Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Glad to have you here tonight. Our first order of business is a public hearing. Uh public hearing on the ordinance to amend the Batesburg leville code of ordinances appendix A article 13-zoning board of appeal section 13-1 that's establishment membership and proceedings of the board. Do we have anyone that would like to speak on this ordinance? If not, then we'll close the public hearing. At this time, it is 7:02 and we will call the meeting to order. Uh, someone's supposed to be here for the invocation. I'm sorry. Could you tell me who you are and I'll introduce you. I'm I'm Reverend Scott Nurse.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you being here.

Let us pray. Almighty God, we are so grateful to be gathered here tonight in your presence. We thank you for being the privilege of living in this great country and in this great state and in this wonderful, beautiful town of Batesburg, Williamsville. Lord, we pray that you encourage those who are here tonight. We thank them for their service and we ask Lord that you give them a spirit of wisdom as they decide the business of this town and community. We pray that they have a the servants's heart to serve the people of this community and make the best decisions for them and a spirit of unity Lord that as they make decisions and even though they will certainly disagree on some things that they disagree agrievely and work the best to come to the best solution. We pray Lord that as our Lord sacrificed himself from us, they put the people of this community first and bless them with this time. We call on your holy grace to be poured out on all those assembled here in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, sir. uh what we are doing with invocations this year or since since I've taken over we the chamber in town has sponsors a ministerial alliance which the churches and the pastors have an opportunity and so I've asked the alliance to have someone come up at each meeting that we have and do the invocation. I think it's only right that we should spread it around to all the ministers that would like to come up here and do that. And I would like to thank them very much for doing that for us.

All right. At this time, it's stand if you're able and we'll do the pledge of allegiance led by Bo Turner. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Where's that?

All right. At this time, I would like to uh get a motion to approve the agenda. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a um amendment to the agenda if possible. Okay. I I move that we amend the agenda to add um a proclamation honoring the 99th birthday of Miss Cormine Johnson. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'd like to second that, sir.

All right. Have a motion and a second that we amend the agenda by adding a proclamation to honor Miss Karen Johnson for her 99th birthday. That's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. Mor. Yes, sir. Uh, where will that be uh inserted into the agenda, please? It's going to come in here at the after we do beginning or end of new. Yeah. When we when we do the prelim the proclamation. Okay. Thank you. Item four. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Any other questions? If not, we'll vote. District one. Yes. District two. Yes. District three. District three votes yes. District four. four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District 8 votes yes. And the mayor votes yes. Motion carries. All right. Now, can we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended? So move. Have a motion.

We have a motion, a second to approve the agenda as amended. Uh, it's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one, yes. District two, yes. District three, District three, votes yes. District four, four, yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, District 8, vote yes. And the mayor vote yes. That motion carries. The agenda is approved. Uh, I need a motion to adopt the minutes of the work session for February 3rd, 2026.

I have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the work session on February 3rd, 2026. It's now open for discussion. If there's no discussion, we'll vote. District one, yes. District two. Mr. Mayor, I abstain since I was not part of that meeting. District three. District three votes yes. District four, four, yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, yes.

The mayor vote yes. That motion carries. Have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular council meeting on February 9th, 2026. So move it. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second that we approve the minutes from the regular council meeting on February 9th. It's now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one, yes. District two, abstain. District three. District three votes yes. District four, yes. District five,

yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, District 8, vote yes. And the mayor vote yes. That motion carried. The minutes are approved. And I need a motion to approve the minutes from the special council meeting and work session on February 23rd. A motion. All right. A motion of a second. Second. Motion and a second. It's now open for discussion. Mr. Mr. Mayor, seems like we've been busy this month, sir. Seems like we've been busy this month. Yes, sir. It does seem that way. Okay. Any further discussion? If not, we'll vote. District one, yes.

District two, yes. District three. District three votes yes. District four, abstain. I was absent. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven. Uh, you may abstain from voting. I was not present. All right. District eight. District A vote yes. And the mayor votes yes. That motion carries. All right. That brings us to the presentation of awards, proclamations, and resolutions. Do we just read these or or we we don't vote on them, do we? Since the proclamation,

just read them. U it's your prerogative if you'd like to read it. I think Steve said that the uh grief and mental health awareness day it would be read at the the event on the 28th. Yeah, you don't have to read all that day. Okay. Yeah, that was that was a lengthy one. I do think I do think reading Miss Johnson's would be appropriate. Okay. All right. We do have a proclamation for the South Carolina Grief and Mental Health Awareness Day, March 28th, which will be at the Vohees campus in Leisel. Uh we hope that everybody comes out and we have good participation from that. Thank you, mayor.

All right. We have a proclamation honoring Karen Johnson on the occasion of her 99th birthday. And I'm going to read that now.

Proclamation honoring Karen Johnson on the occasion of her 99th birthday. Whereas the town council of the Bates of of the Batesburg Leville is honored to recognize the remarkable life and legacy of Karine Johnson as she celebrates her 99th birthday. And whereas Miss Johnson is a pioneering entrepreneur who opened Johnson's beauty shop nearly 80 years ago, becoming one of the first African-American women business owners in Batesburg, Leville and creating a business that has several generations of families. And whereas after earning her butition license in 1946 from Porro College, Miss Johnson built a career rooted in service, perseverance, and excellence, preserving an important piece of local history through artifacts and memories that refle reflect the experience of African American professionals during the Jim Crow era. And whereas through her work as a butician and community leaner, Miss Johnson helped support and uplift others, including assisting in fundraising efforts to help send the son of Almea Flyurn to college, demonstrating her lifelong commitment to community advancement. And whereas Miss Johnson is also a living witness to a pivotal moment in American civil rights history, the 1946 assault of Isaac Woodard, an event that ultimately influenced President Harry S. Truman to designate the United States military, desegregate the United States military. And whereas for nearly a century, Miss Johnson has embodied resilience, faith, and service, remaining a beloved presence in our community and an inspiration to all who know her. And whereas she celebrates her

99th birthday, the town of Batesburg, Leville proudly recognizes her extraordinary life, her contributions to local business and civil rights history, and the endearing legacy she has built for future generations. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the mayor and town council of the town of Batesburg, Leville, hereby honor Karine Johnson on the occasion of her 99th birthday on March 15, 2026. Celebrating her historic contributions, entrepreneurial spirit, and lifelong dedication to community encourage all residents to enjoin in recognizing her remarkable legacy. Be it furthermore proclaimed that the town of Bettsburg Leisville celebrates Karine Johnson not only for her remarkable longevity but for the courage, perseverance and leadership she has shown for nearly a century. Her life stands as a living testament that history is not only written in books but lived through the strength, faith and determination of individuals who shaped their communities for generations to come. Adopted this 9th day of March 2026. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Miss Johnson's daughter is here and I think she would uh like to receive that. Would you want to come up and and grab that for your mom?

Nor normally um Michael's here to take a picture, but

So now Steve's running a meeting. It's not moving.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

99. You guys a long time to be on this.

The mayor's report is next on the agenda. The next regular council meeting will be April 13, 2026. This is finished. Council committees reports. Uh, Central Midlands Councilman Joe Montgomery. Mr. Mayor, uh, Midlands Council of Governments did not meet in February. Our next meeting will be March 26th. I'll have you a report next month. All right. Epac, Councilman Bo Turner.

Uh, Mr. Mayor, the uh, the Environmental Planning Committee, our advisory committee actually met on February 6. uh discussed was the plan 28 208 amendments which was uh primarily engineering report and technical framework for the Fairfield County uh water system. Not a whole lot pertaining to the Batesburg Leville. Uh but the next meeting will be March 19th. Thank you, sir. Joint Municipal Water and Sewer Commission uh did not meet this month because it was a conflict with the Lexington County night at the convention center. We do meet Wednesday night. So there's we had no meeting in the month of February. At this time, I'll call on Mr. Mike Taylor to come up and give us a report of the BNL Chamber of Commerce.

Thanks, sir. If I may make a few comments about Miss Corine Johnson before I begin my report. I had the opportunity to get to know her better as a grand marshal of the prey this past in December. and it's been a pleasure to be around her and get to know her. And I have selfishly gone by there several times to see her again because it brightens my day every day I go by and talk to her. So, she's an asset to the community and a great person. I appreciate y'all doing that. Mike, how long does it take you to get out of there?

It a while. She lights up my light up. So, it it was nice. Um on on today it was a beautiful Chamber of Commerce day in Batesburg Leville. I I hope we have many more like that. I had the opportunity to attend two informative meetings on roads the end of February. One meeting was presented by Alan Hut who's chief uh staff of the South Carolina Department of Transportation. We have over 41,000 miles of roads uh that the state maintains and 8,500 bridges that need to be maintained. As y'all are aware, from 1987 to 2017, the gas tax did not increase and so the extra money certainly helped, but far as the roads are deteriorated and so forth. Um they have a budget of around $3.3 billion now, which is an awful lot of money. But when you consider that a project in Charleston down around the port is going to run somewhere around $7 billion and the fact that the road like we have out here in a highway one taking from a two lane to a five lane is roughly $20 million a square mile. Uh 3.3 doesn't go a long way. Um so that Mr. Huau said that there's very few dollars for congestion in the state which is one of our major problems. The other meeting provided information about Lexon and countywide transportation improvement plan. Uh this data-driven initiative will inform citizen Lexon County uh where the existing daily traffic volumes are as well as existing areas of congestion, historical high injury and crash frequency. The information will be provided that open houses uh about I think it's six meetings. Ours is going to be March the 25th from 5 to 7 at the Bakesboro

Leville High School gymnasium. I encourage everyone to go there uh and be informed. I have a suspicion. I believe that the returns from this will be a directive to county council if they go and go after capital project sales tax. So, it behooves us to be there and provide information from our community. Um, our first event, I'm sorry, all this information is on our Facebook page and website. Our first event of the year, the Chambers Taste of Time, which is going to be on Saturday, March 21st at TNS Farms, beginning at 7:00. Theme this year is smile, say cheese. So, you kind of have an idea that cheese might be in there a little little bit. Um, I have seen some of the recipes. I assure you they going to be interesting and very good. I know who the entertainment is, so I look for it to be a very special evening. Hope you'll be able to attend.

