie Hicks for demonstrating remarkable creativity in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America. presented this 14th day of April, 2026, signed by Commissioner Breeden and Commissioner Shur on behalf of the Mon 250th committee. Good job. Okay. Um, Dominic Lightner, Victoria Lightner, and Jacob Lightner. You have a very talented family. going to tell the daddy probably do.

All righty. So, everybody hold them up and show the commission. Let's see what you got. Wow. Wow. Look at that. Ruby Capital. All right. See, they got the 250 and Mon County. So, turn around, show the audience now as well. And this is the other one. This is Jacob's that he did. And Jacob is in prek, y'all. Precase. So, let's see what you got. Wow. Wow.

Like I said, very artistic family. So, I'm going to give you all three of these, but they all say the same thing. In appreciation for your outstanding artistic talent, this certificate is presented to Jacob Lightner, Dominic Lightner, and Victoria Lightner for demonstrating remarkable creativity in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America. Presented this 14th day of April, 2026 on behalf of the Mon County 250th Committee. Yes, sir. Hey, Amy. I'd like to Oh, you keep them. You keep them.

Just like to share something really important really quick. Dominic and actually Victoria, all three of them are are karate students, but Dominic next month will be testing for his junior black belt. WOW. All right. So, we have one more presentation to make and that is to Kenna Keyworth who actually has the logo that was chosen to represent Mon County's 250th celebration. So, nice. Nice.

And then show the audience And so this plaque actually has the logo on it. So you can see how nice it looks on the white background. Um this will be on all of our marketing materials including flags that we've ordered, t-shirts that'll be available um between roughly Memorial Day and the 4th of July as well as some magnets and stickers that we've ordered. So they're going to be known everywhere. So, this says, "Presented to Kenna Keyworth in recognition for designing the Mon County 250th celebration logo presented by the Mon County 250th Committee, April 14th, 2026. So, and just a little bit about the two-day celebration that we're going to have to get people more excited about it. Um, Friday, July the 3, we're going to have a lot of activities and athletic events out at Parker Meadows. We're going to have a five on five whiffle ball tournament, a kickball tournament. It's going to have two different uh divisions, an open team, and then a business and family team because, you know, business and family teams can get kind of competitive. A float and run event where you're going to get in the creek and float down and then get out and run. And we got some help from the high school students helping us out with that. Threeon-ree basketball. and then come downtown at 6:00. We're going to have a free concert on the square featuring Jason Passmore and Rock Holler. That's going to be from 6:00 to 10:00. Then the next morning, if we're all still able to move, Saturday, July the 4th, um on Main Street, we'll have our regular activities that we do from 10:00 until 2:00. Free watermelon, free water as long as it lasts. Patriotic pet contest, Little Mr. through Miss

Firecracker. And then we'll all converge back to the recre park around 4:00 to do fun and fireworks. We're going to have food trucks, face painting, inflatables, tie dye, fairy hair. We're going to have some reenactors that are actually going to be there all weekend long. They're going to be camping at the wreck park so that people can see what it was like during the Revolutionary War. So, he will be there. Um, live music from 4:00 until the fireworks at 10:00 p.m. and then some historical games, sack races, the stick and hoop, and all sorts of fun stuff. So, everybody put it on your calendars. This was a fantastic way for all of us to partner together. Mon County, the town of Franklin, the chamber, the business community. Um, we do have opportunities for sponsorships and that will help pay for um materials that we use, the t-shirts, things of that nature, as well as we're going to do a commemorative banner that gets your name on it um for different sponsorship levels, but it's going to be donated to the Mon County Historical Society. So when we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the United States, people can roll that banner back out and say, "Look who was here 50 years ago." So

thank you so much for the opportunity. Amy, you might want to explain what the levels Okay. because I think um there's an opportunity for uh sponsorships with some special stuff that

Not a problem. Thank you, sir. Um we have five levels of sponsorship. The first one is gold and it's a $1,000 and it is limited to 10 sponsors. You get your logo on the stage side banners at the 4th of July celebration. You'll be mentioned in all of our media releases. Um the logo on the commemorative banner as well as three reserve parking passes for the day of the fireworks and everything in the park because we're not going to have general parking in the park. So note that. Silver is 750 and it is also limited to 10. Um the sponsor mentioned in all the media releases the logo on the commemorative banner and two reserve parking spaces. Then we have red, white and blue. Red is 500, white is 250, blue is 100. It's your name on the commemorative banner in different sizes. The red is the largest, the white is the medium, and the blue is the small. So, this is on the county's website, our website at the town. Um, it's on the chambers website. I know it's been shared by a couple of different media organizations. So, if you have any questions, reach out to town hall. We're happy to answer any questions. And

what what about your parade? Is there a parade? The parade is on the 4th. On the 4th. When will it start? It starts at lineup is at 10:30 and the parades at 11:00. And it starts at town hall and anybody can participate there. There's no sign up, no order to it. Just walk, ride, jump, skip, whatever you need to do. Well, Amy, I'd like to say thank you to you as layers on to the town. It's been really cool getting to work with you guys. And Fourth of July was by far my favorite thing to get to collab with you guys. So, thank you guys so much for everything you're doing.

Thank you. and we've we've enjoyed it and we've worked well with with Seth and Sabrina is our events coordinator for the town and she's always done a fantastic job with the 4th of July. So, being able to bring this partnership back has been great for us as well. Thank you, Miss Thank you. I would just like to say thank you to you students for showcasing that wonderful artwork. I'm just so impressed. So, thank you. And uh now we get to move on to the boring part of the meeting. All right. Uh Miss Tammy, do you have any announcements? I do not. Thank you.

You want to turn see if anybody needs to move out before we go into the They're going to move on. We'll let them go ahead and clear out. See, thank you.

All right, Mr. Kate. I actually have several, Mr. Chairman. Uh, the first thing tonight, I think we need to recognize the passing of Miss Diane Cotton. uh she was an educator and an administrator with our uh school system and actually came before this board many times advocating for funding for various agencies in Mon County. So, I just wanted to make the board aware of that and mention that tonight. Um, second thing I want to remind the board of the volunteer appreciation reception at the senior services building on April 23rd from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Uh, those volunteers are very essential to our services there and this is a time for us to uh show them how much we appreciate them. Um, third thing, uh, this is for the general public. There will be some interruptions on the greenway actually started today will take place over the next week or so. Uh we're actually doing some repaving on some sections of the greenway. They're working today on the down near the Phillips Bridge down near the Coast Park area and then they're going to move on down toward the Arthur Drake in down there. So just expect some various delays while we're doing that renovation and construction there on the greenway. Um fourth thing, uh this is for our contractors. The portal has opened. We're we're moving toward an electronic um process so contractors can access the code enforcement office through the building permits and other permits to make it easier on them. I just want to make folks aware that the portal is now open for contractors to start registering. Uh the system's not fully live yet, but links on our web page under the planning, permitting, development section, and they can go ahead and start that process. And it's fairly easy. We checked it. It works really well. Uh so that's a good step forward for us for those folks. Fifth thing, um I would I guess this is

an announcement. I would like for the board to consider a date uh for me for an upcoming work session. Uh typically what happens when we have our budget presentation from me at our May meeting, at the end of that meeting, we recess to a work session date. Um, my recommendation would be for you to think about recessing that May meeting to May the 21st from 9 to 12 for a work session. Uh, we don't need to set that tonight. Uh, but just be thinking about that. I'd kind of like to pencil that into our calendars. That way, the folks that come and talk to us will be kind of planning for that date and we can be thinking about that. Uh, and then the last thing is actually good news. Um, if you all remember, it's probably been a couple months ago, uh, we applied for a DEEQ recycle grant through, uh, North Carolina. Uh, the request was for $2.9 million. Uh, we were notified first of the week, this week that we actually received $2.75 million for that uh, recycling project. And that recycling project will include complete funding of the Carson Convenience Center. Uh it also includes funding to redo the recovery building, which is where you drop your trash out at the landfill here in Franklin, the recycle building, and also uh pretty good equipment list. Um so that's huge for us to get that amount of money.

That's that's all I have. That helps. Commissioner Braden, sir, Commissioner Shields, rock and roll, Commissioner Shiron. Chairman, I want to announce something, but I can't announce it. Would it be out of line if I got Miss Burns to announce what's happening at the beginning of the month in Mon County? I wouldn't have a problem with that. Yeah, I was expecting that. Come on up and address the mic if you don't mind. I'm good. Um, on May 2nd, we're having the Sweet Carolina Music Festival. Um, it benefits the Smoky Mountain Pregnancy Care Center. John Morgan will be again.

Wonderful. Thank you. Finance council. All right. Well, at this time, I'd like to ask Commissioner Shields to lead us in the moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. If able, please stand for a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance. I pledge 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. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Shields. Um, I understand we have no public hearings. Any additions to the agenda?

Mr. Chairman, I have two. Um, under the consent agenda, I think it will be item 12F. We need to add the minutes of the March 10th uh 2026 regular meeting. And then I need to add item G under consent, which would be the tax collection um report for the month of March 2026 in the amount of $1,173.96. Those documents were in your agenda packet, but they got left off of the agenda.

All right. Thank you, Miss Tammy. Any other additions to the agenda? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to the public comment period. The first speaker is Maryanne Ingram.

Hey, Maryanne.

Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you'all for being here. And I I'm really looking forward to the day that we're going to have a female up here in the next election. Yay. But I what the reason I'm up here really is I saw our agenda and y'all think this is nothing. I saw our agenda and we used to have it laid out on the courthouse, a diagram of the courthouse and it's just old white paper now. What happened? It did it cost too much money to keep doing that? I mean, this it was beautiful and now it's just an old white piece of paper. I hope y'all can rectify that some way. Thank you. I love you.

Matt Jackson.

She's not wrong. She's not. Um, humbly, I got to ask for four minutes if you don't mind. I've got it timed down to four minutes on the dot and I'm sorry, but I'll make it as tight as I can. Uh, commissioners, I was here last month to bring to your attention a situation involving a local financial professional and an investment partnership that is currently under federal investigation. A situation in which we believe tens of millions of dollars have gone missing from the members of this community. I'm back because this is not going away. In fact, it's only growing. Since I stood here, federal investigators have made direct contact with victims and are actively requesting documents and information. We are watching and everything is being documented. Now, I understand there are people who would prefer I not be so public about this and I get that none of us want this kind of thing associated with our community. We can't imagine it happening here. But I think what we need more than anything right now is to know that when something this serious does happen here, we don't look the other way. We face it together. And I want to say publicly that I support and commend the local law enforcement for the work that they are doing and how they are coordinating with efforts with the federal agencies. I believe they are doing the right thing and I believe this community will too. But I'm not here to talk about the legal side of this. I'm here to talk about the people. As recently as a few days ago, I am still receiving phone calls from members of this community who are only now finding the courage to come forward. And I know there are more out there who haven't yet. One of the voicemails I got was from an 80-year-old man. He told me that for the past month, he has been living in a nightmare ever since he received the email telling him that his life savings was gone. I want you to sit with that for just a second.

