Planning Board - Regular Meeting

and we'll give our folks just a second to find their seats. All right, we will call to order our FY27 budget work session this morning. Thanks for joining us and I'm going to go ahead and turn the floor over. Thank you. Thanks, John.

Good morning. Welcome to our budget work session on first pass budget for fiscal year 2027. This is a look at our budget calendar for fiscal year 27. We met in November for our budget retreat where we discussed our budget by function and began preliminary discussions of the factors that would be impacting budgeting this year. In January, we spent some time discussing our capital improvement plan and the need for focusing on capital infrastructure and understanding our debt needs. You can hear a little bit of that right outside. And today we'll talk about requested expenditures for fiscal year 2027. We'll return next month for revenues and again toward the end of the month to tie it all together before delivering a recommend budget with budget message on May 5th. At the following meeting on May 19th, we will hold a public hearing for the budget and move to adoption of the fiscal year 2027 budget on June 2nd. Our agenda is as follows. Ji will begin a discussion of some of the budget drivers and then we'll talk about our county services in context of this year's budget. Before we begin discussing budget requests, we'll have some discussion around personnel costs and then budget analyst Sam Riddle will give us an update on air quality. From there, we will move into vehicles. We have our fleet manager Jake Cloat with us and we'll discuss capital requests and then ask for some guidance from the board. Then we'll talk a bit about our next steps and wrap up. going to go ahead and hand over to Jay.

Thanks, John. Morning, commissioners. So, to start off um with economic conditions and our current economic context, uh I think we can all we can all agree that we've been through a lot uh these past couple years. Um since 2020 we've lived through several major events or economic disruptions that have broadly impacted the global economy and had had s significant inflationary impacts. So to recap obviously this decade began with the COVID pandemic in early 2020 which disrupted global supply chains and when combined with fiscal stimulus dollars coming in helped contribute to an inflationary surge. Uh then we saw the Russia Ukraine conflict that began in 2022 which again disrupted global supply chains notably in energy but also in manufacturing and agriculture which also contributed to another acceleration of inflation. Next almost exactly a year ago we saw the institution of historically high US tariffs on imported goods. So far, the impact of tariffs on inflation has been a bit muted since businesses have generally been able to, you know, either partially or entirely absorb tariff costs rather than passing them on to consumers. However, there is concern that as more businesses, you know, are unable to continue absorbing uh tariff costs, we may begin to see some delayed inflationary impacts um in in the coming months or years. And most recently, we have the, you know, the extremely current situation of war in Iran, which has obviously caused significant disruption to oil and gas supply chains and which we've all seen

the immediate impact of at uh the gas pump. How the situation evolves in the coming weeks and months remains to be seen, but if the disruption to supply chains is sustained, it will likely result in more acceleration in inflation moving forward. So uh looking ahead I also want to just say what's left unsaid on the slide is also any you know potential impactful geopolitical event or events that could occur in the future that we don't know about yet. Of course like a month ago we we had no idea about the current situ situation that was going to happen in Iran. So yeah, so a a potential event that could occur in the future, which if recent history is our guide, seems to be happening at a as an increasingly regular occurrence. Um, and then adding to the general economic uncertainty that we are living through is also just budget uncertainty at the federal and state level. At the federal level, we have the partial government shutdown that has now stretched to over a month in counting, which has shuttered the Department of Homeland Security, which notably includes, you know, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. At the state level, a new state budget remains unpassed, which leaves us the only state in the country that still lacks a new state budget. Being a local government, the county is particularly sensitive to, you know, any disruption or changes in funding from the federal or state level. And having such significant uncertainty on both the federal and state level is particularly challenging for us as well as our education partners. So next, just to further illustrate the inflation picture that has developed over the last several years, the chart on the slide details a rolling five-year

compounded inflation rate over the last 40 years. Currently, as of end of 2025, with the accumulated impact of the economic shocks I just talked about over the past couple years, we are seeing the highest five-year inflation rate since 1991. uh 34 years ago. Uh just as an aside though, I was only about one or two years old at the time. So I don't claim to be an expert on what happened, but having done a a little bit of research, that period was the culmination of several years of elevated inflation in the latter part of the 80s and and then a recession in 1990 caused by spiking oil prices due to another conflict in the Gulf uh region which was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Um and that gradually subsided with the success of the US intervention in liberating Kuwait. So that's kind of a little backstory about the last period of that we've seen these kind of ele elevated inflation levels. So I'm going to hand it off to John now to discuss

before we go on. Can can you cl just provide some more context because when folks just see this graph, you know, it looks like we're showing each year but you're talking about the fiveyear rolling. So, can you just clarify more like why you're showing a five-year rolling and why you think that's important to note versus like a yearby-year inflation?

Yeah, I think the five-year kind of what we're trying to show here is kind of the accumulated kind of impacts that we've seen over the over the past five years. What this shows is so a five-year rate. So taking kind of 2021 what the inflation level was there to 2025 how much that's grown as a percentage and then just going kind of rolling that back every year. Um I think what yeah the reason why we want the fiveyear is um looking at the annual is great. It gives you a good picture of like what's happening on a year-to-year basis. But what we've really dealt with in the past five years I think is is pretty historic. So that's kind of what I wanted to illustrate.

And so basically you're saying like the 24.4% is the increase inflation over the past five years. Yes. Yeah.

And that that rate fiveyear rate is unmatched since the period ending 1991. So the um this five-year rate from 2021 to 2025 of 24.4% inflation is unmatched since that period ending 1991. So, so if it feels like you've spent more at the grocery store and are spending more doing things, it's true. Inflation has driven the costs of not only for consumers but the county as well to include the costs of personnel, health care, contracted services, construction, and supplies. Additionally, this excuse me, additionally, this community has an expectation to return to normal over a year and a half after Hela. We've brought you discussion on our capital infrastructure and demonstrated needed investment there. Meanwhile, the state has been having discussions on property tax reform, which they believe is a burden on taxpayers. A reminder that property tax is our largest revenue source and one that is unrestricted as well and that new laws guiding the county's taxing authority could impact our ability to continue providing basic county services at the level that we do. There any questions about our current environment or anything Jay's brought to the table? So, well, when you're talking about the state property tax reform, also the reality is there's things that we're mandated to do right from federal and state level. And the reality is that they've both been reducing how much money

they give us to actually fund those things, but they're not changing the fact that we're mandated to provide those services.

That is correct. So, we're going to begin with a discussion of our county services by function. Reviewing our current year, fiscal year 2026, general fund budget. We have a budget of $438.1 million. We budget by function, the largest being education at $125.9 million, 29% of the budget. Public safety is next at 23% or 98.5 million, followed by human services at 22% or $96.8 million. General government comprises 15% or 66.5 million. Our debt payments are $18.3 million, 4% of the general fund. Cultural and recreational is 3% at $12.2 million. Economic and physical development is $10.8 $8 million, another 2% and inter fund transfers come in at $9.1 million or 2%. We want to talk about the services each of these functions provides. The education function funds local current expense, mainly operating expenses for the two K12 school systems and operating for ABT. There are several education related contracts budgeted in this function. Additionally, health and human services contracts for school nursing. They also provides school social work support to Bunkham County schools at a cost of about $3.7 million. While the sheriff's office provides school resource officers to BCS at net costs of around $2 million for salaries and day-to-day supplies. Questions about education?

Moving to the public safety function, the sheriff's office represents 53% of the budget in this function. The sheriff is by statute elected to provide countywide law enforcement, operate the detention center, execute warrants, and provide courtroom security and is funded at the discretion of the board of commissioners. The sheriff is also allowed to provide school resource officers. Additionally, the sheriff operates a real-time intelligence center and provides animal control services. The next component of public safety is emergency services which provides ambulance service, community parame medicine, runs emergency management and disaster response, operates the office of the fire marshall, and manages our regional public safety training center. Furthermore, our public safety communications or 911 operations are the answering point for emergency calls and dispatch of public safety service for public safety services. Justice services provides a wide array of services to include operation of the family justice center, diversion programs, re-entry and pre-trial services, treatment courts, and community partnerships. Our ID bureau provides fingerprinting services, issues concealed handgun permits, and maintains the local master name index for public safety information systems. While our public safety interoperability partnership is run by our IT department to maintain IT support for local public safety entities. Both departments receive offsetting revenue from other local public safety entities.

As we move to human services, which comprises our health and human services department, we look at the social services side, which provides public assistance for eligible households, food and nutrition services to include SNAP benefits, Medicaid for older adults, low-income families, and other vulnerable populations. Social work provides services for the aging population as well as child and family social work and resources for foster and adoptive families. For the remainder of health and human services, public health provides preventive health services, vaccines and immunizations, and treats and plans for communicable diseases. They also provide environmental health inspections for our food and lodging establishments and septic and well systems, animal services contracts for animal care and operations of the animal shelter. Furthermore, there are veteran services and behavioral health support budgeted here and also provided by HHS. Our general government function comprises 19 departments. Here you see the first eight of those departments. This is inclusive of county management, budget and finance which provide fiscal, budgetary and debt management services. Election services are included here. Our general services department provides building grounds and fleet maintenance as well as conducts implementation and management of capital projects. Also include in their portfolio our administration of county parking lots and decks. Human resources provides personnel management while community and public engagement conducts countywide communications and facilitates community markets. Also include his governing body which includes the clerk and the board's budget.