Mike, um Troy's not allowed to participate. I will not have any permitted chase counsel. No. Well, I'm saying Troy, he's not going to be permitted. Well, he's going for the third time to win. Okay. And knowing him and his abilities, he's most probably has a pretty good chance. So, but we got some competition.

Okay. Um the Bber Leeland Ministerial Alliance's Good Friday community service will be on Friday, April the 3rd at 11:00. It goes from 11 to 1 and it's going to be at the Batesburg Church of Nazarene which is located at 4:15 Cedar Street which is across from the elementary school uh in Leville business district. Uh, I'm sure Jay get into some of these and I hate to duplicate but my friends from the BBA here and they may be upset if I don't mention their thing coming up as partners uh and events in this community but their St. Patrick's Day festival on Oak Street is from 8 to 8. It begins with a um 1K fun run that then the golf cart parade, arts and crafts, food trucks, entertainment and much much more. Uh there's also it's going to be a busy weekend. Fathom of the opera by the uh Panther players is also Saturday. They have two times 2 and 6. And then on Sunday at 3:00 our general membership meeting will be on Thursday, March the 26 again at 7:30 is at Sheilles. Mr. Mayor and Council that concludes my report.

Thank you, Mr. Mike. I appreciate it very much. At this time, is there any public comment? Not we'll move on to unfinished business. We have second reading of an ordinance to amend the Batesburg leasable code of ordinances appendix A article 13-zoning board of appeal section 13-1- establishment membership and proceedings of the board and Jay if if I may that basically is making membership and the planning commission and the zoning board appeals the same. Is that

correct? Uh, it would be at large for both both bodies. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve second reading? So move. We have a second. Second. A motion and a second that we have approved second reading of this ordinance. It's now open for discussion. Mr. Mayor.

Yes, ma'am. I would like to just make note that um I I think that this is a bad idea because the zoning board of appeals there is no way if if people are not representing a district then it could easily get loaded one way or another within the town in years to come. Maybe not right this minute but in years to come it could do that. And zoning board of appeals has no it doesn't come to council. It doesn't go anywhere. it has to go to a court of law in order for anything to be changed there. So, I am uh I don't think that's a good idea to change that for that reason.

Any other discussion? What was the reason for the proposed change if I could ask? Uh just finding folks to be able to serve. Would would you like me to handle that one? That's the main thing I think. But I really don't know. And they have to be what it was. But yeah, planning commissions at large, each council member picks somebody, but they don't have to be from their district. The boarding board of zoning appeals was you had to pick somebody from your district. And some people have a hard time finding somebody that's willing to serve in their district. So the idea is to make it a little bit easier to get somebody so we don't have vacancies on that board.

And they only meet once a year. Mr. Mr. Mayor, if I may,

uh, actually this goes back to the fact that by tradition, not by law, uh, the members to the planning board, uh, have been appointed by district up until approximately um, my second term. And at that time I questioned whether or not uh since it did not specify whether or not that and our learned attorney ruled that it could be at large. The alternative is to change the original ordinance and to make both the planning commission and the zoning board appeals by district. In doing so, I think we would vote this down and someone should

then proceed with a resolution or a motion to change the zoning board to a by district. Any any more discussion? Mr. Mayor, my concern is as Miss Knox mentioned in the future we see the town about to explode with growth. Um, we would I believe that there could be a problem an issue in the future that we would have people in the places that were not representing specific districts and that could propose some problems for the various substantiated districts. That's my concern as well.

Any other discussion? If not, then we'll vote. District one. No. District two, no. District three. District three votes. Yes. District four. District four. No. District five. No. District six. No. District seven, no. District eight,

District 8 votes no and the mayor votes no. The motion is defeated. So, at this point, it stays like it is until somebody makes another motion. Can that motion be made now that we change the amendment for the planning commission as well? No, ma'am. We would have to wait for another agenda. You do it now. You would need to uh do another a first reading on a new amendment. That's right. Ordinance to change it. Can we add that to the next agenda? Maybe. That's the council's prerogative. Yes, ma'am. You can.

And we can't do it tonight. That's what because it's got the four requirements. That's correct. if you can find people now. All right, that takes us to new business and let's do a little housekeeping first. Okay,

the uh the staff has asked that we everyone on council make sure your mics are on. They're having a hard time. The green lights got to be on whenever you talk. they have a hard time deciphering who said what or hearing what you said. So, make sure it's on when you talk. Uh, and then my request is this. The next thing is going to be presentation of the 2425 audit. I would like to request that if you have questions, you write your questions down and wait until the auditor gets finished with his presentation. I know if I'm making a presentation somewhere, I do not like being interrupted. It messes up my train of thought. I would expect that most people are that way. I think questions will be appropriate at the end. And if you will please do that, it would be greatly appreciated by me. All right, at this time we would like to call the name right.

Neil. It's Neil Crider with Neil Crider with McGregor Associates.

We've got some new faces. So, these folks seem to know who I am. I can see who you are. So, I see familiar faces. I see new faces. Good to meet y'all. Look forward to working with each of you um in this capacity and congrats on your seats. Looks like quite the shakeup happened. All right. So, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Good to see everyone this evening, and I hope everybody's been doing well. As always, I want to thank management and the staff of the town for assisting us with answering all our questions and providing all the information we ask. We uh fill this room up with all their books and records as we go through it. Um, so it's a lot to pull out, a lot to put back in. Um so the audit continues to involve great deal of proposed adjustments involving approvals and recclasses which creates additional time and effort to arrive at what you have in your hands today. Um this audit is also a single audit meaning this audit includes three layers or sets of standards to follow. Um you got your generally accepted auditing standards then you've got your government auditing standards. And then outside of that, you got your single audit standards to follow all uh single audit is your federal compliance. So the opinions, let's get right to it. Uh first on the financial statements, if you'll turn to page one, you'll find our independent auditor's report. This is our report on the financial statements. After conducting our audit for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025 and

obtaining sufficient appropriate evidence to support our opinions, we issue an unmodified opinion on the financial statements for a clean opinion. Although there may be findings mentioned later, the numbers here are presented fairly in all material respects and can be relied upon by the public. Okay. Now, let's turn over to page 76 towards the back. This is our report on internal control and compliance in accordance with government auditing standards. We considered the town's internal control over financial reporting to determine our audit procedures to express our opinion on the financial statements but not for expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of internal control. Now when speaking of internal control deficiencies, there are two types that reach the level of reportable findings. They are significant deficiencies and material weaknesses. Significant deficiencies are the less severe finding while material weaknesses report a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis. And we identified one internal control deficiency that we considered to be a material weakness and one that we consider to be a significant deficiency. And the details of those findings are on page 82. The condition of the first finding was several audit adjustments were proposed and posted to the town's trial balance to correct material misstatements. The material adjustments related to required expenditure expense acrals for

construction projects and related grant receivables and revenues. Um the effect of this condition without the proposed audit adjustments the town's financials would have been materially misstated. Uh the cause of this there was a failure to acrew as accounts payable several construction invoices along with retain payables at year end and related grant revenues and receivables were also not recorded. So we've got recommendation here and town's response. It's a second year.

Okay. Finding 252. This is a repeat of the prior year regarding the bank accounts and the bank reconciliations. This comes down to the timeliness of having those performed at at management's level. Um, so that does put a delay in in some of the work that we do until we can get those reconciled, get everything in its place. Uh, we can't really start our audit. So, this is a repeat finding. Uh, hopefully we'll be cleared up in this current fiscal year. Okay. So for the single audit piece, fiscal year 25, the town was required to have a single audit conducted in relation to its federal program expenditures. Uh when an entity has over $750,000 in federal expenditures during a fiscal year, it becomes subject to this type of compliance requirement or compliance audit rather. Um for fiscal year 26, this figure will increase to 1 million. So we've also issued a report related to this audit and that's on page 78. So as part of this audit, we are required to identify the major programs. The major programs determined were the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds for which its assistance listing number encompassed the skip grant spending and also the drinking water state revolving fund which also pertain to the skip grant funding. Based on our testing of those programs, the town complied in all material respects with the types of compliance requirements that could have a direct and material effect on the program with the exception of the reporting compliance requirement. The material

weaknesses that I mentioned earlier had a direct effect on the federal programs and the amounts reported in the FIFA. That's your schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Therefore, a material weaknesses was noted for internal controls over major programs and the opinions had to be qualified for the major programs due to non-compliance with the reporting requirement. Now, I'm going to stop here if you don't mind and take questions on this part and then I can go into a quick financial summary.

Okay. If you have a if you have a question, please get recognized and who wants to go first?

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir.

Clarification. Uh you actually are auditing that we have in place uh controls to asssure that uh our uh records are correct and that money is being spent as allocated but not that it is actually occurring. You just that we have the controls not that we are abiding by the controls. Well, we do we do take a sample of expenditures and we have to be okay that those controls are in place and operating effectively. So, we get an understanding of the controls and certain controls will test certain samples and in those samples we've tested um we we had no exceptions. So, that that establishes the basis for us to factor that into our risk assessment. U because there's two components to that and control risk is is one of those. Okay.

Any other questions at this point? Well, I have one um as far as reconciling the bank statements. Do we have somebody to do that?

So, that is the responsibility of the finance staff. Uh we do have two personnel. Uh during the 2425 year, we did have some health issues within that staff that slowed us and did impact it. Um, fortunately everybody is healthy this year and I believe that we will be in better position for next year. Yes, sir.

Okay. My next question following up on that is in federal programs. Could this this mess up or lack of doing that on our part, the town's part, could cause somebody to have to spend a little time in the jail, right? If you can't find if it's not done correctly, could they not come in and prosecute if they wanted to? Well, that's hard for me to say. Yeah,

because we have we have actually put these things in place where they need to go. Okay. So that's that's the part of where the finding comes into place because our detection procedures detected these issues. We remedyed we did a remedy to those so they are in the right places otherwise this you corrected the problem but you correct your audo we proposed those adjustments to be corrected to the trial balance. Okay.

That's what flows into these financials. Mr. Mayor, that was the proposal from the audit company. So, what have we seen? Have you seen any attempts to make any changes yet? I'm sorry. What? Have you seen any attempts to make changes to adjust what was not in place in the last? Yes, you have. I have seen attempts. Okay. Yes. But attempts but not completed or working on it. Well, I think it's an in progress. It's in progress. Okay. It's in progress, but it still reaches at a level of that significant deficiency.

