County Council - Special Meeting

budget. So, at at this time, I'm going to ask our county treasurer and assistant county manager, Miss Stephanie Dorne, to please present that to us if you will, please. Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, um, could I ask everybody to rise and let's open with prayer? Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. I should have done that myself.

That's all right. Heavenly Father, we just ask for your presence today during this meeting, but most especially we ask for your presence in our community. Lord, we are a broken community today. And we especially ask for prayers for our fallen our fallen officer. Lord, his family, his friends, everyone that's been impacted, our entire law enforcement community, city of Greenwood family. Lord, there's so many people that have been impacted by what happened yesterday. Whether we knew this officer or we didn't, our hearts are broken. But Lord, we know that you can offer peace. You can provide peace to all of us and you can heal this community. And this community has pulled together before and we can do it again. So Lord, we ask for your guidance as we take steps forward to heal from this event. And Lord, we ask for your presence with us. I ask all of these things in your name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Well presented. Before be Stephanie, before you move forward, let me let me say to those gathered here and any that might be watching the way we're going to administer this meeting, Miss Dorne will give. She will present the proposed 2027 budget for council to hear. We have uh we have four in attendance and and Miss Griffin there uh who has poured it in. We are without Mr. Templeton and we're Mr. Temple. Mr. Templeton is here.

Good to see you, Robbie. Come on up here. But we are without Miss Bishop. and and after Miss Dorne has given her presentation for for any of of the county directors that have uh h that have that would care to come and speak on behalf of their departments and their requests, you will be welcome to do that. And also, if we have any uh tax district uh commissioners here who have issues in regard to their their tax district that they want to be heard, you will also be allowed to come forward and speak. Stephanie, thank you.

Thank you. First of all, I'd like to to thank all of the county staff that are involved in this process. It definitely takes a village. All of our department managers, our elected and appointed officials, and the support staff that work to put their presentations together, answer all of the questions that we have, and provide additional information when asked. Three weeks ago, I provided you with a line by line budget and so I'm not going to go line by line through the budget. Um, but we are going to go um with a kind of highle review and of course I'll answer any questions that you all have. Before we um dig into the details of the budget, I would kind of like to start with a a little bit of educational information because I often find that um people know of some things but not everything uh when it comes to our budget and how the county functions. So, the general fund is our um is our largest fund. It accounts for the majority of our services. um accounts for all of our court systems, our administrations, our um sheriff's department and his functions that are under him, our coroner, our um fleet maintenance, veterans office, parks and recreation, uh HR functions, emergency management, a lot of different things. Um our all of the offices that collect taxes or have something to do with how taxes are assessed. Um, all of these things come in under our general fund. So, again, it's our largest fund that we have. So, we all look around, we see a lot of construction going on, and we think, well, that's good because we should have a lot of more a lot more money coming in. Unfortunately, um, it doesn't doesn't translate as much as we might think it does, in addition to the fact that a home has to actually receive a

certificate of occupancy before it goes on to the books. and it has to be on the books by December 31st of last year to impact our upcoming budget. So, just as an example, in the general fund, we have 61.2 meals that are collected and attributed to the general fund. So, I think um kind of an average price that I've seen of a lot of the homes under construction right now is about $250,000. And so, that home would generate about $612. And if it was a commercial property valued at $ 250,000, it would generate $918. The difference is assessment ratios are different and then um uh commercial property is subject to um obviously different assessment ratio different assessment with it being commercial property versus a residential property. So, as an example, if we had a new employee that was $50,000 uh for for pay and benefits, it would take 82 homes to pay for that new employee. And that's kind of a low number because most of our benefit packages uh total up to about 30%. and our capital asset fund which is uh 3.5 mills of our property taxes and the capital asset fund is specifically for assets attributed to those departments in the general fund. So you remember there's a lot of a lot of different activities in there. That same $250,000 home generates $350 in our capital assets. And if it were a commercial property, it would generate $525. So if we needed to buy a new sheriff's department vehicle with all the equipment, um, which if you've never

looked inside of one, there's a lot of different things that they need because this is basically their office. We would need 245 new houses to pay for one new vehicle. So with the general fund, our headline is there is no tax millage increase. But if there were an increase, and I like to show this because I think again a lot of a lot of times we talk about a meal and nobody really understands what what we mean by a meal. But if we um had to increase our millage, one meal on a $100,000 home would be a $4 annual increase on the property tax bill. The chart on your on the um the left side of that is what our owner occupied single family home tax values are. And you can see the largest group almost 7500 of our single family homes are up to $100,000 in value. And this is taxable value. It's not necessarily what they could sell it for. This is the taxable value. Uh the next tier is from 100 to 200,000 and we have uh almost 5700 properties in that category. And as you can see, the higher the value, the fewer homes that we have. If we were to increase our property taxes by one meal, it would generate about $229,000. So currently our property tax millage and this is exclusive of school districts. This is just county millage. Um this is 85.7 meals and that includes the three things uh two of the things I've talked about the general fund um the capital fund. It includes our

special appropriation fund which we'll cover later. It also includes the amounts allocated to the county library and to Pedmont Technical College. So all of those figures are in 85.7 meals. Let's talk about what fee changes are proposed in this year's budget. First, we have a $5 increase to the road user fee. That is the fee that is charged on every vehicle that has um uh that is registered in Greenwood County. And that additional $5 will be set aside for resurfacing. Right now, our primary source of funds to resurface roads is the CTC funds. We we often talk about that county transportation, which are funds gener generated by the state gas tax. We have found that that is not enough. And so our um your deputy county manager of operations has requested a $ five increase in that per vehicle charge and those funds will be set aside specifically to add to the CTC funds for resurfacing so we can accomplish more each year. We currently have an RFP out for our delinquent tax notice uh signposting. So once a property um taxes haven't been paid and it reaches a certain point, we're required by law to post a sign in the yard and we have an RFP out um for those services. So we may have a change depending on what those bids come back. Um they'll be back later this week. So by first reading uh we should have that information available. In our parks and recreation department, they have requested a field maintenance fee uh during tournaments of 20 $25 per

field. We have tournaments in 37 out of 52 weeks this year and we need to maintain our fields so that people want to continue to come and use our fields. And so we're asking for a $25 per field maintenance cost so that we can get the the fields back into shape in between tournaments. The dock encroachment fee, that is a fee charged to Lawren and Newberry County residents for their docks that are encroach into our lake. Um, you all know we own Lake Greenwood and so anyone who has a dock on the Lawrence or Newberry County side. They're currently paying $50 and we're asking for that to be increased to $100 and that is an annual fee. Within our airport, the uh we have hangers that we rent and we would we are asking for a 10% increase. It doesn't generate a whole lot of money, but we are working towards um different solutions to try and make the airport a little bit more financially stable. At the airport, we have gate cards. Uh so they have electronic ass access and we're asking to be able to charge $15 if those cards are lost or if they request additional cards. Uh that's mainly to cover the cost that we have with issuing those uh those gate cards. And finally in the fire fee, we are asking for a 13% increase. We talked about this last year. Uh we added six uh firefighters to our staff and we knew that we would have to increase the fire fee. Uh part of that 13% increase is related to that. Some of that is just related to inflationary cost.

Uh because that fee is kind of significant. I wanted to provide a little bit of additional detail for that. Uh just as a reminder, our fire fee is based on the square footage of a home. And we do have a flat uh rate for um empty lots. And so that increase is the $1.40 increase at the top where you don't have quite as many of folks affected, a little over 5,000. The orange line is, as you can see, clearly the most taxpayers um over just over $12,000. I'm sorry. 12,000 taxpayers would be affected and the increase they would see is $11.34 on their fire fee. And of course, that's an annual fee that is charged on the property taxes. As you move down through the chart to the um higher increases, those are generally on commercial and industrial property rather than residential property. some of the major initiatives that we have in this year's budget. Uh first, we have a 3% cost of living adjustment for our full and part-time regular employees that would be effective in July. That does not include any elected officials or appointed judges. And then we have up to a 3% merit increase for our regular full-time employees that would be um in effect in January. Those are based on evaluations in September. So these increases are only applicable to employees that are subject to those performance evaluations. We also have the addition of four sheriff's deputies to the uniform patrol division. That would give us a total of 36 officers in the uniform patrol division. And those are four shifts per week.