Imagine being 80 years old. You worked your whole life. You did what you were supposed to do. You saved. You trusted someone in your own community with that savings. In some cases, this particular individual even encouraged people to sell their homes, sell family property and inheritance. He sure tried to convince me to sell mine. And now, for so many, it's gone. And when you're 80, you don't get a doover. These are people who should be living in their golden years of their lives. And that word golden has been stolen from them. There are people in this community right now who are terrified, who are hurting, who are too ashamed to tell their own families what happened, who wake up every single morning wondering how they're going to make it. I'll be honest with you. I've made peace with the fact that I may never see a dollar of my own money back. I'm 41 years old. I can work. I can rebuild. One way or another, I will be okay. And not everyone has that option. And that is why I'm here right now. I'm not asking this county to investigate any further than it already has. I'm not asking you to take sides. I'm asking you to know that this is real. It has happened to your residents. It is especially happening to our seniors. And if anyone walks through your door looking for help or direction, please, please point them towards me or to the local authorities. They need all the information they can get right now. And to anyone watching this right now who has been affected and hasn't reached out yet, the people who are watching this at home, I know you're affected. I know you're scared. I know you had that voice in your head said, "You shouldn't have done any of this. You should have known better. We're all human. We're all flawed. And nobody nobody should be sitting

through this alone. So please, if you've been affected, reach out. I'll get you in touch with our community. We got a little group together right now of all the people that have been affected. You're not alone. So please do reach out. And commissioners, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. All right. Heather Johnson. Hey,

my name is Heather Johnson. I live in Otto. Um, I just came here to say on behalf of uh probably everybody on Chop Road, but for sure me, my mother and father, Marjorie and Eddie Johnson and my sister and brother-in-law Sarah Johnson and Rob James. Thank you to the Otto Volunteer Fire Department and to the Forest Service for their super awesome, quick and efficient response to the High Cotton Fire on March 28th, couple weeks ago. Um, I got the notice that it was happening and before I could get home, it was already under control. So, I can't say thank you enough. Obviously, we have farm, livestock, etc. So, moving them is impossible in a hurry. And there's other people up there with houses, stick built houses and stuff. So obviously, thank you on behalf of us. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Heather. Thank you, HEATHER. Morgan Stewart. Hey, Morgan.

Sir, um I was going to actually make a joke about how long the speech was, but after Mr. Jackson, I can't make light right now because it's such a serious situation. Um, last Monday because the town of Franklin was honoring local news day, I made this announcement to them, but I thought I should do the right thing and come talk to you and give you the same information I gave them. Um, Mson's newspaper is alive again. We have relaunched it. Um, in fact, Amy Kurpatre, our reporter, is here covering this this um this good meeting. Um, and I just wanted to give you a little bit information about us and what we're going to be what's going to be new and what's going to stay the same. What's going to stay the same is that our newspaper, our staff um will continue to do our work informed by and in honor of u our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our Christian faith. We will still be free. We will still be um advertiser supported. We are still locally owned. We are um I am as the new owner very committed to our staff who was working for uh Making Sense and so we are still almost every one of the members of that staff are working with us. Um and we'll continue that. Um the news coverage will be just the facts. There will be uh a heavy heavy uh emphasis on community stories regarding our nonprofits, our local heroes, our history, um events that are taking place. And the way I see it, locals, part-time residents, and visitors will still be able to read, making sense. What's going to be different is that we're going to be digital only. We're going the way of the modern world. And so all those part-time residents, full-time residents, visitors can read us wherever they are on their phone, on their computer, on their tablet. The new website is makingense.com instead of makingense.org. Soense.com is where we are. Um, of course, like I said, I'm a new owner, but I'm still

local. Our publishing will be virtually daily, so there won't be a rush or you won't be waiting two weeks to see new stories from us. Um, so as we go along, new stories, new news, new events, new uh features, when they're ready to go, we're putting them on the website. We're letting you know about it. We'll be um we'll have the time and the opportunity to do deeper stories, to do reporting on trends, to uh to do longer interviews with you and our sheriff and and everybody in in the county um who are making news and and doing the good work for this county. We are going to add your government alerts. So when when uh Warren and the team put out press releases, you will see that almost immediately, all of them. Um, we're going to have some new voices on our opinion page. It's going to be a little bit little bit different. You'll get some some more local voices and some broader view voices. And we're going to be adding new features, digital age features, things like if you want to listen to the news story, we're going to have that on there. If you want to get notified by SMS or text message, you're going to have that. We're going to be a modern newspaper. And so hopefully we're going to reach a younger generation too. So that's the plan. So I just wanted you to be aware. We're very proud. We've launched. We're still working on the website. It's not perfect yet, but we're getting there. And we're very proud to be able to report on what you're doing and report on this county. Thank you.

Thank you. Makingense.com. Was it making sense? Makingense.com. But if you type in makingense.org, it'll bring you there. It's.com. If you make the mistake and go to the old website, you'll go to the new one. All right. And negotiating with these guys is tough. Just want Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. All right. Any further adjustments to the agenda?

Uh, Mr. Chairman, we can remove item 11 C. All right. Any more? All right. Looking for a motion to approve the agenda. Motion to approve the agenda. I hear a motion by Commissioner Breeden, second by Commissioner Shields. Any further discussion? All in favor, please raise your right arm and state I for the record. I Any oppose? All right, Miss Tammy. 5.

All right. Um, reports and presentations. 2027 reappraisal for Mon County. Uh, tax administrator Abby Brazwell. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for allowing me this time. Thank you, Amy.

I'd like to tonight um give you a presentation on how the 2027 Mon County reappraisal is going. Um I would like to address why we do a reappraisal, what a reappraisal is, who is affected by the reappraisal, and the timeline of the 2027 reappraisal. Are appraisals conducted to raise taxes? No, they are not. So, why do we do them? First, the North Carolina general statute 105286 says all counties in North Carolina are required to complete a reappraisal and reset the assessment values back to the 100% tax value or true market value. Mon County is on a 4-year cycle. This statue above gives the option for counties to change cycles years, but the main reason that Mon County is on a four-year cycle is to equalize assessments and to be fair and equitable to all taxpayers. Properties appreciate or depreciate at different rates. And the reappraisals are designed to set everybody back to 100% market value so everybody pays pays their fair share of taxes. The goal of a reappraisal is to not raise taxes, but to bring the assessments in line with the sales based on fair market value at which will evenly distribute the tax burden based on each taxpayers's assessed value. Here are some examples of equalization and why a reappraisal is necessary so that each taxpayer is fairly assessed and paying tax taxes equitable to their assessment. Each of these dwellings sold for 4.9

million. Sale 1 has a tax value of 4.1 million and are paying taxes on 83% of their 100% market value. Sale 2 also sold for 4.9 million, but their tax their tax value is 2.3 million and they are paying taxes on 46% of their 100% true market value. The second example is an example in the opposite direction. Sale one sold for 375,000 but the assessed value was 497,930. So the tax assessment is 132% of market. This will get reassessed to 366,940 approximately and be closer to the 100% market value. Sale 2 sold for 115,000 but the assessed value was 182,000 where the assessment is 130% 137% of the market value. This sale will get reassessed to around 125880 and closer to the 100% market value. What does reappraisal mean and how do we reappraise properties? Reappraisal is the process of updating all 44,580 making county parcel values to reflect 100% of fair market value as of January 1st of a reappraisal year. The North Carolina General Statute 105283 says the 100% true value in money or market value is based on sales of properties. True value is the money at which the property would change hands between a willing and financially able buyer and a willing seller. Neither being under any compulsion to buy or sell and both having reasonable knowledge of all uses to which the property is adapted for which it is capable of being used. 100% of market value is based on the most recent qualified sale that occurred

leading up to the reappraisal date or what is the true bare market value. The tax office focuses on any good sales and excludes the sales we know that are not good sales. Anything that does not fit the definition above is not a good sale. Sometimes that's very hard to determine. What properties will be reassessed? The making the reappraisal process updates all of Mon County parcels which is around the 44,580 and differs on every day but it will be completed sometimes a sometime after January 1st so that we capture sales right up to December 31st. The town of Highlands and the town of Franklin will be affected by the reappraisal and our reassessments will be used by both municipalities to set the tax rate to create the revenue to fund their budgets. You, the Mon County Board of Commissioners, will use the new tax base to create the revenue required to fund the county budget. As part of a budget in in the year of reappraisal, the general statute 101 159-11E requires local governments to calculate and publish as part of the budget message in the year of reappraisal a property tax rate that produces the same revenue as the previous year revenue as if there was no reappraisal had occurred. This is the revenue neutral tax rate and it is to prevent automatic tax increases due to rising property values. This is the revenue neutral tax rate and to prevent automat is required to be calculated and shown as part of the bud budget message but is not required to be adopted. If real estate prices are generally rising in a county then a reappraisal will increase the tax base. However, the county's revenue neutral tax rate will be less than the existing tax rate because the

county could decrease its tax rate but still produce the same tax levy given the larger tax base in the year of the reappraisal. On our last reappraisal, which was completed in 2023, here is the revenue neutral tax calculation that was part of the 2023 budget message. The assessed value includes real property, personal property, and motor vehicles. As you can see, from the 2020 to the 2022 fiscal year, there's some growth to the tax base, normally due to new building, new businesses, and new vehicles. From the 2022 tax year rate of 40 cents per 100, the board was able to reduce that rate to 27 cents per 100 because there was approximately 4.3 billion dollars added to the making county tax base. The county commission board at that time chose to accept the revenue neutral rate. The result was the same budget amount as the previous year and the tax rate came down and while some taxes went up, they did so because they are now paying on 100% of their true market value. Some taxes also came down, but the assessments were equalized to reflect the 100% market value and that each taxpayer would be paying on 100% assessment. Therefore, the taxes were fair and equitable for each taxpayer on their 100% fair market value. What determines if we are below the 100% in our assessments? The sales ratio, which is also called the sales assessment ratio, and this ratio measures the relationship between a property tax assessed value and its actual market selling price. The North Carolina Department of Revenue requires all 100 counties to submit a sales ratio report each quarter. The sales ratio study here was for the re reappraisal year of 2023. Making county ratio came in at 100.82 which is slightly above the 100% required and by keeping the revenue

neutral tax rate making county became the lowest tax rate in the state. The North Carolina Department of Revenue tracks all counties ratios for a couple of reasons. It shows them when the counties get too far from the 100% market value and the assessments are below or above the accepted ratio. The purpose is to ensure all property is assessed at 100% fair market value. The North Carolina Department of Revenue looks at the median ratio and if that falls below 85% or above 115% they will require you to reappraise within 30 months. This is one reason that most counties in North Carolina are in a four-year cycle. When the market is rapidly r rising, this will trigger a reappraisal to equali equalize the assessments back to 100%. Another important purpose for the sales ratio is to ensure that the public utility companies are not paying higher percentages of taxes than the county taxpayers. The North Carolina Department of Revenue values the public utilities. And if this ratio falls below 90% in the first, fourth, or seventh year, then an adjustment is applied to the public utility assessment to equalize the utilities assessment. So they pay the same median percentage that taxpayers are paying on market values. This weighted average applies to all years after the adjustment has been adopted. The assessment for public utilities in Mon County for 2025 was 22 262,771916. How will the reappraisal affect taxpayers? The reappraisal will affect taxpayers assessed values. It does not mean that their taxes will go up. The revenue neutral tax rate will be calculated and presented with the bud budget message for the 2028 budget. The tax rate that

is set will determine if taxpayers increase or decrease. Again, it's a mandatory to publish the revenue neutral tax rate in the budget year of the reappraisal, but it does not have to be applied. What can taxpayers do to make sure their assessment is correct? They can obtain a copy of the property tax card either online or in our office to check the accuracy of the data. You can call the tax office and speak to someone in our office about their value and what the assessment is based upon. You can call and make an appointment to come sit down with us and go over your assessment. We are open 8:00 to 5:00 p.m. Information cards I have placed on the table out the door outside of the door that gives you the information of phone numbers to call, emails you can email, and ways to get in touch with us. Um, the reappraisal will not be complete until sometime in January or the beginning of February of 2027. As it stands right now, the reappraisal assessment will add $3.75 billion to our tax base or an increase of 30% countywide on average. The percentages will vary on sales per township and we will continue to work until all the sales are recorded for 2026. So, this amount will change daily. I have a proposed timeline for the reappraisal. So, I will come back in July and give you an update on the assessment changes. I will present assessments for each township. I will show how the townships have increased or decreased and an approximate percentage for each township. It does not mean that all parcels will go up or go down that percentage because it's just an average. These numbers will chase on a daily basis and again is dependent on qualified sales.