In the second half of our general government function, you see information technology that pro provides countywide IT support. Strategic partnerships facilitates community investments in grant management. Our legal and risk department provides legal support and risk management. The register of deeds led by an elected official is responsible for recording deeds and indexing vital records like birth, marriage and death certificates. Tax assessment conducts property assessments and tax collections collects property taxes and occupancy taxes. Also included here are the internal audit function, sustainability, access and human affairs and our newly established Helen Recovery Office. Our cultural and recreational function is comprised of libraries and parks and recreation. Libraries operates 12 branch libraries as well as the Bunkham County Law Library per statute and provides virtual library services as well. They also offer learning programs and events for a wide spectrum of county residents. Parks and Recreation operates and maintains eight parks, seven river parks, and five pools, as well as delivers recreational programming and events. Our economic and fiscal development function includes the planning department providing land use planning, zoning, storm water, erosion control services, and administration of the affordable housing program. Permits and inspections administers and enforces state building code and leads the nuisance and abatement team. Agricultural and land resources supports farmland preservation, soil and water conservation, environmental education, and other programming. And economic development explores incentives to

create jobs and bring employers into the area. Also included is our solid waste enterprise fund. Remember that the enterprise fund is not funded by the general fund revenues and is self-supporting. Currently, they have an $18.4 $4 million budget which operates the landfill and transfer station, manages the collection contract with implementation of diversion services to include recycling and compost programs. Are there any questions about services provided across the organization? I'll pause here. Okay. We're now going to talk through requests for fiscal year 2027. Reminder that this is still the first pass budget and some requests here may not be included in a recommended budget in May. Moving through our functions again, this time in terms of the requests, we begin with education. As you remember, we worked on a local funding agreement with our K12 school systems, which involved staff research across the state, and then came to an agreement on funding between the board and both boards of education that focus our major unrestricted revenues to include property tax and sales tax. This agreement focuses solely on operating needs and takes 37.76% of the 12 months of property tax and local sales tax prior to March. This was arrived at via the school's request by being 2% above the last fiscal year appropriation which was the f growth rate at the time for these revenues.

I have a question here. Yes sir. On this 37.76 now that won't be the percentage on the final budget will it? That's the percentage of these revenues we agreed, right? But it won't be when we look at the total budget, they won't get 37.7%. Good. Yeah. This will be this is 37.76% of these revenues. Okay. Going back 12 months from now.

So, this is a five-year look back at the local current expense funding for the K12 schools. You see, this year we provided $17.3 million, which includes $4 million from article 39 sales tax that would have otherwise gone to school capital per state statute. That use was allowable for two years, but there is no current plan to use that funding this year. The new funding agreement will actually increase the local current expense funding by 11.1 million in fiscal year 2027, bringing it to $128.3 million for both school systems to be split along the ADM percentage. We will have ABT here at our next work session for their budget request.

And John, you did say the 117 included the 4 million. Yes, it did. And our math was based on for this year for the funding formula to push the 117.3 million up 2%. Thank you.

Moving on to public safety. This is the area that has the most requests in the fiscal year 2027 first pass budget with additional requests totaling $18 million and nine new position requests. The sheriff's office has requested 60% of these requests at about 11 million of additional budget requested in fiscal year 2027. We'll speak more to those specific requests in a moment. Additionally, support departments across the organization assist the sheriff with 12.6 million of funding in other departments. Almost 25% of our information technology budget, around $3.1 million, can be attributed to sheriff support to include body and dash cams, which are increasing over $200,000 in costs this year, radios, software, and licensing, and other technology. We are budgeting $3 million in vehicles for the sheriff's office through fleet. General services provides utility support and building maintenance as well as staff for maintenance of the detention center. And there are $5.8 million in capital projects specific to the sheriff's office and detention center which we disapprove.

Yes. Okay. This is helpful to have this broken out and show the the other expenses across departments. So, thanks for doing that.

Moving to the specific requests for the sheriff's office, there are two position requests including the first pass. an accreditation officer, which is currently grant funded and would move to the general fund, and a property and evidence manager position, including included in the operating request is year one of a two-year cycle firearms replacement at $330,000. a new detention call monitoring software, which would be an additional annual cost of $210,000. One-time ballistic vest upgrades of $70,000. K9 replacements of $39,000. Additional cost to the jail health contract of $1 million as well as $300,000 more for jail food and supplies. There's also a request for drones, which would be $132,000 annual cost. These operating requests are roughly $2.1 million in additional costs in fiscal year 2027. Are there questions about the sheriff's requests or support of the sheriff's office?

I have a question. You said this was around 2.1 million that you just Yes. So where we've got 5.6 million requested attention and 5.7 million that's in also is inclusive personnel cost which two personnel. Well, and we're going to talk about additional personnel personnel costs with health insurance as well as uh some other factors in a few minutes. Okay. But this is the inclusive overall expansion of

Okay. But yeah, that's just such a big this is around 11 million. What you just spoke to 2 million and then there's two personnel. These were the large individual requests. There's small requests throughout like for travel, for training. There's other small requests, but these are the large ticket items that we were lifting up for y'all to see. Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out the difference between that 11 million and the 2 million.

They're all the small requests, including though to John's point, there's salary cost for existing employees. That is not part of these operating expenses. So salaries we will talk about differently when we get to the personal section, but we wanted to lift up the individual items that were large dollars. And these are just the large dollar items. Other than that, they're small increases almost in every other line item. Okay. Many inflationary costs that we're seeing as well.

Can you speak a little bit to the $1 million increase in the jail health contract? So the jail health contract is is almost half of the entire operating of the sheriff and detention center. So we have this went out for bid this year. So we went we did our request for proposals went out for bid and they are currently looking at the proposals that came back. So a large portion there there are fixed costs about the jail health for jail health but there's also outside medical. So if there's treatment provided um at another provider usually the hospital then we're build for those services as well. So it's a little harder to ascertain what those costs might look like and they're an add-on to the contract. So, we're we're expecting about a million dollar increase to the current jail health costs.

It may not be that much once we get through, okay, the contracting, but at this point, this is sort of the number we're looking at. Kind of a placeholder right now until we know for sure. I just want to make sure I heard you correctly that approximately half of the detention center budget is jail health cost. So, if we're looking at our operating of the operating Okay. So what does that number? You can go back. Five six million. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I comprehended that correctly. So we're telling you right now it's closer to five four to five million has been the increase in jail. It's been going up every year.

And John is thinking it might be less than a million. I don't think it's we're going to see much reduction in that because of that outside medical care that we can't predict. Right. So if someone needs to leave the nurses that are on staff has to go out to the met to the usually mission hospital we get a bill for that. Okay. And that is not predicted because we don't know how many people are going to have to be transported. That makes sense. There other questions about public safety.

But I wanted to make sure John said to you that we do bid this contract out. It is right now in the process of doing that. So, it's not something that we sit back and take that increase, but we do believe that it will see that million dollar increase in cost this year, even with a new potentially new provider.

Yes. As we move to emergency services, they have five position requests. They're requesting an additional assistant fire marshal, an emergency medical services training officer to train paramedics and emergency services specialists for additional disaster preparedness, as well as two community paramedics currently funded by ARPA funding expiring at the end of the calendar year. Additional emergency services operating include moving to leasing for cardiac monitors, which is $350,000. There are new lease agreements with fire departments to house ambulances for about $216,000. Emergency services is taking on countywide security and cameras and contracted security adds roughly $890,000 to the budget this year. Other non- capital equipment includes is $103,000 and then $240,000 more in medical supplies. For 911 operations, we see an $89,000 increase for their responder support services, which is on-site mental health and counseling for 911 telecommunicators.

Couple of questions, John. Yes. On the countywide security budget items, can you just speak more to that one?

So, this is contracted security at at locations across the county. Um, this includes the tax office, HHS. We're looking at security for this building and uh and and and the pack library. So, those are that's contracted security to be present at those areas. Also looking at more cameras added across areas where there might not be um that sort of access currently. So, we're working we're working through this budget right now to understand what what it is that we need to do. This could this potentially could be phased. So, so where possible,

so when it says countywide, specifically county properties is what you're talking about.

Yes, thank you for that clarification. So, this would be on county properties and you may recall that we did have at HHS. So if you went to visit that facility, you would have seen some sheriff deputies working. Um you would have seen that here as well and you no longer see that. So with with the staffing levels that we have in our detent in our sheriff deputies, we are looking to see what other security measures we can put in place especially at our human services building at 40 cox and also at pack library. You would al when we go through the budget you'll see other requests around security and um this is county building in security. Okay, that that's helpful. Thank you. And then on the

we move on. I'm sorry, Commissioner Wells. Um, but on that same topic, is it common place for county governments to contract security or is this normally something that is provided in partnership with the sheriff's office?