It is time for our trienal uh compensation study. So the study will be completed during this fiscal year. Uh but it will not be implemented um or considered for implementation until we do our uh fiscal year 2028 budget. So we'll talk about it at this time next year. Uh what the compensation study reveals and what the recommendations are. We're working to complete uh some of our county policies. These are primarily u policies related to our employees through our human resources uh department. And so we're working on trying to complete those policies. You all know we're in the middle of our strategic plan that we have in this year's budget. And so in next year, we'll be looking to um implement that strategic plan and have a reporting platform so that we're able to monitor our key performance indicators and make that information available to the public. As well, as you all know, at Lake Greenwood, we are um under the jurisdiction of FURK, the um Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. I hope I said that right. um they are required we are required every uh five years to do a comprehensive assessment and then we also have some extensive repairs to the retaining wall at the dam that need to be completed. These two items cost um over $1.2 million or that's our projection. And so these are major expenses that will be um addressed in our lake management fund. And finally, we um talked about this a little bit early on um but we have completed the five-year reassessment. We're required by state law every five

years to reassess all properties in the county and that has been completed. Um it so it will go into place. We were we intend to send out letters during the month of June. Um those will go to every person that owns property uh real property in Greenwood County. uh that information will provide to them what their property has been reassessed to. It is not a bill. Uh those bills will come out in October, but the reassessed value will impact them. I don't want to get into um too much of the weeds with reassessment, but just recall there is um a law, Act 388, that caps the increase to 15%. So those notices can be a little bit confusing. I know we'll work with Abby on some public information to be put out related to how to read those notices. Uh what all the numbers mean and then ultimately we will be coming back to you all um with any kind of roll back millage we need to put into place uh to ensure that the the county doesn't have a windfall uh from increases in property values. So, more more information to come. Um, because there's a lot of details in in that that um I don't want to I don't want to to pretend that I'm covering everything related to reassessment. Um, that that involves a little bit more time on on all of our um effort to um to make sure everybody understands what's happening. Specifically in the general fund, um this budget is $31.1 million. uh 68% of our budget comes from property and automobile taxes. I know y'all can't read those little bitty um little bitty numbers and things up there, but this is a summary again of the detail that's

been provided. Um over 17% of our budget in the general fund is from intergovernmental revenue, which is our state aid to subdivisions. uh things like manufacturer reimbursements and other things that come from uh from other government agencies. And then we have much smaller revenue streams related to um interfund transfers, fines and forfeitures that come through the court system. And um of course we have investment income and then our licenses and permits which is primarily uh building permits and cable franchise fees. Just to look at our expenditures which uh total the same amount uh because your budget is in balance. You can see that 48.6% of our budget is our public safety department. Uh that includes our sheriff, the detention center, our 911 operation, the coroner, and our emergency management personnel. Uh after that is 37.7% for general government. Uh that includes our administrative functions. Our financial functions to include tax collections, our magistrate, our probate office, uh building and fleet maintenance, information technology, economic development, voters registration, council department, human resources. Uh the next piece of the pie is our recreation department which is just our parks and recreation. Public service includes our uh planning and engineering department. Our public works includes our fleet garage. Um small very small amount of transfers out. Um and then our health and welfare which includes our um veterans administration office.

The capital asset, just a reminder, is 3.5 meals. Uh, this generates $1.2 million. Uh, we have 61.8% of our capital assets dedicated to our public safety, which is sheriff's department's operations. We have next is our uh 21.9% dedicated to information technology, facilities, maintenance, and voters registration. And again after that our public works which is our garage, our fleet maintenance, our public services which is engineering and recreation. Our EMS operations are just over $5.4 million. Um our charges for services makes up the majority of those uh revenues and that is funds whether they're paid by insurance companies um by individuals uh collections through debt set off as well. our transfers that comes from our special appropriations fund. Again, we'll we'll mention that in a few more minutes. And then intergovernmental, which is um funds from our opioid recovery funds and the Medicaid ASP. That that was a new uh source of revenue. We talked about that last year. Um and it is being set aside for uh capital needs. We're waiting for that uh first payment to come in. We made our payment. If you remember, we have to pay and then they pay us back. Um we have made that payment and we're waiting on the other 12 counties to make their payment and then we'll receive those funds. So hopefully um that will generate us with the ability to purchase a new ambulance and our fire operations fund. Again, this is totally feebased. So you see the u 96% of this budget is generated uh

from the fee that is charged on the property tax bill bringing in almost $3.4 million. The smaller uh next smaller piece uh it says charges for services and that's for penalties associated with the fire fees. And then we have a little bit um that we expect out of a grant. always looking for grant opportunities, but they are um they're not plentiful. Our lake operations, again, we mentioned two really large expenses that we have um this year. So, our expenditures are $2.5 million. Our our revenues are less than that, but we do have fund balance that'll be used to pay for that. The largest piece of um this revenue source is our uh taxes for $600,000. It comes from the local government, the excuse me, the Lake Greenwood development zone. Um and then after that are the dock encroachment fees as we discussed um a few minutes ago. We have the l the lease proceeds from the Lockheart lease on the dam uh or the hydro facility. And then uh we have the agreement with Lawrence County for the water withdrawal payment that they make to us. Next is our road operations fund. Um our budget this year is $1.7 million. Again, you see that primarily that uh revenue source over almost 92% is generated by the $5 per vehicle well I'm sorry, the $31 per vehicle fee. uh it's been 26 and it'll be an increase of $5. Um and that is primarily where those funds come from. Um we as we talked about the the reason for the $5 increases to generate and create funds for road uh

resurfacing. Right now, primarily our road um funds are for making repairs to our roads. Um culverts and bridges uh things of that nature is not for uh major work on any of our roads. Um anytime we we have a major operation, um it leads to a little bit of creativity to fund those things. And finally, our landfill operations. uh that budget is $5.3 million in revenue. The primary source right now is what we call user fees and this is generated by commercial contractors or individuals uh that come in uh with debris to be um disposed of. The next piece of that uh pie on the top, the greenish portion, that is generated off of the $70 uh per parcel fee that is charged on the property tax bill. That $70 fee allows individuals to come in um to the convenience centers or if you live inside the city limits, you have a green can that you um dispose of your trash in, but that allows our residents to have their trash disposed at no charge. And finally, um the little bit smaller under that under that piece of the pie at about 4% is from where we are able to sell some recycled goods uh and scrap metal. As you know, we we generally pay to take our um to have our recycle dealt with rather than uh generating revenue from it. And these are our various operations uh coming in at almost 5 $3 million. So, we're not generating much of a surplus. Uh just as a reminder, you all know we're the process of finishing out our

sale for construction uh which was all done with cash. Um just over $10 million project, I believe um that we were able to pay for with cash. So we will start looking forward to figuring uh determining how we start building the cash surplus so that we can pay for the next uh sale that needs to be opened without having to incur any debt. These are the various departments. Um solid waste collection which is where we're collecting the waste. The solid waste disposal where we're disposing of the waste. We have our recycling department that's the lighter purple color. um the administrative uh functions. And then finally, the small piece is our um leaf and limb department. I said we would talk about it. Here's our special appropriations. Uh that is 8.9 mill meals and generates $3.1 million. The things that we fund out of it are our solicitor and public defender. I want to be clear, we we don't fund them 100%. We provide uh funding to them. Uh we increase the solicitor's funding by 10,000. The public defender by 50,000. The county animal shelter um which is a contracted and serviced by the humane society. We have an automatic CPI increase and that increased by about 12,000. Our indigent medical care uh that's a formula that the state requires us to pay. um it went down by a couple of thousand dollars. Our EMS operations, unfortunately, the amounts paid um through our patient revenues do not cover all of our expenses. So, we do generate um a transfer out of that. That transfer increased by 43,000 this year.