In August, I will present the schedule of values and the present use schedule of values to you and ask that a public hearing be scheduled for the next meeting in September. There will be a copy in the tax office and online for the public to review and the public hearing will be advertised in both Franklin and Highland papers for the next month's meeting. In September, the public hearing will take place. Then at the next commissioner's meeting in October, I will ask you to accept and adopt both schedules if you so choose to do so. The notice that the schedule of values has been adopted will be advertised for four subsequent weeks in a local newspaper and at the end of the 30 days, if there are no appeals, the schedule of values and the PUV schedule will be formally adopted and applied to the reappraisal data. Are there any questions? I think you covered about everything, Miss Abby.

Not quite, but there was way too much to cover in very short amount of time. I think she needs to repeat it. I think she did good. If you want to hear me start cracking, my voice will just squeak. All right. Thank you for the update. Thank you. Thank you. Um, if anybody has any questions, please email me. I would love to give you more information. I Is it too early to see how we're tracking? to see how we're tracking 16 million. What does that translate to?

30% as a county whole. Obviously, there are certain areas of the county that are a lot higher than 30 and there's some that's a little bit lower. The town of Franklin has not increased very much. It is stayed pretty stable. Um that could change. We've still got a long way to go. Um, and that last day in December is a doozy, I'll just tell you, because everybody's racing to get there and get it in. Um, obviously, Highlands is going to be a little bit higher. Um, Kawi, Kawi's a hot place, too. Uh, Burning Town is pretty much, you know, they're a little bit up, but there's very few. And I did do um where I received those numbers for those dwellings that went up and went down. What we do and and it's it's it's not just us willy-nilly putting numbers on there. We do sales analysis all the time. So, a lot of those came from how far off were we? Well, I called you the other day and asked about the sale because that that didn't make sense to us. and and so we look at every sale. We see if if it's a good sale. So sometimes we have to dig to see, you know, is that a good sale? Is that not a good sale? I mean, sometimes people get deals and it's a good sale, even if it's a deal. Um, some people pay to way too much on something because it's where they want to be, it's what they want, and they don't care how much it cost. that, you know, you you can't say that's not a good sale, but not everybody would pay that for that. Um, so there's going to be what's called outliers. So, you're going to have you're going to have a line, but then you're going to have all these outliers either above or below.

And you know, that's part of what we do is is just because your neighbor sold for way more than anybody thought it would, doesn't mean that's what's going to get put on yours. because all the other sales in that area are going to say, "Hey, that's an outlier. We're gonna take that one out of there." Okay. Is a golf course an outlier? I mean, is that a how do you how do you look at it versus people below the gate? So, golf courses are in themselves. We do not take Okay.

sales outside of golf courses and use them against each other. They are totally separate and they don't we don't intermingle those sales. Abby, how do you do the um like where these people are buying these mansions and they're tearing them down and they start a new construction? How is that how does that come into play? If somebody buys a mansion and tears it down, and we all know that's happening a lot,

that's the value of the land only. That didn't include the house. That's for the land only. So then, you know, if you get enough of those in a community and and there are that there are places that's happening, that's what your land's going to be worth. But if you have one of those and and you don't have any more in that neighborhood, then that's going to be an outlier. So, you know, it's something we look at very closely to see, is that a trend or is that just an anomaly? All right. Thank you, Abby.

All right. Capital improvement plan. Uh Mitch with Davenport Company. Sir. Hello, Mitch. Hey, Mitch. Good evening. Good to see everybody again. Good to see you again, brother. Thank you. um went paperless this year, maybe by accident, but um nonetheless, um you all have the presentations virtually, been emailed to you, and I think we're going to

Okay, perfect. Yep. Great. And we'll go through this here on the screen. Um 12 minutes was my uh charge. I will try to do that. Um but um I think a lot of this is a little bit of a refresher. So you know y'all are old hats at this at this point. So we'll go through some of the stuff in the beginning a little quickly just as a reminder and then maybe focus in on the very specifics for this year um and spend our time there. So, you know, uh, big picture, I think it's always, you know, good to refresh, remind the county has a very strong credit rating, double A2A. You know, that's a reflection on you all, the way you manage yourselves financially and otherwise. Um, but it also says you have access to the capital markets, right? We're talking about the capital improvement plan. If you need or want to borrow money to fund a capital project, you have access to borrow that money because of your strong credit rate. That's a very good thing um to maintain. Gives you flexibility going forward when you think about borrowing for capital. Right side of the page just gives you a little bit of perspective nationally and within North Carolina, how you stack up. And again, I think it's always interesting to look at the names in North Carolina on the bottom right side of that page to see where others are rated. Um, but what goes into that credit rating, right? What does that mean? Um, I think there's a couple key points here. Um, these the left-hand side of the page outlines the rating characteristics or the methodologies which the rating agencies use um to come up with their baseline rating. um talk off the shorter one given my time frame. Top left Moody's um 30% uh of their rating is economy, right? So that's

things like you know median household income or per capita personal income, right? you know, income levels of the county and there's residents, uh, you know, demographics generally, population trends, assessed value, tax base trends, tax assessor left. But, um, what she was just talking about those tax base trends, um, higher assessed value, higher tax base, improves ratings, all of those things, there's nothing you can do as part of this upcoming budget to impact that, right? You know, you can put in economic development incentives, policies, you know, zoning policies, things like that to try to encourage economic development. You know, bring in industry, add commercial, etc., etc., to improve your tax base, improve wages, but those are longer term plays, right? There's nothing you can adopt as part of this budget to immediately influence those things. Um, same thing. I'm going to skip down one institutional framework. That's 10% of the rating. Um, you're a county in North Carolina. Period. You're going to get a score. You're responsible for school capital. You're responsible courouses, jails, etc. Moody's is views that as, you know, their second highest score because of some of those responsibilities. Nothing you can do to change that unless you get, you know, statutory requirements changed, which is a very long-term play, I suspect. Um so that's 40% almost half the rating right the other 60% is financial performance your general fund balance your cash are you adding to or taking away from policies etc that's your financial performance and then the other 30% is leverage or your debt and debt obligations does include things like pension liabilities and stuff for your employees but for the most part we're looking at your taxported debt and the debt that

you've issued that's outstanding um which you do have control over to a certain extent right you you you can choose this budget if you want to fund a capital project and fund it with that now on the flip side you start a project like Highlands or Franklin High School you enter into a construction contract you're kind of baked right at that point right once you enter the contract you got to fund it if you don't have the cash kind of need to issue the debt to do that So, um, but you do generally have control over that piece of it. So, those are the two pieces that I'll hit on tonight is the financial performance and the debt outstanding. All right. Um, quick update on general fund financial performance. Just looking back at the 25 audit. Last time we were here, we went through the 24 audited financials. Um, top left graph is looking at your operating expenses in green. dark green. And then in that lime green color is your uh capital expenses and your transfers out which transfers out is largely to capital projects and the debt service fund. Um and the gold line is your revenues, right? And so ideally financial performance, you're not subtracting from your fund balance. That gold line is above or equal to those green bars, right? That's a structurally balanced budget. The revenues you're bringing in are matching or are better than the expenses going out. Basically, in 25 it was about flat. um gold line is on top of that green bar. And if you look at that graph down below, that's your fund balance. Those are, you know, essentially flat to 2024 in the general fund, right? Your revenues matched your expenses and your

transfers out in the general fund. So it was basically flat. And a good chunk of that, if you look at that lime green bar, is funding of capital projects, investing in capital projects. Highland school project for example was one of the big ones right so um if you are going to spend fund balance down and we talked about this last year a good use of that is for capital projects onetime projects right we don't want to take that fund balance which is a one-time source you spend it and it's gone and put it into you know a new service that is going to be annually recurring every year salaries colas which are going to recur for every single year. Spend that fund balance one year and it's gone, but that expense stays and now you got and not a structurally balanced budget, right? Because you have expenses that are ongoing, but you lost the revenue source that you were using to pay for. Overall, you have a structurally balanced budget. Got a very solid fund balance. you know, we had intended or planned to spend down some of that fund balance as part of the high school funding plan and it and it's been able to stay stable over the years um generally speaking. So, we're going to dig into that here in a moment. We flip the next page looking at your policy, right? You have a general fund uh policy to maintain unassigned fund balance minimum of 25%. Targeted level of 30%. That's a good policy, very typical policy of what we see. It's in that typical policy range. Um the dark green line is your unassigned fund balance. That's what your policy is based on. And you see we've done that dark blue dashed line

coming off of it. Right? That's part of that high school. And when we did the high school project and the CIP at the time, there was the plan to transfer $20 million towards um the CIP. Part of that is going to fund some of the increases in debt service from the past bond issues. Part of that was going to fund significant investments in pay as you go cash funded capital. A lot of those cash funded capital projects are still in design, still in the works, and haven't been spent yet. So, haven't had to spend that money yet. It's still sitting in that unassigned fund balance. I know Lindsay and I have had a lot of conversations about, you know, options to make that a little more clear going forward, assigning that fund balance for the CIP, which you all intended to do, or creating a fund that you can transfer it to and track it separately. I know that's something we're going to continue discussing. But the point is 20 million was intended and is still planning a part of it to be spent on capital projects that just haven't moved forward yet, but that were part of the CIP. So, we're really tracking that dashed blue line as the available unassigned fund balance. And that takes you down to that roughly 40% level. Um, gives you about a 10% cushion. That's equal to about as of the end of fiscal 25 about six $6.6 million in excess of that 30% policy limit target, excuse me, not limit. So, you know, it's a good level. You have some additional dollars that you could invest in capital or onetime expenses, but you also don't necessarily want to take it all the way down to the target because, you know, there's other items that influence that, right? If your

expenditure budget starts to go up with inflation, you you don't have 6.6, you have less because your expenditure level is higher. Your percentage of expenditures, your requirement becomes higher, right? So, you typically like to leave a little bit of cushion. You don't necessarily want to take it all the way down to 30%. Y'all know me. Interrupt me with questions. Don't don't feel like you got to hold don't feel like you got to wait. So, you're in really good shape. Um, the peer comparative at the bottom shows you where you are on that dark green bar. You know, about half of that your gold bar, you're up top on the gold bar. About half of that is really when we adjust for that 20 million, about half of that gold bar is where you are. And you can see you would still stack up nicely to these uh medians for the other rated counties that we're looking at. So, on our credit rating, did we drop a a notch on the sheet?