I just I don't Yeah, I think it's a mixed bag. If you if we can do some more research across other counties, but some counties have we came across one that have a county police department that provides that security for them. It is under the umbrella of the sheriff or their county staff that does that. Other counties have security. But for us, we used to contract with the sheriff. So there was a contract in place where we hired sheriff's deputies to provide that security. So it was a kind of a contract, but with staffing levels and the need for more SRO across our county, that is not something that they can support. So we're looking for alternatives. Thanks for that background explanation. That's helpful. Okay.

Sorry to cut you off, Tiana. That's fine. That's good information. The um can we get an update on the community paramedics as well? Just at some time to I not sure of course, but just to have an update on that, how it's going, kind of where the needs are. Yes,

that would be helpful. In our remaining public safety departments, the identification bureau is requesting two additional senior identification technicians and $30,000 increase for a new fingerprint reader, while PIP sees about $62,000 in increases to existing contracts to maintain our public safety communications infrastructure. Are there questions about public safety requests? Health and Human Services has increases of $6.1 million in the function with five position requests across that department. For position requests, Health and Human Services has requested a social worker to provide independent living case management and support for foster children, a social worker for adult services, two environmental health specialists to conduct food and lodging inspections, and funding of a public health nurse for the mobile team, which was previously funded by grant funding. For operating, we're looking at a security system that will require $50,000 annual software maintenance, $173,000 in additional storage and records management contracting. The animal shelter contractors requesting a 13% or $221,000 increase for services. Special assistance inhome services mandated by the state will result in $311,000 in additional cost. Staffing for the energy program through

contract will cost $130,000. Social work visitation at $66,000. Additionally, there is a request for $82,000 for emergency placements in foster care, no longer funded by the state. additional $49,000 for the guardianship contract, a $50,000 increase for supplemental aging services to restore funding cut last year, and $100,000 increase to the school nursing contract. Are there questions about health and human services requests?

Yeah, how does this track? This makes sense, but I I guess I don't have a context for understanding how this tracks with our county's growth. Are we going to be having even more next year? Help me just contextualize what that this means because I I would hate for us to have one. Do you mean are these new annual costs in perpetuity? Is that not just in perpetuity, but like for example, we know that certain departments have had more needs. Health and human services huge need over the past year and a half for a lot of reasons. Is this sufficient to get us through projected growth for our county or is this just kind of a stop gap we're filling in waiting for help to arrive?

It's a variety of things. So, some of these things I would say specific to social work are are less revenue received from the state to support these items. So, so we're having to make up the gap with local funding. Um the energy program is largely seasonal. So that's that's staffing that's needed. We brought that back in-house about a year and a half ago. So we're still exploring how we best manage those costs internally. The special assistance inh home a lot of dollars have been shifted to the counties across the state from for for this program and there and with an aging population. This is a service that that we do get a lot of use out of. The adult guardianship is a renegotiation of that contract rate. Those are our adult wards that we have in care. We have we have maybe between one and 200 wards in care. So this is a case management guardianship contract. We do a negotiation of renegotiation of that rate every few years. Uh school nursing is largely around the contractor saying they need to be able to pay a little more to recruit school nurses versus other other nursing professions. Does that answer some of the questions you have, Commissioner?

Yeah, and I'm not intending to put you on the spot. I guess I'm just saying realistically if if we go into the community and people are saying we're not having our needs met as far as adult services. I'm just going to make one up. I've not had this conversation, but if they said we needed more money for adult services, would that shock you or is this the appropriate ask or is this conservative ask? I'm just trying to gauge where we're at in our budgeting right now. I would say it's a conservative ask. Um the department asked for way more employees than is presented here. In your packet, you will see the list that they ask. We had almost 180 something positions 136

130 36 positions requested across the organization. This is a small piece of what that request was. So if your ask is do they think they need more people? They would answer yes. Okay. Thank you.

I'm not questioning the emergency placement position and the the need for it. But I am questioning is that an example of the state not funding something and pushing that to the county level to have to pick up that there was. So what happens is some of the funding comes and goes and and the state similar to other entities had ARPA funding and sometimes they funded things that were programmatic in nature with one-time funding and then and then they no longer have that funding. Uh so the emergency placement foster care was a two or threeyear funding source from the state which we do have a need for emergency placements for foster care. However, the state no longer is providing that funding because they've they no longer have that revenue stream. So in order for us to continue this level of services we've beencome accustomed to over this three years, that's what HHS is saying it will cost to do.

Okay. Thank you for that further explanation. The grant funding expiring makes perfect sense. Yes. And and so we did see and and some of that you saw in in budget amendments over the course this last several years where we brought oh here's some new ARPA funding to do this item or do this item. So this so we did see onetime revenues per day for programmatic needs. And if we want to continue those programs, then it's now it's now our cost. It's incumbent on us to do.

I do have a question. The special assistance adult care and inh home are there going to be more slots or more homes opening because special assistance adult care is linked linked to the bed availability of the community in home has to do with like the TCLI program. So could you explain like why the increase like are we expecting to have more beds? Are we expecting more staffing? I do I do know that our cost share has increased. So

So don't not new beds but increasing in our cost share and we can get you more detailed answer on that. But is this the one that was a contract and we're brain in house? No, this is special. No, this one is okay. cost share increase because of the state pushing those costs share increase on us. So this is another one that the state is Yes. Okay. We're mandated to do this but they're reducing the amount that they're giving us. So it's increasing our cost. Yes.

Okay. It might be helpful, not obviously not for today, but to have a better picture as at some point to see what is the state no longer funding or that the cost share has increased so we can get a picture of what we're being expected to take on due to whatever is happening at the state level and we will have more discussion about that next time when we talk about revenues. Okay. So there will be shifting in revenues that we'll talk about next time. Okay. Well, thanks.

And with that, whenever we get that, can we also get the picture of what's required from VA as well because it's like a three-way especially for the special assistance in home so there's a better understanding the big picture. One more one more question on this one. We had lots of questions here on this human services. That's why we're here.

Good. Um when we had our association district meetings uh a few weeks ago, it was brought up about there's going to be an increase likely in what counties are expected to pay toward I think it was towards SNAP administration specifically and they I think they were saying around 2 million additional for Bunkham County or 2.3 million and is that included? That's not included. Well, that's not included here because we've always paid the expenditure. Okay. So, we've always paid the expenditure. We just receive more revenue. Oh, so it's going to

So, so when we come back and talk about revenues, we'll talk about that because while count it, it's for health and human services, it's often about the county cost. So, so there we may receive it may look the same amount that we're spending on the expansion side, but if we reduce revenues, then our county cost has increased. Okay. And that and we will discuss that in some detail next time. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

I have another question. The adult guardianship, are we have seen an increase in the need of guardians within the county? So this is our case management contract. So we case management with we we work with in we work with one provider to manage the adult wards that the county um are they increasing the cost per person what we're getting? It's a it's it was a negotiated rate increase. So that's already been done. So that's that's that's the request. Okay. Gotcha. But it does include an increase in the number of on each month.

Are there other questions? I think our guests outside may have some questions for us.

I think we can keep going. I'm going to move on general government. Across the inter entire, excuse me, across the entire general government function, we see increases of about $ 8.2 million with 13 position requests. These department requests largely support the front-facing activities of the organization. Looking at the budget office cape and finance, we see four position requests here. The budget office is requesting additional budget analyst or manager. Cape is requesting an administrative assistant as well as a language access coordinator. And the finance department is requesting additional financial analyst. Amongst operating requests, CAPE is requesting additional $30,000 for engagement market expansion. Here you see general services and fleet and our election services. Among position requests from general services, they are asking for technical positions to include an electrical specialist and HVAC specialist. They're also asking for additional maintenance technician as well as a senior project manager to increase capacity of capital project management. The increased operating here includes an additional $226,000 for increased election staffing needs for elections. a $211,000 increase in the janitorial contract, $154,000 for building and grounds maintenance, new vehicle leases totaling an additional $42,000, and $23,000 in fleet auto maintenance. You see a decrease here for fleet, but this is due to vehicle purchases now being done in the capital fund. Moving to the second half of our general

government function, ATI has about $3.2 million in additional requests making up 40% of the increases in this function. Infrastructure refresh, which is largely largely switcher switches and servers and such as an additional $104,000 increase. Technology refresh, laptops, radios, and other equipment results in additional $266,000. IT licensing and software costs are increasing $318,000 this year. $190,000 is related to the new positions we are discussing today. There are departmental requests totaling $924,000 in new information technology requests. An upgrade of the aging telephone system is expected to be an additional $498,000. IT costs are centralized. Here you see how it's operating budget also spreads across the functional level where you see the largest area being public safety at $5.9 million. This is inclusive of the number given included with the sheriff earlier. You see $3.7 million for general government, $2.6 million for human services, and about $1.2 million remaining for cultural and recreational e and economic and physical development functions. Closing up our general government function, strategic partnerships is requesting a grants manager as well as making a request for the restoration of county administered grants for an additional million dollars. Strategy innovation is requesting an additional management analyst and also $25,000 to conduct the bianial community survey. The tax assessment office is requesting

an administrative support associate as well as a reappraisal data analyst to prepare for the next reappraisal in 2029 and tax collections is asking for additional revenue collector. Are there any questions on general government

on the strategy and innovation position? Would that by chance happen to be able to help with the preparedness action plan when we had I think it well it was during our briefing last briefing when you all were presenting and you were talking about the need to have some dedicated staff to help with that. I'm just curious is that this is more about dashboarding and the need for presenting data in a consumable way to to the to the um county and to I'm sorry I couldn't do it.