So, there needs to be something some action taken, some immediate actions taken. Okay. And we I want to go back to the part the mayor asks about the the bank accounts being properly reconciled to the ledger and it had not been completed. And I Mr. Hendrick said that last year there were some problems. Have we corrected the problems from last year? Do we have people in place? Do we have information being submitted on a timely basis as of the first quarter of this year? Not quite through the first quarter.

It it is still a work in progress. We are current on two of the four budgets and we are working on the other two. uh we did have a you know a staffing shakeup in that office and so we were uh a one person staff in that office for about six months and so we are kind of put in a catch-up mode and we also have the new springbook software that has been implemented that has created as y'all saw with the final reports recently it is a work in progress that was going to be my next question if we were operating with a software package that would be feasible for the persons in office to make the necessary their entries on a timely basis.

Yes. And and and that will there still so the staff the Spring Brook software is being implemented. We are currently operating with the new software, but as I mentioned in the email with some of the financial reports, the history has not completely been transferred over from the old software to the new. So there there is a process there. It's taken a lot longer than we had hoped and it's been frustrating for staff. Um, but we do anticipate that that will be done this spring. Um, you have a better time frame. I'm hoping by the end of March that might be

Yeah, we're hoping that by the end of the month the all the old data is converted over and we'll be in a much better place and we'll be streamlined at that point and we'll be able to make ground. But but it's it is a process and we have been slowed but I mean that's just it is a it's a process we're working through. you said in progress. When did we convert to the new system with the software? Do you So that was approved last summer. Uh and so we actually went live on it. January 5th.

Yeah. January 5th was the finance going live. So at the end of last year, we had been working on some other items within the software system, but January 5th was the go live. So there were other there are a lot of different components that are in our software system from utility billing to uh personnel payroll, business licensing and um and then the finance and so we had training going on leading up to it. They were doing some behind the scenes uh setup and then we went live with it January 5th. But they were still converting the old data from the former public software to the new spring cirrus software. So

so it it again hopefully all of that will be done by the end of the month. I I try not to promise too much, but we're hopeful sooner rather than later. They have led us to believe by the end of the month, but um but that that definitely makes it challenging for y'all to to look at those documents. Exactly. And as well as myself working on budget items. So u I I want to see it just as bad as y'all do. Okay. And um sounds like you um we happening you're going to put the HR all of these various integral parts in place. So that's what's could possibly be taking the um extra time to get everything in there.

There there have been it's been a process with each of those department and and I've got to touch on it when with the manager's report about upcoming utility swap over. But um it is a process. Yes. And it has taken longer than we had anticipated longer than we had been led to believe. M Mr. Mayor. Yes, ma'am. I I would like to um ask do you think that on the reconciliations if you get if all the history is is uploaded that within the next three months or by the end of 3 months we should be up and running on everything and keeping it up to date monthly.

Once we get called up, I don't see a problem keeping it called up. But as Jay said, we have a lot going on with this new software. We've even been assisting utility billing with their implementation. So, we are trying really hard. I promise you nobody wants it caught up more than me. I I bet I bet not. Um, but so we we can shoot maybe you you're saying at the late spring, so that's why I was saying three months. That would put us in June. So, yeah, certainly before that. Absolutely. But hopefully by um one one more question if you don't mind, Councilman Hall. um on the material on the audit adjustments. Are are we going to some line item?

So the issues for for that to make sure that we're not missing any of the um construction invoices and stuff that we've got some line item so things there to just to jump in there. You know, I think what the discussion we had with staff has been is to create new line items specific for each of those um those grants to to help streamline it so we don't have a mixture of um the all the grant funds going into special revenue to try to make it cleaner um across the board. I think that is I I'll defer to Neil on

that that part of the deal is you having separate account line items to be able to see okay this is this police off you know grant police department grant this uh this is federal but when it's in the ledger as of the end of the fiscal year not a problem if it needs to be reclassed we propose an adjustment to reclass the issue comes in is the timing of when those expenses or expenditures, how whichever fund you're in and whichever term you use. Um, if those come in in October, you know, if construction company sends the application for payment in October, but it's for June services and there's retainage on there and there's hundreds of thousands of dollars

need to hit the books on the approval basis, those things have to happen. And if if the issue is had our detection procedures not caught that had we not gone out 3 four months of looking at data those those might have been overlooked. Okay. And you know but that's why we do those procedures. Correct. Thank you Mr. Hall. Mr. Mayor uh question for the town. Are we running the systems parallel? Old system, new system parallel? No.

No sir. It the old system is still there for accessing those records, but everything currently is being inputed into the new system. So the uh data for January, February will be coming off the new system.

Yes, sir. That that was what you received last week. those financial reports. What you saw for January and February was from the new system, those trial balances and and check registers. That was the new system data. Uh that's that's why it looked different from the previous revenue and expense reports. It has a different look from the older system that we've used. I'm having difficult recognizing what you're we've received the re financial reports for for January and February via email. Yes, sir. Okay. Did everybody receive this? Yeah. Okay. Mr. Mayor.

No. Yes, sir. Uh could I ask if is this new software going to eliminate the need to have to manually transfer some of these thing into the general ledger? Um aren't I doing a significant amount of manual? It it yeah it should eliminate the manual use of the bank reconciliation. We we will have um software to do the bank reconciliation once we get everything implemented which I think will help tremendously. That that's part of the reason why it takes so long is we are still doing that manually. Right. And it is very timeconuming on these large accounts. Well, thank you. Yeah, Mr. Mayor.

Yes sir. under significant dis um deficiencies. Uh you stated it or gentleman stated it did not complete bank re reconciliations in a timely manner. What kind of time are we talking that basically they're behind because most of these grants do carry timelines for reporting and things that has to be or you lose future grants. Mhm. So, as far as the bank reconciliations, I think we came in May. I think we came in to assist on catching those up for the town, but I think there was one or two that hadn't been done for the year or they had been done through I think one was done through November. So, as in May, they were behind again. So, we were having to come in in order to get to be able to audit we had to come in and assist with doing those bank reconciliations. To your point about federal programs and the reporting issues, yes, it does create an issue. You're not reconciling. There are items that could hit your bank account that that could be not yours, not authorized by the town, not going through the town's internal control. So if those items hit the bank account, it may take six, eight months if you're that far behind to detect those things.

You need to know it, you know, and we're coming in at a certain level of materiality. Everything else is kind of on the town to be able to detect those with their internal controls. So it is it's extremely important to make sure these things are covered. Any more questions? All right, sir. Can you continue? All righty.

Okay. So, if you turn to page 14, I'm just going to go a little financial analysis or highlights. Is a little smaller for me. So this page shows your revenues and expenditures of the governmental funds uh including changes in fund balances. Uh the general fund had a decrease in fund balance of 63,685 and that's after budgeting for a decrease of $315,500. So that brings the ending fund balance for that fund to 2 million $134,590. Um, that's about four months of operating space or 120 days to be exact. Uh, the hospitality tax fund had a decrease in fund balance of 200 thou $276,928 bringing ending fund balance to 1,38,292 for that fund. Revenues taken in were $897,789. that includes interest earnings of $73,329. Uh many projects were ongoing around town which resulted in the expenditures of 1,154,17. Governmental funds as a whole far right column uh decreased down towards the bottom $337,374. So that brings your total governmental fund balances to $3,467,790 at year end. Okay. If you will flip over to page 19,

we'll talk about the utility fund briefly. utility utility fund had a profit of 9,129,46. This brings the total net position in the utility fund to 29 million $15,595. Of this amount, 26,180,124 is the net investment in capital assets. $22 and44 $22,455 is restricted cash and the remaining $2,633,16 is essentially cash that would remain after paying current liabilities. Operating revenues increased by $83,74 while operating expenses increased by $192,735. Most of the increase in net position is from the skip grant funds received into that fund. The grant expenses are all recorded on the statement of net position as construction and process which is why the increase in net position was so high. So when the underlying assets are eventually placed into service, they will be depreciated and that expense will begin hitting the bottom line over a number of years based on the useful life of the property. Another measurable uh one could look at for the fund is cash flow. That's over on page 20. cash or right in the middle of the page, cash in the utility fund increased by 33 300 $37,781.

So when we pull all this information together, the town's net position increased 10,576,93. The town had overall revenues of 20,531,479 and overall expenses of 9,955,386. Your long-term debt decreased overall $292,244. Your net investment in capital assets increased by 11,116,549. Um, and and that just that's all your ongoing projects, your purchases of property, equipment, such such as that. Um just looking ahead into F FY26. Um the town's going to be subject to single audit again due to the skip grant spending u combined with other federal dollars such as safe streets and roads for all grant. So any questions on any financial

Mr. Mayor if I may. Yes. On page 14, uh, you indicate a ending year bank B, uh, funding balance of 2,134,590. Is that cash on hand? No. Okay. Your cash will be reported on page 12 for the general fund. Okay. Right at the top of the page, uh cash and equivalents for the general fund. You got the 1 million1 139 353. You got investments. Uh all that's in your LJIP local government investment pool 867,863. You've got funds in the hospitality tax fund that you see there.

Okay. But in the general fund, cash and equivalents, uh when you say investments, u you're speaking um of the LJIP fund. Okay. So, I'm looking at this and my math is bad, but uh I'm looking at uh a little over $2 million.

Right. Okay. And and the reason for it is I'm looking and there's a conflict here. I'm looking at the reported bank balances of June 1st, 2025. Um that would be June 1st and you're talking uh June 30th. Okay. Because the bank balances at that time were 1 million7 which significant difference. June is a positive month. Okay. I'll have to go recalculate. Thank you. Yes, sir.

I do have one question. Um, in talking about the the general fund and you mentioned um the um the balance um that's there 2,134590. You said that is equivalent to how many up months of operation? That's about four months. Okay. What is recommended for something like that in terms of months? Uh, generally for a town this size, minimum two months. Okay. Thank you. And and that's that's just my a lot of towns may have a minimum fun balance that they operate off of.

However, if I may comment on that, that is a peak uh month for our uh balances on hand. uh we then lose our major revenue sources. There are minimal uh business licenses coming in and no property taxes. So each month they each month is a actual deficit month revenues versus expenses until we hit January. Is that correct, Mr. Town Manager?