Some reason I thought last year we were double A. You Yeah, you're double A2. You're still double A2. Yep. Um double A2 by Moody's, double A by S&P. Okay, cool.

Yep. I where you stand today, I think there's more opportunities to increase than there is risks of dropping. And I think a lot of the things that we've talked about in the recent conversations we've had with the rating agencies a couple of years ago, you're doing all the right things from a fund balance perspective, from a, you know, financial structurally balanced budget perspective. It's that economy piece that you don't have as much control over that you don't stack up as well compared to others and you know there's a lot of things that go into that right I mean you've

industry industry absolutely but also some of the nature of the county right you think places down like highlands where you know it's second homes and those people don't necessarily live here and report that as their primary address. So, their income may not be showing up in your income levels either. So, and we have those conversations, but it's hard for them when they're just looking at numbers side by side. So, yes, sir. I may be out of line, but I need to ask it anyway. Never. Within region A, we got we got seven counties.

Mhm. And we have chosen through the voting piece not to support the one quarter cent sales tax. We're the only county. How does that influence if it's passed? We're looking at additional two $2 million if we pass that quarter of a penny sales tax. You have any comment on that? is is I'm going to show you. Okay. Show you here in a minute what that might might be able to do. Uh thank you. Yes, sir.

Okay. So, uh let's see. All right. So, that's kind of the the financial performance side of things. On the debt side of things, um currently have um just under 85 million of debt outstanding as of June 30, 2025. All of that's paying off by 2045. You have adopted three debt policies. I've gone through these the last several years. Probably ad nauseium. I'm not going to go through them in detail here other than to say you are well in compliance with your policies. You have debt capacity for future capital projects. If you choose to debt fund future capital projects under these policies compared to where you stack up with your peers, it is a reasonable tool to utilize additional debt to fund capital if you choose to do so or if there's a need to do so. Um just because you have the capacity doesn't mean you have the affordability, right? you know, I can go out and get pre-approved for a mortgage, but doesn't mean I can afford that mortgage when I look at, you know, my daycare expenses or got to, you know, get a new fridge or whatever. Doesn't mean I have the cash flow available to pay for that mortgage, but I could get preapproved for it, right? That's kind of the difference between capacity and affordability. And on the affordability side, over the years, you all have done a really nice job of setting aside dollars for debt service and capital and being able to use those dollars to plan for your capital projects. I mean, y'all remember how many times did we talk about this plan as part of funding Franklin High School, right? I mean, probably got tired of sick of hearing from me, right? But the fact that you had these revenues available, were able to set aside

dollars to go towards that allowed you to get that project done and pay cash for Highlands and some of these other projects that you're doing now. So, it really did set yourself up nicely. Um, one one key thing that I'll point out, um, over here in column M, this capital reserve fund, um, we're estimating that about $25 million is going to be available at the start of this CIP in that for that capital reserve purposes. 20 million of that is sitting in that unassigned fund balance right now. So that's that difference between the dark green bar and that dashed blue bar that we looked at on that fund balance chart. That 20 million is that difference. We're estimating that that's still going to be available. That amount will still be available and leave you as of 25 with that $6 million in excess of your target policy. The additional five is in the debt service fund um from dollars that were set aside previously associated with funding of the most recent bond issues. So we're starting there and you can see we are spending that a little bit in the first few years, right? Um as we still have these elevated levels of debt service expenses. This was anticipated. This was part of the plan, right? We had higher expenses as the debt came online for the first several years, but you would set aside dollars to be able to cover that to minimize the impact on the budget. So, we are drawing that down a little bit. You can see it gets down to a minimum of about 18 just under $18 million. That $18 million plus these future surpluses are what's going to be available as we start looking fun at funding the CI.

Break this down for me really fast. Sure. We move 25 million to capital reserve. What does that leave us in general fund balance as of June 30, 2025? $6.6 million. And is that 25% of our budget?

Oh, 6.6 million over your policy level. So, your policy limit, again, I'm speaking off a 25 audit, right? We don't know how 26 is going to end up. Um, I think you're doing well, but there's a lot of time left to go in the year. Um, so your minimum policy amount, right, or your policy target amount of 30% on your $72 million expenditures in fiscal year 25 means you would have to have 21.6 6 million in unassigned fund balance to hit your 30% target. Okay, you had $48 million, right? So, you had excess, right? Over and 27 million over. But from there, you back out that $20 million going to this capital reserve, right? That leaves you with 28 million of unassigned fund balance. So 28 minus the 21 target amount, right? 30% is equal to 21.6. That's what leaves you with roughly that 6.6 million available. Makes

sense. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. So, so what does that mean for your CIP? Um we looked at this a couple different ways. Um first this year um some some large projects getting funded in the potentially if you choose to in the fiscal year 2027. Not all these are new projects. Um some of these are projects that we previously talked about you previously planned to spend out of that fund balance set aside that just haven't moved as quickly. you know, things like the community college projects um that where they have some grant funds, you have a match fund, those just haven't moved forward to the point of spending those dollars yet. So, we've carried those forward into fiscal 27, right? Because the $20 million is still sitting there. We need to account for those expenses. So, we don't, you know, double count the $20 million, right? We need to if we're showing the 20 25 million being available, even though those expenses were planned to be spent in prior years, they haven't been spent yet. So, we're carrying them forward and showing them in 2027. In total, column C, um the total capital investment is u 47.3 million, but 23.4 four of that is anticipated to come from grants in particular other funding sources, right? So that leaves you with a net 23 million, right? So 47 million, half of it is not coming from county dollars. It's pretty good. Um, of the county dollars, the 23.88, um, we're assuming 13.8 of that is going to be cash funded capital. pay cash for

it, no interest, don't borrow for it. There is um the one county facility pro we're calling county facility project, county facility relocation. I know y'all are working through what makes sense departmentwise. Um but we plugged in $10 million for that county facility relocation project. We're assuming that's going to be debt funded. And if you bear with me, I'll show you why here in a second. But we've plugged that in, assuming you would debt finance that project. New facility, $10 million, long average life of these projects. That one makes if we need if we're going to look at debt financing one, that makes sense to look at for debt financing. Okay, bear with me. I do want to show you sort of full CIP here. Um remember 47 million in fiscal 27 total five-year CIP 27 to31 of 120 million that does include potential new East Franklin Elementary School and assumes you get a the needs-based Mr. Shields is going to have to correct me. Public school needsbased

cap needsbased public school capital facilities grant. Is that did I get it right? You got it. All right. Um

equal to the project cost, right? And so I think the idea would be if we don't get that grant then kind of revisit that project. So that's inflating these numbers, right? But so of the 120 million about 66 million coming from grants and other sources net funding requirement of about 54.2 million on the county side. Some of that is just your normal ongoing capital, right? You got to maintain the buildings you have. You got to buy vehicles. Those type of things. If y'all remember, we're assuming that you you're going to do just annual recurring capital. We've got an allocation of 2.75 million a year. Part of that 1.1ish, a little a little more is for schools. Million dollars is for county. 600,000 is for vehicles. Right? That's just kind of a hey, we know we're going to have to do these smaller HVAC, roofs, parking lot type projects every year for the county facilities we own. We're allocating a minimum amount of dollars for that until those actual projects are identified. So, part of that is the annual recurring. And then you do have some um other one-time projects. We've called out some of the the larger ones up in the top here highlighted in the green and and these are the projects um that we are assuming the green projects. We're going to assume as we look to fund the CIP that these are debt financed for now. Um those are not happening until 2029 to 2031, right? So a lot of time until we get there. If y'all continue to outperform the budget, continue to have surpluses, there may be additional cash available that you can pay cash for some or all of those, but

we don't have it yet. So, we're not going to count on it. Okay. A little more detail on that on 15. And as in past years in the appendices, you can see all of the detail you want, but I'm going to fast forward to the results here. Um, page 16 shows you the summary. And y'all remember we're we basically take this CIP and we run it through that debt affordability model and the debt capacity model to come up with these results. If y'all want to go to the back, you know me, I'm happy to walk through all the details. It's all back there, but high level, here's the results. Scenario one, we're showing your fisc year 27 projects without the county facility. Remember I said we're assuming we're borrowing for that. And this is going to show you why we're borrowing for that, right? Without the county facility, um it's $44 million of CIP in fiscal year 27. You're good on all your debt ratios. You have capacity. I'm not going to talk about those ratios anymore. All these scenarios, you're good. line 21, right? You can cash flow all of these projects. This 44 million, you can you can pay for those. 23 is coming from grants. 20 million is coming from county cash. And you've got that money. We saw that, right? And that would leave you with a minimum capital reserve balance of $6.8 million over and above your unassigned fund balance. Right? That's separate. This is capital reserve. You got your 30% plus a little bit of cushion, right? We're not touching that. This is that capital reserve. It gets down to 6.8 million, right? That's a little short of being able to cash fund that $10 million project. And we didn't want to take it

all the way down to zero. So that's where column E, we've layered in that county facility, and we assume we're debt financing that. And you can still fund that. And you can fund that project within your existing cash flows plus the annual 2.975 million allocation for future capital projects, recurring future capital projects. You can cash flow that and it takes your minimum capital reserve balance down to about $1.9 million. Okay. Scenario three is where we layer in the entire CIP. So those additional projects 28 through 31. And what we see is line 19 additional revenue required. We are a little short being able to cash flow that from the current resources and that 25 million beginning balance in the capital reserve. Um there would need to be about $11 million of additional revenue over time. Um the first year you would need some of that 11 million would be 2031. So four to five years from now. There's a lot of time for things to evolve, right? You get additional surpluses that can go towards that 11 million and reduce that. Um but we have equated it to you know the equivalent tax rate to fix that 11 million if if you went that route. Um, but again, you don't need the first penny or excuse me,

shouldn't say penny, that's a bet. You don't need the first dollar to fix that gap until 2031. So, there's a lot of time to deal with that. Um, so can't quite fund the full CIP. A little short, but a lot of time to address it, a lot of time to evolve, maybe some additional dollars become available. Um, to Mr. Shields's question, down on lines 27 to 31, if the quarter cent sales tax passes and you choose to dedicate that towards capital projects, you can see you can see, you know, your minimum cash balances for scenarios one and two obviously go up, right? You know, scenario one goes up to 10.7 million. that if you wanted to cash fund the county facility, that would allow you to do that, right? Um, scenario three where we had the shortfall identified, now there's no shortfall and there would be a u minimum capital reserve balance of just over $6 million. Right? So now you still you fix that shortfall and you got a little more money. again if you if it passes and if you choose to dedicate it towards capital just wanted to anticipating that maybe a question Mr. shields. Just wanted to show that for a perspective.