We have the limited public transportation that we're providing through Matt. We we uh fund Upstate Alliance to participate in that which helps with our um economic development goals. The soil and water conservation office, we did increase that funding by $5,000. The Clemson Extension Office, we provide some funding along with um they have an office at the former Brewer site, Brewer School site. And then the state requires us to provide offices for DSS and the health department and to include utilities in maintaining those buildings and that is included along with the utilities for the Clemson extension. The hospitality tax fund again that's generated uh from the the uh additional tax that that everyone pays on prepared meals. We are covering um the litter prevention coordinator and two part-time uh that assist with picking up litter at the U Veterans Affairs Museum. We have a part-time person that is helping take care of the museum. The Lake Greenwood master plan implementation, the bridge lights uh that are paid for under uh across Lake Greenwood, the new gateway, I shouldn't call it new anymore. I guess it's over a year old now. Uh the Gateway Landing uh utilities cleaning and trash service there. And then the mut the museum, we assist them with utilities and maintenance. Again, that's a county owned building uh property. And then we have a couple of uh fun events that we get requests for that we're able to fund. Uh the Hajes Coosberry Volunteer Fire Department has two festivals uh with

we're funding uh almost 38,000. Town of 96 for their uh festival of stars. The American Legion um maintains that field and has um a good number of events at it as well. The Arts Center, those are um operational costs. Connect Lake Greenwood um for the fireworks show that is on the lake. Our community theater, excuse me. Again, the museum for operational cost. The railroad historical center. This money is specifically for improvements uh being made to as it relates to the depot that's being constructed with CPST funds. The festival of discovery performing arts, the town of where Scholes that was for a camera in Katherine Hall, the festival of flowers. Our parks and recck department is hosting the Dixie youth baseball tournament. Uh so they requested some funds to assist with that. And then at the um Greenwood County Recreational Complex, some repairs to the Field J fence. We have a couple of other funds that um have specific revenues tied to them and these are kind of um base funds. So I didn't include a lot of detail on these. Uh the 911 search charge fund. We have funds that come from the state um and also from telephone providers and uh those are limited in what we can spend them on. The airport operations again we have hanger rent um that is a primary source of revenue out there. The accommodations tax that uh those expenses will be approved by you later in the fall um once we have our

committee meeting. Uh we always wait until all the funds are collected. Uh the bondsman fund, DSS incentive and the unit cost are funds related to the clerk of court that she has jurisdiction over our delinquent tax fund. Uh those funds are generated by the delinquent taxpayers through uh the various fees that we need to collect in order to do the paperwork that is associated with those processes. uh the electric trust fund uh that is all interest that we transfer into the general fund and then the um North Greenwood industrial park those are expenses related to the entrance, the lights, water, our school resource officer grants through the department of public safety. um that fund that amount can change. Uh we put that in as as um based on what we request, but we'll see what um public safety actually awards us. And then victim services, uh there's a part of fine revenue that is specifically allocated to provide services to victims and um those funds are in that are accounted for separately. The last thing that I wanted to cover uh with you all as part of your process is that you do approve the um millillage and or fee that is requested by our special tax districts. Um as you recall, we did have some changes. Um and it really again wasn't a change per se in our policy. It was a clarification that we put into our policy last year um in May. you all approved that policy uh which was to clarify um and be in line and make sure we were in line with state law. And then um after that we mailed a

letter to all of the tax districts and included the policy. We sent in September an email um and also included the policy with notification about the changes. That um email went to our tax commissioners that we had um on record as of that date. And then in February of this year, we sent out the budget request letter as we always do. that letter specifically listed the items um per the policy that were acceptable. And then we um are currently waiting on some of our districts to provide us with amended budgets uh because after we reviewed the um the budgets and in concert with the county attorney determined some of the expenses would not be allowed. And so we've notified the districts and um some of them are working on amended budgets. Um just as a reminder because I know there's I know that there's a lot of commissioners in the audience. Um we've been communicating my staff have been communicating with them um extensively for the last couple of days and some of some have been provided this some may not have and again our responses are based on the questions we have received and so we have done our best to answer the questions um and provide whatever information that they may need. But I would uh point out again that state law is what gives you as a council the authority to create the districts, provides the the way that they can be created and provides what they can be used for. Um there are probably a lot of attorney general opinions out there, but we are

specifically were specifically provided one um some time ago that's dated January 21st, 2021. It was requested by the Honorable Steven Goldfinch. And if you've ever read an attorney general's opinion, they start with whatever the question was. they go through and pull apart the law and and maybe they refer to other cases, but then at the bottom um you know, for for me who's not a lawyer, Carson reads it all. I go to the bottom where it says conclusion um and read the conclusion and then if I'm not sure still I'll I'll go back. Um but in that uh conclusion, what the attorney general says is that fees that serve only private owners or the homeowners association itself would be improper and therefore we cannot collect and expend funds for those purposes. And I know that this has been um troublesome for our special tax districts um as we've tried to explain uh and we we talked with you all um as a council as well during this budget process. We have to follow the state law. The state law is cannot always be taken in a silo. oftentimes there are other parts of the state law that have to be considered and then things like an attorney general opinion or um if there's case law um those are all things that um people that like Carson our attorney um take into account and put it all together and then guide you all as a council on um on what you what we should or should not do. And so um as I have And Carson, close your ears. But as I have have said to um uh to some of the commissioners and and we've we've said

it multiple times, I can't change what happened in the past. I can't change that things were maybe not done the way they should have been done. Um but you all made a decision last May. Um you directed my office just to make sure that we begin to comply with the law and that's what we are attempting to do. Are there any questions from councel of me? One question, Stephanie, and I I should recall this in regard to our our lease with Lock Art Power on the Buzzard Dam. What's the term of that contract? Do you remember, Rob?

It's 25 years. And we're in year what now? Uh we're at least in year six. Okay. Thank you, Rob. Mr. Chairman, I have a question. Also, Mr. Allison,

first of all, Stephanie, thank you so much. That was a very, very informed formal uh report. I think it broke everything down, and I think it was very clear how our money comes in. I appreciate you taking your time to explain it, uh, county funding 101, because it's good for me to hear that, too. And it it's so many moving pieces. So, thank you for your reporting what you've done. Uh the question I have is with the landfield, we have just we're in the process of installing a new $10 million sale

and uh as you stated this council, I remember uh at the time Steve Brown was our chairman many years ago, he said, "We're going to need money in years to come. we need to start making some arrangements to pay for it and we did. We were very proactive on that and we were able to do it. My question to you is what is the projected with the growth in Greenwood? What is the projected lifetime of that new sale and when will we be needing to spend probably more than $10 million on our next one? Because if that service goes up like everything else has, it's going to cost more than $10 million every how many years that is down the road.

I'm going to lean on Rob again because I' he's told me probably three different times and he's rolling his eyes. I can feel it. It's already getting up and I can tell you what I'm pretty sure is right, but I know he has the right answer. Yes. Thank you. the life the the lifespan of that uh of cell four as we call it is 12 years. Uh right now I'm projecting um just with normal inflation that we're going to spend probably somewhere between 13 and 14 million for the next uh sale and which of course we'd have to put a little over a million a year away um in savings adding to our fund balance.

Okay. And then my thank you Rob. My final question. So in this budget here there is we have not started any appropriations foreseeing that coming as of right now.

No sir but I would tell you that in the landfill fund we always budget 100% staff and we know that we'll have vacancies. So most likely we we will have some sort of surplus at the end of the year above the 20,000. Um, but we also have to balance that with what our capital needs are um, out at the landfill. If you remember, I think it was maybe maybe two or three years ago, we spent um, around $800,000 um, for the compactor. Okay. Um, on the on the landfill and so, you know, when things go bad at the landfield, they're usually pretty expensive. Um but yeah, we'll it is something that that needs to be part of um our planning in our next budget year.

Okay. And I have one other question, Mr. Chairman, if I may to do with the the the landfill, and that was our recycling. Um I think it's uh all of us feel good about recycling but my understanding is whatever has changed in that market that we now have to pay people to take to take our recycled goods. Is that is that what I heard you say? We pay instead of them purchasing them we separate them. We spend the time the cost to separate these items and then we pay them to take them. We we don't separate coming again.

Yeah, we don't pay to to separate it. I know we do the cardboard. Yeah, we pull the cardboard out. Go ahead.

