Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. It is Monday at 9 a.m. on the 27th day of July 2026. And we're here for this special call meeting for our budget workshops. that were postponed due to the flood. So Corinne, I'll hand it over to you to kind of remind us where we left off and kind of guide us through today's, what decisions we're going to make today.

So if I could first, Judge and Commissioner, this is just a schedule. I know I emailed it, but just in case. Thank you. It's a schedule for the next, or for this week. And I did have a couple, I apologize. I had, I copied and pasted and pasted. So the original one had Precinct 2 Commissioner on both and Commissioner Trach and I did update that to change it. So today is really just to go over salary increases and to revisit the list that Juanita passed out of the all department heads who requested new hires. I do have something that I can pass out that we kind of quickly, that's what Clint was bringing me So when we get ready to talk about, do you need to take care of that first?

No, that's a, yep, actually. Okay. Actually, I will. Okay. We'll go through the full agenda.

Okay, sure.

We'll do roll quick. Commissioner McCall.

Present.

Commissioner Weijian.

Present.

Commissioner Catman. Here. Commissioner Carpenter. Here. And on present, we have a form of five, all five members of the court. Sharon Barter, which you're here to make a public comment. So you're up.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Morning. I've never done this before, so this is interesting. I'm going to say I'm here today to share my perspective regarding the addition of an attorney in the general counsel's office and the potential benefit it will have. That office wears a lot of hats and is responsible for the major legal matters, contract reviews, day-to-day business, and last-minute issues that arise. Departments and commissioners bring a wide range of matters to them for review and guidance. Given the time constraints and complexity of these matters, it may not be sustainable for just one attorney to continue meeting all of the legal needs as effectively as possible as they are stretched very thin. The general counsel serves as legal counsel for the commissioner's court. The work they do, especially proactive and preventative legal reviews for our departments, ultimately impacts the court. I believe it's important we view this office as a resource that supports both departments and commissioner needs. There are times when unexpected urgent matters arise or a major legal issue requires priority attention. When that happens, regular county business can naturally experience a bottleneck. If delays occurred, it is often the result of competing priorities and the volume of work being handled, not a reflection of the dedication or effort of that office. Having two attorneys working on behalf of the court and departments would provide additional capacity to manage those situations. It would help ensure that when emergencies or major priorities arise, we still have resources necessary to keep day-to-day operations moving forward efficiently. I believe we should view this not simply as just an added expense, but as an investment in operational efficiency and long-term capacity. Our county is growing rapidly, and the demands placed on that office will likely continue to increase over time. Adding a second attorney would help provide the support needed to manage that growth and the support for all the departments, while also reducing risk of burnout and ensuring continued service for the entire county.

Thank you. That's our only public comment, and now I'll hand it over for our consideration and action and our fourth session of the F2I 27 workshop. Before I hand it over, I told Clint the other day we had our communication board meeting, and the committee agreed on... Some budget changes and the proposed share for Kendall County is $1,113,348 for the new year. And I think he updated the budget with that figure. Would you repeat that number? $1,113,348. And that's adding several new positions to the 911 system. Bernie's making some upgrades and this will better serve the community. And we also agreed to a future split where instead of us paying 41% of the share or 42% of the share, Bernie doing 41%, it's going to be a 40-40-20 split with Bernie in Kendall County paying 40 and Fair Oaks picking up 20. And so Those were some of the discussions had in our last board meeting, but I gave Clint that figure after the meeting, and I think he incorporated it.

You did, and if I can, Judge, I had a voicemail from Sheriff Boxer that said the total Kendall County shared, and this came in on, I believe, Friday, set $893,663. Okay, that was...

you'll need to check with Steve on that because that's the number if we didn't add any new, um, new positions. So unless something happened after the meeting, uh, that was the old, that was the old figures, but I believe it's the 1 million figure. So just if you can clarify that'll it's a $300,000 difference.

Sure. Okay. Um, can I ask real quick what, what, um, what, uh,

That is Department 10-580, communications, and that would be on page 63. And your figure, Judge, exactly is $1,113,348. So I will follow up.

Yeah, because that figure includes the three new dispatchers, one on each shift. And the figure that the sheriff gave you includes no new additions. And we agreed at the meeting unless they're not putting into place until next year.

Okay. What was the split before 40-40-20?

Is that the same? No, it's 42 for Kendall, 41 for Bernie, 17 for Fair Oaks. And now it's 40-40-20. In FY28, it's going to be 40-40-20. Okay. We're just giving them a year to kind of phase that in.

FY28? Yeah.

Okay.

So just to go over really quick, not really a budget overview, but just kind of where you are based on any changes that you've made to date. Currently, the court would need about $2.5 million of fund balance. to help support this budget. Your current fund balance as of 10-1 was $23,015,000. Yes, $23,015,000. you do have $4 million budgeted of fund balance currently to move to the capital projects fund. So what that would mean, it would reduce your current year's fund balance at 930 to 19 million, 15,000, if we needed to move, if we used all 4 million. I do not anticipate you needing all 4 million because that would mean every dollar was spent in the expenditures and every dollar was brought in in revenue. And right now your revenue is exceeding, which it should. Your revenue should exceed your fund balance currently because you have collected the majority of your property taxes and other things. I don't think you'll need all $4 million. I do think you're looking at $2.5 to $3 million you would need to use. So with that said, you're probably looking at around a $20 at the end of this year. My estimate would be $20 to $21 million in fund balance currently. That's without anything unexpected happening that I don't know about.

Can you explain of the, you said the $2.4 million-ish is fund balance needed to support what we've done so far? Does that include that building that was set, the $2 million for the building? So on the very first building, yes. New purchase.

So the very first day that we had budget, I gave you guys this list, and it has all the capital expenditures. It says FY27 capital expenditures and one-time expenditures. So... Originally, you had, this was $4.9 million, and what you gave me to put in here initially would have been about $2.9 million. However, we, y'all have added some things, but we took out the $600,000 last round for the Topper Wine update, so that reduced it. But But within that $2.5 million that you would need currently right now without any additionals or anything coming out, that is the $2 million for potential real estate acquisition. That's additional $500,000 to HEERF Road projects. That is the $247,000 for the district clerks projects. indexing. That's the ambulance, the IT equipment of over $300,000, the $300,000 in the space needs study. That's the $100,000 upgrade to the video system at the jail.

And can I comment quick? I did get paperwork. We did get approved for the ambulance grant. Oh, good. So we will be getting revenue back in for So you can offset that. So it'll be offset.

So yes, that would become a revenue source. So that would take that two and a half that you're off. This is all before property taxes. And I do have James Hudson coming on Thursday to discuss. And hopefully he has some information now since it is the 27th and the appraisal district's required to certify by the tax code. That statute requires them to certify to the taxing entities by the 25th. So he should have those numbers.

So remind me again why another half million is in for Herfessor, because I have some news on that, actually.

So in the original request, I think you had requested like a million dollars, and I think he had requested some. But because we already had some budgeted in the Capital Projects Fund, during round one, I have a checkmark that y'all are okay with adding $500,000 to the Capital Projects Fund to help support the project.

Yeah, because if we wanted to help with engineering study or... Well, the latest is TxDOT is going to cover the engineering study.

They are? Mm-hmm. TxDOT's going to cover that 100%, so I don't think we need that.

Okay. Actually, my intent in putting that in there was for transportation in general. If it needs to be the Herff Road, then it needs to be the Herff Road. But if you go out and drive the county roads, you'll find that numerous county roads that we're going to have to start rebuilding. And if we don't start putting some money back to rebuild some of these roads, we're going to be way far. And half a million is a drop in the bucket, but it's something.

Okay, so then I agree. Let's relabel that, though.

We can still move it into the county projects fund, but it would just be...

It's been titled something, roads and transportation, maybe something like that, and that way it's just a general fund.

Repair and maintenance, capital, I mean, what? Because it's not really transportation. It's actually infrastructure and roads. It's infrastructure.

Okay, perfect. What numbers are you using for projections since you haven't heard an update on accesses?

So James and I have been speaking – on and off during this process, and he met with the judge maybe back in May. For just the property tax, the current property tax, we plugged in a little more than $2 million. We've already added $2 million to the property tax. Now, when James comes to talk to you, based on whatever he has from the appraisal district, that number – could increase, like we could collect more. And this was based on the judge's original conversation with James about wanting to try to reduce the tax rate. I believe you said half cent. Is that what you told him?

I told him we were shooting for a half cent reduction and to give a shoot me like what he thought was realistic of what we were going to bring in. And so he gave Corinna some initial figures and then Corinna based on her historic experience with this budget kind of used her guesstimates. And so that's what you have before you is what we think it's pretty darn close to what we should be getting.

And I'll be honest, I haven't redone the rest of the revenue, like the fines and the fees and all that that goes through the court. I typically look back at that after like June. And so we're working on right now, my June monthly financial report. And that's, that means that Cheryl's receded everything for June. And now we go in and we audit all that to look at that. So I should have some updated figures on everything else, but the property tax is the driving force behind general fund up, you know, of a, of a close to $60 million, um, Fund $37.5 million just comes from current property taxes. So it is the driving force of that.