So, all in all, I mean, it's little better. Looks a little better than it did last year. Um, and you did a little better 25 that allowed us to this to look a little bit better. Um, so I think you know in good shape financially, you got a lot of capa capacity for additional debt. you have a lot of affordability for additional capital projects without the need for a whole lot of debt financing. You know, when you think about it, right, $120 million five-year CIP, 66 million of that is assumed to come from non-county resources. Um, and you know, only half of the remaining amount is assumed to be borrowed. Um, so some pretty significant cash capital investment and you know if you continue to perform the way you have in the past, continue to grow, sales tax does better, additional dollars going to the bottom line, there should be additional cash available to reduce some of this future borrowing or some of the shortfall that we see. That was faster than last year, but I did not hit the 12 minutes.

We're good, Mitch. So, I I'll add a couple of things to what Mitch said. Uh Mitch, can you go back to maybe page 15? I I guess one thing to remember when we talk about those numbers he's talking about with the $6 million, remember, we also have the 30% left in fund balance as well. So, there's $21 million somewhere that we're always sitting on to cover our normal operating stuff and and to give us that little cushion if things come up during the year. So, we're not getting down to zero. there's always the 21 million sitting there to cover us when when the roof goes bad and we have to fix it or the $100,000 projects that come in during the year. Um, we talked a lot about this modeling and if you look at some of these projects, you know, you may choose, we threw $10 million out there for a quote county relocation number. You may look at that and you may say, I may want to do five million. I may I may find a solution for two million. So, we can change that model very easily once we know what those figures are to plug those in to tell you where you're going to land. And you're you're going to see some projects on there like the 29, 30, 31 years. Those are projects submitted by the school system that we really haven't edited. Uh, you know, those may change. Those are some big dollar figures. So, I don't want you to think that that this is definitely the route we're going to go, but this is a good modeling picture for you as we move into this year. We talk about using that money like we wanted to run the scenarios. Let's see where we're at. And and you'll even see, I mean, we we've taken a pretty good shot at stuff for up to 10 years, but we've even modeled out to 203. That's 20 27 years. I won't be here in 203. um that it's hard sometime to go a year or two or three, but when you're talking about that far out, that's a best guess estimate where we think we're going to land. So, when you look at this stuff, I

want you to I want you to really look at it as a planning tool for us to plug numbers in to get what you want to meet those minimums that you've got. I'm not a fan of debt. Mitch knew I wanted to cash flow the 10 million right off the bat, but when you look at how this models, some cases, it makes sense to debt fund stuff because it it keeps other money free that that you can use for the other things. Um, so I just want to reiterate that none of this is set in stone. This is for you to look at, to model off of, to point us in the direction on where you want to go with these funds. Then we can readjust the models to show you where you'll be not just this year but 10 years down the road.

Yeah. And I think that Sorry Warren I know you're looking for me to comment but I just tag on. I mean I it's a really good point right because what are you doing right now? Right. This we've shown you the five years. It goes out 10 15 plus years beyond this. We've focused on the five years, but the reality of it is you can, you know, adopt or approve a five-year CIP, but the only thing you're funding is fiscal year 27. You're going to fund fiscal year 27 as part of the fiscal year 27 budget. All the other years can change and we do this for a lot of clients and all the other years normally do change, right? It things evolve, priorities change, costs change, etc. I mean, you know, these are estimates as of this point in time, but you've got to do what you do and you revisit this every single year. So, the benefit of, you know, looking out to years four and five and beyond that is more identifying what are our needs that are coming up, not necessarily how much you've got to come up with today to fund those needs. Does that make sense? that the benefit is more in identifying I've got I've got capital needs coming up. I need to start thinking about those, start planning for those, but you are not making a funding decision on those as part of the fiscal 27 budget.

I'm sure you covered this, but the the figures you give me with the uh 25 million capital reserve and the six 6.6 6 million on the fund balance. Does that reflect the 26 uh CIP parks and wreck? Both phases, you know, phase 1 A, phase 1 B. So that's where I said the and it's I probably didn't say it very well, but if you go back and look at the 2027 projects, 27, I'm sorry, phase 1 A and 1B are on the fiscal 27 budget, right? That's because they didn't get funded to date in fiscal year 26. Okay?

And so we're showing that 20 million, but we're bringing these projects that you had planned to fund from part of that. We're bringing those forward into 27 so that we're not double counting those dollars, right? You'd planned to fund them out of the 20 million. They haven't been spent yet. So, we're pulling them into 2027 to not double count the spending of that 20 million. And and I'll add to that if you look at and and obviously those phases we went ahead and did the tennis court. So that was already done last year. So that was part of the 1A I guess it was. So now we're into the 1A 1B. But then remember we talked about we applied for the partif grant. So

if that comes about then then we would need to do the match money for that which is the 600,000 of the 1.2 million. So we went ahead and plugged that in just in case we get that part of grant. Now, if we don't get that part of grant, obviously, we may kick that down to the next fiscal year. So, that we we pre-planned that a little anticipating we would get funding, but then we have the option that could move to next year. Uh, and then we're also playing catch-up on some things. If you look at line 18 on there, that's the uh he mentioned the community college. That was the burn building that a previous board committed to that project, but it took forever because of the bond money that the school system got, the community college system got. You know, that's just now coming to it'll be completed hopefully in November, I think, sedate and then the renovation of the armory. You know, that was a commitment that was made years ago that that we're just now seeing come up in the CIP, which again is very important to use as a planning tool because we can plug that in and we going forward we know that we we we know where those monies are and what's going to hit us next year.

Thank you. Okay, go back to my question. This is kind of hard to keep up with. Now, if you insert the one quarter of a penny uh sales tax, which we don't have, but we have a a resolution saying we can put it on our ballots, and it it brings in previously about $2.3 million a year. Is that a breath of fresh air or for the budget piece or I'm losing something here is so it it depends on how you choose to apply it right and I don't is that

and Lindsay can can correct me right but if you choose to apply it to the CIP right that is going to give you additional cash flow to fund capital projects so I think probably easiest to see it here so like on scenario three right If all of these projects were to move forward at these amounts in the years they're planned and you have no additional dollars other than what's currently committed, the $25 million in the annual set aides, right? You're short by about $11 million. line 19 19

right down on line 28 if you 29 if you get the quarter cent sales tax and you dedicate that to funding capital projects you're no longer short that this is a touch screen I have no idea that line goes to zero right and line 31 the minimum capital reserve balance goes to 6.095 million, right? So, you go from being short 11 to having additional 6 million over this period where you could look at funding capital.

And I'm sorry, Mitch, when you see that number,

that could also be a property tax increase. We also have revenue that comes in. I mean, you're you're talking many years out. There's a standard percentage that we would think their sales tax normally is going to increase whether you do the quarter cent increase or not, but but there's a lot of different things that go into that equation on an income because it's going to rise a little bit as you go anyway because of just the the values that that Abby talks about. I think you said 1.62% um increase in our normal stuff that happens with our tax base during the year. People build houses, stuff just comes in and changes, people buy vehicles. So, we're not saying that you have to have the quarter cent sales tax to get that, but if you wanted to do all of these things, fund scenario three, that's the dollar figure that you would have to have, whether it is quarter cent sales tax, increase in your other revenue somewhere or or the tax increase

and or a tax increase. Correct. So, you got an option here of a quarter of a a penny sales tax versus maybe I don't know how much on your property tax increase. 1.69.

Yeah. If you waited if you waited and put it in place until you absolutely needed it, 1.69. If you did it this year and started collecting those dollars and setting them aside, just under a penny. So if we say there's a possibility that your property in your property tax could be raised 2 cents that's a rounded number you're using 1.9. Yeah. I mean so so value of a penny in fiscal 26 is equal to like 1.3 million.

Okay. We're assuming for in these scenarios, we're assuming that the quarter cent sales tax starts at $2 million and grows from there. Right? Sales tax is volatile. We don't want to be too aggressive in the assumption, right? So,

you know, it is a little less than two pennies equivalent on $2 million, right? one 2 million assumed sales tax revenue maybe 2.3 versus 1.3 cents per penny on the tax rate. So two pennies on the tax rate would generate $2.6 million. The quarter cent is giving you somewhere a little shy of that. Yeah. 2.3. Okay. Selling point. Thank you. All right, Mitch. Um, on the undesated fund balance, um, what did you say it was? What was the amount?

I I'm just going to throw it up here for you so you can see it. Um, probably can't read that very well, but um, $48 million. Okay. So, we've got 48 million undesated fund balance. Yeah. Unassigned, but remember 20 of that. So, it's 28 million really. That's um All right. with the investment. How much is this producing in um in gains with this money being invested? I didn't bring my

because with this money you're talking about spending it, you're talking about it being invested. Well, somewhere along the line, the county is gaining from that investment. How what does that number look like? Because you could actually spend that much money every year and never touch. Absolutely. Yeah. Now remember, so of that 28 million, 21 of that, 21 of that is your target policy. So you're not going to spend that, right? 30%. Yeah.

Recommendation 20%. We have it set for 25%. Um and we want to have um a minimum of 25% but no more than 30%. Yeah. minimum 25 and then once you hit a 30% target above that you can start spending it on one time capital is the way the power set up the capital fund and capital and every time that you gain from the uh 30% which was the 20 21 million so every year you're going to gain from your investments that would actually go into the capital so how much is that miss

like interesting round numbers, right? I think that Capital Management Trust, which is where you typically invest your funds, is around I think a 375ish right now. So, you know, on $10 million, every $10 million, that's $375,000. So,

and that's a really good question. That's one of the things that she and I are actually working on. When when we project your revenues and your budget, obviously, we have to take that in consideration. And then we don't necessarily base that on what we made this year. We'll take an average of a set number of years to give us that cushion in there. So that that also you should see reflected in your budget message this year how those revenues play out. And and that's a really good point because if you're making good money off of it, yes, you can leave it in there. you you do take some some heat from the public for having that money seen in the bank. But yes, it does help you big picture because if you made a million dollars a year, that's almost equivalent of a penny on the tax rate.

And Mr. Shurl, that is in reality, that's what you're doing right now, right? Because you can't get but so aggressive in budgeting your investment income, right? I mean, that's we saw it at 0% a few years ago, you know, 0.01%. 01% and it got up north of 5% less than a year later, year and a half later. So, you know, that's pretty volatile. You got to be careful when you're budgeting for that. And so, that is part kind of similar type thing on sales tax that can plummet pretty quickly. So, you got to be careful in how you're budgeting for that. And so, that's often times those two items often create some of the budget surplus that you see yeartoear. And what happens to that budget surplus, right? It goes above the target level and then it's available for y'all to spend on capital. You kind of like we doing with the 20 million, we're moving that over and you can see we're trying to spend it all. Um, so it's that's kind of what you're doing at this point. Um, and every year if you continue to have those surpluses, it insulates that $20 million, the $20 million goes farther right over in the capital reserve. So whether you put it into a fund and call it an endowment and we're not going to spend the capital, we're only going to spend the interest or you still kind of practice like you do and budget conservatively on the investment income and sales tax and other items kind of accomplishes a similar thing. I'm not saying it's as dedicated as what you're suggesting, but you're kind of getting there to a certain extent.

Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, Mitch B. Well done. Hopefully that was helpful. I I went over the 12, but that last part it wasn't on me. We'll talk about that later, Mitch. It wasn't on me. Good to see you. Take care. All right. Old business update and request for funds for Kawi Fire and Rescue. Mr. Pendergrass and Mr. for picking us. We're going to have to leave that on there. We're going to

Thank you all for having us tonight. Now, Warren didn't give me a time limit, so six minutes. Like I said, appreciate y'all for letting us come up and speak tonight. Um, we talked about it for several months about the six month mark to come give you an update of where we stand after the merge or takeover, however you want to look at that. Um, hope to just be able to come in and and give you all all positives and I do have more positives than negatives, but um, unfortunately a lot of unforeseen maintenance issues and stuff um, that's come up and I'll go into that in detail in just a couple minutes. Um, I want to give you um, little bit of an update where we stand right now. Um after gaining access to both of the stations and the apparatus, we began going through all the equipment um county officials came down. We did a full you know inventory of everything and all was present accounted for there. Um so far we've taken on nine members that was from the existing fire department. Uh three new members from the community have come out and joined since then. Um it's bringing our total membership of firefighters up to 76. Um we have six junior firefighters. um one applicant from the Burning Town community that uh just showed up this past Thursday. Um and we've got three more in the community that's waiting to turn 14. Um they're jumping up and down waiting on their birthday to hit this year so they can come join. Um we've increased our full-time staff uh from one to two. So, we have a full-time person dedicated for uh both districts because we're we're all one district now, but on we're still technically set as two districts and we're, you know, taking over the responsibilities for the Burning Town district. Um we've added eight uh part-time firefighters um allowing two to work a day, so five days a week. That's Monday through Friday, 7 to 5. We have two folks, two firefighters on covering both both

sides. um with brush fire season um on us right now and the dry conditions, we've been able to add additional resources during the day. Uh as well, um we did hold our community meeting um back right around that icy ice storm that we were projected to get. So I think that had the numbers down a little bit. Um but there was between 25 and 30 from the community plus several of the firemen there. um gave good presentation to them with a lot of good positive feedback from the community. Um staff reports um and I've got to witness it myself too. Um working out of both of those stations, helping them out, community coming in. Um appreciate seeing the bay doors open, fire trucks out, and then running up and down the roads answering calls. Um very, very proud of what our team is doing there. Um we've increased our board of directors uh by adding two additional community members. Um and we have done that uh effective last month at our annual election. So we have two uh community members to represent the Burnontown Iola uh district. Um that gives us a 14 14 member board. Um we finished out the 2025 um year with 526 calls and so far to date we're sitting right atund 138 calls for the year so far. um maintenance issues and concerns and I believe that's attached. Do you all have that? Okay, I'm going to cover that and then if you have any questions, please ask away. Um and we we did in inherit um their budget, so obviously I used most of that uh this year. Majority of that has had to be placed in maintenance and different issues. Um, you'll see the uh the first two items there uh is two of their four-wheel drive engines. And if y'all will remember back to a time

during the probationary period, these were apparatus that would not pass a pump inspection. Uh, but then later did pass a pump inspection. Um, so one of our first tasks that we took on after uh gaining access to everything was to bring both companies in that had tested these apparatus um with a pass and with a fail. Um, and neither one of those uh would pass pump inspection. Um, so we had to pull those trucks out of service. Uh, because if that's my home, that that engine's going to work. Um, and we're going to know for a fact that it's going to work. Um, that was not the case here. Uh, the first one has been repaired. A new pump had to be installed. That was $15,91147. Um, the other one, the estimate to fix it, um, is 18,000. Um, we currently do not have the budgeted means to take care of that. Um, but we pulled our reserve engine from the Oakrove Station and placed it um at the Burning Town Station on Dave's Creek. So, we are 100% in compliance with state and county requirements. Um, moving on down to what we're now calling station five. That is the Iola substation that's u on Iola Church Road. Um within the first few weeks uh of moving in, first decent rainstorm that came through, the guys called me and they said, "Uh, chief, we've got a problem." Um, water leaking terribly inside the bays through their tongue and groove uh ceiling that's in that's in this station. Um, and it looked like sprinkler system was activated throughout the uh throughout the building. Um so we went through there tried to figure it out ourselves and and and get a diagnosis on it and had um contractor come out and look at it. Um then which led to me asking Mr. Joe Allen if he would come down and take a look at it. Um the quote that we had

received and I wanted to make sure that that kind of matched and seemed um legit. um the build in that area was not to the um commercial code, North Carolina commercial code. That's going to be $26,98 and uh 80 um and that project has not been completed yet uh because of not having the funds to do so. Um, if you look through the rest, a lot of these items, only the the items that are highlighted is what we're going to be asking you all uh to help us out with. Um, apparatus, we found 15 tires that needed to be uh replaced. That was over $5,000. One of the tanker um had an issue there, $1,600. um pickup truck u or I'm sorry 2012 Tahoe just shy of $1,000 for bad motor mounts, control arms, etc. A 2020 pickup truck, bad fuel filters, um documented water in the fuel. Um the next big ticket item was their rescue airbags and the control kit to run those. For anybody that doesn't know, that's if we're stabilizing a vehicle or needing to lift a vehicle or building or anything off of a off of a victim. Um, these tools are required. We do have that um at one of the cowi stations. So, you know, we're covered, but it would be nice to replace this set that's corroded and all the airbags was dry rotted. So, the second we try to blow one of those up, it's really going to blow up. It's $13,73.82. uh that remains out of service um because we do not have the funds to replace um their battery battery powered jaws uh jaws of life equipment. Um I had not received an annual service in over 3

years. Uh all the batteries needed to be replaced and that was $5,500. Um one of the brush trucks, um you can see there 28 a little over 2,800 in repairs. Um view the other items is just basically we started tracking the expenses on day one. Um just to show and keep keep up with that. Um and you can see see the rest of those and see what we've handled. Um there say if you got any questions with with those, you know, please please let me know and I'll answer them best that I can. Um it wasn't it didn't come lightly for me to you know just jump and run up here and ask you guys for money. Um I'm very proud of our board, our officers and our members. Um we take great pride in what we do. Um as Miss Abby said a few minutes ago, Kawi is a hot place and I couldn't agree more. Um and now we're making the entire district a hot place. Um the totals that we have spent so far um is $52,473.19 um in in three in major needs. The major needs before this that I mentioned to you, other than the one truck that we did replace to get it back in service, if we were to to spend everything, fix everything, right now we're sitting at about $109,000. Um, and just within me presenting all this to to Warren a few few days ago, uh, it led to um the next truck on our list to go get serviced was the other brush truck that we uh inherited. That's the fuel filter. Anybody wants to see fuel filter? Um it's an additional about $2,500 that

we've approved and fixed and it's it's back in service to us. So um we inherited a mess, but we're making it better. It's already better. Um we are here to to ask for $75,000. Um that is not to pat our pockets. That is simply to finish the repairs that need to be repaired. it's just hard for me to budget for without asking for a tax increase. Um, and also to help offset, you know, some of what we have put into this that in my opinion, yes, we inherited their budget, but it did not take on a lot of unforeseen expenses due to lack of proper maintenance. Um, now any any questions for me?

I have several. the date of the merge that you actually took over um completely take over of everything. What was that date?

Well, it was uh contract was signed September the 11th. Um they they took another 3 weeks to a month maybe to finalize the stuff on their end. And at that point we were conducted the um inventory of all the equipment um pagers, radios, stations um and moved in within a month of that. Um during that time where we were did not have access over there but obviously they were not running calls because their contract was gone. Um we staged apparatus at Iowa school during the daytime hours so that there was adequate coverage. How much money money was left in the Vernon Town Fire Department account when y'all inherited this pig?

There was a cashier's check issued to us out of from a savings account for $35,259.92. Um and basically, you know, for the previous discussions where it was you all had recommended them discuss with me some sort of reimbursement for the 13 months of us answering answering their calls for them. Um uh the figure that I had had come up with was based off of 131 medical calls where we average sending four personnel and one med truck to each call at $12 per member per call because that's what we reimburse and then $50 for the use of the truck which is well below average but fair in my opinion. Um, we also answered 50 fire related calls during that period and we averaged 13 personnel and four apparatus for $12 per member per call and $75 um per apparatus on that which total $35,638.

So that money was really used to reimburse you for covering that district. Okay, that that's what our our board accepted that. Okay. Um, how much money have you collected through the 2526 tax collections for the Burning Town Iowa Fire Department District? Uh, the combined the combined total as of March 31st for county fire tax is 616,568. Okay. And that's Burning Town. That's Burning Town. And

no, how much how much actually came in? I didn't bring um actually um $261,1825 for the Vernon Town district. Okay. So you guys have spent $52,473 on the things that you've completed. Yes, sir.

Okay. So where what have we used the 29,000 um that you have collected for Burning Town District? Um, so basically I took a copy of their their budget, what they had presented and was passed before all this started and compared their line items to the line items in our budget and place those in accordingly best that we could. Um, majority of that went into our part-time budget and then obviously taking on their full-time firefighter that, you know, ultimately lost her job. Uh but we she started for us the very next day so she was not out anything.

Um so in the tax the service fees

that the fire departments provide to the citizens of the district. Is that not what this money is for? is to um to keep up with all the equipment and the facilities and um is that not what the money that's how you managed to buy new turnout gear and all this other stuff? Okay. So, so you had 209,000 um over that and paid firefighter. Um you know, I'd like to um and you still have some outstanding, I'm sure, for tax collections for the 2526 fiscal year. All right. So explain the building, the property and the grounds and the office equipment and stuff at Burning Town Iola Fire Department when you got there.

Um Pedro's radios, all that equipment was there and accounted for. Um turnout gear was there accounted for. Um apparatus was all there and accounted for. And of course the documentation that we received that shows that the apparatus had passed the pump inspection and all the test you know everything was presented there. Um uh we did find there was several um sets of keys that was still floating around. So we did have to change locks and and keys for all the for both of those buildings. um moving forward from from that point once that was done you know there was no other access in there for means of anything to disappear but everything was there and from I I was not there to participate in that just because um but those that were there said everything was handled very forgery and everything was fine

so even though it was there a lot of it was not functioning or wasn't usable able turnout gear. I mean the the um the bunker gear and stuff was it all um up to

there there was several sets that was u out of date to the standard which is older than 10 years but a majority of the gear. Um and all the you know current members that that we have have in date um turnout gear. Um, we do have from means of our our budget moving forward, you know, we're there will be replacements and, you know, to be honest, I would have rather spent the 15,000 on several sets of turnout gear than putting a pump in an engine that supposedly passed inspection but didn't. Um, so you mentioned your um ex ext exc um that you took it out of um service

and you're using cowi stuff. Um any new equipment that you saw um anything that would have been purchased in the last year or two that you could identify? Now they they had received a grant. Let me back. They had received a grant um approximately a year prior to this and had received uh 20 I believe it's 20 brand new air packs and 40 bottles. So those those are in date. Um and they were just recently serviced per their annual annual service agreement and all that's all that's good. Well, as as a county commissioner and um retired firefighter, Burnontown Fire Department is very fortunate that your operation was willing to step up to do this.