Yeah, there we we collect mostly single stream. We don't do any processing in house. Uh we when we do collect cardboard separately in the box at the feeding centers, we will uh bail that. We get some revenue off that. Same thing with scrap metal. we collect it and we get some revenue there. But our general single stream processing we are uh losing $95 a ton on the processing part of that. So um altogether the when you look at the recycling um department as a whole we're losing about a half million dollars a year on that entire operation uh when you take all expenses minus all revenues from recycling. So um it's something that we have decreased that over over the years. Um but we're not and I would say that we're at a point where I don't think any recycling operation is um you know making money you know at this point. So we do need to balance that half million dollar loss with uh space saved in the landfill. Uh you know probably 20 maybe even 30% of that half million um because we're diverting it from the landfill. Obviously landfill space has a cost to it. So there's a certain percentage of the half million that we can say we're saving space in the landfill. But we're still operating at as a net negative in the recycling department and we have been for the better part of seven eight years I would say uh when the recycling market just it you know just dropped out and what we can produce revenue on the back end by selling our recycles.

Okay. Mr. Chairman before Rob sits down. Sorry. Before you sit down, um I was going to ask you just what you went went into about space saved in the landfill. If we weren't recycling, any idea how much that would cut the 12-ear cycle on the on next cell? It it it's not a lot. We're we're only recycling um roughly 2,000 tons a year. Uh currently we have over 100,000 tons that we're uh total trash somewhere just short of 100,000 for what goes in the class 3 landfill. So you're talking about a 2% in you know amount of spa you know on an annual basis. So

not significant. It's not it it is in the long run because at some point when you run out of space at the landfill when you run out of land and you have to permit a new site completely that's where really your your big dollars come in. Uh we're fortunate enough out there if we we do go through the finish the repering process out through cell 8 uh that we plan for this next year that we will have roughly 70 years of life at our current rate. Uh but at some point down the road, and it probably be less than 70 years just because of growth of the county in general, uh we have a lot of space out there, but at the end of that 70 years or however long it takes, there's a large sum of money that we will need to sink into a new landfill operation if we continue to have a landfill in the county.

Thank you, Rob.

I'm going to chime in on this topic. It was on actually the last one on my list for tonight, so thank you for jumping ahead on mine. Um because this one's something I know is near and dear to a lot of folks hearts in in Greenwood County. Um and I was actually with the county at one point when I think the market did turn and and it started being instead of a revenue producer, uh it became a a cost and a loss to the county. So if we look at 500,000 a year over the last eight years, you know, we're talking about $4 million. So, I just want to say that in my opinion, I would like for us to take another look at the absolutely viability of the program and the cost that's being incurred and to make sure people understand that

um we're not we're recycling cardboard and we get revenue from cardboard, but we're losing $500,000 a year to collect and then pay somebody to haul it off to their landfill and maybe in another county or they may pick through it and I don't know what it is, but I would like for us to at least consider that going forward.

It's it is a complex subject. I will tell you that there's certain state goals that we're supposed to be complying with and and reducing our trash and increasing our recycling rate. Um the efforts that we are making are making eligible for state grants. We have a couple hundred thousand more dollars of state grants that are on the line if we should, you know, eliminate certain parts of recycling program. So, it's a complicated subject. Um you know, we've looked at it a few years ago. You know, I know we need to look at it again. I think we're doing better, but it's still again a net loss. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Yeah, council. Any other questions or comments?

I I have a couple. Thank you. And number one, I want to let the the public um viewing and the audience know that this is a monumental feat um to go through and I appreciate Miss Dorne sitting with me and and uh going through a lot of questions that I may have had earlier that have been condensed to about five for tonight. Um, and if I look at all the funds that you put up there tonight, in rough math, roughly, we're talking about probably $65 million that the treasur's office is responsible, all these many, many, many funds and managing those funds and keeping track of these dollars. So, thank you. Huge effort and I know I know that is I really appreciate everything you've done. Um, and the package was really spot on and gave us a lot of detail for us to, you know, take that deep dive. I did have a couple questions. Um, let me just go. The waist tire fee that we mentioned earlier.

It's not included in the budget or it is the proposal. I know we had some conversation earlier about a waste time fee, but I I don't know that we really really came to a conclusion on where we were going with that. We do not have a conclusion on that. We have um asked Mr. Russian to deliver a different proposal based on the comments we had received. Uh rather than one one fee for all. Um so I know that he is working on that. Uh I don't know if we'll have it by next week for first reading, but we will definitely have it before the public hearing. Okay. Okay.

All righty. Um the other one you mentioned um was that the 3% cola for the elected appointed officials is not included and I know that it historically has not been and this is something again I'd like for council to I know we're not voting on anything tonight but just to consider that I think the current way there's no state law to my understanding that requires us to do it the way we do it but the when they're reelected we kind of go back retroactively and um I would like for us to think about including including that 3% and just the rough numbers if you take it and and you say, you know, somebody's got a salary of X and that 3% then 3% of that on top of that and 3% on top of that it to give them that money ahead of time instead of waiting for four years and then going back and giving them you know some kind of an adjustment just for consideration also. Okay. I just want to put that on record as stating that the Matt utilization, the McCormick area uh transit program um I know that it's their funding is not as bold as it has been for us in the past. Um and I know we expanded our parameters of that or our distance. Any thoughts on how we can kind of reel that back into something that is manageable and affordable and still effective? So, I'm glad you asked that question because I I did um I did talk with Miss Bishop about this uh yesterday, but I don't think I know I haven't discussed it with any of the well, I discussed a little piece of it, but I haven't discussed the full picture with you all. Um, so we are we had we had been receiving $150,000 from DOT and then we've been providing $150,000 match um out of our special appropriations fund for a total of 300,000. Took a while for the program to get going. Um

but now that we uh we expanded it out and we've been using it um our actual spend is about 350,000 in a year. And so we're going to have to figure something out about that. Our more pressing problem is that I was notified last week that uh DOT has not included Greenwood County in their um current formula allocation and supposedly staff uh DOT staff are trying to figure out how to get us our $150,000 for fiscal year 27. Um, if you recall last year, um, it was really the fall of of 2024, um, DOT told us that we could not be a subreient, and that we had to contract with Matt, which we were already doing, and that Matt would receive the funds. And we worked that out, and, you know, that wasn't really an issue because Matt's been a good partner for us. The conversation we had last week, which was not with DOT, um it was with Matt uh staff and and a contractor, is that they're wanting us to be a subreient. Becoming a subreient requires a lot of additional hoops that we would have less than two months to figure out at this point in the game. Um they expected us to hear from DOT quickly. I have not yet heard from them. Uh I had this conversation with them on Wednesday morning um after they had finished their conversation with DOT. Uh so I did mention to the county manager

that I think we're going to have to reach out to DOT. Um and let me be clear, this is one division of DOT, not the entire DOT that I'm referring to. Um, but we're going to have to figure out what their plan is. Um, because if their funding doesn't if they don't figure out the funding, then we're we're definitely going to have an issue. Will we know about those decisions before we do final decisions? I have no idea. Okay.

Um, his in the recent history, it has been very challenging to communicate with with DOT. Um, but we are prepared to have any conversations with whoever we need to have them with um to do everything we can to continue the program. But, um, as I I told Miss Bishop, I'm not alarmed, but I am concerned. Thank you. Um, my next one was um the dock fees for I think Lawrence and Newberry counties for their use of our our lake. Um, how do we collect those fees? They're not we're not we can't tax them per se. We just send them an invoice.

We we send invoices out in July. Um, that's done out of my office. Um, it's about roughly 25 2500 something like that. Um, and there are late fees. Um, after 30 days, $25, another 30 another. So, total of 75 in late fees that go on top um of the fee. And if they decide not to pay us, what's our recourse?