You might have a couple hundred thousand dollars either way, right?

And it could be more because the last time James and I talked, numbers were looking good. But also sometimes what that means is that you are forced to reduce the tax rate automatically. You know, just depends on what those numbers are. And so I haven't seen anything from the appraisal district that does go to your tax assessor collector. Sometimes they send it to the county judge, but I'm hoping that James did receive something or he, he would get it today because they should have certified on the 25th. So, but he will be coming in on Thursday afternoon and we can look back at revenue at that time.

Could we go through this capital list? Okay. So I do see there's another Herp Esser engineering study that 50,000 can go because Texas is going to do the study. We had two HEERFs. We had the 500.

Yeah, 500,000 was to help with the project.

Yeah, so that 50 is not. The 50,000 was for. Engineering study and TxDOT's doing that. Okay. So that definitely can go.

Although we may need some for 46 West. We may need to hold some of that for 46 West. They're saying we have to cover 11% of the Jersey barriers. So what's that? So it's about 67, I believe.

So on Thursday, we have some time to go to go over. any additional stuff. So if there's something that somebody needs to get before then we can revisit this whole list on Thursday, if that's easier. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to take some?

Yeah. How about that? Let's just focus. Let's knock out the employees today and I'll give you time to coordinate any final things on these capital improvements and we'll just knock them out Thursday.

We can go through this whole list again and add or take out whatever it is that y'all. Yeah.

Cause now that we've gotten this increase on the comm, you know, that's another 267,000.

And I will have a good, answer on that, uh, for the communications as well. So then, um, I know we're, we are going to discuss, um, Juanita passed out a list of all the department heads who had requested new employees or, um, or changes. And so we did go through some of that. And, but what I, what I, um, Clint was able to print something for me and I was able to print. So, um, In the back of the budget book, when we adopt the budget, I do put this as it stands. That's in the budget book, so it's online. However, we don't update it because it's in the adopted list. We don't update that. But what we did is print this as of June. So this list of where people stand on the scale is as of June, any changes the court had. The actual salaries include the 4% that last time y'all said y'all were going to do to all the scales. So this is the scale shows with what would be the October 1st salaries. And then the list show where people currently are as of any changes.

And so that is the regular employee scale and list.

That's the law enforcement scale and list. And that is the elected officials scale and list. And the scale does show, like I said, 4%. increase from current FY26, and then the list where employees land on the scale are up to date, hopefully, through any changes that y'all made in June.

Okay, so this is really as of October 1st.

The scale would be, and it should say it at the bottom, the scale would be as of October 1st. Yes, it does. That includes the 4% that we had previously discussed. So that's just to help everybody as you're going through today discussing employees. And then if we could go to this list that Juanita passed out originally. I marked down some things that we were going to come back to talk about. but we can talk about all of it again if we need to. But under Department 402, which is the first department, we're going to talk about the two permit coordinators. Under Department 403, County Clerk, we were going to talk about the addition of a Deputy Clerk. under Department 470, the CDA. We were going to discuss the moving the SB 22 funds and the general fund covering the ACDA's position that SB 22 is so that the CDA can use those funds as she needs in her office. We were going to discuss the grant specialist. However, I think that's off the table because now we're going to hire a grant manager and not a law enforcement grant specialist, so we don't need to discuss that. And in Department 473, we were going to discuss additional attorney and general counsel. The sheriff's office, we were going to discuss an IT specialist. And that's the only thing that I had that we were going to discuss as far as new hires. Oh.

We got road and bridge, too.

Well, road and bridge, y'all said yes to everything. Except for the first one, add a fleet mechanic one. Y'all said no to. Everything else is a check.

So the fleet mechanic two is approved? Yes.

Nothing's totally improved. This is just what y'all said. We had said yes to the mechanic. Y'all said yes to what I brought up is what's on this list.

That's not been finalized.

That has not been a no or a yes. It was an additional discussion as far as that. There are some additional questions. raised request. So we have, we have for the fire marshal emergency management as well as in the CDA.

Well, I just want to make sure Rosenbridge, are you here for anything in particular or that you'd want addressed? That's not been addressed.

Okay.

So it sounds like tentatively the fleet mechanic two is through fleet mechanic. One is, um, But everything else seems to be OK. So we're not going to unless the court wants to speak with Donnell.

I mean, we hired a whole nother group, which means a lot of vehicles.

And so we're all good with that.

And I'm good with fleet mechanic too.

Okay. So I just want to make sure so we don't, so if he's got to go, he can go when, when he wants. So you're good down now. Okay. All right. Let's knock out some easy ones so we can just kind of move on and pick and choose where you want to go here. Start from the top.

Sure. So the first would be the create two permit coordinators in the County engineer's office. And I, and, In that round, y'all had asked Mary Ellen to come back with some information and I think maybe some job descriptions or something. So I believe she has that. And this is permit coordinator.

Yes. Draft job description, open to discussion, changes.

Thank you.

Um, so as we had talked about last time, um, this position is similar or is, uh, in between the front office and the project manager's office, it would have lower level technical review, um, definitely pushing things between departments, making sure when we have a commercial development permit, pushing those things that need to be to the fire marshal's office, or when we're coordinating with the city of Bernie, that that coordination is happening. Um, taking, you know, doing review of development permits when we do have more complicated permits that have additional internal review or consultant review, such as a traffic impact study or groundwater study, coordinating with those entities, keeping the process moving, and then also assisting with the notice of violations. I think Bringing people into compliance is a lot easier when you are in touch with them on a regular basis and keeping good coordination and communication with them. And that person in this position would also assist with that regular communication, trying to prevent having to escalate a violation. Let's bring somebody into compliance and working towards that. So this job description reflects that. I think we had also talked about last time that part of this is level of service. I know there's a lot of requests for people and individuals in the county, and you guys have tough decisions to make. I believe our office needs this position, but if the court has to make tough decisions, it's going to be a level of service that our office can't continue to maintain that we have right now. Permit reviews for development that may take you know, one to two weeks right now, maybe three or four weeks. Particularly right now, I know we're not always in a flood situation and response situation, but most people in the office right now are on response to flood situation and are barely touching, you know, the things that have deadlines and requirements. So that won't always be the case, but that's an additional factor right now. I did pool our comp time this morning In my office, not counting the three engineers, our office has 250 hours of comp time. With the exception of Wesley, who's been here a long time, no one in my office is here for, let's see, less than two years. Toby's probably the longest one that's not exempt. And we have some people that are in their second month. And pretty much everybody has comp time on the books. So, like I said, that doesn't include the three engineers in the office. Do you have any questions on the job description or about the duties the individual would do?

Could you just go over all your – how many position requests does she have besides the permit? Can you just go over collectively all the requests that you have for your office so we can just – Make a decision all at once.

Yes. So in the previous round, there was an administrative assistant three. And I had said at the time that that could either be something that's in Brady's office or in ours. I do have you guys had asked for some a split of duties. I do have that. Let me grab that.

Did we give an initial decision on that?

Y'all said yes during round one, and then you said yes to reclassifying her compliance inspector one and two.

I think it's administration assistant two. You said three?

That's up to the court. I think Commissioner McCall was just asking, was it administrative two or three? My recollection from when we met was it would depend on the job duties you had asked us to get with our office to get with Brady's office. and put together how we might be able to split the duties, what kind of things he needed, what kind of things we needed, and based off of that, put it at an administrative three, but that's obviously, you know, at court's direction, so.

Brady actually sent me a job description of what his needs are, and he's not coming until Wednesday, I think, for that, so we may have to. What's the pay difference between a two and a three? I don't feel it. We may have to just talk about that again on Wednesday.

So it would be seven or nine, right? A two would be a seven.

If you already put it in, let's tentatively put it at a three just so we can kind of move on and not spend too much time on two versus three right now. So these are your only two positions that you don't have a decision on is?

Is the permit coordinator.

All right. So Commissioner McCall, anything from you ladies on? Permit coordinator? Because we've got to make some decisions. All right.

So, and I had said this at the beginning when we first started budget hearing, and I'm just going to say it once today, but I'm looking at public safety and roads. Right now, our economy looks flat. I'm glad to hear our revenue looks like it's doing pretty well. We want to cut the tax rate half a cent, I think. And we've got inflation. People are feeling this. And so I'm just going to be very very disciplined during this budget round, unless I see absolute needs for public safety and roads. So I am a no on the permit coordinators, and I'm open to talk about the admin to split between engineering and the fire marshal's office when I hear what the fire marshal has in mind.

Yeah, we already kind of approved that position. It's just, I mean, we can work out the details later, because I think... Which position the... The person that sits at the front, the admin three or two, it's just a matter of what the split is.

And having said no to the permit coordinators, perhaps some of that job description, we have to be very, very strategic in creating that job description. So maybe some of what I just said no to could be in that one.

Right. And it depends on that discussion with Brady as well and what that position is. But I worked with Brady a little bit on the list that I just handed out and trying to blend the needs of the two offices.