I appreciate

and um and you're running a very good if you can have 76 members in today's world as a fire service is incredible. Now, this goes back to the real problem that I have. Vernon Town, Iowa Fire Department has collected millions of dollars with no evidence that there's been any maintenance, any new apparatus, any new equipment or anything. I make a recommendation that we have a forensic audit of Burning Town, Iowa Fire Department for the last 3 to 5 years to see where this money went. This there's something I mean you you just don't have a roof that starts leaking at the spur of the moment at the end depth that you're talking about. You don't have all this failing equipment just out of a six months time frame. Somewhere along the line, I'm not saying anybody did anything wrong, but I think it's worth investigating as to where this money went. And and you absolutely need the stuff to to protect the citizens, to save property, and save lives. in um in Burning Town, Iowa Fire Department and to keep your men and women safe.

And I do want to add, you know, the the members that came to us from that organization, they are, you know, dieh hard Burning Town community members, citizens, and it took a lot of nerve, a lot of courage, I should say, for them to walk through the doors that first Thursday night. Now, there was three that didn't that didn't make the cut, but I've encouraged them to come back in six months with, you know, positive attitude, and we can get through that. Um, but I'm very proud of those men and women that did come through the doors and and help us increase um, and keep that going over there.

And then you added the two um, uh, board members from Burning Town, Iowa uh, community. U, I mean, I I can't say enough about what you guys have done, Dustin, to um, to step up to the plate because um, volunteer uh, fire service is uh, in trouble. not only here, across the state, across this country, and that is a service that we must provide. Um, I don't, you know, I looked at all your stuff. I see what you're saying. I don't know where the money comes from. Um, and you know, I don't know if it's um I don't know. So, please pop in. I mean, I don't know. Um,

I would like to say thank you uh for what you've done, Mr. Pickkins. Um, Kawi volunteer. I think it's an anomaly. You don't see that, you know, type of numbers volunteer-wise. Um, you guys done a great job. So, I mean, I I feel like, you know, we had kind of pledged the idea of paying you for for those calls and whatever that number was, but I just want to say thanks. I think you guys helped us out of a a huge bind. um with that um merger and I think that you um or the fire department, the fire service, the communities deserve to have, you know, operational equipment, things that they need to um to get out there and handle the calls, save lives, you know, whatever whatever the case may be. Um I would agree with Commissioner Cheryl on a potential audit. I don't know what that would cost, but um you know, and I don't know what that would result in. You know, it's in the past, but if we're looking forward what you guys have been able to do and accomplish in that community, um I think that's really what we need to be focused on. So, me personally, I would vote to support the 75,000 that you're asking for. all um all financial records that were present upon us gaining entry to the buildings have been secured and they are they are locked up and you know if you go through with with that they'll they'll be available at any time. Um, and I just, you know, emailed Lindsay today with our with our budget and as far as, you know, showing expenses, total expenses from over there for the last year. Like I wish I could put in here, you know, I just I I don't have that information, but I can tell you where every penny's been spent beyond past September, October of of last year. I can tell you where every pennies went.

Dustin, is the communities down there, are they fireproof? Yep. With this deficiency that you've shown us here today, are they still still good? Oh, yes. Okay. Our um average response time for the last five to six months. I ran a report a couple weeks ago from time of dispatch to apparatus on scene um is just shy of 10 minutes. Now, that's 3:00 in the afternoon when there's staff or that's 3:00 in the morning when there's no staff or Saturdays and Sundays when there's no staff. And you're you're requesting 75,000. Is that what it was?

Yes, sir. That would offset the rescue equipment that would replace that rescue equipment, I should say. Replace the pump on the second apparatus that we just haven't had the the funds to do. So, um, and kind of, you know, it's reimbursing for what we pulled out to pay the 15,000 for the other one. Where where does the fire tax fit in here? How how does the people in the community they pay their fire tax, but but do they feel I hope I hope they feel very safe. I was afraid of

there has been, you know, bay doors are open, trucks are pulled out. Um we have community members over there stopping in all the time. Uh we've already got plans for a spaghetti spaghetti supper coming up at the um at the Iola station there. Um looking at doing a family fun day. A lot of the members that came to us said they used to always it had stopped recently but they would do a family funday open house at the Dave Creek station. you know, when events that we've always held, you know, now it's now it's time to hold big events for the entire community. And the biggest thing I want is there's no separation. You know, there's no Cowi and Oak Grove and Burning Town and Iola. We're we're one now and we're going to be one.

Do you have a a time frame that you're looking at here to get back in

to service to the service 100% We're we're good. We're good right now. The we're using a reserve engine um that's sitting at the Dave Creek station to take care of the truck that's out of service. So, you know, we're we're in compliance and we went through a 9S inspection. Um first of the year we passed that was fine. Um our Kawi's ISO rating is a class three for the entire five mile district. Vernon Town's a class 4. At some point in the near future, we'll have to go go through the ISO again. And you know, our our plan is to bring that four down to a three to match what the rest of the district.

I think it's very important, Dustin, now that you're talking about this. Um, you know, a lot of people that's listening and watching don't realize um what these uh ISO ratings are. And if you if you're not really familiar with this, what these men and women are doing, when you have a nine rating, your homeowners insurance is through the roof. The training, the equipment, the substations that these men and women do in uniform, when they talk about a 5,4 and three rating, call your insurance company and ask them what, how much money going from a nine to a five to a four to a three. There's not a whole lot of savings from a 543. There's a little bit, but it's because of their dedication and and to expect a um a group of volunteers to commit um to provide and to serve the community. That's what you're doing. and um and the homeowners are truly benefiting financially by insurance um on this. Um so it's it's there. Again, it's incredible what y'all did um and what you're doing. And I don't know where the money is. Um you didn't ask for failing equipment um and you're willing to step up and take care of it. So I mean I you need the money. Where's where's it coming from?

So I will I will touch on that subject. Obviously you have general fund money and then you have service fee money which is sits on two sides of the house. Uh however on the fire fee side it's not necessarily like your enterprise money with the landfill. We traditionally don't move money from fund balance from general fund to the fire side, but there's nothing that says that you can't do that. So I guess

I would recommend maybe treating it like community funding. So you can appropriate because I don't really want to mix his revenues with his fire taxes. I don't think that would be good to do. So maybe entertain the motion to do fund balance. We can issue check. How about we um we loan him the money? How about we do it like everybody else? You get it fixed, give her the bills if we reimburse him. Yeah. I mean, you can you can do it that way. I mean, I'm we're fine. The cash flow to be able to Yeah, we can.

Up to 75,000. I mean, I think that's um I mean I mean they need help. Um and you know, I don't know about the you know, what's left in the tax collections and stuff like that, but we um I think we need to help them to get this place um secured. And then are you are you just reimbursing him from the fund balance at that point? We would still have to appropriate money because I have to be able to

I mean I would move 75,000 and then reimburse him as he sends those in. It's if you would rather him pay for it and show us what he's paying for or you can give it to him and he has to report to us. We've done that as well. So you can give him a $75,000 check but then he has to come in and provide receipts for us and reports for us on what that money was spent on. It's either we'll do whatever you want to do, but

even though it's one district, it's two districts. So if you're if you're working a wreck in Kawi and all of a sudden there's a wreck in Burner Town and you only have one set of gear for extrication and you're depending on that other equipment. So it should be up and running. Um air packs and everything in Burning Town is Yeah, air packs are good. Um, and the Jaws of Life, the B, you know, that stuff's good. It just, it had not been serviced. The batteries, when you put the batteries in the tools, they'd last about five minutes. Um,

you know, so that that had to be replaced. And obviously, in our opinion, that was that was an emergency fix and was fixed immediately. Um, getting one of the engines back in service was an immediate, you know, and that's Yeah, that has been taken care of. The other one, it's going to be roughly $18,000, and that's give or take. you know, we're seeing a we're just like in Highlands, we're having backto-back calls on top of each other, you know, I mean, that's um so when you're limited on equipment numbers and stuff like that, it's important. So,

I'm not saying this in a negative way, but as a commissioner, what kind of um what are we opening up here for all the fire departments to come and bring in their deficiencies or what what worst case scenario, I guess I could say. Can I help you right there? That's what I've really been wanting to say. I feel like this is not a traditional It's not, you know, expense. I feel like they, as Mr. Cheryl alluded to, they've stepped up to the plate. They've inherited, you know, issues that weren't foreseen, but obviously you're you're trending in the right direction. You're not asking for a mill rate increase. Yeah,

I would say that I think it's more calibrated to tax your district, but the problem is you need the money up front to be able to use the equipment. And uh volunteer firefighting is the best deal we have in this community. I mean, I don't think we have an option. And I just want to go on record and say I don't think this is a typical, you know, fire department coming and asking for funding. So, and I would I would like to hope that that does not open up a, you know, that that's not our that's not our goal here, you know. Um, but merging is is what y'all done. It's unique. And I think that other fire departments are not in that same situation. So,

Mr. Chairman, I'll add one other thing real quick and then I'll stop talking. Eric and I have already started looking at our contract. You know, we learn some things through this process. So, we will bring you back a draft contract sometime in the next several months. It will it'll cover things like reimbursement if you have to be covered by somebody else. We we will we will work on our contract to better protect oursel and them in the future if that were to happen. If that makes you feel any better.

Yeah. Well, I think this is definitely not a traditional, you know, situation. You guys stepped in and did something pretty major. So, however, we can make this efficient, you know what I'm saying, to work for you guys because I know y'all putting forth a lot, you know, to be able to do this. So, thank you, you know, for what you guys are doing.

I put a lot of confidence in this statement, too. The remaining fire departments in Mon County are very strong and anybody can go through issues, but they're going to get through those issues. But I could honestly tell you, I guarantee you there's not another fire department that has that type of maintenance issues, mechanical issues, because they we we fix stuff as as it needs to be. We have annual service on our equipment, our jaws, our apparatus, you know, our our apparatus receives a bumperto-bumper service every year. That picture that I showed you of a of that fuel filter that looked like it was oil, um, that was over 9 years old. So, um,

and I don't have a problem fronting the money. I don't I don't feel like, you know, if if you provide receipts for for repairs made, you know, I'm I'm perfectly fine to front the money. Well, what we've done traditionally is um when we were funding repairs or something like that, they got the work done, they presented it back. We can certainly um budget the um um 75,000. just let them get the repairs done and and then whatever and then they can be reimbursed for if they have the means to do it knowing

is there is there an overlap where you'd have to use cowi funds to fund the burning town aola repairs and then does that get messy on the accounting side

now that the now that that our budgets basically come one I mean we're we're obviously tracking and we're receiving you know the two separate checks and you know We didn't develop a complete separate budget for burning town. We we added to to our budget, but I'm still tracking the money that's coming in and we're tracking the expenses that's being paid for that. But, you know, you know, where we pick up power bills, propane, uh, workers comp, all you know, all that stuff. I mean, it's just, and you'll see in my our budget, uh, packet coming up for the 26 27 that it's it's all all combined. But obviously we're going to track how the how it comes in separately.

And Mr. Shields, another thing when you were asking about what is this setting us up for, it would take another fire department to fail, right, to merge with another department for that department to um to have to live through what they're living through. And so I think um I think the word merge has a unique I like my motion. You like yours? I can handle yours.