Uh, lake management goes out and puts a sign on their dock um that they're, you know, that they're that they owe the the fees. Um sometimes that will shame people in uh to making that payment. Uh we do have some that just don't pay. Um right now we have one that owes four years worth. We have a couple of that owe three years worth. Few more that owe um two years worth. So dollar-wise it's not a huge number. Um me personally it's it's a matter of principle. Um I don't I don't want to pay mine if you my neighbor aren't paying theirs. Um we believe that the only uh potential recourse well we have two two methods. Um one is we can actually go and tear their dock down. uh that requires a lot of resources uh both um in personnel time and money that um you know is is something that we have um I think the few times it's been done in the past has been when it's a a dilapidated de uh peer. Um, and then the next recourse uh that we that we're still trying to figure out is putting a lean on the property uh which would have to be filed with the appropriate county's clerk of court's office. Um it is on our county attorney's list of things to do. Um but you all know her list is extensive. Um but it but it is it is in our it is in our um view that um that we need to to try and do that. The only other thing we have talked about too um is if we could potentially use debt set off. Um we do that for our EMS and property taxes. Now

um that's a that's a potential uh to to try and collect it. I think what we will find um and it's one of those things until you try it you don't know um we may find that if someone's retired and they don't get a state tax refund then debt set off doesn't generate anything but it is something that um u Julie and I have spoken about in the past.

Okay. Thank you. And my last one is really to kind of for the folks in the audience that are concerned and have questions about the special tax district and how it's impacting them. Um, is there any guidance on how they should proceed? Should they contact Britney back again to have a conversation? What do you suggest for them?

Yeah, a lot of our conversations are continuing and ongoing. Um, we asked that revisions to their budget be turned in this week. uh mainly so that we had them together for first reading. Um but we have uh notified any anybody who's can has told us that they they can't get that figured out uh by that deadline um that we can extend it. Our absolute drop dead is you know for third reading. We have to we have to have those in place for third reading. Um they should they I think everybody in the audience has u probably has Britney's contact information. Um we also have Presley Wright in our office now who is going to be taking these things over. Um he's still learning but he's learned a lot in the last um two or three weeks that he's been here.

Um and so he has a good bit of information. And if he doesn't have the answer, he will get the answer from Britney. Um if Britney doesn't have the answer, she gets it from Lewis. And if Lewis doesn't have it, he gets it from me. Um so we we're doing everything that we can. Um if there's anybody that has tried to contact my office and hasn't been able to get in touch with whomever, um I would ask that they step up here to Lewis and provide them with their name and phone number. Um and we will make sure they get a phone call tomorrow to address any concerns. Um our primary message has been um as I already stated we we cannot u collect these funds in the manner of an HOA. Um so we we have to follow what those guidelines are um what the law allows us to do. Um, if anything is private, then we can't use tax dollars to pay for it. It doesn't matter that those tax dollars were just generated by that particular neighborhood. Um, they have to be available to the public and and that has certainly been um challenging uh for most of our neighborhoods. Uh our recommendation is that if they have a balance and um they are finding that they have a whole lot less um acceptable uses or permissible uses for those funds that they turn back into us a budget with zero millage or zero fee uh to stop collections and then they can continue um providing us with the documents ments for the permissible expenses. And once their fund balance is spent down, then um they can petition to dissolve if they would like to or they

can continue uh to collect whatever amount they need uh for the for the um smaller permissible expenses. Thank you, Lewis. Will you raise your hand? Miss Lewis, thank you. I want to tell Gay for just a moment if I can. Miss Dorne on Miss Miller's comments about dock fees, out of county doc fees, and I'll ask Miss Penny, our county attorney, is small claims court an option for that short of putting leans on the property. I haven't I just haven't

I understand. Well, I think it's I think it dramatically sends the wrong message that we allow some people simply not to pay. You saw in our presentation tonight the cost of operating a lake helped me Stephanie 2 point what million dollars a year 2.7 2.7 million a year and those out of uh county dock fees for the enjoyment and use of our lake that's all they pay so I just believe it sends a wrong signal that we just don't take action. I know you're looking for more work. You You can thank me later. Okay. Is there anything else? Any other comments, questions, council?

If not, I think that was a very a very a great overview of the 220 uh 2027 budget. And Stephanie, certainly for you and all of your staff, um it's voluminous amount of work that goes into this. We all know and appreciate that. And we'll work through these three readings and uh to get this budget hopefully approved uh similarly as presented at least and then we'll give you about two weeks off and you can start working on a new one.

So um I I forgot I didn't print it out so I forgot I had one last slide and I backed it up. But anyway, uh this is just our timeline. Next Tuesday it will be first reading. I'll review um the budget and any changes um in a much more concise format. Um June the 2nd will be our second reading with public hearing and then June the 16th will be our third and final reading. And again um just a reminder because of reassessment I will come back to you between now or or June and September um with roll back millillage uh to be approved at a later time.

Understood. Thank you ma'am. So now I'll ask, is there anyone in attendance from a county agency or department that has submitted into the 2027 budget request that wishes to be heard on their budget request? If so, I would ask that you come forward, state your department, state your name for the record, and let us hear from you if you so desire. Any agency heads?

Getting ready to move to those in just a moment. So, I was about to say, so if not, uh, any of our tax district commissioners who might be here, uh, you can you can come forward. Please state the name of your tax district commissioner name and address for record for Miss McIntyre. Come forward, sir.

Mr. chairman, council members, and my representative Robbie Templeton. Uh my name is Jim Hall. I'm commissioner and also treasurer of the uh Truid Hills Tax District. Also a member of the CTC and we'll be distributing those funds on Thursday. So those that need to show up, get a little money for the county, that' be a good idea. Um, I I just want a question of clarification and I understand the law and what goes on down in Columbia right now. We got a lake in Druid Hills. We take pride in it. It's a kind of a showpiece. It's an earth and dam and I understand unless we say it's public so we open it up to everybody and their brother that wants to come fish or lay out in the sun or picnic out there then some of these funds that we're getting are restricted. Is that true? No. We got no trespassing signs and under that sign it says for residents only to make this thing so we can continue the way we're operating because it's been a very good system. I guess I want to know Stephanie if we got to do we have to take these signs down, right? But we don't have to publicize that it's that it's open to the public. We just take the signs down

and if somebody comes to fish can't run them off. Okay. All right. Now, we had in the past have been taking liability insurance for our board and our commissioners. So, if we make this public, we can continue that liability insurance. No, that's Jim. That was Yeah, I'll let Stephanie answer that question. Never mind. Maybe. Uh, so any any insurance that's covering your homeowners association board is not allowed because that's a homeowners association expense. Okay.

You do not have to have liability insurance for your tax commissioners because they are covered by the county as long as they are operating in the scope of their responsibilities as commissioners. Okay. All right. That answered that question. All right. Now, DHECK, which now has what they call department of environmental control or services,

inspects our dam. Of course, they responsible for every dam in the state as long as it's got water behind it. We're a class one dam. Our dam classification was raised from a five to a one when they built the Southern Oak subdivision. Of course, the water level would have to go up 30 feet to reach any house over there. But anyway, they put us at a class one. They're coming next week to inspect. And we got a couple of I know that we got a couple of issues because I'm one of the people responsible and George McKenna is the other guy

and they we always work with them. Uh when we go public again, we can use our funds to make these repairs as necessary to that dam, right? If it's a public pro, if it's a public facility. Yes, sir. Okay. We also been having trash service out there for our people to put their trash in so they don't throw it on the ground or leave it out by the lake. That can continue also as long as it's public. Right. Correct.

Okay. That answers my question. I I know that our people don't want to get into HOA with regime fees and all that. So now I've got to run. I'm one of the people that's delinquent on my budget because of those three items. So, I'll get that to you as soon as I can. But, I need to meet with our guys and let's talk about what we got to do to make this thing public. And I'm sure it means taking the signs down. So, if we do that, we'll be in compliance and I need to give the budget to you, right? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Jim, and before before Jim sits down, Stephanie, what's the time frame on that

for that to be done? Well, it it would be best if we could have it in two weeks so that we have it before second reading and public hearing. Jim, do you think that's possible? I think I can do that. Thank you, sir. We just have to meet with our commissioners and let's go ahead and make that decision because that's kind of our responsibility. Mr. Chairman, I have a question also. Now, on a lot of these neighborhoods, and I'm not familiar with yours, sir, but a lot of these neighborhoods, private property borders the pond. Yes. The public don't have a right to go on private property to access this pond. It would only be the areas of public access. It's like the lake,

right? If if there's no way to access the pond without crossing private property, then that would negate this conversation. That's why they would have to have access to it. They've got an area next to the road. They could, and I think they do, then then that would only apply to that area that the public would have access. It does not grant the public access to come onto your private property. Right. Yeah. about 3/4ers of our lakes got houses back up to it. Rest of it on Claremont Drive is public road, state road.