Off the top of my head, that would be fair. Yeah, January and February are the big tax revenue. that's peaked but we are in a deficit uh uh we have more expenses than we have revenues typically starting in July through uh December. I think that's fair. Yes. So this is the peak. If you want to look at what we really carry minimum on hand, you would have to look at roughly December uh or December January 1st bank balances to actually get a picture of your total real reserves. Thank you.

Valid point. And looking at your changes in these fund balances is key at this time of year. Any other questions?

That it. That's all I have. Thank you, sir. We appreciate the information. Appreciate the information. Everybody. All right. That takes us to the next item of business which is approval of the BBA hax grant request. Uh go ahead, Mr. Mayor, if I may.

Yes, sir. And on the uh HAX grant, I would make a motion that we uh approve a grant of $5,000 to the B PVA contingent on them meeting all the reporting requirements of the uh grant. Second. Have a motion and a second that we give a grant of $5,000 to the BBA for the St. Patrick's Day Festival. Now open for discussion. What is the requested amount, Mr. Mayor? $7,000 if I may answer.

Yeah, 7,200 is the request. If I may comment, last year was $3,700.

Uh they did, in my opinion, they did not meet the uh reporting requirements. uh 30 days after the close of event and nor did they do an expense versus uh revenue. Um so therefore I'm trying to be a good steward of our taxpayers money. I think 5,000 is a reasonable amount. Uh we show 400 people uh from out of town. That's roughly uh 15 $16 per person. I think we could probably entice that many people by offering uh coupons for $15 or $16 discounts for those vendors, for those merchants. But that's that's my opinion on the issue.

Any other discussion? on well I would ask on their application did they not fulfill the requirements uh of showing the expenditures referring to 2025 Councilman Hall saying that they didn't reflect any revenue shown um they did submit all of their reimbursement request uh I did not go above and beyond to request any revenue which is on me not on them um I I would point out that we do have representatives of the BBA president Lisa Lewis is here so she answer any questions if if you have any questions about the the grant request for 25 or 26. I don't think that's your main talk about that. Um, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, sir.

You going to go better here? Okay, Mr. Mr. Mayor, I my issue is that um there will be u alcohol provided at that event. And last year, council was asked to wave the alcohol um drink in the public for our band, our concert um for our concert series, summer series, um in Leville Park. and council voted not to uh lift that ban be for this the very reason that alcohol would be served at an event the town money is supporting. So I think that you know being consistent with that either we're going to support events that serve alcohol or we're not. And this is inconsistent with council's u previous vote of last year about spending public money for alcohol. I don't even know if that's even legal, Dave, but um my concern is is is that part of this money is going towards um providing alcohol at an uh event that is partially sponsored by the town.

All right. Can I call a point of order here? Sure. We are talking about the grant itself. There's a separate thing in here about the alcohol. Is it I did I did I did not see that. Yeah, it's it's in here. Where did that come out? The resolutions in your packet resolutions that that's a separate thing. So, we will discuss. We will have an opportunity to discuss that. Yeah. I'm just saying that's something new that was that that was been added since we've had this conversation. But, okay. I I accept your point over. Okay. So go back.

So can we um ask Miss Lisa to come up with BBA and maybe she can explain what um they're asking the funds for and you're basing um last year's that was an inaugural event first time had by previous pre previous president. We've done different um aspects to the festival this year. BBA is an organization that is trying to bring business to the Bakesburg district to revitalize that district by doing these events. Um the headliner this year is Cody Webb. That cost us a little bit more money than what we spent last year. So, some of the things that we're doing is costing us more money, but we are bringing in sponsorships, vendors, who's coming into town. We've had a overwhelming response for the vendors. Our sponsorship is over. Um, and we're, you know, there's not going to be a carnival. We couldn't do that this year because of it's only a one-day event. It's not a three-day event that was tried to be last year. We're not the poultry festival. We don't have that. We're just small. We're bringing it to the community. We want to bring people to the Batesburg district. That's our goal. That's what the organization is. Our goal this year is to better educate the business owners in the Batesburg district by bringing in educational speakers, getting people more involved in the Batesburg district. And our request though was $7,200. We will show records. We're not spending any money on alcohol. That's not We're not

Are y'all making money? We're not spending any money. Do you make money off of it? We're not making any money off of alcohol. I'm talking about off of the event. I'll talk I don't mean to stop you. I don't I'm sorry. Yeah. Do you make money off the event? Do we make money off the event? Certainly, we make the money off.

It's a fundraiser. It's a fundraiser, but it is to bring people in. We have to have funds in order to put the event on. You have to have the money to do the event so that you can do it again. You have to have money to revitalize, to pay performers to come in, to bring people. We're not we're a nonprofit organization. We are not for profit. Our bylaws are not for profit. What we get, we give back to the community. That's our goal. That's what we are doing. Um, Miss Lisa, may I ask question with some some of the vendors coming in, they pay the town to be here and the do they have a daily?

Because we're nonprofit, they they rent a booth from they rent a section of the street on North Oak Street to sell their wares. Um, and that's covered with that from my understanding. But yes, they do pay a fee to have that booth. Okay. Okay. That way we can kind of regulate what comes in what's coming in. Okay. Don't you know you want to kind of have a grip on that because it is a family event, right? And this festival last year did bring in how many people? What was the

I wasn't a part of it last year, but it was a overwhelming response with the um it was a good carnival and some of the merchants that I talked to on Main Street um really wanted this event to continue because it brought business into their stores. Your expectation this year is a couple thousand I think is what you think. Expecting a large crowd. Yes, we Okay. Weather permitting. We've promoted it. We have a nice um the fun run and if you want to see me run, I'm running in that. What fun. Um but that's the first thing at eight o'clock and I'm probably going to walk but um and then at 10 o'clock we're having the um

golf cart parade. Um people decorating, kids having fun. It's just an all day fun event. And the second year for an event like this, I'm sure is a little bit of a struggle getting your getting your feet wet last year and and moving forward. last year. So, it's been we have had to come together. There was multiple everybody has worked together um to get this event off and running. Well, I like the decoration so far, must admit, if anybody's been through Batesburg. That's it's pretty cool so far. And whether this goes on in future years depends on this year's event. You know, how it goes over and the participation of the community also and the and the business members that are on the BBA are good with it. Yes.

Mr. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes. If the council member will yield uh expenses this year versus last year a lot more. Is that reflected on your application? Yes. Cody web alone was $5,000. Cody,

we have the stage. We have a stage rental. The decorations that we've um provided um we table and chairs we're providing for people. We have inflatables for the kids so that they can bounce around in their bouncy houses. We are having big like four I think four of those um the entertainment the musicians porter john's for the um community to use so that it's a environmentally safe um hopefully and and so yes sir the um decorations and the expenses are more this year than the previous year. Okay. But we've got more PBA involvement this year participating in putting this event on.

So can we see the bottom of the the total? So the top portion is the total expenses. Okay. But there's another part in which sponsorships. So, we're actually being asked to uh provide more than 50% of Wow. the funding. No, sir. The cost is 144 and you're being asked to provide 50% of the cost. Yeah. But you got $4,700 offsetting that $14,400.

We will have 7,200 of our expenses that we're having to put out of pocket. That's part what the sponsorships cover and what the vendors cover so that we can have that money to put this event on. Well, our ordinance says we will cover up to 50% of the expenses and I do believe that in accounting your uh reit total revenues all right uh decrease the amount of expenses that we should be cover said but Bob is correct. Um, here's our accountant. Maybe May I speak? I have to look at I have to look at H tax if

Mr. Hall's the only person with the floor. I have to look at H taxes and I I ride around. I look at our parks, uh, and other issues where Hax is spent. Last year, uh, 3, $700 this year, uh, 5,000 I think is a reasonable grant, uh, per se. And that's the reason I made the motion. That is my position um per se. But

you're you're um looking at the virtually the net the taking in our sponsorships and everything less. If we are left with just breaking even, we're not we're totally defeating the purpose of having this event and making somewhat not to say a profit, but having funds left over to do our projects, be it revitalization or contributing to other uh organizations that are having projects going on. So my understanding from this is that we can ask for up to 50% of what we spend. Uh now you'll see in big letters up top estimated because this was done you know and we won't have a final number till the end of the event when we are done said and done. And of course, if we have asked for 7,200 and we end up not spending the full 144, then we would certainly not expect y'all to give us anything above and beyond the 50% that we have spent. Uh but I feel like this is a good estimate with the cost of everything that has gone up with the entertainers that we are having. Um we are having nice porta johns this year that we did not have last year. So, we are working hard to make this a better event each year, but we're also coming to you asking for 50% of Bolton spend. Yes, we're bringing in sponsorships and those are mostly businesses there on Oak Street or in the business district who are going to benefit from this event.

Wow. Um, so I maybe I don't understand how it works or or so maybe you can explain it to me better, but we are doing what the application says to ask for 50% of the expenses, not including insurance. We of course will purchase the insurance out of our pocket. We are purchasing t-shirts to give the fund run participants and the BBA members that we are paying out of pocket. So those things are not even included in this list. Uh but we respectfully request 50% of what we ultimately spend in order that we have some funds left over to put toward an actual project that falls under our mission statement. Throwing events is not our mission statement. This is just a project to get funds to work toward our mission statement of beautifification and benefiting the businesses in the Batesburg district.

Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. When I saw this on the agenda tonight, I thought this was going to be an easy vote. I cannot believe that we are arguing over $2,200. I would ask Councilman Hall to amend his motion to include the entire amount that these folks are asking for to promote our community. And we sit up here representing our community that they're trying to promote on our behalf. How many other community how many other groups have been awarded that kind of money? I don't know. I just got on council, Steve. But I'll second. Well, and then Mr. Mayor, I mean, I understand what Hold Hold on one second. I want talk, Mr. Mayor. Hold on.

I got a question myself for the attorney. We have a motion on the floor. And the way I understand parliamentary procedure, the only way we can change this is somebody's got to amend it. That's correct. And if somebody makes a motion to amend at this point in time, it can be done. If we get a second, then we we handle the amendment. Then we go back to the motion. Okay, that's correct. Somebody would need I so move. All right. I so move for the full amount uh $7200 be approved. I second. Mr. Mayor, you got to give it to Mr. Mayor. We have a motion and a second order. Don't talk until I recognize you.

