Glynn County Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the Thursday, August 27th special call meeting of the Glynn County Board of Commissioners. And I have asked Commissioner Toxison to lead us in our invocation and Commissioner Clark to lead us in our pledge. If you'd stand with me, please.

Dear Lord, thank you for loving us and blessing us the way you do and blessing our county the way you have. Thank you for allowing us to bless these proceedings today. I'm just full of blessings today, but thank you for all that you do for us and how you have blessed us. I ask this in your son Jesus' precious holy name. Amen.

We have only two items on our agenda this afternoon, but before we get to those, we have asked our EMA director, Andy Winston, if he would give us an update on the possibility of a storm that's coming our way.

All right. Thank you for your time today. It's not something we normally see each other, advisory number one, but I think it's important to kind of highlight some of the work that goes into the coordination as we get into this peak of the season. So I brought you a little packet today that highlights where we're at, advisory number one. This is a tropical cyclone dolly. What timing with that, right? It's in the central Atlantic right now. It's a long way from us. Its window of strengthening is going to be short. So we've been tracking this storm. Mr. Fallon and I, we work weeks. As these waves come in, I just want you to know, The last piece of paper that you have there is a printout from our weather service. This is what Fallon and I will usually talk about, sometimes daily or a couple times a day. We don't ever want to stir anybody up, but we're constantly preparing, watching these, looking for timing with events. We coordinate with other departments. So although you might see advisory number one coming out today, Mr. Fallon and I have probably changed texts and phone calls and emails 30 or 40 times before you actually see us. But what we're seeing this year, because there has been a lack of storms, is a lot of online circulation of these tracks that don't accurately depict. It might be a line or a Google DeepMind AI track, but it won't show the intensity. But right now, if this thing strengthens up, it's probably going to roll back out to the Atlantic. If it gets weaker, you might see it come in and you might see some rains over the islands and whatnot. But not an incredible threat at this point, but we just wanted to take a second to make you all aware that as we are in the peak of season, we are coordinating and working with departments and being mindful of all these tracks.

All right. And then, Andy, if you could, just what we can expect is that second blow up there. So I think that we're going to see daily thunderstorms for the next four or five days that could produce some spot flow. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. These rains, it's like we're getting it all at once. We needed it during the drought, and we're kind of getting it back like buckets at a time. So these storms are going to continue through this. And this season, we're in the Super El Nino. We're going to see the sea effects this winter as well. I just want to take advantage of this.