And then and then another question I have to to just for clarity, do they have the authority or do we have the authority through their request to put some stipulations? I mean, can somebody be out there at two o'clock in the morning with their boom box uh fishing on the pond or or can we as a county through working with these folks set perimeters of if there's going to be public access and and maybe ter madame attorney, you have to look at this. I'm just looking at all angles of what could we could be facing, sir, in the next months to come.

You open it up. You open it up. All the tr it up. And you say you don't advertise, but Yeah, you do. We're advertising it. You don't have to advertise because they don't pay those signs any attention anyway.

Yeah. So, and so I just want to make sure that we have clarity of of all these these different aspects of what we are opening up and and how we're going to navigate through this. I just think it's it's important that we're not here with an issue in a few months from now that we've open an envelope not only for this neighborhood but a lot of other neighborhoods. I I I obviously I'm not the attorney and but I'm going to just speak from my experience with public facilities and buildings that um you would have to have some a code of conduct and some rules published. So they would have to have a sign um at their lake and it would have to say no access after midnight. Um whatever whatever they don't want those rules to be. Um, but that would apply to the neighbors and it would apply to anybody in the public

public in general, right? And so, you know, and to your point, Mr. Hull, you you said, you know, people ignore the signs. The difference is that if you have those signs, um, then you can enforce it and you can have people removed from the property. Once you take those signs up, then you know, you can't have anyone removed from the property unless they violate some sort of um policy or rules of conduct that you have published. So, we can put a sign up saying what time you can't be there. And I believe the trash up and all. I don't think he probably we would have to do that at this point. Have to come for us. Yeah, maybe a discussion for a different

a different time venue. We're getting really granular. We'll just we'll we'll we'll work on that, Jim. Okay. I'm a little fortunate. Eddie Smith, who was here and still here, lives in my neighborhood, deputy. I know what his phone number is. Yeah. Just turn it over to Eddie. All right. Thank Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Jim. Who's next? Who would like to be next? State your name and address please and what tax ditches you are representing.

Good evening. I'm Cheryl Ag New Bale. Um live in Hunter Creek. Um but the property that I want to address is in the city. It's um a townhouse complex. It's been there for years and years. I think Mike Ethridge developed it years ago. It's called Reynolds County. Right there. Are you addressing your special purpose tax district? Yes. She owns I'm a commissioner. Oh, okay. Excuse me. Go ahead. Okay. Um

I thought we were getting ready to talk about a a neighborhood. Go ahead. No, there so many questions that are in my mind because what we've been doing for so many years is not now not allowed and as a commissioner for as many years as I've done this I'm really unsure where to begin to change knowing that we have to do it immediately such as the parking lot. The parking lot, well, the open area in this neighborhood of 18 units is accessible to anyone that comes in there, but we pay for it. When the city comes in to get the trash, or which we understand we're going to have to pay separately, too. When the city comes in to get the trash, they put their truck out there and it tears up the pavement. So, we've had to repair it numerous times and we're at that point again. Does this change now? Does the city or the county now take responsibility of that road since anyone can come in there?

And can you clarify for us which um special tax district you're talking about now? It's not Hunter Creek. Reynolds Colony. Reynolds Colony. Thank you. That that's what had me confused, Miss. say, "No, that's okay. My fault, not yours." Will that road be our responsibility or now will it be the counties? Or

if it if it's your road, if it belongs to the property owners of Reynolds Colony, it's still your responsibility. If it's if it's a private road, if it's marked private and you're restricting access to it, um then you can't use funds to make those repairs. But if the road itself is open to the public, you can still use your funds to repair that area. Well, would the city not be responsible for that road if it's in the city and we pay city taxes? I think the short answer is not if it's a private road. Well, you

it's not private the way you're telling it. your your concerns there would you would have to take up with the city of of who's owners, you know, who's responsible based on ownership. I don't think we should answer that particular question. Um, I feel that our group of people, the commissioners in all the different areas in Greenwood County probably need a public meeting more than today with Stephanie or whatever group it is so that we can digest all of these changes we're going to have to make. Hearing about Druid Hills, that's pretty amazing. And you talk about Hunter's Creek, it's got a lake. Um, I'm just really perplexed by all these changes that I anticipate are going to have to be made. I would like to request that Stephanie consider having a a meeting possibly in this place and open it up to all of the commissioners.

I I take my direction from council. Could I petition council to plan one for us? Before answering that, um, Miss Cheryl, let me ask you a question. Were the notifications that you received from when Stephanie put those up earlier um did that not prompt you to want to ask these questions of treasur's office at that time? We've asked a lot of question

presentation of information that went out in regard to our changes. Well, I know we've asked a lot of questions over a number of years and the concern we had was not being able to talk with a person we needed to talk to. They were not available or they had changed. Their job had been changed. They no longer were responsible. And when we talked to someone new, they didn't understand it. So, we've had a lot of questions through the years and we've put our heads together. We keep holding on trying to do the right thing. And I feel like this is something so big right now that there are a lot of people that aren't even here today don't even have a clue of it. They may have seen that email and didn't think it applied to them. I saw it, but I thought that doesn't apply to me. I don't think maybe I should be here. Maybe I shouldn't be. But I got a call from another commissioner who said, "Are you going?" I said, "Am I supposed to be there?" So I'm here. But I feel like we are at a point most of the people that are commissioners that don't fully understand how things are going to be different in the in the future. Well, I think I think before we try to create another public meeting and for all commissioners because there may be many that do understand. I don't know how many do or do not. But I do know that when when the county policy was re-evaluated, you know, we took a very close uh review and paid a lot of attention to the requirements of state law. And candidly, I'm just going to say it this way, we had we had been very loose in our oversight of the tax districts historically. There were a lot of tax districts. But what I would encourage you to do, I mean Stephanie's Stephanie's pretty pretty open in her communications. I would encourage you first just to talk with Stephanie and her staff and see if all your answers

all your questions can be answered through that method first. Um, as I said, I I know they went to they went through a lot of effort in trying to properly communicate the changes that council ordered last year.

Yes, sir. We we sent it out in May and then again in September. And I would say that um I think last last week is when we sent specific information to the tax districts that um that there were that had any problems with their expenditures and told them exactly what was wrong with their expenditures. I know that uh my staff have spoken with um some I'm not sure which all commissioners from Reynolds Colony maybe last week and this week. Um so you know my staff are doing their job. Uh they're communicating when and answering the questions that they're being asked. Um you know at this point we've again we've sent letters to each district that had a problem with their budget and told them what those problems were. I'm not sure how else we can address it.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I feel like the questions I'm asking about are probably very similar to all the other districts in Greenwood County, but many people are really not aware of what we're realizing. Does that make sense? I think it can change the whole planning of how you manage your your community.

I think each each district has different things. Not all districts are the same. Um they all have different needs. They all have different items that they have been um asking us to pay for. So I don't think we can say that they're uh that they're all the same, that they all have the same questions. Um again we have um we have spoken with a fair number of these districts and and I believe that most of them we have answered their questions. Um they may not like our answers but we have provided them with answers um and resolved their issues. Again maybe not to their satisfaction but um to the to the endeavor of of what the policy says and what the law um requires us to do.

Okay. Thank you. Miss Sher, what I I would encourage you to do is for for yourself and the other commissioners there for Reynolds Colony just if you will just get with Stephanie and her office and take those questions them. Let them answer those questions directly and then if you know if if you know that there are others that you feel might have those same questions or same concerns, just encourage them to do the same. I'm guilty of thinking if I ask and take her time, she can't do her job. Well, that is her job.

I know. But if she has to do it 50 times because there are 50 special tax districts, couldn't it be more quickly resolved if you had a big meeting and we could have all those questions maybe submitted ahead of time from each district? Well, that would that would go on the premise that there are a lot of other people that have the same questions. There may not be. Well, I don't mean the same, but each one has some question, I bet. Well, I think in the in the in this process, and am I Stephanie? Am I wrong? I mean, we've we've addressed questions from multiple tax districts in this process leading up to today.