Well, at this time, chairman, I'd like to make a motion that um we do a um $75,000 you got there. Oh yeah. budget amendment uh to cover the repairs for Kawi from the fund balance to cover Kowi and Burning Town fire department needs for equipment repairs. All right, I hear a motion by Commissioner Shield Shur, second by Commissioner Breeden. Any other comments? Go to protect the community.

All right, hearing none. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I for the record. I. Any oppose? All right. Motion passes 50, Tammy. Thank you, Dustin. Thank you. All right. All right. That was more than six minutes, chairman. That brings up that brings up the next thing that we were talking about. I'm not sure what a um a forensic audit would cost, but I really and truly think that there needs to be a forensic audit on the books. I will do a motion on that, Mr. Let let me get you some information on that and then I'll get back with you on what we need to do with that. Okay. Follow up. I will I will follow through with that. All right. Thank you.

All right. Moving on. New business. Uh recommendations to amend the rec recreation commission bylaws. Parks and recreation director Seth Adams.

I promise I won't be more than 45 minutes. You know that's a true statement. Cookout's open till 1 or two. So we don't have a good time by yourself.

Still that muted.

All right, gentlemen. I'm here tonight to uh to discuss the Mon County Rec Commission. Uh the rec commission as it stands now is a is a fiveman member advisory board. um on all things recreation. It's um it's kind of our guide. Uh we meet every other month um at the community facilities building. Uh right now it's starts in January. Um but then it meets every other month at 8:30 in the morning. And um they're our guide on new facilities, new uh uh classes, whatever. um that that's where we get our our information from. And right now um we came to a point where all our members are uh their terms are up. So I'm I'm here tonight to discuss um kind of a new layout on on how we want that rec commission to to be. Um, in a in a perfect world, we would have somebody from the Franklin area, somebody from the Nanahala area, somebody from the Highlands area, a school member, somebody that's affiliated with the school system, and a senior representative. And as it stands right now, we have two um two of you guys, uh, Mr. Young and Mr. Shur serve as liaison to our board. Um we're we're one of the few agencies that have have two uh liaison, but I think it's worked well for us. And um that's that's kind of what why we're here tonight is is to kind of make an adjustment to the uh to the bylaws. They've not been updated in in quite a while. Uh what I just handed you was a copy that was presented in um in 2022, but I don't think they were adopted, but we've been kind of going u with that

route for the for the last few years. Were the layers on from the board voting members or non- voting members?

They they don't vote right now. Um I mean there there's not much u that we vote on other than like projects. If we agree that we like something, you guys will get the final say so in it anyway. So in in my opinion, I don't I don't know that you guys having a a voting member on that board would be beneficiary. Seth, one thing that I noticed um is three four-year terms. Mhm.

Most all the um boards in the county are two four-year terms. Why Why would we have I I think we just got that number. I mean, that that's totally up to you guys. Um, we obviously don't like a lot of turnover because our projects tend to be planning and then into fruition. So, so some things take a little bit longer than others. But if you guys just want to, I I'm completely fine with that. I'm not opposed to it at all.

Whatever you want to do. I think we should follow um uh the other boards and and not have three consecutive four-year terms. It should be two consecutive four-year terms to follow. Has Eric had a chance to review the new proposed B? I literally just found these at 5:00, so I I gave him a copy right when I came in here. Um, so he has not had had long to look at him if if he's looked.

Well, we've got we got several different um drafts that I've seen. So, I guess we need a rundown of what different I guess from what currently operating under which you're that you've been going under to know which ones have actually changed.

So, the the newest um what I just handed out to to everybody is is the closest to what we've been going by. We we've not had an Anah Hala rep in a while. Um I we had an Nahala rep and he he died. Um so we've been kind of kind of one shy, but we've been operating on a on a five member board. um had somebody from Highlands, but then the other four members were from from the Franklin area. We did have a senior representative on there. So, it's technically three three uh Franklin area residents and and a senior representative and a Highlands representative. But I think for better coverage and and if we have one from Franklin, one from Nahala and one from Highlands, a school representative because we we partner with them so much in in facility usage and obviously we need a a senior representative. Um that's such a large part of of our program. Um in the the only other differences that that I have saw um where it talks about public meetings um this one says we meet we shall meet on the second Tuesday of months of February, April, June, August, October and December. We're actually opposite of that. We we meet in January instead of and then go to November every other every other month. And then I guess another big question is in the last draft I saw there would be one member from the Mon County school system, one from the senior citizen community, and one from the Franklin

area, one from the Highlands community. Um, but I don't know we have that in the graph that you presented. So, this was just a print off of of of what we had. I the old That's the one he printed off.

That's the new one that that was not adopted in See, this was created and presented in in I think January of 22, but it wasn't adopted. We just kind of looked at it and and went on. Uh, but we've been operating kind of with these guidelines. So I guess what I would what I'm saying is we have one in the packet that includes

Megan County school system, Highlands community, senior citizen community, and one from Franklin area and the one that you presented tonight doesn't have that. So I didn't that's not Are you advocating for using people from different communities um as required under the ones that's in the packet or are you advocating for not having No, I am advocating for for in different areas. One from Highlands. Okay. So have you seen the one that you seen this one? I I I have. Yes, I got it a little earlier. I guess that's the question is are you going for the one that's in the packet or are you going for the one that you present?

Well, it's kind of a combination of both because the the one that was in the packet talks about having a a voting um commissioner representative. I almost feel like we need to combine, you know, to Eric's point, I feel like we were all provided this way. Yes. Why don't we Why don't you draft everything that you need to draft and uh we'll vote on it next month. Well, and I'm not real sure what it is. So, I I guess I'd ask if Seth could make the revisions that he think can be made to one or the other and present that. I feel like we could almost piece it together, but I think it'd be a little more rushed.

Rushed. I think it's the right thing to do to just take the time, properly v it, and uh I don't think there's anything in here bad. I think it just needs to be added to. Yeah. So, and Seth, you said that all the uh rec board members their terms have expired. Yes. So, May supposed to have a meeting in May. Yes. With no board. Yeah. Well, there was going to be some appointments tonight. Um,

right. So we we yeah according to the bylaws now we won't meet until um if we don't change we would just meet the following month. Uh, I don't I mean, if we're going to change based on what you're recommending, one from Highlands, one from Franklin, one from Nanahala, uh, one from the school system, and one senior, the applications that we have covers four of the five. Four of the five.

Yes. So then we won't take action on the U. I don't know if you could go ahead and take action on the board members and then us make the adjustments to the to the bylaws next month. That way we would have the members in place cuz because as it stands right now it doesn't really matter where they're from, but we would have the the areas covered. Um, was it advertised that way? It actually wasn't advert. It's not been advertised. Yes, it has. It has been advertised.

It was posted and advertised in applications that were in your packet were received. It was not advertised as a specific designation. It just so happened that that's how those applications came in. So, if you make a decision later tonight in the appointments to appoint those people, then you also have to you also have to decide what their terms are for each member. And so, if there's a question about the version that Seth just handed out versus the version that was in your packet, you're not going to know what term to appoint each of those people to. Well, to your point, Tammy, I think we need to appoint certain seats to four-year terms, certain seats to two-year terms, and have a staggered board. You don't want a full turnover every four years. So,

am I right?

So, you do have a you do have a set of bylaws that's still in place. It was approved in 2007 is the copy I have. The last date that was officially approved. Um, unless there's a version that I couldn't find somewhere. So you do still have the basis for a rec commission. Obviously your members may or may not match if you want to change those. So my recommendation would probably just exactly like you said, revise the bylaws the way you want them. Appoint the members at the have those for discussion at the May meeting. Appoint the members at the May meeting and whatever that does to your schedule. I think that's the cleanest thing at this point. we have anything that's really really really pressing in the

Not that we have to make a decision on. I mean, we obviously the pickle ball courts and everything everything is coming up. Um, and the the 250th, the the Fourth of July stuff that that we would just make people aware of, but there's nothing that that that board needs to look at designs cuz that's that's already we've we've already done that that section of. So, I don't think there's anything that would keep us from waiting another month.

It shows that the low bid was a company called Alcon Roofing for an amount of 195,292. That is a replacement of 13,000 square ft of membrane roof. Removing what's there. It's got the membrane now with the rock. Removing that new membrane roof. Uh replace all 14 of the skylights while we're there. Uh and add 400 ft of a walk pad that's up there as well. Uh it does come this this is the company we used on the library that we were very satisfied with. They were actually a low bid on the library as well. We've been very satisfied with them. Um so and it comes with a 20-year warranty. So my recommendation would be to approve that bid and appropriate $195,292 from fund balance balance to uh replace that roof. And obviously Travis is here if you have any more technical questions I can answer. You want to go with it? Make a motion we spend 195,000 take from the fund balance and get the work done.

195,292 to be exact. Second. All right. I hear a motion by Commissioner Shields, second by Commissioner Breeden. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I for the record. I. Any oppose? All right, Mr. Tammy, motion passes 50. All right. Approval of Kisa Gorge Fire and Rescue substation map.

So, Mr. Chairman, I will introduce if you have questions, Miss Glenda Cook is here. Uh, in your packet, you will have a color map with some very small printing on it that's very hard to read. Um, KASA has placed their substation on LJ road in service. Uh, obviously that extends those protection class districts that Mr. Cheryl was talking about earlier, extends their five mile and their six mile and actually cover some people that didn't previously cover under a uh protection class, which is what this map indicates. Uh the next step to get that approved is for you to approve the map and then we'll submit the map to the North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshall for their approval and then they'll come to an inspection and after that's when the lower insurance ratings will go into effect.

Wonderful. Thank you for being here. Are you happy? I am real happy. Very happy. And I want to say the guys in mapping, they were very helpful. Todd Seagull's been very helpful. uh Chad Han, Luke, and Levi, all those guys, all these county employees have been very, very helpful. Warren, couldn't ask for any better. Thank you. Thank you, Glendon, for being here. At this time, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the Col Gorge Fire and Rescue Substation map as presented.

Here a motion by Commissioner Breeden, second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion? All in favor, please raise your right arm, state I for the record. I. Any oppose? All right. Motion passes 50. Tammy, thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Cook. All right. Uh, consent agenda. Like to make a motion we approve the consent agenda. Your a motion by Commissioner Breeden. Second. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I for the record. I. Any oppose?

All right. Motion passes 50. Uh appointments. So, are we putting off the rec commission to next month? Is that what I understand? Yes. All right. Uh EDC commission two seats and I do believe we have ballots for the two. All right. All right. So, commission voting for two. Four candidates. Love Steve Gary.

Thank you. Let me go. Commissioner Antoine Jim Breedlo and Steve Gry. Joseph has checked 11. All right,

Mr. Manager, do we need a motion to approve? Make a motion that we approve the EDC seats. Sorry. Make a motion that we approve those EDC seats. I hear a motion by Commissioner Breeden and second by Commissioner Shields. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State for the record. I Any oppose? All right. Motion passes 50. Do we have a close session need tonight? Yes, unfortunately. 143. I do not expect to take any action. Motion we go into close session.

Second here. A motion by Commissioner Shur. Second by Commissioner Breeden. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I. I. Five. M. Oh, sorry. Is that it?

Second by Commissioner Sher. Second. All in favor to adjourn. Motion passes. 5.