So, yeah, and I would ask you to ask him for that administrative position. He sent me, I think he sent it to me this morning so that you have a clear, he calls it administrative specialist. Okay. Juanita, you had a question?

I told him we had already, you had already agreed on the receptionist.

That's, yeah, that's what it's.

There seems to be some confusion because there's a receptionist or the general 400 building, and that was a yes.

Yeah, that's what I thought we approved.

To my mind, it can't be a receptionist.

We can't say it's not. Mary Ellen had asked for an admin specialist, too, and when Brady met with the committee, he had several employee requests. It's the same thing. They're sitting in that front room, but yeah.

The job title is experienced. Or sitting wherever that person needs to sit. Let's call the administrative assistant two or three.

All right. We're all thinking the same thing, just using different terms. Commissioner McCall? Yeah.

You want to go to the commissioner before you decide? Can I just ask a question? Sure. On this, the permit coordinators, how would that benefit your office? How would that relieve the work? Sure.

Right now, a lot of the coordination with other departments, other entities, keeping track of violations, that's falling either on project manager or engineers. And based on the hours they're already working, things don't always take priority. So a violation letter gets sent out, and it might be a while before we touch base with that person again. And we send a letter and say, please contact us within 30 days. And then we say, oh, it's been 30 days. We need to contact them. Oh, you know what? This has a deadline. This plat has to get ready for commissioner's court. This meeting that has a deadline has to happen. Being able to have somebody that can keep track and keep those things moving, as well as the coordination from one permit going saying, hey, fire marshal, I need your input by this deadline because it's a plat and we don't want to mess up the 30-day shot clock. City of Burney. This is in the ETJ. We have an addressing issue. How do we get that coordination keep moving? Trying to get those things off of the engineer, move some of those things down to the project manager, some of those project manager duties down to this new position so that things don't just stall being stuck on somebody who has too many places to be.

Again, before I'm just trying to get all the information on the table. So we have a code compliance officer now. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using that position and maybe giving him a, whatever we want to call it, a pay increase to handle some of this for now until we could work into a full-time position?

My thought on how this person would coordinate with the code compliance in the health department is our office would handle the complaint, would do the investigation, would coordinate with the property owner. And when we couldn't come into compliance, we couldn't achieve that, that's where we would say, can we meet with the code compliance officer? Can you help us, you know, finish this out because just the administrative side of trying to complete it isn't working. And so instead of pushing all of the compliance to this person who has another job, we would still process that through our office, still try to go through the regular meetings with the individual, encouraging them to come in, giving them the timelines. And when that fails, that's when we would coordinate with that person, the code compliance. That was my thought in how this job description was presented.

I have a question, and I'm sorry. You're fine. Okay. Just one more question. We do have the proposal out for the consultant to come in to look at the efficiency of what positions we have. We still have that on the table. Is that right, Commissioner? Commissioner Carpenter? No, no.

Commissioner.

Yes. Okay. All right. Commissioner McCall.

So I think that with the potential division of the engineering department overall, I think we need to wait and look and see how the division of duties and how the development office handles things with that in place with the potential of the co-compliance from the health department and wait on this and just see what the needs are, see some actual numbers once your department is kind of changed. Right.

With the split, I think there is some efficiency gained. I talked to you guys about that, that I'm kind of the hold up a lot of times and things have to come through me, even though decisions are already being made elsewhere. So you're going to gain efficiency in the department from that, but you're also taking an engineer who's coordinating on plats with, with the reviews becoming more of a, the manager role, they'll still do those things, but they are going to transition a little bit. If, if you're looking at potentially saying, let's do that, let's look at it after the splits in place and have that individual, whoever's in that role, bring that request to court. Is there an opportunity to fund somebody for the position for six months and that, and then the development engineer can come to commissioner's court and say, here's what, here's the numbers. Here's what I've seen. I'm seeing, I've done this for, you know, we've established the processes and the procedures the way that they want, and then come to commissioner's court and ask for the person at that time, but it would be budgeted if it was necessary.

I think we need to wait on that just because we do have the potential of looking at all of the positions and make sure that, that everybody is being used in the, in the maximum capacity or, you know, the capacity that they should within the department. And I think we need to wait, but that's my thought.

Thank you. Okay.

I'll at least offer a compromise in starting this person mid year. I think we have to get somebody in here to do code compliance. We don't start enforcing our codes. I think we, I don't think you're on that. Now you should hear it better. I think if we do not start enforcing our codes, we run the risk of losing the ability to enforce the codes for not having enforced them for so long. So either we need to enforce the codes or we need to abandon the codes and just make it the Wild West again.

Thank you. If I can just clarify, though, this position is not a code compliance or solely doing permit or, you know, a violation. It was somebody that would assist with our violation process from a paperwork standpoint, but there's other permit review, plat review things that they are going to do. Like I said earlier, we are pretty much at capacity working with people that have been at the office less than six months with 250 hours of comp time already accumulated in our office. At some point, permit processing timeframes are going to increase.

I understand that, but if we don't do something in your office, code compliance becomes the least, the bottom of the scale, and so it keeps getting ignored again.

I'm a hard no, and I'll tell you why. In the real world, people work on efficiency. They work on getting stuff done. We pay lots of department heads lots of money, and it's a point where the department head needs to figure out how to run their department the most efficient way. Um, we've grown and grown and grown and grown this County over. This is our fourth budget session since I've been sworn in and we are just growing at rapid rates to the point where we don't have, we don't have office space for people to, to, to reside in, to do their jobs. And I believe we're need to do efficiency right now. Um, I've had several conversations over the past just weekend alone where I was hammered by my constituents over the growth of our local government. I think our codes need to be enforced, but I think we need to go back through and make sure our codebook and what we're trying to enforce is actually reasonable on the average citizen. And I think we've gotten to be where we're we're out of touch with reality right now with a lot of things to the point where we just have to hire and hire and hire next year. It's going to be the same thing. Everyone's going to want more people. They're going to say that they're drowning and not able to get their work done. That's not how you run a business. And I don't believe that's how you run a government because even in business, your customer service oriented towards meeting the needs of your community. Why would we be any different in the government? In fact, we should be even more, um, more careful when we add, every time we add an employee, we add a permanent increase to our county's obligations that we have to meet from now on. So every employee, I think two years ago, I asked the question, and this is not any disrespect to county employees. I think we take care of our employees very, very, very well. The average employee in Kendall County makes about $84,000 a year with benefits. You can't go anywhere in this community, work in a doctor's office and get anywhere near that. So I'm a hard no on this. We need to get efficient in what we do and we need to be looking at every single department needs to be looking at that.

Are you, are you done? Can I ask one more question? Um, could, could the, if we are not going to staff this position and we are potentially going to staff the administrative assistant, are there some of those duties that this administrative assistant, we, we somewhat had a little test of, of, uh, that position at the front and it didn't seem to be a full time, um, And I know it was, we're looking at it a little differently, but could some of these duties of this permit coordinator, since they're assisting and getting things ready, prepared for the code violation issues, could some of that be handled by this administrative assistant or admin two or three?

Some things can be. I think I have on the list for the administrative assistant helping with the certified mail mail-outs. When we're sending a notice of violation, they can finalize that letter, get it ready for signature, and send it out. But that's just the straight paperwork. Please, here's the letter. Please get it on the letterhead, get the certified mail, and then get it sent out. The Reason that the position was there was downtime with the temporary employee was the time it would have taken to train them to do some of the more advanced things, knowing that they were only there for 90 days. So there were things that we didn't train her to do because we knew that she was short time. So we tried to plug her into the most efficient places that we could, given the short amount of time that we would have to train her and that she would be there. So the administrative position does have some things that are being picked up that are being done by project managers and by everyone in the office right now. We all individually put together certified mail when it goes out. The front office helps with that sometimes, but they're also slammed when plots come in and things like that. So we're all kind of picking up on administrative duties. And so this administrative position would pick up some of that. I want to kind of remind the court. I pulled this folder over. I thought I had it with me. Um, but the last time we met, um, I did talk about the increases in permits that have happened. So, um, commissioner carbon, you're correct. This, this County has grown a lot. Um, the amount of development that has, uh, happened in this County has increased significantly when I presented, um, the 2025, uh, permit totals to you all, um, in January, um, it's not January. Um, The permits from 2025 to 2024 had increased on platting and commercial development, which are the most time-intensive permits, over 100%. And we're on the same pace of permits this year. So two years in a row now, we're drastically outpaced the permits that we did the year before and haven't added anything. the resources to handle that influx. So like I said, I understand you all have hard decisions to make, but I want you to have the facts of what our office is dealing with. I wouldn't ask for this if I didn't think our office needed it. And like I said, it's going to come down to what things aren't going to necessarily meet the same timelines that they have been if we don't have the individual.

To echo your point, I think that's what we were talking about early, the Brady, the fire marshal person, and the engineering needs, and so be very strategic in writing that job description so that maybe some of this could be covered.

All right.

Thank you, Mariam.