Yes, sir. Um Lewis started last Thursday, I believe, pretty much with his phone ringing off the hook. Um Britney's phone has been ringing all day yesterday and today um with with the different districts and the commissioners in addition to responding to emails. Um I've been in discussion with my staff multiple times through the last couple of days uh addressing the questions as they have come and again there's not a common necessarily a common theme. Everyone has some different issues and and we just we're addressing them as they come to us. Okay.

Is it possible to receive a list of things that we can do instead of Well, I know I'm hearing things we can't do, but is it possible we could get a list of what we can do in our special tax district? That was provided in the budget request letter. The list was Okay. And it's in the policy as well. Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Sher. Who's next? Touch your name and address and tax district you represent, please, sir. Hello, I'm Greg Pantek and uh I live in Hunter Creek, uh 616 Fairway Lakes Road. Um first of all, Stephanie, thank you for your staff doing a great job answering all the questions.

Thank you. And we learned a lot in the last few months as these readings go through. I think the biggest thing is is now that we know what it is, at least Hunter Streak has an understanding, we don't have enough time to react or at least some of this task changes because now you got to get a separate fund and you got to go to these honors and you got to get it voted on and I don't think we can do it in two months because I think we're just now learning this and some people aren't going to learn it until June 16th and then they have to go back to their counties. what they're going to do to resolve it.

So, what I'm asking for is it could it be delayed? It, you know, whether it's one more year, and I know this is a law. It's been in the books for five years, but it took you guys five years to figure it out. No, it's taken us a year to figure it out. And we're just asking for more time for some of the subdivisions to be able to know what to do and get another fund. Because if you got builders and you got dirt running down in the drains, that's going to clog up all the drains. We You can't do legal fees. So, you can't sue anybody. You can't control anything until you get a separate fund. I That's not my decision to make. So, I'm just asking for more time.

Do me a favor, if you will. Um, if you don't mind, send an email to the county manager's office and lay out that challenge and let us see if we could if there's any consideration we can give to help with that because that sounds legitimate to me. Okay, Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Yes, sir. Mr. Allison, who's the county manager? I have his What is the mine? Is there anything legally any legal binding that we could would not be able to delay it? I'm not sure I understand. We have to have the budget done.

He's asking if there's any restriction. I believe council that wouldn't allow us to delay. We're we're bringing this we're bringing this back into to where it needs to be because it has kind of uh gotten out of, you know, we we know everybody here don't have all the information we've had and Stephanie has shared with us when we've discussed some of this. Some home associations were having parties and and inviting certain people and and and so it it's gotten out of hand. So that was the reason we started looking at the law. Am I correct? And and making sure that we we brought it in to where it needed to be. But it is very complicated. I've asked a couple questions with the gentleman about the pond, what it does. So So my question is, as he said, took five years for us to kind of decide we're going to start bringing this in. Can we give them if if we choose as a council, give them a little more time to try to try to wade through this because he can he can collect his own money and do whatever he wants to do with, right? I if he's not in a special tax district, if he comes out of a special tax district, then you have the authority to take they have the authority to take their money and spend it on anything they want to spend on it.

Correct. As far as the county is concerned as far as how their HOA would be set up, a determination that they make together. But I sorry, I don't want to give you legal advice in a public setting. Okay. But anyway, I am I I'm one member that that am willing to help these folks navigate. Apparently, there's quite a few people here tonight that have some concerns and and are trying to figure out how to do it. And if we can assist them, u I'm in favor of doing that. Any way we can help.

And I would add u Mr. Allison that this really doesn't affect Greenwood County's budget per se. It's a matter what's going to appear on the tax bills for these neighborhoods. Is that correct? either based on millage or a flat fee that would go out in October. That's correct. So it doesn't affect our our budget at all. We just normally set it as part of our budget. Right. Right.

So like we could do zero, but if we have to take somebody to court in September, we wouldn't be able to use the money because you can't do legal fees anymore. So you can't enforce anything. So drains could start falling, you know, getting clogged up and, you know, land could be not cut and and all this kind of stuff. There's all kinds of things that you wouldn't be able to control anymore until you got time in like our neighborhood's 500 people. You got to pretty much go door to door and explain to each person how this is affecting them and why we need to do this. So, it takes time to do that to get the whole subdivision to get it approved.

Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else?

Thank you, ma'am. State your name and address in what district, please.

Thank you. I'm Miriam Bickerton, tax commissioner from Wellington Green. Thank you for letting us come this afternoon and sharing our concerns for how this policy change affects uses affects our community members. I've spent quite a few months trying to help our community figure out how our this is going to affect our community. And this has had a great effect on our community. We don't have the ability in Wellington Green right now to withhold dues or ask our residents to pay dues to offset how this policy change is affecting our community. In order to do that, we have to have an addendum change to our covenants. I don't know if any of you have ever effectively changed your covenants or taken an active role in changing the covenants to your community, but you don't do it in two months or three months or even six months. It can take onward to a year to do that. I know that because I've done that in Wellington Green in 2010 and again in 2020. That's what it's going to take for us to offset the change of this policy change of the county. I'll make it real short. We're begging you to give us a grace period in this change so that we can effectively offset the changes that this is going to make in our community.

Please consider giving us that grace period. Thank you very much. Miss McIntyre, would you please get her information? And Miss Miriam, I would encourage you to also if you can send an email to the county manager's office. Absolutely. Thank you so much. the same thing. I'm in a very generous spirit tonight, apparently. Apparently.

I'm Cheryl Agne Bell and I'm a commissioner for the Reynolds Colony Town Houses. Um, we have been on such a tight budget ever since we got together and got this community going again because when we took it took on the responsibility, there were five women that volunteered. The townhouse complex was going down very rapidly. It needed new roofs. It was one problem after another. We got organized and they said we couldn't do it. We did it. We came before county council. We got special tax district. We had people that um out of 18 units, we had five that were paying their dues. Five. We had insurance to pay for the buildings for um liability. There was no way we could survive. Well, over time, we have been so careful with the money that we brought in. We've knew we had to get a new fence. We knew we had to get new roofs. We knew all that. We went through all those gosh darn difficult steps. And some people in this room know it because uh they were there. Now, what I'm concerned with uh is whether or not you're going to give us that extension. And then number two, if we have to back out of our special tax district so that we can pay our bills, will we be refunded all the money that we have put in that our people have paid? We are not able to write a check back for refunding. uh we can't write a check to the HOA because it is considered to

be public tax dollars and that's the advice that we have given um as I mentioned earlier that uh you can stop collecting any special tax district fees or millages use the funds for permissible uses and when the fund balance is spent down then you would be able to dissolve. If you dissolve before that, you have one year to spend the funds and then uh the funds would be donated to charities. Wow. I don't know what else to say. Thank you for listening.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And for clarity, is is is Reynolds Colony Townous is that a separate district? Are there two districts? Is it Reynolds Colony and Townous? Is that those? It's one one special district. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you, ma'am. Hi, I'm Kirsten Sharer and I am a tax commissioner for Chinkapin subdivision. What subdivision? Chinkapin.

Thank you. Um, well, my biggest question was what was the impetus for grabbing an over fouryear-old AG opinion and interpreting it for the 25 May uh policy change because it's not a law, it's an AG opinion and I've read the cases in the opinion and they are not the same scenario that we're in. So, what was the impetus? And I think Mark, Mr. Alison, I think you may have answered that indirectly that somebody was having parties and spending too much money on parties. Is that the impetus?

The impetus was just that we realized that we had a lot of expenditures that were being approved that we did not believe fit state law and so we discussed it with council, talked about some of the things that were a part of it. The discussions have been ongoing for a while with council and then in May they approved the the policy. Again, it wasn't really we always had in the policy that we would follow law. We just entered clarification into the policy. What may I interrupt? You still have your full time. Um on that same subject, wasn't it brought to our attention that Greenwood County is one of the few counties that does this special tax?