This is it's more about I'll jump in. This is about a data analyst. Almost everything we do, we're asking them to data and they have one person that pulls all that data for us right now. So from we have one person in public safety, Dr. Lee Kraton that pulls all that data for public safety. But when we looking at our data, this is more of a data analytic person. when we get to emergency services, we're adding one person that can help with that preparedness information as well in the emergency services department. So, this can help with that, but the p the the subject matter expert will be living in that department. Okay. And so, you did request a position that will be able to help. Yes, ma'am.

Yes. When going back to the public safety request for emergency services, one of their emergency management specialists was for that purpose. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Any other questions on general government?

In our cultural and recreational function, we see increase of about $1.3 million with four position requests. Libraries is requesting a second library safety associate as well as a library social worker which they expect to offset by releasing a contract. They are also asking for hours increases for five library assistants at several branches. They have additional operating requests of increases of $73,000 to increase the size of the collection branch furniture replacements and professional development. You may have heard that we bought a mountain. Parks and Recreation is asking for two positions, a landscape supervisor and program supervisor in order to begin work to establish a park at the newly purchased Daver Mountain. Questions about cultural and recreational requests before we move on. Don mentioned the two positions for Drip Mountain. This is the first step because they will need more people at DE review. So this is the 2027 request but in 2028 you'll see more people that as this is the design and this the part the start of the park but to actually manage that part over time there'll be more requests coming forward for that mountain. So I wanted to going back to Martin's question as far as this all we would need the answer for that specific one is no. the initial request as we filled out deer reviewview Mounta County Park

and and maybe you said it John and I just missed it on the library on the library social worker. Yes. That can because that's that's a typ that's not a typical category that would be on there for library. We currently contract with Homewardbound to provide some level of interaction between populations there and they've and library feels that it would be more hands-on to have staff and and not have the contract. And is this at the main branch? Yes, ma'am. I pack. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Can you remind me, are we having trouble filling a good number of positions? Are we having trouble filling positions in general? Library. I don't. Are there any vacancies that I'm just asking it's been? I don't know about any vacancies today. I don't know that we're having a lot of trouble filling. Okay. Library positions in general. Great.

We probably do have a couple of vacancies across the organization, but the safety associate goes back to the conversation we were having a moment ago about security. And if you've been to PAC, you understand that the population is changing, but we still have lots of school kids coming into PAC. And we want to make sure that we keep our patrons safe and provide the help that we need as well to the um this the population that we're seeing more frequent at pack.

Thank you. In our economic and physical development function, we see six position requests. Four of those position requests come from permits and inspections. They are asking for a division manager for their new code enforcement team and three code enforcement officers.

Before we move on, I always struggle when we say code enforcement officers. That's just the the technical name of inspectors. So that is not the nuisance abatement team. These are actual three building inspector positions. The code enforcement team though is that team that we've pulled together across the organization to help respond to nuisance issues. So I just want to make sure the word code enforcement is used there, but it's a different the officials are actual inspectors and then the code enforcement team is that team that is multiddisiplinary that we've pulled together to help address some of the issues that we're hearing from our residents.

That's helpful. Thank you. Because when I looked at it, I did make the other assumption. So those are inspectors, but the division manager for the code enforcement team is is the is the team that we talk about that that would get the the nuisance complaints that we have, right? This is that person that can lead all the different departments coming together and ensuring that we have someone that can monitor and address those needs. Okay, good. This is the person that would be that team lead. Yes. On that point together and be that main point of contact. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Planning is requesting an assistant director and agricultural and land resources asking for stewardship coordinator for maintenance enforcement of our conservation space. Operating expansion requests include operational costs for the code enforcement team and about $163,000 to include demolition for condemned structures and mobile home removal. Planning looks to accelerate their text amendment program through contracting at roughly $200,000 and requests expansion of the code purple sheltering program at about $250,000. And I want to add that the code purple expansion is a placeholder right now because that funding is split between the city. It's a 50/50 between city and county. So we will match whatever that the count the city actually puts in. But for us, what we've seen this year with the number of cold nights and cold days, we do believe that coal purple needs an expansion. But the 250 card is just a placeholder. We don't know yet what that final number is going to be. Were you finished, John? Are you ready for

Oh, yeah. I was gonna ask if you had questions on this section. I do have a question on the the cooperative extension. I would love to get more information on that. I mentioned a at our last meeting that um when I was in Raleigh that that was brought up by Dr. Fox around the cooperative extension and I know we have a cost share. think we actually completely pay for a couple of our positions. We do.

And and I know that from what he was saying at the state and federal level that has been flat for the past 10 years. And so I'm not clear like when we did our um salary analysis a few years ago, right, where we brought our staff, you know, up. Did that did that also do that for cooperative extension or did they get left out of that because they're technically state employees? They are state employees. We pay the state we pay the state through a contract. Okay.

So the cooperative extension are not our employees. So we we pay the contract that on based on what the state requests out of our cost share. So to answer your question a little bit more at home, they're not included because to John's point, they're not considered county employees. Okay?

They're contracted employees through the state. So their salaries would not have been adjusted based on that. Nor nor do I recommend paying a supplemental like we do for school teachers where we will pay a supplemental. We that's an option that the board can decide. If you wanted to give them more money, it would be a supplemental pay above and beyond what the state would pay. And we have not included that. We have relied strictly on what the state salary is and we have not looked to bring them into a supplemental pay structure or any other um increase based on what the state pays. Okay.

So the ones that we pay are the ones that we are fully paying. Are they still state employees? Yes. and we're contracting their state salary, but we're paying the full amount versus a partial amount. They're all they're no county employees. They're all state employees. They receive state benefits. So, they're employees at the state. We're just through our contract subsidizing the cost for the state of

So, what you were hearing is that the state has not given them a raise or a budget actually in several years now. Correct. And so are I'm just curious like with other counties, can you at least take a look at other counties and see with some of the other counties that are in our same position like larger and have those needs like are we in line with what they're doing or look at some options there just so we at least understand? Sure. I'm not in my head because staff is writing. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anything else on this function?

Um, Commissioner, I was expecting you to ask about the stewardship coordinator and you didn't. Well, because I know because they talked about it in the act advisory board meeting. I'll take the bait. Do you want to talk about the coordinator? No. Um, no. Um, this is all the conservation easements and John can probably talk and I'll be quiet on this one, but and if I need to, I'll jump in.

There you go. So, this is us looking to make sure that we can monitor those conservation easement that we have been working on to get to that 20% of conserved properties in our county. We need to have someone that can actually monitor, make sure that easements are being followed that we're not falling behind on what we said we will do and there's improper perpetuity and all the things that are under restrictions on that property. So this person will help to do some of that work. We have been contracting for some of this work. So we would we would release bring that contract in house

and bring it in house. They they say some of the compliance is related to when these when this land changes hands over time and it's inherited. Sometimes folks who inherit land don't realize the restrictions or the nature of the easements. So

and I can speak to it. So used to we had well we didn't have as many easements either but our staff went out and I do think it's very beneficial when our staff is has the relationships with the land owners. But at a certain point we started contracting out that work. And so you you see challenges there because they don't know the staff and they're not being as proactive in having those relationships and apparently that contract has grown. At one time that was saving us money, but at this point that's costing us money. So, it's going to be uh financially beneficial to actually bring it in house and have that one stewardship coordinator. So, it'll be financially beneficial as well as the fact that then we can be more proactive and have those relationships and as that land changes whether they sell it to someone or someone inherits it. Making sure that they have a full understanding of the expectations so that it's a positive rather than having to be kind of coming in later and saying, "Oh, no. You should not have done that." making sure folks understand on the front end.