Thank you. All right. The next one was for the county clerk. She requested a deputy county clerk one position based on, I believe, the new district court

Welcome.

Good morning.

Morning. All right. Could you please just summarize briefly what your request is?

Okay. I am asking for another employee for County Clerk 1. And the reason is it's caused the increase of the courts. Our workload has increased. And our probate workload has increased. And I just need another person to help me with. court and just a daily basis of all the stuff that we do in the office. Everybody that comes in, whether they get births or the fallings of the death and stuff, but to take up some of the slack on that. But our court system is what is the busiest and our probate has grown. Our guardianship is what really is growing and I need another person to really help step in because it takes a lot to get all those probates through and to help with getting court ready for the judges. So, and it's just a clerk one, but I do need that help. And do you have a space for this person? Yes, I do. Okay.

We'll start us off with you, Commissioner McCall, this time.

Again, I think I want to point back to us looking at what the efficiencies are in our departments this year before we add another position there. So I'm going to say no at this time.

Okay. Regent?

I've declined.

Mr. Chapman? I'd be for it. Mr. Carpenter? We have a consultant coming in. I'd like to, if it's possible to, and I don't know how this works, Corinna and General Counsel, some of these positions are not a hard no, but they're how do we put money in our budget for a later date after we've done space needs and consultant? How can we build that in where we can help get her what she needs?

So what we've done in the past sometimes is if there is a potential new hire, the different courts have set different time frames, whether it's a January or April one. And the reason April one is because that's six months. October through March is your first six months of the fiscal year. Some have done it as late as like July one. So you're only in the last quarter. We have budgeted in the commissioner's contingencies the other compensation line. We've calculated what that position would be for that set time frame that the court would reconsider that. But that's what we've done in the past when there's been maybe some unknowns.

My big concern is when we started out this conversation, we need $2.5 million from our fund balance just to get through everything that we're looking at on our plate.

But that's actually not to cover daily operations. That's to include some capital expenditures. So if you pull out that $2 million for the building and a couple other capitals, it's just one-time purchases. So our daily operations are currently being covered by our fund balance.

But I will say the $2.5 million that you need right now does not include any of this.

So that could change as we add employees? No, no. That's my concern.

It includes the TCRS increase, the 4% to the actual scale. It includes all of that, but it does not include any of this.

You'd probably add a few, prove a few hires without going into fund balance or daily operations. So are you wanting to put this in contingency or start at half year? Because I just know based on my experience, I mean, I work with Denise on a daily basis. There is a need based on that. So I would be a yes for either option.

I would be a contingent on our consultant coming through and seeing how our overall county is functioning and

So can you put a full salary in contingency for her? You know, take whatever her base salary is, put it in the contingency line for commissioner's court, and then y'all can work it out. But at least it's budgeted. So she has the position now.

when y'all reconvene because we just got because we only have two hours left or we only have an hour and 10 minutes left for to get through all these employee requests so we got to kind of make some decisions and move on at least she's got the money for a position well she won't have the money the court would have to say yes to the position at some point the court would have to say yes and it would require budget adjustment to move into that department's budget before it can actually be before it's really approved this would just be there could be money if the court thinks that they might want to make changes after that. That's a whole different, that's not even based on a particular position, but that's if the court wants to budget some contingencies, consent contingency funds for after you get your results of your, um,

We can put a contingency in our commissioner's fund. For salaries?

For potential changes that you might need to do before the fiscal year. And I don't know how long that study will take.

I think it's going to take most of the year. So at this point in time, we can put it in contingency, but I think it's a wasted effort.

I have a question. Is this 46483? Does that include fringe?

benefits or is that just no salary only it would just be and these figures that that people that are on here are what the fy 26 total is so obviously if you add four percent to the scale it goes up let's put 65 in a contingency for salaries and we'll sort through this after i just want to keep it should we not earmark that though because if she's thinking that we're going to fund this half

year, mid-year?

No, it's going to come back to Commissioner's Court because if it's going in, because there's two yeses, two noes. Chad wants it in contingency, so unless he... And what do you suggest? I say we fund it, but since there's a split, there's three saying fund it in some sort, I'm going to say put it in contingencies and y'all can work that out later. Just so we can... I agree. Keep it moving.

So we're going to put money in contingency, but you already have the position as a title, so we can fund it. Correct. If the court chooses. If the court comes. Okay. You've got the job description and everything. Yes.

This is not approving this position. I just want to make that clear. It's not approving. It's putting money in commissioner's contingency.

In your notes, you can make that we've made an allotment, so she has first dibs on coming back to court for her request.

Thank you. So the next thing that I had was for Nicole. It's two things. One is moving the, she currently uses SB 22 to fund a position that she's funded with that for two years. And also I think she had some updates for salary requests in her department.

You've been coloring again.

This one? When I do a salary survey, it takes me about four weeks of public information requests. It's getting all that information on the salary to compare. I apologize if it's getting it right now, but I was planning all that into a This is not necessarily a request for an additional person. This person's already in my office. I was incorrect the last time I spoke to you. This is not the first time I've asked for this.

I didn't... One sec. How many decisions do we need to make? Because I just want to make sure we're cognizant of time and make

all the decisions here so what's the really it is it's one it is that senate bill 22 funding that two years ago in fy 24 um nicole asked to hire another person to that she would start out using sb 22 funds and that she would bring forward again so she brought that forward last year and I believe the court said no, but to bring it back this year. So this is, she's now funded her attorney for two years using SB 22 funds, which has been both years that we've had SB 22 funding. So it's really, that's the only request, correct? Because then she would have her SB 22 funds to give the salary adjustments.

And just to clarify that, is that a CDA 3-119-810.

Which one are you asking us to fund? It's the one that's currently 117,460 with a 4% raise. It'll be Steven Belt. Steven Belt, yes. It's the fourth down on that one sheet that you have. So what I did is I went to ask, now I'm asking for salary raises because I went back and looked at the market and it's increased significantly. So what I would like for you to do is fund this attorney position because I had asked for it at the time because our juvenile numbers exploded. You know, our civil work picks up quite a bit with Bob taking on a lot of the public information requests and some other civil duties. And we needed that attorney at the time. And we have run very efficiently and very effectively. We have needed no additional... staff with the new court that came in because we had hired this attorney. We were able to do that. We didn't have one attorney having to go to two places at the same time. So last year when I asked for this, at the time I went back and I watched the budget hearings, I said, okay, I'll hold off for another year. Luckily we didn't need any more staff because I wanted those SB 22 funds available in case we needed new staff. We didn't. But this year I'm asking you to now please fund this because the salaries have absolutely increased. for attorneys, especially higher level of attorneys. So what I've done is I've asked for salary increases, and you'll see where that is, the proposed salary. And then you'll also see what the potential salary would be with me increasing them and supplementing them to get them up past that so that the market bears it. Now, the problem is there's probably an additional $30,000 that I'm going to need in addition for... Mr. Fields, Mr. Belt, and Mr. Chapa because, again, the public defender's office has asked for astronomical raises, and you'll see that on this sheet. The chief public defender's asked for a 30% raise. Two of the attorneys with six to five years' experience are going to be paid 158. So those three attorneys of mine have more experience. One's in a supervisory role. And I need those funds to be able to supplement them because the person sitting across the case from them should not be making more when they have less experience. I don't think it is a good look for you to pay your public defenders more than your prosecutors. And I need those SB 22 funds to try to help that. But unless you do salary increases, I, well, one, if you don't give me the SB 22 funds, we're going to be willfully underpaid period. Two, If you don't do some of the salary increases and also give me the SB 22 funds, I won't be able to pay them equal to the public defender's office. And if history speaks for itself, the public defender's office has asked for these astronomical salaries and have gotten it every single time. And we only have one representative that goes to these meetings to try to speak on our behalf and gets outvoted every time. So please help me fix this so that we have attorneys. These attorneys, I put in here emails. I asked them to make comments. And honestly, I think you should hear from them. I asked them to give you comments for two minutes. I think that they deserve to speak to you so you can hear them. Because the purpose of SB 22 funds was to make sure that we can get and retain talent. Bexar County, I put Comal in here because Comal My attorneys, if they're going to go anywhere, will probably be Comal. You'll also see that an intern for my office, which we wanted to hire, we didn't because she went to Comal because she would make more. And she is now making more than a misdemeanor attorney in my office that has more experience than she does. So I need those funds to make sure that we're in line. And now I need it even more because of the public defender salaries. But again, in addition... I've put on here what I believe the market bears for their proposed salaries and where they should be on our scale. The other problem with our scale is that, you know, these other offices, people move up faster. They get paid more faster. So now I'm not saying that we need to do that. If I have enough SB 22 funds, I can pick up the slack, but I think I have been, I have played ball more than enough. We bring in over a million dollars in for the general fund or, bond forfeitures. We are very prudent with our money. We make sure that we are defraying costs where we can with our pretrial intervention funds. Two of our attorneys are grant funded. Take care of the people that you have now. And this is taking care of them. And so again, I ask for my SB 22 funds back to use them for the purpose that they were created. And this is the second time. And I was asked last year and I waited and I didn't have a problem with it. I have a problem with it now. So I don't know if my attorneys want to come up and speak.