Yes, sir. There's no other county that has the number of special tax districts that we do. I thought that was one of the things mentioned. Okay, that's helpful to know. So, we're the only county in the state. Yes, ma'am. With the number with the number. Yeah. Most most counties might have a handful. to to give you an example, when I worked in Sumpter County, which is a very comparable county to our county populationwise and similar in many regards. I think when I came on council, we have 52 special purpose task districts if I recall. Probably right. Sar County had two and we have 52.

How many do we have now? Because in reading the minutes for the last two years, I've noticed um that a lot have been dissolved just in the last few months. So, how many do we have now? Do you know the answer to that question? Something. I know how many are in my district. I have 17 average. Just rough. Off the top of my head, there's over 40. I got 17. Still over 40. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear your answer, Stephanie. 40. Over 40 still remaining.

Okay. Um, that's good to know. So, that was one of my questions. My other question is, are there recordings of the meetings from prior to adoption of the policy in May of 25? Because I went back and read all the minutes and the very first time this was even mentioned in anything was actually under new business on May the 6th. says dot dot dot further details regarding the updated including a revised clean copy and a redline version that was in the council packet for review. Um and on and on and I kind of um I don't know how county council does minutes but in in minutes that I do for boards I sit on I typically create a storyline where you can kind of read back through and see the progression of the conversation. I didn't see that. So, I was wondering um is that something that the public would have access to?

Well, you know that all of our meetings are live streamed and recorded and placed on the county website. So, go back to prior to May 6, 25 and there's still a recording on the on the website of a live stream this this much longer. The important thing to note is that this is a legal matter that we talk about largely in executive session because it's a legal matter. So that may be why it's not in the those. Okay. Um, but the public but the public votes to change the ordinance and any discussion that was had in the public a matter of public record

and and discussion by council on that matter would be is a matter of public record and I don't know Susan do you know how long we archive the the recordings of the county council meetings? Um, prior to when I started I don't know how long they have the recordings but have in here all I have all the recordings. You have all recordings. So you would have those. So you would have those recordings. I have the audio that Miss Sherin could have access to. Okay. And you've been here how long? Well, I've been here 11 years. 11 years. So Oh, well I don't need it back that far. Um so Okay. I I heard you say that the public votes on the policy change.

No, ma'am. I didn't say that. I said the council votes on the policy. He was saying any public vote. We public session. Yeah. We only vote in public session. Okay. And so when we voted to change the ordinance, it would be in in those documented recorded meetings, but the commissioners and the public don't get a say in any of that. That is a policy that the council sets on itself. Commissioners don't set policy for the council. This body does. So correct. Yes. Yes. So the council for if I could just add that any item that's on our agenda

when the agenda is published then anybody can speak on any item that's on the agenda at that meeting. Well I went through the agendas too. Um

any anyhow let's let me move right along. Um, so realizing that in the AG's opinion from January 21st of 2021, it did say that the county is not running a foul of the South Carolina Constitution when it does collect certain funds on tax bills that are related to sanitation, solid waste, elections, libraries, uh, to provide for regulation and enforcement of the above. Um, so is a special tax district considered a public body or is that a private body?

It's a political It's a political subdivision of the state of South Carolina. Right. So, it's public. It is a subdivision of Greenwood County. It is a public body. That's why you have tax commissioners.

All right. Just getting that cleared up. This is actually my third stint living here 15 years in this community as a tax commissioner, but I'm fully understanding more going through this. Um, make sure I hit all my points. You answered about first, second, and third reading. So, are so there are tax districts that are within the city such as Reynolds Colony, which I know is in the city. So what is the plan for these properties that then are going to decline based on the fact that there is no way to maintain them uh in the in the period if if we are moving forward with this in July one um let's say Mrs. Bell's plea and Mrs. uh Bickerton's plea for additional time in order to establish a fund privately for the HOAs because all these task districts don't have an HOA fund. There is no other money. So, what's the plan especially in the city because I know the city is real quick to send my clients letters when they have high grass or a disabled vehicle on their property. So, what's the plan for the city to come in and um and I know you're

I don't think that's a I don't think it's a fair question um to ask that broadly. Um you know, when you're saying that things aren't going to be maintained if if the grass is in a public area, we haven't said that we're not going to allow you to pay to have your grass cut. So, I think you would have to be specific about what tax district you're talking about and what expense that is not for a public purpose that is going to cause some type of issue as it relates to code enforcement or or something else. Okay. So it sounds like the permissible uses are actually just being whittleled down further to create an environment where the special tax districts are going to become extinct as a result.

They're being whittleled down to comply with the state law that there there was not is that so that's not the result that the county intends. There wasn't an attempt on on the part of the county to create hardships on the special purpose tax districts. It was solely about cleaning up the processes that, as you heard me say earlier, had been a bit loose to put us in compliance with what we believe the state law required of county government. Okay. What are your thoughts on grandfathering in some of the ones in exist?

I have no thoughts on that, but council can address that if they care to. Um, addressing the council in in its entirety, what are the thoughts or has there been a discussion on uh, grandfathering in some of the older neighborhoods that have a very large fund balance in the to the tune of six figures where they have funds that they need to keep for public bodies of water, very large ones that cost $50,000 we just spent on rocks for the spillway. when there's a natural disaster that we have no control over. Um, and we can't go to 40.

I'm gonna I'm gonna interrupt you, um, Miss Kristen, and you you specifically said a public body. It if it's a public body of water in your neighborhood, we have not said that you cannot use the funds for that. If it's public, it is an a permissible use. Like a that is going under a public road would be covered very specifically under permissible

funds to use. It's just that's the nature of what we're actually trying to accomplish here is we've got a a public road that is within this district. And so that's the kind of thing that public funds are meant to pay for is keeping public things safe, keeping public things tidy. So a dam that goes under a public road is going to be covered. And Mr. Chairman, if I may say, I think that's the reason we set their special tax district up, wasn't it? Was because the down on a road was you needed to Wasn't that the establishment of that?

Mr. Allison, um you and I were both here at that time. Chinapan had a serious issue um with the dam and the only way that they could, if I remember correctly, the only way they could procure a loan from the bank was that if they had sped up a set up a special purpose tax district so that we the county would collect the the the the money so that they could pay the loan back. That's correct. So that that's the reason your neighborhood was put in the special tax district was for that purpose, right? It was put in for the pond. It was back in 1989. I'm not if y'all were on the council that it wasn't that far back. It was. And what we did we did we did approach y'all for the loan. I was here for that too. In 1989.

No, we were established as a special tax district in 1989. But we did come to y'all for the loan for the county bank for the $126,000 because we had to that we had been a we had been a tax district for 30 years at that time when we did come to you. Yeah. So we assessed it more. We just added more correct money to kind of what we did. I may have misspoke, but yeah, that was I wasn't here in ' 89, but I nor was I nor was I. I thought y'all were too young to have been here back then. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Well, I think that answers all of my questions. Um,

quit laughing, DT. I did want to point out that in the communications we were told that um special tax districts should pay for things that governments normally sorry special tax districts are allowed under South Carolina law section 4930 sub5. Um, public purpose includes expenses that governments traditionally pay for. And our budget delineates items only of expenses that a government traditionally pays for. Governments pay their internet bills. They pay their attorneys. But it's also in and you know the I call it a failure to be specific in that sentence, but it's for a public purpose. The government cannot use property tax dollars to pay for somebody's personal internet or personal legal expenses. And so we cannot pay for something that is not available to the public.

Yeah. Or not my internet or my lawyer fees. I I understand, but it it's for your HOA's legal fees that we cannot pay for. So the special tax district money can be used on things that other people are allowed to also use only right for public purposes.

All right, I think that's it for now. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any more remaining? Seeing none, council, any closing comments or thoughts before we adjourn? Everybody's I'm good, Mr. Chairman. Good.

If not, want to thank the staff for being here tonight and all the work from the treasur's office. Thank you all for for attending. Um, I think uh we we've heard some legitimate concerns tonight and I hope you will um I hope you'll go forward uh as we as we discussed and I think that this council has always been uh been one that tries to provide as much grace as possible within uh within our authority uh in managing the affairs of the county. So, thank you again for being here and I'll adjourn this meeting at what time is it? 5:49 p.m. Thank you.