Yes, sir. We have an a an amendment to the motion that we increase the funds from 5,000 to 7200 that they requested. We have a second. The amendment is now open for discussion. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir. May I ask a parliamentary question? Can someone other than the individual offering the motion amend that motion? The original motion would need to be amended by the individual who made the motion. Okay. So, Councilman Bradley's motion I'll withdraw

is would need Mr. Hall would need to be the one that would need to amend his motion. Procedure. Well, you have his motion on the table that needs to be addressed. The way I understand, the way I was taught parliamentary procedure, if you have a motion, anybody can offer an amendment, then you handle the amendment. Everybody has a chance to vote. If the amendment passes, then you go back to the motion as amended was the way I was taught. Robert's rules of order. Now, whether that's correct or not, I don't. And in this, I can't tell you.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, I'll resolve the issue. Okay. uh would if I may have one or two questions. So, you're saying that if uh your revenues exceed the $14,400, you will amend your you will actually then reduce the amount that you're uh asking for reimbursement. We're only asking for reimbursement of actual expenditures, not taking into account sponsorships for the money that we take in, just the money that we spend out. Uh, if it ends up being less than the 144, then all we ask for is 50% of that, but it will not be reduced by this. So, you don't factor revenues in at all?

Wow. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, I would like to amend my motion that we grant the full $7,200 with the condition that if the expenditures are less than 144, they will ask only for 50%. Second that. All right. Since we're doing it that way, then we only have to vote on that that he just did, not go back and correct. That's correct, Mr. Mayor. Call for the question. All right. We we we can't call for the questions till we have I have no open for discussion yet. Y'all jumping together. I know y'all want to give them that.

We have we have a motion and a second that we give the full amount that they requested $7,200. Uh it's now open for discussion. Yeah. M Mr. Mayor, let me let me understand. So we're giving them $7,200. They're going to bring in 474 $4,700 in sponsorship, right? But they're not they don't count that revenue and other revenue as the gross amount that they've made, right? So, in other words, the town is investing it. If I may, may I interrupt?

Yeah, Steve. Yeah. Go ahead. Um, we This is being handled just as all other grant requests have been. That don't mean that it was been handled correctly. I'm I'm just I understand going back to your consistency. We're we're doing it the same way we have done it for multiple years. Poultry Festival typically request in September next and and then they have they do I think make a profit because that goes into their next year. So this is this is consistent with what we've already

when when the other when other applicants come in. Let's be consistent all the way across the board because my understanding is that there's only been uh two entities that really dip into that money, maybe three. Well, you've got the BA Pure Festival, LMA, which is kind of the parent organization of the Pure Festival, has not requested to my knowledge, but we also have Fall for the Arts, which is a arts on the ridge. So typically it's three, but yes. Yeah, but we have everybody pays hospitality taxes for

and the way that this the way that the law is written, only two or three organizations qualify to to get that money. Now we are we are we are really subsidizing their organization to be able to put on an event cuz apparently if we didn't give them the money they would not be able to put on this event. So we are subsidizing one or two organizations where everybody in the town pays hospitality money and and I think that's a fair question to be brought up about the the grant application Germaine to this but I'll get you with all Mr. Mayor, yes,

if I may ask, is isn't the the rules, so to speak, rules for this, it's 50% of the expenses. It doesn't even talk about earnings. It's just the expenses of the festival or the expenses of Yes, you are correct. Okay.

Uh Councilman Hall's point from earlier was that the revenue was not reflected in what was presented. We we don't we have never asked for that. It is written in the rule, but we have never asked for that from Poultry Festival, Fall for the Arts or anything. Um, but that was the point that Councilman Hall made to me before the meeting. Um, so that that one again is on me. It is not on the organization. If they didn't provide it, I failed to request it. So that is on me for not asking for that. But it still remains 50% of expenses is what? Correct. Correct. They can ask for. Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? Am I allowed to ask a question?

Um, from who asked that? Am I allowed to ask a question? To who? To who? To to to you to the council. Um, technically no. Nope. Okay. Let's call for the question. Confirm. Yeah. Second. Any further question? Thank you. There's no further discussion. will vote on the motion to provide 7200 to the BBA for the St. Patrick's Day Festival. We'll vote. Let me find a place that I have to get it. All right. District one.

District one votes yes. Absolutely. District two. District three. District three votes no. District four. District four. No. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight. District eight, vote yes. And the mayor vote yes. The motion carries.

This is not precedent, but can we take a short recess? Okay. motion. We do second. The mayor needs to take a short recess. Amen. Second. Five minutes. Do we need to vote on that, Dave? Okay. You can vote. I'm We all agree. No, we're going

All right. Sorry for the delay, but I promise you it was much needed. All right. This brings us to Excuse me. My watch is because I've stumbled. I have to stop it or it's going to respond. 911 here.

Josh took care of me. So, he's going to call. Thank you, Josh. All right. That brings us to approval of a resolution suspending the alcohol ordinance for St. Patrick's Day event May 14th, 2026. We have a motion to that effect. I make a motion we approve the resolution. I second. Of course I do. Yes, sir.

All right. Motion and a second that we approve the resolution suspending the alcohol ordinance of the St. Patrick's Day event May 14th, 2026. Is now open for discussion. There's no discussion. We'll vote. District one. District one votes yes. District two. Yes. District three. District three votes no. District four. Four. No. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven.

Yes. District eight. District eight vote yes. And the mayor vote chess. That motion carries. Approval of refurbishment and purchase of new Christmas lights. And that's on the thing we uh if you can elaborate, Mr.

Yes, sir. Uh, so there was a $25,000 line item in HAX for Christmas lights. Uh, we used just under 3,000 in the fall for some drops, replacement bulbs, things of that nature. Uh, we did not have an order placed before. Um, but we are looking at a 30% discount on a a large ground mount display that would likely be placed in the Batesburg business district. Uh, which would be $9,8836. um plus or not including shipping. Uh then we also have some older uh lights that were uh in decent shape structurally but were older incandescent bulbs. Uh those were originally made by Holiday Designs which is our sole source provider. Uh so we have spoken with them about a refurbishment and that's about 50% cost. Uh so we've got about 30 a combination of snowflakes, candles and uh candy canes. Uh the image on the screen right now is the Santa sleigh uh which would be the ground mount. Uh so what we are u proposing is to use up to that 22,83120 balance that is on the Christmas line item in the hospitality tax for the purchase of the ground mount and up you know in the 30 um refurbished pole lights. All right, heard the explanation. Now, do we have a motion to approve this?

Salute. We have a motion. We have a second. I'll second. I'll second. I do have one question. Okay. But my I do make the the second for this item. Um Jay, I'm just curious. Did we get feedback from the business association in either town about Christmas lights or from a committee saying yes, let's do this or in other words, where did we get the recommendation from?

Actually, this came from the budget work session. Uh my original proposal last year was a you uh was a $5,000 line item to just maintain and and replace bulbs. Uh several council members uh raised the concern and they wanted to go 25. Uh we just did not get it all pulled together prior to Christmas. Um we had to again just to explain the background, we had to replace a lot of drops where poles have been replaced following Helen. Uh so we had to do some upgrades. So the the expenses we incurred prior to Christmas were just more maintenance.

I'm more questioning the new purchase rather than the refurbishment. Um, no, we we didn't really ask for feedback. We we did a survey of our existing properties in town and uh it was missing. Yeah, there there was Yeah, just kind of doing a self audit. We've identified a large area, the future Woodard Unity Park area would be an adequate space to to have that unit. Uh there's also some other things, you know, with uh the parking lot at Pine Street. There there are opportunities for more. Thank you. And we did hear a lot of feedback for more. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. And so this display with the satellite and the reindeer, is that a 75 ft display? That is 75 ft. Yes, sir.

Where you putting it, Jay? Uh the area that you know would probably hold it best is the Woodard Unity Park area right there at Trying to be funny. Well, no, I mean it it really I mean right now without I was messing with you. Yeah, but because you know that's my my kind of baby Woody Park. Yeah. Yeah. Any other discussion? Mr. Mayor? Yes.

Uh Jay, I would like question uh when was the last time this was visiting visited pricingwise and what exactly makes this a soul source item? The the actual display unit there. It doesn't have to be a soul source. The the Christmas the pole lights are uh considered soul source because they were manufactured by Holiday Designs. uh those have been our provider for decades. And so these unit these pole lights are approximately 20 to 25 years old. And so they're willing to refurbish those units whereas a a different provider would not. So it saves us money.

Yes. It's about 50% the cost of new pole lights. Any further discussion? If not, we'll vote on the motion to approve the refurbishment and purchase of new Christmas lights. District one, yes. Made it for Christmas. District two, yes. District three, District three votes yes. District four, four, yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight,

District 8 votes yes. And the mayor vote yes. The motion carries. Next, we need approval for reimbursement to the BBA and Women's Society for improvements to the North Pine Street lot. Uh I'm going to call on you again, Jay, to put up some Yes. figures.

So, uh if you recall in the fall, we did have the uh North Pine Street lot. This was between the liquor store, Bobby and Jimmy's, and then the other building. I don't but the vacant lot uh that the town acquired for $3,000 about 20 plus years ago. Uh we made the decision to put that up for sale. Uh that sale was finalized on the 18th of February and we deposited $34,818.65 into the general fund special revenue account. And the topic had been discussed previously about reimbursing BBA uh for the paving of the property. Uh I was instructed at the February council meeting to just verify that it was a BBA project. Uh did confirm that at at the meeting last month, the BBA meeting. Uh we were also um at that time I was provided information from the women's society uh for some of the expenses that they had incurred with that uh the idea of doing the the Pine Street Plaza um where they had incurred uh cost of u $3,114 which was concrete planters as well as uh plants, soil and other supplies. So they had asked for consideration as well. So, the paving project from 2019 was $10,000 from the BBA and then the women's society has also asked for consideration for $3,1144 expenses from the Pine Street Plaza. Um, just for for math there, that would still leave a balance of 25,51433 from the sale of that property.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have a motion? I make a motion that we reimburse both the latest society and BBA. We have motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. All right. We have a motion and second to approve the reimbursement of the BBA and the Women's Society for improvements to the North Pine Street lot. It's now open for discussion. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir.