I'll kick this off. We have their written statements. Like I said, we only have two hours today, and we have to get the budget done this week. So no disrespect. I respect everything. As you can see, I was sitting here reading it, so I know what y'all do and what you bring to the table. So everyone here will read the statement. So you can kick us off.

So the PDO, if I have anything to do with it, they will not be getting these raises. And we do have a meeting coming up if you would come to that meeting. We'd have two votes and see how it goes. Because I think if we're going to do anything, whatever Medina County, as the administrator of that grant, if they're doing 4% COLA, that's what they should get. So you know where I stand on this. I'm going to give you my word on that. Since you have asked for this position twice now, I am inclined to say yes. So I would be yes on that. And then you can use your SB22 money to give the raises that you need. So I support you.

Mr. McCall? I agree. Thank you. Mr. Carpenter.

Can I just ask? I have. So the first thing, and I said there was only one thing. There's really two. One, so now Mr. Belt will now be general funded, general fund funded. And so that then leads Nicole to use the SB 22 funds.

But we can't tell her what to do with them. So that's right.

You just have to budget them. The other the other thing to get the salaries where she's talking about so she can just use the SB 22 funds to get them there. She's requesting. I'm just now realizing I'm looking at that. These these pay grade changes happen because that is the that's the front side of the pay increases, the pay grade changes.

You can look.

to see where just the very top person is currently a pay grade 27. She's requesting a pay grade 30. That makes that position go to the 170. She would supplement another 2300 to get that position to where she thinks the position should be. So it's a twofold question.

Today, we're not going to decide that because that was part of the sheriff's question. I believe, of people being able to move within the pay chart for people with experience. I mean, is that the same?

No, no, no. This is based on what the market says they should be on the scale.

This is not further, I'm sorry, not further this way, but what the committee did the research on to where the actual pay grade they are in.

See, to me, I think this question is coming too late just because, you know what I'm saying? No, I do understand. How many commissioner or budget meetings on this? Correct. No, I understand that. We're at the finish line here.

I do understand that, but what I would like for you to do is consider it, actually maybe digest this later and look at what the comps are and see if there's something that you can do on that. Because I had anticipated waiting until next year for these salary changes and try to use the SB22 funds. Again, the PDO salaries is what changed it, and I did not find that out until Thursday of last week.

I understand that, but just look at the position it puts this court in for all the other departments at the finish line here to ask to readjust. I just think it puts this court in a really bad place across the board because if we entertain it for you, we've got to entertain it for everybody, and there's just no time.

But they still get the increased salaries, right?

If she uses her SB 22 funds, they'll get their increase. But I just don't think we should be messing with the pay chart this last week of budget.

Can I just make sure you understand, they don't get this pay increase. Because this pay increase, all they get is what this column says the SB 22 funds would be. The majority, or not the majority, I shouldn't say, but in order to get them here, you would have to move them so that she has the funds to supplement them to the salary she's requesting. Is that correct, Nicole? Correct. SB 22 funds alone does not get them to the salary that she's requesting.

So there's another number of funds that need to come from the general fund to fund that?

So if you look at... Yeah, she wants to move them on their categories.

But tell me what that number is.

She has it right here. So right now, this first position is a 27. She's asking them to go to a 30. If they went to a 30, this would be the proposed... This is their current salary on the current scale with the... pay grade that they're in. She's asking you to take them to a pay grade 30, which that would be on the scale. She then would supplement another $2,100 to get them here.

Supplement with general fund money.

This is supplemented with SB 22.

Is there any general fund money that she needs?

She wants, yes, she is needing the general fund money from here to here. Oh, that difference. They're currently at this pay grade.

She wants us to approve a change from this pay grade to this pay grade. Once we do that, then she takes SB 22 here to move it to here. and it gets her to where she wants. It's two steps.

Nicole does use the SB 22 funds to cover the benefits associated with the increases used by SB 22. Correct. That's why she can't just use all of it on salaries. We have to back out what those benefits would be because SB 22 funds do cover that portion. We have to cover the fringe.

So what I will ask is I can bring the raises and the pay grade steps, which I would rather do next year. I can see if the market evens out and what's going to happen with the salaries after this budget cycle, which is what I wanted to do. I just didn't realize how much it had gone up until I looked at it. But, I need the entire amount of my SB 22 funds.

You just got that.

Right. So I'm okay with waiting to propose grade changes until next year, but what I would ask is for $15,000 for Jennifer to be able to keep her on through the end to make sure our grants stay where they are. Because I need to maximize every penny of that $175,000 for the for the attorney salaries. So I would ask maybe $15,000 to cover that expense.

Would Jennifer be available to train, or not train, because she's going to be trained, but to make the transition of what all we've got in the hopper? Yes. I think that would be really wise.

Are we using any other SB 22 money for anything else?

We use it for Jennifer. We used it for general counsel. We used it for Stephen this year. And I use it for my chief investigator.

Has that been figured in?

Yes, that's figured in.

Yes, so already y'all had said you would absorb the general counsel total.

Add the $15,000.

And then how much was that again? $6,000, I believe, or something like that.

So on that sheet, I put down what it would be if you didn't remove Stephen, and it would be $165,958. That's if you didn't change it. You didn't give me my SB 22 money, but you're giving me that back. And obviously with the numbers, I need every penny of that for the attorneys. But I would like for $15,000 just to have Jennifer stay on to make sure that there's no lapse with our grants because they're at such a critical point right now.

You just got that too. Thank you. So is she going to take over all the grants?

I have not discussed that with her. I can discuss that with her.

Because if we don't come up with a plan for this grant person, we stand to lose not only the millions of dollars that are out there now. We stand on not getting the millions that could potentially be coming up with this storm. And we also stand a chance of having a clawback issue if we do not operate a federal grant accordingly and they can claw back to day one. It can even go back seven years on other grants that we received. Seven years. And so that could be potentially absolutely crippling to this county if we lose that money.

I would agree.

Without a plan to do these grants, we are at risk of millions of dollars of loss.

I would agree with that. whoever we hired, the grant manager, is not just you and Sheriff. It's the county for the county. Yes, that's correct. And we'll be taking over all of that to Commissioner Chapman's point.

I think he was asking if Jennifer, if there's a lapse in when we hire somebody, if there's a lapse when whatever, if she would be, is that what you're asking, Commissioner Chapman?

Well, I guess what I'm asking is who will close out the grants that is in 2021? that we received from 2025.

That are non-criminal justice related? Correct. That I don't know.

Your grant manager is going to have to do all the grants. The majority of the grants are countywide, not law enforcement. I think where he's going is if there's a lapse... Whoever you hire has to be able to do all of them.

On the lapse. Between when Christina's position ends and the new one begins, if there's no one hired, who's going to do it? That's why we're having Jennifer... Well, Jennifer's coming in for the criminal justice grant.

We might need to have a gap where we do it right now.

What I would suggest is at some other time, if you can carve out some time during budget, I can find out if Jennifer's available and she can come in and discuss that with y'all because she would have a better idea to have a conversation about the other grants with you than I can.

Yeah, because they're FEMA and they are, and Jennifer will tell you this, they are different type of grant than what I would call a traditional pass-through. We get federal grants, they go to your COGS, the COGS here, ours sends it to the governor, and then most of our law enforcement and judicial grants go through the attorney general's office. In fact, they all go to the attorney general's office pretty much, or the governor's office. So those are very different grants than, say, grants that are for infrastructure and FEMA grants and TIDM. They're totally two different things.

I do think that she could help you come up with a solution just because of her base of knowledge and a cost of what that would be in the transitional period.

We've got the job description written so we probably should hit the ground running and post that whenever we legally can. One final thought.

That was going to be what I was asking is whether we could get a job posted pretty soon because you need to have somebody hired before the end of this fiscal year so there is a bit of overlap for the changing of the guards so to speak. So I would ask that the court go ahead and get a position posted as soon as possible so you can hire someone effective in best case scenario mid-September so you have at least a couple weeks of overlap. Alternatively, if we could look for a consultant to use, a contractor to use a service that often does grant administration as your temporary solution, we cannot have a gap in service. We have to have somebody, we have to have an overlap. We can't survive without it.

Or we could ask Jennifer. She'd be the logical person.

So if you need somebody who's also used to doing these federal grants, and like Corinna was saying, the law enforcement grants are all state grants. They don't deal with the same two CFR 200 requirements and everything else that our FEMA grants and CDBG grants require. It is a different level of knowledge. It's a different area of grant administration. So I would just ask the court consider that we need to hire somebody as soon as possible to handle all of the the range of the grants that we have.

Yeah, I can have Corinna get with Jennifer and see if y'all decide that you want to have her come in and talk to you about this. And then also, what went right out my head, I will get that job description on the next court agenda to get approved and for posting.

I don't care. It's just that the five people that initiated this issue need to come up with a plan or it's going to cost the county millions of dollars. Okay. Last thing, Corinna.