Welcome. Interfund transfer requests include replenishing funding of our community investments as requested by commissioners earlier this year. There is a $2.3 million allocation to affordable housing where we did not contribute last year. This budget request restores conservation easements to the prior annual allocation of $750,000 from $250,000 adding a half million. Early child education has a 2% escalator which would add $80,000 to that transfer. There's a match for the Anko recreation destination TDA grant which we still need to contribute $3.1 million. We've slated roughly one-third of that for transfer. We'll talk a little bit about capital in a few minutes, but we have $1.8 million of PIGO capital that would require transfer. The reappraisal is now on an accelerated cycle happening in three years as opposed to four years, which in order to fund that reappraisal, we would increase the annual contribution to the reappraisal fund by $848,000. Additionally, costs of

Thanks. You saw me reaching over. We talked a little bit about the reappraisal fund. You might recall one of the things that we want to accomplish before the next reval is that full measure in list. And so that elevated price will help to start setting that money aside to do a full measure list, which is where a contractor will look at every improved parcel in Bunkham County. And so you're nodding your head. So, but that's something that we really want to see done before the 2029 reappraisal. You said looking at each piece of improved property improved property. Yes. And and I'm remind me what the Inca recreation match is.

So we have a TDA grant. This is the anchor recreation destination part two which is largely the soccer fields we're installing at the sports park and work being done there. So, we we um requested a grant from the TDA for received the grant several years ago for $4 million, which is a 50% match. So, we need to match $4 million. So, we accepted the grant, but we we need to actually put contribute $4 million into the budget to be able to match it.

Yeah. I just didn't remember it being here rather than under recreation, so it was throwing me off a little. Yeah, it's here because it's a transfer because it it's included in the grants fund. So we we move the grant matches to the grants fund via the inner fund transfer. Thank you. So additionally we have a cost of transportation to maintain the current level of service in that program would require an additional $434,000. Is that gas cost or

is that because of inflation? largely inflationary costs, some revenues falling off. So, these requests reflect an additional $7.1 million in inter fund transfer requests for 2027. Do we have any questions about these inter fund transfers?

I just hate that that's the maintained level. I'm just hopeful. And some and sometimes what we see with inflationary costs is that people try to hold the line and then after a few years now they need to increase and they need they need to increase. So so that's demonstrates sort of the compounded inflation we're talking about. If a contractor holds the line for three or three years and all of a sudden their costs have now run up 20 25% then the ask gets bigger in a single year. Thank you.

We'll talk about debt in a few minutes in relation to capital projects, but we expect our debt budget to increase by 11.7 million this year. Debt refunding last year brought down our debt payments to $18.3 million where they would otherwise have been around $20 million. So, this includes that existing debt service as well as an increased debt service for the 2026 bond issuances for adopted county capital and go bond projects that were brought before you for public hearing last week. Questions? going to move on to personnel. Per the personnel ordinance, each year the commissioners may grant a salary increase based on a cost of living adjustment, a COLA calculation to all employees occupying a regular position and grant fund positions for which the funding source allows. During the budget planning process of each year, staff will present a COLA calculation to the board. The calculation is the two-year average annual change in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, which is the CPIW for short, published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics measured as of the December data release next proceeding the date of such presentation. So the board may grant a cola adjustment through the budget ordinance and if the board elects to do so that cola would be effective July 1st. The calculation is based on the 2-year average change and the calculation has yielded a 2.71% cola increase. So, in discussing the budget impact of personnel drivers for the general fund,

the new position request discussed earlier would total $4.4 million. The state has increased the required retirement match by the county for employees participation in the state retirement system and this increase equates to $1.4 million. Health care costs are increasing substantially as claims continue to rise and we will discuss this in detail at our next work session. This adds $5.3 million to the budget. There are roughly $638,000 of additional personnel related expenses such as an unemployment and workers compensation. Instituting the annual cost of living adjustment adds $4.8 8 million of costs to include benefits. As you know, we do not budget 100% of salary to to account for laps and we will be exploring how much of these costs we can contain by reducing the salary budget for that purpose.

And I know you said that we'll talk about this more at the next one, but I just want to make sure I understood this correctly. So with the health insurance, that's a very large increase. Yes. Plus five million there. And you said that the majority of that is because of claims. Our our claims have been quite high this year and our consultant will be here at our next at our at our next um work session. So we can talk about what's driving that. Okay.

But we're but claims are up across across the country. I mean that's happening right now. Al, our Medicaid C, our Medicaid claims have locally have also been been quite high. Okay. So, this isn't something just for Buckham County with these claims increasing. So, we've asked our consultant to look into what's driving the cost of our claims as well as what's happening regionally and nationally to have that discussion. Okay. All right. Well, they'll be at our next work session.

Yes. Yes. So what you're seeing here is as you know we're self-insured. So this is so we take we attach a cost to each to each position and then transfer that to the insurance fund and and then use that money to pay for claims. So roughly um we're looking at roughly $2,000 more per position. to contribute to the insurance fund to ensure that we're maintaining a sustainable fund balance there and that we're in comfortable position if if something should happen.

Okay.

Any other questions on personnel? I'll now have Sam Riddle join us for discussion on air quality. It looks like we do need a break. We will come back at um 10:20. We are in recess.

out of recess and welcoming Sam to talk about air quality.

Morning uh madam chair, commissioners, good to see you again. So, thinking about the FY27 budget, one of the early things that came to light, particularly concerning federal funding questions, was the local air quality program. While many counties rely on the state managed division of air quality uh at the department of environmental quality um Meckllinburgg forcythe and ourselves have locally administered air quality programs. Now, when we talk about the Asheville Bunkham Air Quality Agency, we're talking about air monitoring, obviously, but more than that, the open burning hotline, facility permitting like gas stations for stage one vapor recovery compliance and demolition and asbestous removal. And when we think about what we received compared to relying solely on the statewide air quality division, we're talking about local code enforcement support, enhanced local monitoring and community impact like what you see on the lefth hand column there and the distribution of radon kits, the sustainable brewery initiative, work with our education partners, so on. The reason we're bringing this as part of the FY27 budget discussions is the financial outlook for our independent air quality unit. Essentially, the agency relies on federal funding and fees they collect based on emissions to administer their operation. Over time, their staff and funds have decreased as federal funding remained flat and fee income decreased as more organizations in the area improved their own operations affecting air quality. That outcome for residents has meant cleaner air, but the outcome for the agency has meant depletion of their available fund balance over a number of years.

Therefore, we'll bringing uh three scenarios that you see here. First, the agency could maintain its current independent status. This would mean, depending on the air quality board's actions, immediate decreases in staffing and services to match available funds or outright closure. This could mean no direct financial impact on Bunkham County in the short term, unless closed. In the longer term, per the existing agency agreement, once the agency closes, retirey postemployment benefits would transfer to the county. Second, the agency could transition to become a division of Bunkham County. Up until this point, the agency has financially been a component unit of Bunkham County. Meaning, while the commissioners have some degree of power uh over the agency, as does the Asheville City Council, the agency's operations are largely separate from the work of the commission. This transition to the county would mean continued local programming, opportunities to redeploy or adjust staffing roles to fit the broader permitting or economic and physical development operations of the county, but also an operating budget impact of approximately 350,000 depending on federal funding, fee collections, and any future capital needs or operating needs that they might have. Lastly, the agency could close now, meaning the agency would shut down, losing local programming and compliance, and only the basic duties and not staff associated with the agency's work would move to the state division of air quality. For reference, while some functions are exclusively in Raleigh, there is a regional air quality office in Asheville that handles 18 western counties, of which Bunkham would become 19. As mentioned in the other scenario, retirey postemployment benefits would

transfer to the county. Considering those three, staff are recommending the Asheville Bunkham Air Quality Agency transition to a division of Bunkham County under the larger permits and inspections department within the economic and physical development function. This uh the timeline for this recommendation fits into the following. Notice has already been provided to the city per the agreement. The board of commissioners are currently slated for a June 2nd budget adoption and the certification EPA notice. Some of those logistics are still underway and being worked out. Tentatively, air quality as a bunkup county division could be reertified under the new organization in July. Both agency director Ashley Featherstone and Assistant County Manager Tim Love are also here to answer any questions you may have specific to the agency. Are there any questions on air quality? supportive

doing so good earlier. You really were. Thank you. Thank you. Um, as I was saying, as someone who grew up here and understand just how important this organization is and the air quality to our region, I strongly feel that we need to continue to maintain that and work on it and and so having this um organization at the local level I feel is just much more responsive than having having it at the state level. So, I'm certainly supportive of your recommendation, but if Ashley or Tim wanted to add anything, certainly happy to hear from them as well.

This recommendation come in conjunction with Ashley and the air quality board. So, this is not just my recommendation. This is um a comprehensive recommendation coming from them as well. So, any other comments? We would bake this into our budget if this is the guidance that the board wants to give us. So, we have I believe we have consensus unless anyone has changed their minds. I just want to echo Commissioner Wells and her comments. Um, and it also aligns with our commitment to environmental stewardship and having that component still a part of us, I think continues to solidify our our support of the environment here locally.

Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, additionally, we'll take a minute to discuss another major county operation, one outside the general fund, as John mentioned before, our solid waste enterprise fund. Overall, the decline you see here is almost entirely that we paid for a compactor in FY26 with debt financed revenues we received in FY25. We won't be purchasing another. So, that decrease that you see there is that 1.8 million. Salaries and benefits are increasing given the cola and benefit discussion you heard a moment ago. I will give one caveat here that is that we're still working out some solid waste expenses particularly around a potential grant opportunity and we'll discuss solid waste disposal fees at the next work session along with other revenues. Any questions on solid waste?

Thank you sir. Now we're going to move to vehicles and capital projects. I'm going to invite Jake Cloak to join us. As Jake is getting ready to get started, you heard some of this when we talked about our capital plan at our last work session, but I thought it was important enough for us to understand how we would start moving to our vehicle replacement plan as it impacts so many departments, especially our public safety folks. So, Jake, if you would just share with them how we got to where we are and what we're planning on doing going forward. Thanks.

Good morning. U again, Jake Clat, fleet manager. Uh just wanted to talk about our fleet. Um as we all know, county employees rely on their vehicles each and every day to perform their jobs um to provide these core functions that they do to um serve our county residents. We have a replacement plan that was developed using industryinformed agent mileage threshold thresholds um excuse me uh by function and by vehicle class um with the goal of having safe and reliable transportation with the lowest total cost of ownership. Vehicle classes align with vehicle types and/or function. For example, a midsize SUV that is used for emergency response has an estimated lifespan of seven years. Whereas that same vehicle if assigned to general government has a lifespan of se of 10 years, excuse me. So you'll see on this slide um year one beyond lifespan by class and above 150,000 miles 51 vehicles are identified. So for FI27 we have identified 51 vehicles um for replacement. So this is a phased approach. So for year two we are projecting 49 vehicles. Years three through 7 uh we are excuse me year two we're dropping down to 135,000 miles. And again this is based on industry informed uh we have benchmarked um the mileage thresholds uh forgive me excuse me u we're not going

u so again uh the vehicle classes they align with the vehicle types andor the function so again those emergency mergency response vehicles, they have an estimated lifespan of 7 years where those general government vehicles have a lifespan of 10 years. So that's where you see those differences. So the general government vehicles, those are those have a slightly we're able to use those a little bit longer. Those emergency vehicles, they're used in a more severe duty capacity. They're idling more. They're more used in a more extreme duty. Uh again, a phased approach. So, year one, beyond lifespan and 150,000 mi. So, we've arrived at 51 vehicles. Year two, beyond lifespan and 135,000 mi at 49 vehicles. Years three through seven, beyond lifespan, 135,000 miles for general governments and beyondund thou beyond lifespan and 100,000 miles for emergency response vehicles. Forgive me. I'm sorry.

You did a great job. Thank you. Yes, you did. I do have a quick question. So, does this include the emergency management fee? It does. It does not include ambulances. and you'll see a note on that and we'll touch on that in the next slide as well. Um that is the only exception to this is the ambulances. Thank you.

So here we look at the specific department. So the sheriff's office that is by far the greatest number of identified replacements um at 38 um by counts within our fleet. They have the largest count um within our fleet. that make up the majority of our fleet um by numbers. So on the last slide, we identified 51 um replacements with in next year's budget. Um you'll see 54 here and the difference is because of those three ambulances and that is uh that's the difference. So those three ambulances are added to that total of 51 to make 54 here. So, um, the the departments represented the sheriff's office, emergency services, permits and inspections, general services, health and human services, in the library, um, for a total estimated cost of $4.2 million. That is all inclusive of all the costs involved in getting these vehicles on the road. Sorry.

We we are doing three remounts. Don't talk about the remounts. Um I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about the remounts? Uh what specifically?

We are we are I guess we are including three remount ambulances included in this. Um we do have a plan for ambulances. Um a multi-year replacement plan for ambulances. So, for ambulances, we we're going to do remounts, which is not a full replacement. So, you purchase the chassis and you remount the box of the ambulance. Um, so that's a way to really extend the dollars. Um, you you really the box of the ambulance is uh is able to be reused. The chassis is really what gets the wear and tear. So, you purchase a new chassis, repurpose the the box of the ambulance, and um it's a way to to save save dollars there.

How many times can you remount the vehicle? Can you do it over and over again? Is there like time to that? Um to be honest, uh can I follow up on that? I I'd rather Taylor speak to that. Forgive me. Twice. Any questions for Jake? And I will say before Jake, one more slide. Okay.

Before Jake moves on, he is our first fleet manager. So he has come and brought a level of professionalism to what we do when it comes to these vehicles. So I do want to give you kudos. And the reason you're here is I want to thank you in public for the what you've done so far to get our fleet where it needs to be. So thank you. Thank you, Miss Per. Thank you for noting that. And this is incredible work um for your first year to know that we have a vehicle replacement plan in place. We are really grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry I stumbled up at the beginning. It's okay. Getting back on track. We're doing great.

Um so for the last slide I've got so we have some new vehicles. So each and every year departments request new vehicles as well. Um departments requested new vehicles as part of this year's budget process as well. Um, as part of that process, we have a cross- departmental team that evaluates these new vehicle requests. Um, that cross-dep departmental team, which is referred to as the vehicle evaluation team, evaluated these requests. Um, that has been whittleled down to 19 vehicles that are recommended as uh to be included as part of the budget at a cost of 762,000. And those are um 10 of those 19 are related to new positions as you'll see on the slide. Um those are contingent on those new positions. Nine of the 19 are related to health and human services uh motorpool and those uh are recommended as uh they will reduce employee reimbursements. They also will increase safety and enhance our sustainability efforts. Um those have also been evaluated by our um um forgive me the vehicle.

Yes. SNI um team. So I'd be happy to answer any questions if anyone has any. I have a question.

Why do we lease some and pay some debt or pay go with it? Great question. Um, we lease for the motorpool. Um, those are due to the motorpool aspect. Uh, those are I guess those have multiple drivers and those have I guess children in the car and multiple people. So, we're really we want those to be very reliable vehicles. They go out of town. um they have, I guess, really the the aspect of having the multiple drivers and the the children in the car. So, we want those to be very reliable going out of town.

When we we started the leasing model just a couple years ago, um part of the issue for us had been supply chains. So, that it was also difficult to purchase vehicles because it took so long to find them. And when we go with a leasing partner, they have a little more accessibility to purchasing and more purchasing power because they're a larger organization. So we start exploring that model. We're still we're still in the phase of evaluating how that's working. It looks like it's cheaper. It that is the one year cost.

That's the oneear cost for those. So So the leasing costs recur. But I think if I'm remembering correctly, staff did run some numbers at the time when we were considering this and felt like that it would be the the best fiscal decision as well. And and again, like Jake said, it's the sort of vehicle our permits inspections team is out off road on dirty sites. That's that's not the vehicle you want to lease. And and again, we we started this model and then the storm happened. So, we only had a couple of the leases in hand. So, we're still evaluating that process now.

Question. I can't get Cassidy out of my mind. My grandfather was a Well, my grandfather was a mechanic. So, I'm wondering, are you welding the box onto the truck or like what do you mean whenever you said that? So the chassis is really like the wheels and the tires and the frame of the vehicle. So the motor, the wheels, tires, frame, the box would be really the what transports the patient. So that's going to be bolted to the frame. Okay. Um and then yeah, the engine, the frame, the wheels, and the tires. That's the new portion. Sometimes you just got to chase the rabbit. Thank you.

Yes. You're welcome. Just Thanks everyone. Thank you Jackie. Appreciate it. We're moving on to debt project requests evaluated by the capital review team. These include the 40 McCormick Place EMS space to renovate the former general services facility into a downtown EMS space. 94 Cox Avenue structural repairs is a project to address structural and moisture intrusion issues at that facility once it is vacant for that is the former tax office down Cox Avenue. A design of a new EOC and storage facility is to design a facility to house some county storage, a county emergency operations center and offices for emergency services administrative staff. Builtmore Avenue Community Health Center repairs are to fund repairs at the 257-277-283 Builtmore Avenue facility that is currently leased to Western North Carolina Community Health Services. Courtroom renovations are to fund a renovation to courtroom 4C at the county courthouse, which is used for juvenile court. Detention Center facility controls system upgrade is for the replacement of outdated HVAC controls at the detention center which is necessary to maintain state standards for heating and cooling of the facility. This project has been planned for several years and the work is now ready to be started. The pack library elevator upgrade is to replace outdated elevator components and to bring the elevator up to performance standards.

The EMS West Regional Base is construction is to fund the next phase of that project at 359 Bvard Road. The South Bunkham Library renovation repair project is to perform repair tasks identified in the facility assessment such as lighting replacement, interior upgrades and renovations, and electrical repairs. The new parks and indoor facil recreation facility is designed to for potential parks office and indoor recreation facility that may also function as an emergency shelter at Bulham County Sports Park. The Swanoa Library and Government Complex for Land and Design is to fund land acquisition as well as design for 20,000 square foot facility in East Bunkham to replace the existing Swano Library along with providing space for other Bunkham County services. Are there questions about these projects?