Jay, can we use the planters and our parks are here in the parking lot? Uh, those were relocated to Well, the ones that were not broken uh were relocated to Oak Street as noted in the packet. My question is, could we use them in our parks in our parking lot? Well, they're currently being used on Oak Street. Um, but I suppose at that point you could if that was the desire. Well, are we prepared to do this for Leville to buy them? How many planters are we actually have now? 10. Thank you, Rachel. And the $3,000 is for 14 or for 10

as noted right there in the middle. 14 planters cost $1,990. Um, so we're paying for broken planters. Yeah. So, the planters were $135 each. Okay. All right. I'm Our treasur is not an ATM. Any further discussion? Go ahead.

I I just I don't I don't know what the precedent has been um or if there is a precedent for reimbursement of such kinds of situations. And I fear that if there isn't that we will be setting one that we won't be able to ever get away from. Um that is that is my fear. I mean I appreciate these folks investing in these in the asphalt and and those planners and doing what they did but I just I feel like this could turn out to be a problem in the future. If I may, Mr. Mayor, uh just just for a little um

and and I was fire chief uh at the time, but I know that the initial conversations were the intent to do this uh Pine Street Plaza. Uh this I believe really predates or was right at the early stages of HTAX. And so the BBA kind of stepped forward to do that paving to improve the look. uh we had some conceptual drawings of a plaza and and that just kind of fizzled out, faded away, was not a priority uh of council during the hax um discussion back in 2024. Um and so amongst ourselves, you know, from the discussion of council was to go ahead and sell the property. Um and that and I I kind of led that one cuz I you know I felt that that was best is to get that back on the tax role and and focus on other HAX items. So um I in in all honesty we had those conversations u Teddy had had conversations with the BBA and and the women's society early on about that Pine Street Plaza and then we we kind of pulled back from that. Uh so that that's where that consideration has come from.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir. Uh question for our mosted attorney. Uh sir, who has the authority to lease uh rent or transfer uh town property? That town council does by ordinance. Was there ever an agreement uh with the BBA to utilize that property? Yes. Come on to order. Mr. Mayor, we don't want to hear from folks in the audience. We talking to our attorney.

Yeah. My question was directed to the attorney because is there a record of a lease agreement between the town and BBA? Uh I'm not aware of one. No sir. We we could research that, but I I wouldn't be able to do that right now. I share uh Councilman Bradley's u team up uh concept that we're stepping on a very slippery slope. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir.

Uh can we turn back to the invoice of the paving? That looked pretty vague. Uh it doesn't give you any kind of tonnage or as you know, ton per pri uh price per ton. It's just this flat $10,000 square footage. Yeah. You don't have any kind of a measure measurement in there. And that I'm guessing that that parking lot's not bigger than this room right here. That's pretty high. Now that invoices to the town of Batesburg. Wow. It sure is. Mr. Mayor, I'm I move that we table those. Mr. Mayor,

second. We have a motion and a second that we table this motion. Mr. Mayor, um there's We got a motion and a second. I'll I'll second the motion to table. Okay, we already had a motion. We have just for clarity. It does have the bait for business association payment at the bottom. We table we can discuss this since this is a debatable motion. Is that right? The motion to table. That's correct. Okay, it's open for discussion. The table, a motion to table is open for discussion.

Can we do some research to see how this was authorized perhaps and then revisit it perhaps later after we've had got some more information? I think it'd be wise. Yeah, I think so, too. I definitely believe, Mr. mayor that we need to table for further information to be provided and more discussion to be made and you will be able to research and find out whether we whether there was indeed a lease. We will do our best. Yes, sir.

And Mr. Mayor, may I ask um it was brought to the attention that the invoice was made to the town of Batesburg and did the BBA actually have per because they had to get permission from the town, I would assume, to pave the property. So let's not assume right right so we can we find that information we not talking about that right now we only can talk about the motion to table that's all we can talk about okay any further question discussion about the motion to table

all right if not we'll vote and I got to find out where to record it I do have a point of clarification. Are we tableabling the motion with regard to both expenditures that Okay, just making sure we're tableabling the motion since the motion was for both. Gotcha. It'll be table if it if it passes. All right. May I ask Let me get my paperwork ready. May I ask if we're tableabling for clarification until we receive more information? Anytime you table, that's what it's for. Okay. Hopefully. And do we know what information we're looking for?

Well, we'll discuss that. Okay. That'll be handled. District one, yes. District two, yes. District three. District three votes. Yes. District four, four, yes. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven, yes. District eight, District eight, vote chest.

Mayor vote chest. Motion to table carries. All right, brings us to item F, approval of a company of company to conduct phase one environmental testing or study at Middberg property on at 360 West Church Street. Uh, could I get you to clarify at this point in time? Yes, sir. Uh, so I have been in contact with Republic Services, which is the owner of the former Middberg Burlington site. Uh, they had that property for sale in the past year, year and a half. Had no bites on it. I approached originally about uh the possibility of just a reszoning to move it off of industrial after conversations with the planning commission. Um, the uh representative I was talking with, you know, he broached the topic first of a donation to the town. Uh so doing due diligence spoke with Central Midlands Cog and the Kataba Cog who does most of Brownfield stuff. Uh and they said that before you take ownership you need to do an environmental which would allow us to be eligible to pursue brownfield funding. So this would be to do a phase one environmental study on property owned by Republic Services. They've granted permission to do that. uh we would not take ownership until council votes on that afterwards. Uh but in order to be eligible for brownfields, it has to be done before the town takes ownership. So this is doing due diligence. If it now if council doesn't want to have ownership of it, you don't need to do it. But if we if we want to have that discussion, if we want to consider taking ownership, um this is going to be required whether it's today or six months from now. But

Mr. Mayor, may I Yeah, we don't have a motion yet. Okay. And I'll make a motion that we approve uh the study. All right. We have a motion. I have a second. I second. Thank you. So, Mr. I I think that this is something that we probably have should do a work study work session on because we don't know what it entails to own this property before we can say hey we want to own it. How much is it Jay? This study is $1,950. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean it's not a lot of money but you know the purpose of Brownfield

right is really it's it's a federal thing. It's a grant. They come in, they see how much is wrong and what it's going to cost us. If we don't want it, if it's going to cost us more than it's worth, then we don't buy it. I got you. But the only way you can get this money in in a grant is it's got to be done before we ever do ownership. But we would know we this would not m this wouldn't obligate us to buy anything. Okay? That's the way Brownfield works. We're just trying to see what's wrong with it and how much it's going to cost us if we take it.

All right. I will I will say this, the phase one is not going to give you a good price tag. It's really just kind of to tell you what was there. Uh phase two gives you a little bit more in depth, but my understanding is phase one is the thing that is required before you have ownership because at that point you have ownership, then you go do it. You're essentially you bought a a damaged good essentially. Mr. Mayor, if me Yeah. uh to the town manager. Does this include all three additional lots? Uh it is I believe it's primarily focused on the main lot, not the parts across the street, but the parts where the contamination was, but it will document the entire property. Yes.

So the gift would be for all four properties. Yes. As far as the Yes, the transfer. Yes, that would be all four properties. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mr. Mayor, any Yes, ma'am. I I would just like to make a note that doing this is a great idea because even if we don't take ownership, we have EPA has studied it. So, if anybody else wants to go there, we're aware of what's going on with that property and that's a good thing for our town that we know what's happening. And I would add if there is something minor wrong, we might be able to do something with it if someone else isn't interested in purching purchasing it so that it isn't such an eyesore.

Correct. Yeah, I Yeah, I agree. Yes, sir. So, Jay, is this part of the uh is it Kataba? Is that part of their funds or are they exhausted? They are exhausted unfortunately. Yeah, the Kataba paid for phase one and two at Woodard and at Maple Street, but they do not have any funds available at this time. Um, is it okay if I uh bring this up in DC to EPA or No, we can get some. Absolutely. Do you want to mayor get some funds? Well, and and if you want to dangle it that, you know, we're paying for phase one, they could pay for a phase two. I just want to make sure talk to them about it. Yeah. Okay. I I'll put that on the agenda, Mr. Mayor.

Yes. So, um I just don't want any surprises and this is for so we don't have surprises like the Pine Street corner parking lot when we found the underground storage tank because there is an underground storage tank there unless it's been removed.

Well, so I I referenced the DHCK letter from 2022 that Republic Service has received. My understanding, my my knowledge of that is essentially the concrete that is still there is essentially capping contamination that is below. The dehack clearance was the contamination has not moved. Uh so it it is stable. If you remove that concrete, you're going to have to treat the contamination that is below it. And so that would probably come from a phase two environmental study. But again, phase one is a requirement before we take ownership to make us eligible for brownfields. Now, I have also been told if you leave the concrete in place, you can cover it up. You can plant grass over it. Uh you could

utilize the concrete as is and keep that contamination below and undisturbed and it is safe. Um those are discussions for another day. whether we want to make it a park, do we want to spend money to try to clean it up and and redevelop the property? That that's down the line. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, could I ask um if we do get into a phase two or further, what are the cost of of those types guesstimation? I

I would I would hesitate to guess because this is a 14 acre site with significant contamination. I I would hesitate to say what a phase 2 environmental could cost. Hopefully, as I mentioned, you know, Steve brought up Kataba. Uh they they do get funding occasionally and they have been the ones that have paid for the phase one and phase two at the Woodard Unity Park and the the Batesburg Town dump on Maple Street. Uh so those those have been funded through um 100% grant funding from Kataba. I would hope that in time that would be a eligible expense for Kataba to fund, but you know that's that's a little bit further down the line and I I wouldn't I would hesitate to guess. Okay.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Any further discussion? If not, we'll vote on the motion to approve the company to conduct phase one environmental study at Middberg property at 360 West Church Street. And and just for record, that is Alliance Technical Group for 19 Alliance Technical Group.

Yes. And if I may also for clarity, if you look at the recommendation that's on the board, I did put that recommendation to come from the hax reserve line item in the hospitality uh the amendment B. Uh the Burlington site was identified as an acceptable, you know, potential park, you know, be it amphitheater, be it a park. Uh, so I put down the H tax reserve line item. Obviously, if you wanted to go a general fund line item, you're welcome to do that. But that was the recommendation I had for council.