Well, you just have to be ready because I'm going to want all the information in October for an audit. So y'all do need to have somebody in place.

Wouldn't the existing grant person also have pretty good files in shape and start turning some of that over?

Yes, but that stuff doesn't really, you don't close them out until October and you won't have your existing person. So you really would need somebody here to do all the closeout. And for anything that is going to close out, I don't even know offhand what what would be closing out. And, you know, I know most of yours do, but you have a couple that are three year.

We have some should get a report from Christina.

So we I do have a good report from from her currently, but it's it's doing the work. She does. I don't do that work. You know, I just do that.

And we're fixing to start this year's round because. Am I correct in that T-DEM has announced that FEMA is coming back in again, I believe, to help on this? That is accurate.

Okay, I'll get that submitted for the next court agenda for the adoption. And then you all can decide how you want to proceed with that. And I guess just let Corinna know so she can call Jennifer if you want to talk to her. So you've got the $15,000.

I'm sorry, I'm so slow this morning. But we're going to pay for all the fringe. SB money just pays for the salary. No, it picks up the fringe as well. That's why I need every penny of it. And you're willing to wait to do this increase? Okay. Yes. Fair enough. Good compromise.

We're not changing any pay grades, just moving Stephen Belt's position to general fund and additional $15,000 out of general fund for Nicole to retain Jennifer to do hers. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for coming. And we will read all of your comments.

So the next is the general counsel assistant to the general counsel position.

Good morning. Morning. Morning.

So I assume this thing's on. It is. The last time we spoke about this, Commissioner Carpenter asked that we bring it back and discuss it some more. I think two of you decided that you were not in favor of adding an additional attorney. Two of you decided, I think, that you were. And then Commissioner Carpenter wanted to talk about it some more. I want to say that I know this is a tough budget year. Of course, I've sat through what just was discussed today. And I want to point out that everything that the attorneys in this building do is important, those that are on the third floor as well as those that are on the first floor, which is at the moment just me. Bob does do a lot of things that help with the load of the civil work, specifically the Public Information Act request. We've been working on implementing a software solution that should help streamline that and take less time and improve efficiency overall. But I'm very grateful. to the CDA's office for helping with that specific task as it is very time consuming. So I just want to acknowledge that Nicole's staff does contribute to some of the things that normally my office would do. So I'd like to thank Nicole and specifically Bob Lipo for that because there's no way that I could handle that task and the time consuming amount of requests we get on behalf of what else is going on right now. I went over and looked at some numbers. and specifically also outside council numbers. If you look at our current budget number that's in front of you, I think that it says $600,000 for outside council. We haven't used anywhere near that in the last couple of years. And this year, assuming worst case scenario for the last couple of months of this fiscal year, I don't think we'll come above $200,000. So there's really a $400,000 wiggle room at the moment in the outside council number. I'm hoping that it'll stay that way. Of course, with litigation, you don't know. And I can't promise you litigation won't happen because people can see you even if they don't have a good case. We all know that. What I can say is that I've been trying very hard to handle some things in-house when I can to save the county money and specifically the taxpayers' money. The cheapest rate I can get for outside counsel is about $250 an hour. It goes up from there all the way to $435 per hour that was paid to counsel prior to me getting here. We are not paying outside counsel that rate anymore. We're paying the lower rate for now. But if it's specialized litigation, it could be necessary to pay quite a bit more per hour, depending on what type of case we're dealing with. My office is very busy. You all know that. I don't think any of you have had any issues where you've come by and nobody's been there and you don't understand why the office isn't open. We're there. We're working. I did previously try to work from home one day a week to do drafting. I haven't done that for about six months because it became clear to me that I needed to be there to try to pivot throughout the day to the different emergencies that happen. In the best case scenario, I would work from home one day a week to try to give myself time to review contracts and draft documents. Even if I had another person, it would be great to have uninterrupted time once in a To draft, over the last year, I've been doing that mostly on my own time instead of the time that I'm supposed to be here. And I told you guys the last time I was here, and I don't mean any disrespect by saying it, but the volume of work that I have produced for you in the last year is not sustainable for one single human being to do. I have Deb. Deb's not an attorney. And I will not put her in the position of practicing law without a license, as no one should. She has to work that she produces, but it must go through me and be approved by me and go under my law license, which is how it's supposed to be. There are things that I need help with that Deb can't do, also because she's not an attorney. I would really like the opportunity to bring in a younger attorney that has, or maybe not younger, but a less experienced attorney so I could teach them good habits from the ground up. So we can be proactive and look to solve problems before we're rushing around last minute trying to put out a fire. My last almost year here, I'll be a year on August the 11th, has shown me that Kendall County is in really a good spot overall, I'd say. I have really great staff overall. But the biggest, I guess, criticism I have is that the county hasn't always put the money in place to mitigate risk. Instead of mitigating risk on the front end, we chase our tails and try to react to situations as they arise. I would hope that you would see that one of the functions of my office is risk management. A lot of the work I do with departments other than Commissioner's Court is to try to solve problems before they become problems. Not all of you are aware, but there's a recent example I have, I'm not going to go into great detail, that where I worked with facilities on solving a potential issue that would have resulted in the violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. and I was able to work successfully with facilities to deal with it before it became a lawsuit and to solve the problem on the front end. If I was freed up to do more of the work with the departments individually and to be able to sit down with each of them and prioritize issues that they have and deal with procedural questions they have, make sure we have training in the areas of the law that they need, I think we could mitigate a lot more risk. I'm basically asking that you give me the opportunity to bring on another person to try to spread the workload so we can improve overall functionality within the county at what I would say a bargain price. Because looking at what our risk brings on a financial basis every year, we have to know that spending a little bit of an ounce of prevention, I think there's a saying about the ounce of prevention, that's how I consider this. We're looking at things before they become a big problem for staff and even for citizens, citizens that visit the courthouse. citizens that pay their taxes. This is a cost-saving measure in the long run. It does cost money in the front end, and I recognize that, and I know that you have hesitation on spending the money. I respect your thoughts and opinions on that, but I do ask that you consider creating the second position. It would be, I would think, an assistant general counsel or deputy general counsel is what I would call it. I would want to work with that person to see which duties those people, that person, would perform based on what their interests are and their strengths. Not all attorneys are the type that are front-facing that want to go and talk to clients and be on local access TV or Zoom. They don't always want to go to commissioners' court meetings. Maybe sometimes they're a research position. I don't know what the personality of that person would be, but I would hope it's somebody who wants to learn everything. I love everything about this job except for really the volume. It's untenable for me as one attorney to continue to produce what I've produced. And this year, that's been over 100 contracts. I've reviewed and worked with Melissa on every agenda of every session of court. That takes multiple hours every two weeks just for us to do that together, not including the time I spend reviewing items and helping people draft items, create items. I think I've drafted or reviewed almost 100 resolutions in order since I've been here. That's just a couple of numbers. I don't have all the statistics because I didn't take the time to track everything, but I'm going to work toward doing that to you in the future so you can see what actually is coming out of the office. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I don't want to go over in detail. bore you with a whole bunch of more information because I know you have a short time, but please do know that I wouldn't come to you unless I really felt like this was necessary. It's not something I ever wanted to do. I didn't want to come and ask you for any money or any position. You know, I was even hesitant to ask you for Deb. I wanted to wait until I was here for a few months and I could figure out what I needed. And after I was here long enough, I wrote a new job description and we put out the description and interviewed and I found somebody that could do the administrative things I need. Now I've been here long enough to know what other legal help I need. So I'm asking you to consider this position.

Mr. Chairman?

What's that? You're up first today around this one. To me, it's a we're actually transferring money. We would take money out of the legal fee because this person would help reduce the overall amount of legal fees going out. So we're not going to have a net impact to the budget. So I don't see why we would not.

I would be for it. And you're telling me that there's no way you can find part-time in that office?

Getting somebody with a professional degree to take a part-time position is very, very difficult. unless it's a contract basis and there's a certain number of hours they work, in which case we're not looking at a salary. This, with all fringe, everything in, would be under $150,000. For that kind of money, at the lowest legal rate we pay, you would get 640 hours of work out of a contract attorney instead of 2,080 hours out of a full-time attorney. So just looking at the dollars to dollars, it doesn't make sense to bring somebody in on a part-time basis at $250 an hour When I can bring in somebody for full time and get that much more work out of them for the same amount of money. But I did take your comments last time to heart and consider that. I just don't think that that's something that would be, I don't think it makes sense for this office. And another reason, too, is when somebody's part-time or on contract basis, they aren't here every day to see all the different things that go on and to build those relationships and the trust with coworkers to make it where they can be a trusted resource and somebody wants to come to you and work with. It would be me managing a contract attorney's work and me going and doing all of the same work again anyway. So I don't know what we'd get as far as efficiency and cost savings in the long run. But I did take that into consideration.

Are you ready for us down here?

I'm just thinking through all this. Well, I mean, so... I think Deb is amazing and she helps pretty much the entire county. Yes. Is there somewhere where we can use her outside of your office where you have an attorney that's in there?