Andy, thank you and your entire team for the work that you do to prepare us as we come into this season. We know it's not a one-and-done kind of event, but thank you, and we'll just keep the public posted as it merits. Exactly. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. All right. Thank you. The first item on our published agenda is to have a public hearing on the millage rate. It is for the purpose of receiving citizen comments regarding the proposed 26-27 millage rate and to consider adopting a rough solution to establish the 2026 millage rate for the glen county board of commissioners and authorize the chairman to sign the required property tax digest submission forms and uh we have with us our cfo mr mayor munson and uh Clerks know that documentation was added to correct some minor errors on that. So, Ms. Munson, we'll turn it over to you.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is the final and third public hearing that we're having on our millage rates for this year. I'm going to speed through this since you all have heard this presentation in full twice already. Anyone that wants to go back and hear it in full can reference the YouTube video for August 18th or August 20th, and the full presentation was given at both of those meetings. This is just our annual budget process, and what's important to note here is that we work on the budget all year long, and we have to adopt the budget before the final digest comes out, so we're just taking a guess at what our property digest values are going to be. We are proposing a 3.864 millage rate in the general fund, which is the same rate that we've had for the last three years, either three or four years, last three years. So this will be the fourth year. Our calculated rollback rate is 3.623, and we are asking to adopt the proposed rate of 3.864. Our rate is not increasing. This is the same rate, but because our digest has increased in value, we will collect more property taxes, so we're required by the state to advertise a property tax increase. This is a slide on how the millage rate works and how to calculate your millage rates. Our proposed rates by tax district. The 3.864, the one we're having the public hearing on, this is just for the general fund portion, which affects all residents of the county. This is a slide that summarizes our budget that was adopted and how the property taxes will support that. Another budget slide on where our money comes from and where it gets spent. This is just an explanation of why we're asking for the proposed rate of 3.864 versus the rollback rate of 3.623. And in summary, adopting the 3.864, we are already going to be projected to be short a couple hundred thousand dollars in our general fund revenue because the digest came in lower than what our original anticipation was. Um, if we had adopted the rollback rate at 3.6 to three, we would have been short over $2 million in the general fund digest, um, revenue. Um, what this means for your tax bill. If you have a Scarlet Williams homestead exemption, there won't be any changes to your tax bill from the county taxes. Um, if you do not have a homestead exemption or you have a business property, that was worth $300,000, you would see an increase in your tax bill of $28.92 for the year or $2.41 a month. We have reduced our millage rate. We reduced it four years in a row. And as I said, this will be the fourth year that we are holding the millage rate the same at 3.864. We do have one of the lowest millage rates in the state of Georgia, and we are currently As of last year, we were the third lowest. I'm not sure where we will land this year because everyone's rates aren't adopted yet. Our growth is slowing down in our M&O Digest. Our costs keep rising, so it's important for us to just look at this as a trend that's going forward to determine how to move forward in the future. This is a little bit about our fund balance and how it's structured. and why we need to maintain our reserves. A big part of that is what Andy was discussing with the storms. Most of our reserves are meant to carry us through during times of an emergency or a storm. The bottom line is maintain the current 3.864 general fund millage rate and maintain our emergency reserves and operating reserves at appropriate levels. And that is it. So this is our last public hearing, and I believe we can move on to the public hearing portion.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Munson. Before we open the public hearing, Commissioners, is there any comments you'd like to make before? All right. This is a public hearing to get citizen input on the 26-27 military. If there's anyone here who wishes to speak, they can come forward. State your name for the record, please. All right. It's virtually an empty room today. If there's no one who wishes to speak, we'll close the public hearing and we'll move to item number two.

One note, we do need to formally adopt the mill rates for item number one. I did not put a separate motion, but Commissioner...

I thought that was item number two, was adopt the resolution accepting the millage rate.

Mr. Chairman, I move to adopt a resolution to establish the 2026 millage rates for Glynn County Board of Commissioners and authorize the Chairman to sign the required property tax digest submission forms. Second.

I have a motion by Commissioner Hrafowski, a second by Commissioner Clark to adopt the 2627 millage rate. Any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous, 7-0. And now we'll move to number two, which is adopt a resolution accepting the Board of Education's millage rate as adopted by the Board of Education. Ms. Munson again.

So this is just a state law requirement. The Board of Education sets their own millage rate, but as the county, we are required to accept what they have adopted so that it can be billed on the property tax digest. So this is a formality, but they have adopted a millage rate of 14.9 mills. And this is the same rate that they've had for the last several years as well. And they also held their required three public hearings for increases. And so just need you to adopt this so the tax commissioner can bill it for us.

All right. Commissioners, we have any discussion on this?

But we can move forward. All right. Chairman, I move to adopt a resolution accepting the Board of Education's millage rate as adopted by the Board of Education. Second.

I have a motion by Commissioner Rafalski, a second by Commissioner Switt. to adopt the Board of Education's military. Any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous. That concludes our regular published agenda. I do believe we have need for executive session for the matters of property acquisition. Do I have a motion to go into executive session?

Motion to go into executive session for property acquisition.

I have a motion by Commissioner Rafalski, a second by an entourage on the left side, Booker and Clark. So, any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous. We stand and recess.

Motion to come out of executive session.

Second. I have a motion by Commissioner Rafalski, a second by Commissioner Duncan, to come out of executive session. All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous.

Mr. Chairman, I move to approve the recommendations of the Director of Capital Development regarding property acquisition.

Second. I have a motion by Commissioner Rafalski, a second by Commissioner Duncan, to approve the recommendation for property acquisition. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. That is unanimous. Can I entertain a motion to adjourn? We have a motion to adjourn. I have a motion to adjourn by Commissioner Rafalski, seconded by Commissioner Swett. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Thank you. That concludes our business for today. Have a nice day.