I appreciate how you've added the ongoing annual costs to the side there, too. That's a really helpful Yes, I think it's important we note that capital projects come with associated ongoing costs. I if we um when we when we launch a new EMS space, sometimes that will come with new trucks and new staff. So th those are ongoing costs that we have to think about. Sometimes you actually are saving dollars with certain repairs. We'll talk we'll talk about how this debt load of $ 38.3 million will impact the county in a moment. The following pro projects are lower cost projects which generally do not enhance the value of assets for which we would not want to issue debt. The 40 Cox Avenue security enhancements project is to modify the layout of this HHS facility paired with a detection system in order to provide improved access and security for county staff and clients in the building. 49 Mount Carmel Road renovation repair is to perform repair tasks identified in our facility assessment such as HVAC upgrades, lighting replacement, and sewer piping repairs. The community center assessment repair project is to perform tasks identified for the Sandy Mush community center. The detention center body scanner replacement is to replace the body scanner at the county detention center as it is out of date. The detention center facility assessment project is to replace the kitchen kitchen refrigeration system as the current system requires consistent repairs. This system provides all the refrigeration needs at the facility and

provides approximately 40,000 meals a month to inmates and staff. The Glenbridge River Park boat launch replacement is for the construction of an ADA accessible boat launch at the Glenbridge River Park and design has already been provided at no cost by North Carolina Fish and Wildlife. The interchange interior conversion project is to convert a portion of the first floor of the interchange building to an IT equipment receiving space in order to receive stage and deploy equipment efficiently. So, as we discussed earlier, these items would be a $1.8 million transfer from the general fund to pay these projects in the capital fund if these requests were approved. Any questions about these items? Okay, this graph should look familiar to you. This represents the cost of capital to the general fund over the next seven years. And we have been coming back to this graph a few times. As we discussed earlier, this year's debt payment is $18.3 million. In the dark blue, you see the already committed debt payments that we need to make over the next seven years. And you see that debt load begins to shrink year-over-year. Newly issued debt was presented by our CFO last week, includes 2022 general obligation bond projects as well as some prior year approved capital projects. So that when we move forward with that debt this year, you see the light blue, which will increase this year's debt payment to $30.1 million. Are there questions about this debt, this cost?

adding the projects you saw earlier. In the purple is the addition of PIGO dollars to support the PIGO projects we just presented. In the orange, you see vehicle debt related to the vehicles that we present to you earlier. This is for the recommended replacement new vehicles that we recommend debt for. And the yellow represents how we will see additional debt for the slate of debt projects, the $38.3 million of projects earlier. Now, this is just the next several years. This is not the life of that those entire debt projects. Are there questions about the costs of capital based on the recommended capital projects and vehicles for 2027? Is there a reason why on official year 2027 the pay go is there? However, 2028 doesn't have it.

So, so we decide PO pay projects in the given year. So in fiscal year 28 when we receive requests and we evaluate those and we decide which projects are going to be slave for debt or payo we would bring those in a given year. So what we're showing you today is if the requests that are brought before us today in terms of PGO capital vehicles and the debt projects here what that happens to the debt load over time. Earlier in January we showed you other scenarios that included another round of go bonds and what the cost of capital for is for the entire seven-year CIP. But this is really just to show you what the decisions we would make for this year's budget, how this impacts us over the next several years.

Okay. So, is the pay go paid off in this year and therefore when payo simply means a cash payment pay out. All right. Yes. Just another word for cash. Thank you. So, yes, those item the payo items would be paid for when the work is completed.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. I'd like to comment you on what you've done. I think, you know, we sometimes complain about how expensive things are and where we are, but when you look at our debt versus the size of the county and what we're spending and what we need to spend, it's great. We're doing a good job of managing it. when you look out over the 33 and I hope that the public appreciates what the staff is really doing here and the commissioners and what we're approving because you know it could be a lot worse and especially when you look at what we've gone through with Helen and if we hadn't done the work beforehand where would we be now so let's not forget that

thank you sir The following requests for information technology governance committee have been made. These represent new or replacement software. We have AI for public records and redaction. This is AI assisted tools to streamline identification, review and redaction of emails and other records when we receive those requests. 911 has asked for community feedback platform that allows telecommunicators to receive feedback about their call performance. A county payment processor is a migration of our the Forte payment system to pay it which um which finance has decide has decided is a more useful system. It's used by the state for and other counties as well. It's simply our payment processor for credit card payments. Legal and risk has asked for an enterprise risk management module. This is uh another module of their existing risk management software which would include a migration to the greenbook framework for internal controls. General services has a ticketing system for their work orders and that is called facility dude. has not been upgraded for some time. So, they've asked for an upgrade of that so that they no longer have to use paperwork orders. And the field training tracker is for emergency medical services-based infield training. So that instead of EMS training officers carrying around clipboards to decide which paramedics have been trained on on this or that, they can actually have a system that catalogs that. So these total projects in the first

year total $227,000 and are reflected in the earlier IT budget requests that you saw earlier. I'm curious first I'm sorry you just said first year well software has recurring costs so yes um I I do not believe any of these is a one-time cost. So yes, when we adopt new software, there are implementation costs in the first year and then recurring licensing costs year-over-year. It'd be helpful just like you were doing with some of the others where you were showing the ongoing costs. That would be helpful then also with the IT.

Yes, I would like to build this out a little more and and we can we can do that. Some of the sometimes we don't know what the particular software solution will be. We know that we need to do something and we need a software, but it may take us into the year to decide what that software is and and and then figure out how much it cost year over year. I'm curious about the AI for public records and redaction. Is that intended to expedite public records requests and to alleviate some of that from our CAPE team so that they could do other work? That's the purpose of that of that software. That's the idea. That's the idea. Yeah.

From my understanding, it's really cumbersome to to do that and to make sure the redactions are there. So, knowing there's a way to a lot of that work is right now being done manually in terms of figuring out what emails are not and uh we really need some help because the requests continue to get larger and uh we we just don't have enough time in the day to review emails. So and to make sure that any sensitive information is removed. That's this is interesting to see. That's why I said it's the idea because we still have to put eyes on it. AI can it can make mistakes,

right? But they can shrink the volume for us. But then the manual part will come in. But right now it is all manual. So if you ask for email for the last three or four years, every email must be looked at by Kurt. Quite honestly, it is Kurt that is sitting there and looking at every single email. So hopefully if you ask for that and you give us keywords, we can then shrink that scope and then he can just look at it after that. So that is the idea. Now we have to go shopping to find a solution, right? What it would actually cost.

Any other questions about it problems? So in summary, you see that these requests comprise a 15% increase over the fiscal year 2026 amended budget. We continue to work through requests and when we have a revenue discussion our next work sess session, we'll be able to more clearly speak to those items that can move forward. We would like to talk about guidance for community investments or any other requests reviewed today. To restore these particular investments to prior funding levels or to increases requested would result in $4 million additional budget. You received some correspondence from our strategic partnerships director, Rachel Sawyer, earlier this month about the number of grant applications received for funding across the very the wide spectrum of different different areas. So in order for the departments that are administering these programs to begin their process on awards, we'll need to understand the recommended funding levels. So, is this a list of all of the community investments that were cut last year?

This is a list of the community investments. The only one up here is not that's not up here is HCCBG. That's in the uh that's in HHS's budget. So this this is the this is what was funded in current year versus the request we're receiving to move forward next year. And does the strategic partnership grants at one time we had wreck grants as well and did you Yes. Did you cut Did you just Was the funding for the WCK grants now added to the strategic partnership grants or

um Yes, the rec the rec grants are the strategic partnership grants are they widen their focus. So recreation grants are Did the funding take both of those buckets? I believe or is that that just wasn't strategic partnerships just 1 million? It was really close. It was about 900,000. and change. So, okay. And there in the email that she sent, there's there's specific detail on each of the uh on each of the grant funding.

That's a great question. I believe the strategic partnership grant was rounded off a million to include that, but I would have to go back. It used to be about 900 and something mil 100,000 and then that was a 100,000 by itself. So I think we rounded it off but we can make sure that it's inclusive and gives you the appropriate number. Thank you. And then with the arts grant that looks good. I think that increases it up to that per capita because I know when we started it at one time it we based it on the per capita and then obviously the population has grown and it hadn't been being adjusted each year but it looks like you've got it to where now that's

and so if you recall at our last meeting the comment was made that we want to refit this to what we used to do and any of those in increases. So that is what this is. you have the option to say we keep it at the 130 or we go ahead and give it the extra 12 which is the 50 cent per capita. Same thing with early childhood. Early childhood had a built-in 2% escalator. Um I would say that I I would love to have a conversation with early childhood because there is some funds that's been left over from last year that wasn't spent. Um if we can reprogram that instead of growing it by that 0.1,000 that would help um as we start to balance our budget because Martin and Al forget who else

and Jennifer with on that early childhood you you only spent let's say 400 4 million was the number you spent 3.8 you have 200,000 left over that was not allocated this year and I would say instead of growing it to the 4.1 you put that 200 back in play and instead of growing it by that percent and you have still have your 400.1 but it would not be all new money you would use the 200,000 that's been left over from current year as a carry forward. Happy to chat if you don't mind just we're right in the middle of the grant process so all kinds of things to talk about. Correct. So you'll still have $4 million, but it won't be new allocation from Mon County general fund. It would be 200 plus 3.8 to get you back to the 4 million.