I still need administrative support and paralegals.

I mean, my point with everything I'm saying is we keep adding and adding and adding. Where are you going to put them? What office are you going to use for that? You know, it's not just about hiring someone. It's It's having to buy another building, and I'm not trying to get rid of Deb.

They were basically, they could move to the old engineer's office.

Or I would be happy to just keep working in my conference room like I have been lately and give somebody else the office space I currently have. I don't need a big office. I don't have a big ego. Happy to sit in the conference room and use it for conferences and whatever we need to do. I can't lose Deb. This isn't a situation where I could have an attorney instead of Deb because I still do need that paralegal and administrative support that she offers that I wouldn't be able to get from an attorney.

And just a reminder on space, we're trying to help the district courts figure out where they're going to move. So we've got that space needs coming as well.

That's assuming the districts even need to move because other people could move and still accomplish the same things in this building.

I'm not asking for anything to do with space at the moment. I'd be happy to stay where I am and make it work. If that's what I need to do, I'd be happy to do that.

I just know how much work comes in and out of that office is 100%. I thought we needed it last year. I think we need it this year. It's a no-brainer. You're going to get more return on your investment with a full-time person than a contract laborer.

I also want to point out that I do have 18 years of experience. And talking about attorney salaries in the section right before this one, I want to note that there are quite a few people in the DA's office who make at or more than what I make that have less than 18 years of experience. I'm not asking you for more money from me. So please make a note of that. This isn't about me. It's about doing what's best for the county and bringing in somebody who can help spread the workload so we can be more productive and proactive.

Yeah, you can. So, um, well, I just want to thank you because you do a good job and we, uh, weren't able to pay you last year. And then Nicole's office graciously came in with that 5,600 or right. So that was the most we had ever paid an attorney. So I really wanted to stretch and argued for that to get you. Um, I think you do a great job. I think that as I talked about before, I would like to see some, um, prioritizing and expectations. And the court really, to my mind, hasn't had that opportunity to say, you know, here are all the things that have to be done and what are we prioritizing? And until we do that, I think we don't have the framework to bring someone in. Also, I would much rather use contract labor, contract attorneys who are experienced in certain areas and seasoned rather than bring in at a substantial salary and benefits that we have to pay year after year someone who, um, is not seasoned, someone who's inexperienced. And I don't think we get as much bang for our buck. So, um, again, thank you for all you do. I think that we, you can't keep doing this and you can't keep working at this level. So therefore we're going to have to prioritize, um, you know, like the fire contracts, those should have been a priority. We wanted those done. Well, they are. And we had, um, An EMS meeting, I remember one day, and you graciously went to the meeting, and it was something that involved Commissioner Carpenter, and you stayed all day. And I'm sure you thought there was a need. But until we get a handle on what the scope is and prioritize, I don't see us having the framework to bring someone else in, plus someone who we bring in and let that person decide what he wants to do. I think we have to be more strategic in that. So I would be a no to this position.

I'm not sure it'd be a he. It may be a she. And with all due respect, you just made it a great job and told me things that you think I did not well. So it's the compliment sandwich. And I get that. As far as spending the time at EMS, I wasn't there all day. I did say several hours afterward to talk to employees who wanted to talk to me that I'd never met before. And I do feel like it's important to have an open door policy to where everybody within the county knows there's a place they can go for counsel. and that I'm available to them. You don't see my doors covered and signs saying, do not disturb. I am there for everybody. And that's how it has to be because we have to have that relationship just like HR does. They have to know that they can come to me and that I'm trustworthy and that I will help them. I know I can't be everything to everyone. That's something you said last time, but I will go back to hats. I wear a lot of hats. I do. Sharon said that earlier. And by the way, I did not put her up to that. And I'm very thankful that she came and spoke at public comment. I wear hats for positions you guys haven't ever filled. I wear a risk manager hat because there isn't one, right? I wear a safety hat because there isn't one. I wear a work comp and unemployment coordinator with HR hat because we don't have a person to do that. A lot of the things that I do are because you haven't hired and I'm not complaining. I love everything about the job. What I'm asking is for you to give me help so somebody else can wear the hat sometimes. so I don't have to wear it all the time. Or alternatively, start filling those positions that we need that you haven't ever had. Because as we grow, we need those support roles. We need a safety coordinator for the whole county. I know we get great safety numbers. I know they've had safety awards and

We have a little safety committee.

But that's not the kind of committee that says, okay, employee, let's look at your accident report. Why did you get in this accident? What could we do in the future to prevent this? Do we do that? Do we sit down with the employee? I don't think we do. It's just an example of a thing that bigger organizations, companies do. We should be looking at those areas where we really need to button up also to reduce risk. I wear a lot of hats. It's not because I'm looking for extra things to do. It's because there are things that somebody has to do. And if I'm able to, then I want to be able to, to help. But I also know that I can't do so much that my personal health suffers. So it is what it is. If you want me to continue doing this on my own, thankfully with Deb, then I will. But you're going to see that things you think are taking a long time now might take longer because I'm not going to work nights and weekends and through my lunch every day and stay late every day anymore. Because it's not acceptable for me to be the person doing that, and I'm the only one doing that. It's not acceptable.

And I totally agree with you. It's not acceptable. It's not sustainable. And you're right. We have to fill those positions because that is not your job to wear every hat. So that would be what I want to set up as framework on what our needs are so that you can truly be general counsel and not everything to everybody. Where do you stand?

I'd also say that we stay with what we have. I think we do have the legal line and for some of these cases that have required additional work from you or you have done that have taken from your time, I think that we look at those numbers and use that funding for more legal help in that way.

I still... I'm still leaning towards part-time and I'll tell you why. There's people asking you to do things that they should be doing on their own. They should be doing their own departments. And that's why we're trying to do a consultant. That's why we're trying to have a mainstream way of evaluating those department heads that answer to the court. To my knowledge, I don't know that that's ever been done where department head comes before the court that that they enter to us and we actually go through what we like about what they're doing what we don't like we get them on a course correction but if they're always coming to you that means they're not they're not managing the department to the not always but if you're if you're having to be heavily dependent on throughout the whole county there's something wrong

I'm not saying that, Commissioner. I'm not saying everyone.

But I know there is. I know there is. And I've been there and I've seen it. I know there's a lot of people that depend on you and take you down a different road other than what we wanted you here for, which was to help us, this court, get through, protect us and get the contracts out.

So you have something to say? Because I don't know how, based on what you're hearing, Two for yes, two for no, one part-time.

How do we... Well, are you saying contract attorneys or a part-time attorney?

Whatever on that. We just need to make a budget decision.

To get a contract attorney part-time.

I know, but I don't want to sign Kendall County up to 10 years of $150,000 a year, so $1.5 million over the next 10 years just... On a whim, and I know it's a lot, you don't consider it a whim. I'm not going to argue with you over this. I don't want to argue. I will excuse myself.

Thank you.

Well, I think then is to use the contract labor as they're proposing down here, how we budget it. Just use the $600,000 that's set aside for, so no adjustments.

And I want to remind everyone, we do have a consultant that we're looking for coming in, and this county does need that. We need to look at our systems and our procedures and we need to go through carefully when we move forward spending money. Who's up next?

The next one, and Brady could not come last time because I think he was at a conference and he couldn't come

I think he slated for Thursday or something.

Yes, because he was on vacation or was on vacation. Wednesday with fire. But so y'all have not talked about his deputy fire marshal because I think he was.

Let's wait until he's here.

Okay. Because he's asking for a deputy fire marshal position, and then there's a request for a pay increase for his position. And then y'all already did look at the request that he made to you during the your initial meeting and that was the certification pay for the firefighters. So that's the 4,800 for Brady, 3,600 for Adam and 1,200 for the other. So that's where we are on that. And then the last position that you haven't actual position or y'all wanted to go back to round two is the IT specialist potential position for Al and or IT.

Okay. Does anyone have any information on that position?

I have a bet I talked to Brian because I wanted to better understand that. And this is just my understanding from Brian is that a lot of the sheriff's department needs are not strictly IT, like putting a light bar on a car. No doubt that sheriff could use some help with outfitting squad cars and all those tasks that he has to do, but that's not really an IT person. And my understanding from Brian, and we may want to have Brian come in at some point, is that for another year, he can make sure that he can be A little bit more Johnny on the spot for sheriff. Not that they aren't now. They do a great job. But to really dedicate a little bit more of one person. So I'm going to be not in favor of that position as well.

And I think this was the position that Bob and general counsel discussed with them because this was because of the courts. I believe the courts are. decision or rule that only the sheriff have access to the cameras. That's where this position came in. It wasn't for the light bars. I think the person that's handling the computers is also doing that, but that's what this position when, when Brian and when Brian and the sheriff talked to the committee, that's what they talked to us about.

Yeah. The other thing we got into that, and it was almost as if that department, those departments would have a separate it person and you, but they're still going to be able to, IT people we have now still access the information. It would be like having a complete separate IT person and department and cloud and hardware. And so that wasn't even fleshed out.