All right. With that, do we need to adjust the motion or anything with that? Yeah. Do we have to be specific as to funding source? Ideally, if we could just clarify that in the motion. We can we can do it in the motion, but if it's already mentioned in the in the H tax it's already coming out procedures, why would it be necessary? No, we don't have to. I mean, if it's already mentioned there. Okay. I mean, it makes sense to me. That's where the money comes from. Yes, sir. We shouldn't have to.

Sometimes I like it redundant a little bit. don't mind being redundant, but I don't like having to do all these motions either. All right. District one. Yes. District two. Yes. District three. Yes. District four. Yes. District. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District 8. Yes. Mayor votes yes. That motion carries. All right.

That brings us to item G. Approval of the contract with Lexon County for a backup municipal judge. All right. A lightness again. So Hri,

uh Lexon County is just updating uh their agreements with municipalities for backup municipal judges. Uh the most recent one was from 2019. Prior to that, it only had been four years. So they're seven years since the last update. So they are getting these updated from all the different municipalities that have municipal courts. Uh this would not go into effect until the new budget. So that would just be included in the budget. Uh there wouldn't be a a payment coming out of the current budget. Uh the agreement would increase the salary from $2,800 per quarter to 3,750 per quarter. Uh that is the only change. The municipal judge well the magistrate which is Gary Morgan and then uh Matthew Johnson is the backup uh that is listed. Those are the same names from 2019. They will remain the same. So the only change is the the date and the the cost from 2800 per quarter to 3750 per quarter.

All right. We need a motion. Make it 38. Just a $4,000. Make a motion to approve. I'm sorry. Make a motion to approve. All right. I'll second. Who was that? That was me, Mr. Bradley. District two. All right. We have a motion in a second that we approve the contract with Lexon County for backup municipal judge. Hey Dave, this is not um a personnel executive session thing. I guess it's too late now.

Uh it it could be discussed in executive session or person contractual matter as well. So Okay. All right. How's this wonderful? I didn't view that we were necessarily talking about the employee person. We named two employees and we getting a contract. I just don't I just don't want to talk to ethics anymore. Both were identified. I might abstain from this. Well, since both were identified, what should we do?

Any any further discussion? Well, I I just to answer uh Miss Hartley's question, I mean, they're they're identified in the contract. Uh it's public information. We're not talking about their job performance. We're just talking about, you know, those are the people that are identified by the county by the county as as those would be the ones who perform it. Uh, Judge Morgan. Uh, I don't think Judge Johnson has been here in probably years, uh, to my knowledge, but they do need to list a backup on there. So, that that is Johnson. I'm jumping off the cliff with y'all.

Any further discussion? If not, we'll vote. District one. Yes. District two. Two. Uh, yes. Sorry. District three. On advice of council. Yes. District four on the advice of council. Yes. District five. That bus coming over there. Ditto. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District eight vote. Yes. And the mayor votes yes.

That motion carries. That takes us to item H, approval of the sale of fire department surplus equipment. I make a motion they can sell their no longer needed used equipment. And I second that motion. We have a motion and a second to approve the sale of fire department surplus equipment. It's now open for discussion. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir.

Is that motion that we accept the resolution as or as it is presented in that those funds would be set aside for the fire department only to use for renovation. uh or is it just they can sell their surplus equipment and the money goes into the general fund. If they want to do reservation renovations, they can come to council for the funds. Uh that's my particular position because if we do this, if the motion is to approve this uh situation where the money is reserved for the fire department, this means that every time we sell the police car, we should reserve that money for the police to do whatever they would like with it. So I I hopefully this is a motion to allow them to sell the vehicle. The second uh point is that I re strongly recommend that we put a price tag of $35,000 on it and put it up for auction. If we don't get any bider minimum bid of 35. If we don't get any bites in 60 days, then we go to the uh government auction process.

Is that a motion? Well, I can't make a motion to that at the moment. Uh, we have a motion on the floor, but I'm just simply saying that's the way we I would see that we should sell the engine. Are Are you asking for the person that made the motion to amend the motion? Yes. Okay. The motion as it stands now is just to sell the equipment.

We also have uh Chief Fry here. if you have some questions directed towards him. Uh the typical procedure for you know these vehicles has been the sale through govde deals.com which is a standard government uh auction site. Um we have sold vehicles through sealed bid just like we did the property on Pine Street. So that is that is another acceptable option through the procurement ordinance. Mr. Mayor, if I may, um, the way the current motion is made, unless

council directs that money to be restricted in a certain way, the way the motion is currently made would the any sales proceeds would go to the general fund um, as revenue. So, council wants specifically, the motion does not say it goes to the fire department. It just said we're going to sell the equipment and it will go into the regular revenue line. Assume it's going to go into the general fund. That's correct. Yes, sir. Okay. Uh, Mr. Mayor, if I may, to the most attorney, uh, we would not need a motion uh, to direct how the sale would be conducted. That could be a an informal agreement with the town manager that it be put up for auction.

Yeah, I think that that um you would follow the the the procedures that you have um used utilized in the um already or in the past for the sale of surplus equip. two ways. We have auctioned off equipment and we have used the government auction. I'm looking to maximize the return for the town. I mean, we're down the road our finances do not look great. Obviously, if if council wants to deviate from the normal process of how you conduct the sale of surplus equipment, then I would recommend that the motion may be very be specific and ex um dictate how you direct the

well town manager to dispose of the assets. Well, but according to the town manager, it would not be a deviation. We have two processes that seems to be an option. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, we've done both. Um Okay. So, I believe that the preferred method is through gov deals. We have felt that we've gotten good return on that. But we can certainly try the local seal bid process first and if we don't meet the the minimum requirements, then we can go back up and punt. That's not a problem. Okay. I I concur. Thank you. Uh Mr. Henderson, and the big ticket item is the engine. That's the the biggest we have on

Yes. The So this is the oldest engine which is 30 years old. Um and has been essentially put in the backup roll now that the new engine is in service. So um there there are other smaller hand tools and nozzles that are older, but by far the the biggest one is the engine. Thank you. Any further discussion? I do have a point of order with regard to the motion. Do we need to be more specific with regard to what where the money is going to be put or are we good there going to general fund because the white paper is saying that based off the motion as is it goes to the general fund with no earmark just it just is going into line item general fund.

That's the way we have to handle it unless somebody changes. Gotcha. the it appears that the fire department is asking that the money or at least the town is recommending that the money be set aside for renovations. Just want to make sure that we honor that. What is our typical, if I may ask, Mr. Mayor, what is our typical get out the general fund way when we sell items throughout the town, whether it be police department, fire department, street, whatever, where does the monies typically go? It just goes into the general fund. Okay. It is It is rarely earmarked, but it has been earmarked in the past. Um

I believe the fire department is probably the one that has used that the most mainly because they're the big ticket items that are being sold. Um I know that those have been used in the past to go towards the purchase of a new vehicle. Um and that is something that has been discussed internally with the street department with the sale of a backhoe that could go towards the replacement equipment. Um, but we can also address that through simple, you know, it's coming into the budget and then we can budget it on the back side. So, we we can still accomplish the same thing and try to do those renovations without earmarking it. Okay. So, it it can be done either way. Okay.

Any further discussion? All right. Let's vote. District one, yes. District two, yes. District three. District three votes yes. District four. Four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District eight. Vote yes. The mayor vote yes. The motion carries. That brings us to item I. Can we go?

Approval of grant writer for the fire department. Would you give us some background again?

Uh again, so uh the fire department has I've requested the fire department to seek uh the safer grant which is one of the FEMA grant FEMA grants. It is the staffing grant. Um this is a very challenging grant. We've received two in the past. We've received one AFG grant. Uh so they sought out uh some professional services and and networking with other agencies. uh the consultant that they uh I don't even see your name. It's in the quote. Um right now consulting LLC um is the the recommendation from the fire department. They spoke with her. Um the $8,800 number uh with the hourly rate uh is $110. Uh she estimated the hours for each grant program was 30 for the AFG. AFG is the assistance to firefighter grant which is an equipment grant. She estimated 25 hours for safer which is the staffing grant and then 25 hours for the fire protection and safety believe I said that correctly uh grant uh for 80 hours total. Uh so that would be a a high end of 8,800. Uh the primary grant that I have recur encouraged them to go for is safer. AFG is an equipment grant. That would be the second. Uh the fire protection and safety would be the third priority. But uh this would not be an employee. This would be a a contract with a third party grant writer.

Uh grant in itself uh the staffing. Have we had a motion? Not yet. Oh, I'm sorry. Do we have a motion? to approve the grant writer for the fire department. We didn't get a motion.

I'll make the motion. Oh god. Jesus. Can I ask who that was? Okay. I second Steve. Yep. Okay. All right. We have a motion in a second that we approve a grant writer for the fire department. And that would be that person there, whoever that is. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir.

And Jay, you know, we have free grant writing services, right? We we have we have utilized various grant writing sources, but this this person has a high success rate and I may defer to Josh on some of those statistics, but this person has been very successful in grant writing, but we have a we have a free grant writing service through uh National League of Cities. It's called Grantfinder and they will write grants for us. I'm not saying that this is not something worthy, but just for information going forward. Um, they have gotten grants from me for my nonprofit. Okay. So, and it's free.

Okay. I'm not that familiar with that one, so I'll have to make myself back to catch up on it. Any other discussion?

Yes. Uh, Ms. now um located in Shelton, Connecticut, lives in a little house on the side of the river. Uh her firm is uh named now to confuse it with the larger uh service uh that pronounce it spells it n. My question is, of course, we're not actually approving a grant writer to be hired by an employee to for the U fire department. We're just expending money at this time for a single project.

Correct. Is that correct? And the staffing grant, u do we have a few details about what we're going after here? So Josh, do you want to handle it or you want me to handle it? I I'll jump on it. Um, so the safer grant is a three-year grant where year one is 100% federal funding to hire staff. Uh, this is addressing the staffing issues that Chief Ry brought to your attention last month. Uh, this will be with the goal of hiring three firefighters, one per shift. So it'll be 100% funded in year 1, 65% funded in year two, 35% in year three, and after that permanent. So this is a way to add to the staff. Yes, sir.

All right. And a very long-term obligation. Yes, sir. Okay. So we're not So we're looking at if the grant comes through, we're looking at uh obligating the town for what roughly $60,000 in the second year. Uh and Chief Ry estimated 249 almost $250,000 for three employees uh at salary benefits on the high end for uh health insurance and then and then outfitting them. The 250 would be the number ballpark.