You mean 41? Yeah, that's our fund account. That's your fund balance. Correct. That's our fund balance. Yeah. So go ahead and utilize your fund balance is what I would say as we balance that budget. But we can absolutely talk to the committee. I can't believe you said that out loud. Well, go ahead and utilize, right? Utilize the fund balance. Never mind. You give me PTSD. So utilize your fund balance as a set aside. It is not your general fund. No, I know. You have the set aside pot of money. And I'm not sure why we would sit and grow that versus redeploy it. Ideally, fund balance would live in the general. Yes. Not in all these. I look forward to our next meeting with schools. Yes.

Explain something to me. Education support. Maybe I slept that. What is that and why is it in education? So, that's a series that's a series of contracts as well as the special projects. Um, there's $80,000 of special projects that we give the schools for smaller projects that don't meet the definition of capital or don't get to the table for their school capital commission. That was started several years ago by the commission. That also includes the Irwin Career Academy and the Kayla program which is a collaboration with City around for years. Yeah.

And so those are the items that are sitting in education support now. That 25,000 is $25,000 additional is a request to fund Asheville Museum of Science directly to restore which which fell off over the last couple years. We had been funding it but it it ended up getting cut this year. We we cut it during the um when we did did the Helen reductions. So it has not been funded for the last two years. Correct. It was it wasn't drawn down. They did not draw down the revenue in the the last year that we funded it. So

it was a cut that we put in place because of hilling reductions. Okay. And because it hadn't been utilized. Correct. Since it wasn't utilized, we cut it.

So when when in our last meeting when we talked about maybe it's in our retreat when we talked about starting back from what we used to fund, that is why we're here today. So that 9.1 is now in the budget, but it represents four million above what was there before. So we just as we start to go to the committees to fund affordable housing, all the applications that came in for that, the applications that came in for early childhood and the requests from um education support and the arts council, we want to make sure we understand how much money we have to then give the that committee guidance where they can start. Looking for some feedback from you guys to see if you 100% the 4.4 million is in or if you want to have some conversations with me so we can then give guidance to staff and the communities.

Conversations with you. I think conversations seem to be the consensus. I'm sorry. What was the question? conversations seem to be the consensus about what to we're don't have to decide today but I would love within the next week to get guidance so we can then in turn I give guidance to staff in the committee of how much money they have to allocate to the grants that did come

my colleagues on affordable housing are not able to join us today but I'm going to tell you all as you saw last last Tuesday we have had a significant amount of applications ations and a lot of organizations have spent a lot of time putting their grant proposals together for us and at this point I will say to you all I'm going to advocate that for now we do keep that 2.3 because we also have the decision as to what to do with the Cox Avenue um and could potentially be if we allocate all of that to Cox that all of those organizations that have worked really hard on their proposals wi without this could potentially not receive funding. Yeah,

I know how much work goes into those grant proposals and that's asking a lot of people to do a lot of work for potentially no return on that. Yeah. I mean, I feel like these were community investments that we've been making. I mean, I understand that we had to make hard decisions with the lean, but I am supportive of us having this back in the budget because we made those hard decisions in. But I think this is important funding. Thank you, Commissioner Wells. Any other thoughts or comments at the moment? Um, and Commissioner, you're on all of them, right? To keep it in there. Thank you. Thank you. So, we don't have to have a conversation like that. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

And thanks to our early childhood folks for willing us to have a conversation about that remaining remaining balance as well. Not fund balance, the remaining balance, unallocated dollars. Let's say that that's what I call it. But it is a separate fund that they've set aside. So it is growing a fund balance in that fund that can be redeployed. So 4.1 would be the number. But my question for you is could we use that fund balance to get to 4.1 and not add a new number? That that the question I will have for you and you all to think about. That's fair. All right. Thanks commissioners.

So are there any questions or do we have any other thoughts about requests? anything that we're that we have strong feelings on. So before we move on, I've got Terry's Commissioner Wells. So I would love to hear from you guys where you land on that list if we can get that decision by next week. That way we can move the committee forward. Next week. Okay. Yes, sir. I'm going to make a note to myself, but would you mind sending us an email of that and any other questions that may come up afterwards that you want direct feedback from us on? Absolutely. If it's in my inbox, I promise I'll respond. No worries. Thank you. And then confirmation is Oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner. I'm fine with where we are now.

Okay. You're fine with the first pass, right? I sure am. Okay. I'm fine with the first pass with noted the question about the recreation grants and how much did get rolled into strategic partnerships. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, any other thoughts on requests? Any anything we're feeling strongly about? An any other points to weigh in on what you've seen?

You know, I have some thoughts on the new positions, which I understand what we're doing, but my thought is from the other side of this. you know, we're in uh AI now and it's a new environment, but as we look at the new positions, could we find out what changes we've made with existing uh positions because some we've made to our benefit? A good example of that, we're going to contract out the U internal audit procedure. Now, that is sure we're paying for the contract, but that's doing away with uh FTE or potential three the way we had it and would be paying for the benefits and all. Well, it would be good to see how we're balancing all this out. Uh because, you know, it's not always what we see. We're adding all these positions. But on the other side of that, it could be others it's changing or some we're doing away with.

We'll take a look at that and get back to you. So, I do want to clarify on the internal audit, this a three-year contract, right? But the FTE number is still in in our plan because intended that that contract would come back in house eventually. So this the contract for internal audit right now it's envisioned that we would get a baseline set and they would help us to build that internal audit department by giving us the the um risk assessment giving us the template for our audits and then hopefully we can bring that back in house in the long term.

But if it works wouldn't it be to our advantage to leave it outside? Almost every that we do when we take it out, we continue we continue to assess and make sure what is that break even point. We're looking for that break even point continuously. One of the positions you see in here was for that inhome aid because we've had a contract in years past and we're to the point where that vendor is telling us they can no longer provide it effectively. So now we're looking at bringing it back in house and we have to stand up a staff, get them trained so we can then take that on. So there is always a break even point that we're we are looking at to make sure we make the best decision for our county and for our residents as we move forward. Several of the positions in here. We are trying to look at the volume of work that is coming in, look at some of the state mandates that they have on us and try to make sure we're meeting the state mandate for the position. So we can take a look and see if there's offsets, but the positions that we have put forward so far, there were no offsets for those positions. I'm not sure if I answered your question, but we would take a look. We would take a look and show you. We had over a hundred requests. Some of those we said, "No, we're not going to do these. Here's the ones that we are considering because of the workload and because of the offsets. Are there no possible contracted services that we can do to do those positions?" But we'll get you a more detailed answer of why inhouse versus outouse out source. Okay, on to our next steps. On April 16th, we will have a full agenda with the fiscal year 2027 revenue discussion. We'll have a discussion health care costs and bring in our consultant for more information. We will highlight changes on the fee schedule

which will include our solid waste disposal fees. Additionally, we will hear from Asheville City Schools on their requested supplemental tax rate and AVTech on their operating budget request. We will not hear from schools on an operating BCS

from BCS as we have slated the funding with the funding agreement. So said another way, BCS and ACS will not present on their um local current expense and their operating budget. The only request you would hear from ACS is on the supplemental tax and what that rate they would request that rate to be, but they would not be presenting on their local current expense or their local budget. On April 28th, we will have our last work session. We will discuss fire district budgeting. We'll provide a year-end projection for fiscal year 26. We'll discuss budget changes made up to that point. Have information on community investment grant awards and HR will present on the classification and compensation plan. The following week at our regularly scheduled meeting on May 5th, we will recommend a budget with a recommended tax rate or tax rates. And then two weeks later, we will hold a public hearing and move to adopt the budget on June 2nd. Any questions?

Is there anything else that you want us to bring to you out any of our next work sessions? Any questions or comments that you need to make sure we do the research on and bring back to you? Not other than what we've already suggested. Other questions come up, send those to Averil and John so it can be prepared for the 16th. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, John, Averil, and all the staff who have worked really hard on getting us to this point. We appreciate it. Before we adjourn our meeting this morning, it um has been brought to my attention that we lost a member of our Bunkham County family this morning unexpectedly. And before we adjurnn, I would like to take a moment of silence to recognize a lost life in our on our B County team. Thank you. All right. Without any other discussion, we will adjourn our budget work session.