That was the suggestion that Bob and I were making was that the sheriff's department and the DA's office have an IT person that is separate from IT. Part of that is because of chain of custody issues related to access to security and other items that are important. Bob's here. I don't know if there's something he would like to add, and I don't know why Nicole or the sheriff aren't present to go into detail with you, but it was a recommendation from us, and a lot of that is risk-based. Right now, we have an overall security system. That's what I'll call the main system that we use, and then there are little ancillary systems that IT does help people with, and that might be that they have cameras where people can see comings and goings of their their building, but it doesn't have the camera in the hallways. If we ever do have an event in the county courthouse, for example, we will use the footage from our main security system to try to investigate and hopefully prosecute related to anything that might have happened. Knowing who has control, access, and custody of a record is critically important during the criminal prosecution process, but also during a civil legal process. Right now, there will Most recently, we're quite a few people that had access to our main security system, and that does bring up some security concerns. Not everyone is the type of IT person or software expert where they could go in and remove a record, but it's possible that someone could. And in order to make sure that we have secure records that are not altered or removed, having someone that works directly in law enforcement is a good solution. This doesn't have to be an expensive endeavor. But the idea would be that IT not have access to the main security system like the court recently ordered, and that this person would work directly with the sheriff's department and help them with any issues they have with their body cams, dash cam, software needs, and their own off-site storage if they needed to have cloud storage, but not that IT needs to bear the burden of all of that. And truthfully, they could be the person that works with light bars and and putting equipment in and out of vehicles, but the main goal would be for the sheriff's department and the DA's office to have their support system. They're one person who could also testify in criminal prosecution and has a law enforcement background. That was just our suggestion. I don't know, Bob, are you good with that?

Okay. Do you have anything to add, Commissioner McCall? Where do you stand?

I think that since Commissioner Regents spoke with IT and that they can keep things going the way they are for now, I think we leave it.

I think we're creating a position that most counties don't do and that creates expenses that I think are not necessary.

The only other thing is this is not a position request. And Judge Cahoon said she could be here if she needed. But I said I would bring this up for her is you have two different courts now. And so in speaking and she did, I believe, speak to Judge McDaniel as well. But they would like. We have one court coordinator who's actually taking the certified court coordinator court manager position. course. They did it on their own. It's long and it's a special certification that they've received. So they would like to have that position having the updated job description and for it not be a 1718 in that way. It's like other departments where there's a stair set because right now there is a The court approved a separate court coordinator job description for the 451st. I'm sorry, for the 498th court. When it was brought to court, it's titled the 498th court coordinator. And so the court approved that. So now you have one that, or the 498th, but you don't have a separate one for the 451st because it was just district court coordinator. So it got approved.

To me, I think, again, these are these last minute requests coming in for changes of job descriptions and salaries are a little late. I think that's a request for the salary. Go through the proper chain with the salary committee and all that. I just think that we can't be entertaining all new requests because if we do it for her, we got to do it for everybody else, just like how Nicole last minute. So I'm just treating her the same as. Nicole's office. I think that's just my position. I agree to everybody the same on, on these requests and it can be entertained for next, next budget for sure.

Okay. So if I could just go over what I show that's been approved really quickly. Yes.

And that's a sheet.

That's that.

Yes, please.

So what I have a yes to is the admin specialist three. We're going to start at the top. I have a yes to the reclassification of the compliance inspector one and two. I have, and we go all the way down to promote deputy elections administrator one to a two. I have a yes on kennel tech part-time to full-time. I have a yes on the deputy three in the district clerk going to a deputy four. I have a yes on adding one JP clerk, which then gives all four JPs a full-time clerk. I have a yes to moving the attorney, Mr. Belt, to general fund and allowing Nicole to use her CDA funds. I have adding a grant. It's not on here. County grant manager. Adding a grant manager, doing away with a grant specialist. I have a yes to changing the EMS. Y'all actually already did that through a different court order.

Can I stop you just for a second?

Yes.

It's listed under the CDA.

So they were asking for a second. They were asking for their SB 22 grant specialist person who was said that she didn't want the job. They were asking for a full-time, the county to pick up a full-time law enforcement person. Y'all actually said come back to round two. However, that got brought back to the grant manager that y'all did last time. So now you're doing away with the two grant specialists, one for law enforcement, one for the county, doing away with that and just making a grant manager for the county. I have then yes for the firefighters to have certification pay. I have yes for I don't know if it's two or four patrol deputies.

Two.

That's what I had, but I wasn't sure. Okay. I had yes to not differential pay in the sheriff's office. I have yes to field training officer pay increasing. And then in road and bridge, I have yes to a fleet mechanic to position. Yes to create the sign tech. to position and promote an employee. Yes, to reclassify the signed tech one position. Yes, to replace the current one row two with a row three. So it's not an addition. It's just doing away with a row two and making that a row three. I have yes with creating an admin specialist three. They currently have an admin specialist two. They would like that to be an admin three, same person, same position. And then yes to reclassify the safety coordinator from an eight position. to a nine. And the other thing that y'all said yes to was the judicial paralegal for the district judges to move from a nine to 11. So those are the only yeses. So the new positions are admin three in the 400 Blanco building.

Quick question. And that's the one that we're going to develop.

Yeah. You got time to work on it's two, three, whatever, but it's just budget purposes. We just got to have the position.

So the only position you haven't discussed is the increase in pay for the fire marshal. and his request to add a deputy fire marshal because he asked for uh adding an admin specialist three that's how you don't need to worry and then he asked for a deputy fire marshal so those are the two things that you have to his his request um to add a deputy fire marshal as well as the in the forty thousand dollar increase for his salary which would be him being somewhere different on the scale. We'll do that Wednesday.

Yes.

I will tell you I will not be here Wednesday. As you know, my son had major surgery this week. He has to follow up with a surgeon in Austin on Wednesday, so I will not be here. So I will just need whatever changes all the fire departments did request. Salary, I have told them all they're welcome to bring anything to the court that day when they're here to present. So I anticipate that most of them will bring some information to you.

When can Clint come?

Probably not because he'll be doing payroll and stuff. So I don't necessarily have to be here. I just need to know the numbers. I mean, sometimes y'all want information from me. I just need to know the numbers you're going to want to put in the budget because what the judge has put in was a I believe you did just a 5%.

I did a straight 5% increase across the board. To fire departments. To all fire departments. And they've got specific requests that are coming in. So we just need a scribe who can document what we've decided on because you're really good about that.

I will take notice of what additions. So is everyone good with the 5% first of all? For what? I just went to every fire department. I gave them a 5% increase to their budget from last year straight across the board. On Wednesday, they're coming in to make additional requests. So if we're good with the 5%, the only thing I'm going to do on Wednesday is take notes as if there's a particular request that someone has that you want to add in. I'm going to take notes and then hand it things that are yeses, hand it to Corinna to insert into the budget. So are you good with the 5%?

We're working with the 5% before they ask.

Correct.

Well, so, I mean, like Comfort asked 5% to 8%. It was an email. They didn't have to turn in real budgets to me anymore because y'all do like a one-time allocation or a four-time allocation. So the judge just in this, what you're seeing is a straight 5% across the board for those fire departments. But whatever numbers you end up doing, I just will need those numbers. Okay. And y'all can give those to me on Thursday. I will be here all day Thursday for the budget meetings, but I cannot be here Wednesday.

And there was, like, one that made no increase requests. So I tried to make something fair across the board.

And Berghain has a big request, and so.

So are we good with the 5%?

I'm good with the 5%.

We'll just come in and focus on individualized requests. Yep. Okay.

And then also on Friday will be the first time you're seeing, because he was not available in round one. He was gone. Brady, I'm sorry, on Thursday, no, Wednesday, he's coming today, is the emergency management and the fire marshal budget. So he'll go over those.

And Thursday, we're going to go through capital. Thursday is the day we're wrapping up.

And you're here Thursday. I'm here all day Thursday. Thursday, you have the county engineer coming back because we waited to bring them back to this round. And I realize we're a week behind. out because of the flooding. But county engineers coming back because y'all have made a, y'all came out of executive session and made an order to change the

Rearrangement.

Functionality rearrangement. So we're coming back with the engineer budget and the development management budget, as well as revisiting all the commissioner's court requests to make sure we have that in for all five members of the court. And then we're talking about capital projects. Visit Comfort is coming back. Is that the name of it? Yes. They're coming back at one o'clock, as well as general budget discussion. So anything that we need to still discuss. And then I asked Mr. Hudson to come in at two. We are scheduled on the schedule from nine to five. So- however long, you know, we need to go there.

So that's... All right, well, Chad, do you have anything else in the last few minutes that you'd like to address? Not offhand, no. Commissioner Chapman, anything from you? Commissioner Reese? No, sir. Commissioner McComb?

Do not.

All right, Corinne, anything from you?

No. General Counsel?

Nope.

All right, with that, it is 10.49 a.m. this Monday, July 27th, and the special call budget workshop meeting of the Camel County Commissioner's Court is adjourned.