Well, we're talking about this employee. This we're talking about what actually is the hidden cost behind this u $8,800. The hidden cost is that we're look going to be looking at the town being obligated to pay 35% of roughly 60,000 a year, 65,000 uh the second year. Um and then uh an additional amount the third and then we're going to be on the hook for $65,000. Uh yes, sir. down further down. So we're not talking about $8,000. We're talking about

the $8,800 is for the staff for the grant writer that is not an employee that is a a professional service uh third party grant writer. Uh and yes, the the safer grant does and council would have to approve that grant before we accept it obviously. Um Chief Fry was originally hired on a safer grant when we received a safer grant. Help me out Josh. 2017 somewhere 2018.

Um and and that grant was a different grant is it was a recruitment and retention grant u which had four years of full funding before it became our responsibility. Uh the grant is different for the true staffing. So it it goes from the 100 to 65 to 35 to zero federal funds. And so by year four, the town could be looking at roughly $250,000 a year for those three employees. Um

so as to the hidden cost, as to the money you're talking about that we're obligating ourselves to, um we are obviously growing and with that growth comes more tax money. My question for you, and you I know you have a crystal ball with this perfect answer. Um, what do you foresee that revenue, that additional revenue from the growth? When would we start seeing that? Because we may very well have to make an investment because we definitely need the personnel with the growth that's coming. So, at some point, we got to stick our neck out. The my opinion is that the timing is going to be about right here because we won't see the construction to these new homes until late spring. you'll see Creek Side Ridge coming along and Summerland. So, it's going to take several years before those homes are constructed and on on the tax roll. So, as we phase in, you know, this grant would not be due until May. It wouldn't be awarded until fall. It it would probably be a year from now before we actually are in a process to hire somebody. And at that point, that clock starts. So it would be sometime in 2028 when you reach the one-year mark and you're now responsible for anything. So we would probably be almost at least a year and a half to two years out from the town having any financial obligation and that will probably fall in the 20728 budget. We would start to have to show that and I do believe that we will reflect significant revenue from the growth by that point. As the conversations I've had with Chief Fry are that to pay for staffing increases, we will have to see it through growth. We we're not wanting to inflate taxes that much to try to do that. We need to get salaries up across the board as we discussed in the comp class study,

but to add new position, it's going to have to come from growth. And that that was something that was addressed by uh Maryanne in the comp and class study. The growth will have to pay for a lot of that. M Josh, you you think this is going to increase our chances a whole lot for getting this grant, hiring this person?

She has a from what we have been told and people that have worked with her in the past, she has a 90 some odd percent success rate at getting it. U she there are some she said in the meeting that we had and correct me if I'm wrong here. Uh she said that first of all whenever they go in, you know, if we sign her on saying this is what we'll we'll do or what we want to hire her. If she doesn't feel like it's a decent chance of getting the grant, she doesn't take it because she doesn't want her numbers to drop. Okay. To do it either. So it's kind of a look and and look and see and and what angle you take to try to get it approved at that point. She interviewed us as much as we interviewed her. So if I may, is this a FEMA grant?

Yes, sir. So she has a 50 50% of her grants are FEMA grants. So all right. I have looked at her background. All right. Yeah, she does other things too. Yes, sir.

Yes, she does. But uh she's an ex town of uh she's an ex New York City Fire Department employee. Yes. All right. However, the other comment is about growth. uh let's not uh put a lot of uh faith in the fact that we're going to have dramatic tax increases with growth. The average house coming online will produce $1,000 per year for the town. So if we get a 100 houses, it will take approximately um 70 houses to pay for a firefighter. Well, and and there was also some other associated tax.

We're looking at 900,000 for police cars. We're looking at uh 900,000 for salary compensation increases. Uh uh to uh that's only one I'm sorry, Councilman. To paraphrase SH Keoffer, which is before your time, a bill in here, a bill in there. Sooner or later, we're talking about real money. And that's only one revenue source. There are other revenue sources that would come with the growth with impact fees and whatnot. So I I think that just needs to be said can only be used for those items that are enterprise in the impact field which is dictated by the plan and those items have already been spelled out.

Is that not correct? Yes. But I would point that in addition to the re real estate property tax, there's also vehicle property tax and there are other areas that we will see increased revenue from from the construction. So I I do believe that the the growth is the way to pay for it and the safer grant is a a moderate increase to to get to the staffing that we need. The safer grant is is the best bet. Mr. Mayor, any further discussion? Yeah, Mr. Mayor. So,

I' I've only been on council for a little while, but can you document 10 years of tax increases, revenue increases that will show us the way that you think that the next four years will be different from the last 10 years? What what is what has been the growth increase just I'm just saying 10 years over the last 10 years.

Well, I don't know if the last 10 years is representative of the next. Oh, it it it it is be in in that past councils have voted on things like this predicting or um anticipating I want to say gambling, but forecasting

mega growth. Like if you look at our our um our um strategic plan, the last one that was done, you see where we where we should be? I mean, we should be having flying cars according to that that plan, but that revenue has fallen way short of what the projection was. So, I'd like to know at some point if we can qualify 10 years of tax increases that have been very substantial because it's easy to say we growing. You get a new Dunkin Donuts, we're growing, blah blah blah, we're growing. But I want to see it. I don't think that I don't think it bears out. And you know, I'm going to support this thing, but uh I mean, we we really out there speculating on growth. We gambling with taxpayers money. And we have a lot of other obligations that have come up like the new salaries, the increase in the police department, blah blah blah. Everything is okay. Well, we growing so the money will be there. The money might not be there for everything. I want to see it. Somebody projected out. Let's see it. You know what? What really would it take? Cuz like Bob said, a few houses, that's $1,000 a house. Let's see it.

If Councilman King would yield. I yield. Uh for your information from two 201718 our property taxes total which is delinquent property tax delinquent tax and penalties on taxes uh and vehicle taxes was 1,534,000. Today it is 1,992,000 which is a growth of um over of of about 400,000460,000 over a six-year period. Uh and that is misleading because in 2020 2020 2021

council ignored the uh law that says that you must roll back taxes and in that year we actually had $199,000 increase which was 12.54%. So our growth rate and property taxes have not has not actually taken u has not uh been comparable to our expenditures. We've been paying for our uh increase in expenditures primarily through the business tax uh revenue stream and that's where we're going to have to look very shortly. If I may, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, sir. Uh council did roll back and then pass the did raise the rate back I believe that is correct. What I'm not sure the year but but it did roll back and then council voted to to raise it back to the preexisting number which is just for clarity voted on a tax rate Mr. Mayor um but I appreciate Councilman Hall having that to show about a 20 to 25% increase for you. Yes. I call for the question. Questions call for second. We will vote on the approval of a grant writer for the fire department. District one, no.

District two, yes. District three, District three votes. Yes. District four, no. District five, yes. District six, yes. District seven. Yes. District eight. District eight. Vote yes. And the mayor vote chest. The motion carries. All right. Mr. Hendricks, you get to talk some more. Mr. Mayor, if I may have a point of privilege for a moment, leave the chamber. Would you like to wait for a minute? No. I just Jay, you see what time?

Um, all right. So, we're going to It's almost 9:30, so we're going to roll. Uh, town uh town dates coming up for you. You do have this on your desk. U I I put it under town holidays. I apologize, but planning commission meeting is next Monday, uh, 6:30. Uh, they do have an agenda. Uh, council work session on March 18th. So, that is next Wednesday. that will be to cover the safe streets and roads for all grant. Uh we're doing it on a Wednesday night because our consultant who is out of Maryland will be in the state working with those other clients and asked that we could work around this time. Uh we'll do 7 o'clock. It's going to be on online cuz you know I'm Oh yeah. Yes. You'll be out of town. Um we expect to see you tuning in. So Okay.

Not going over to Georgetown and having dinner. Um thank you again. Do remind you what happened. do remind you March 30th your economic statement of interest is due. Um if you want to stay out of ethics, make sure you file that.

Uh some updates. Uh spring clean March 21st from 9 to 12. Got a variety of churches and civic groups that are online to help with litter pickup. We've also got the tire recycling and paper shredding at least college starting at 9:00. Again, I encourage you to be there early with the paper shred just so it doesn't fill up. Uh the second event we got coming up, April 1st, Easter egg hunt, Leville College Park at 5:30. Uh 10,000 eggs is the number I've been told. There'll be some other games and activities. Uh a new event that is being planned by event planner is May 30th. It's a Saturday. It's a mom and son camo clash at the Train Depot Park. It is a Nerf war. Uh there will be team-based skirmishes including capture the flag and last man standing. I have no idea what that's going to look like, but it sounds like fun. I've actually asked if Wyatt wants to go and fight his mother, but he hasn't accepted yet.

You know, he's going to lose. Um, even if he wins, he might still lose.

U, it's not one of our events, but just an FYI, Peach Tree 23 will be June 5th through the 6th. Also, I guess FYI, obviously, Poultry Festival is that second Saturday in May, that weekend. Uh, 150th celebration of Batesburg Leville. It's also in conjunction with the 250th for the United States. Uh these are notes from Kathy. It's a landmark community event scheduled for Friday, July 3rd. We did do the third to avoid conflict with the uh peach festival in Gilbert. Uh celebration includes performances by magician. There's a a concert. There's going to be food trucks. Uh we've are working with the county museum on some history displays and games. Uh and our event planner is also working on a time capsule. Um, so that's July 3rd starting at 4 until um just an FYI, our insurance does not cover fireworks displays. So if you're wondering uh and then there also is going to be a summer movie series uh in June and July. That's going to be Tuesday mornings at Hannes Auditorium. So uh that should be the Lion King, not the Lino King. Uh Finding Nemo, Zootopia and Charlotte's Web are scheduled to to play. Uh so we are working with daycarees and and uh different programs to get the kids out. Uh project updates. We had some emails back uh last week about the park restrooms. They're almost complete. Uh sewer connections uh were finalized last week. The water meters are to be installed this week. Uh final electrical inspections were completed last week and the power request has been submitted to Dominion. The contractor has the goal of them being completed by next Friday. Uh he did say Leville College Park absolutely would be done prior to the Easter egg hunt. Uh P Street parking lot. The trees were installed. Uh apparently he's got a few more bushes. I don't think we need them, but uh there were a few more bushes on the plans to be installed and that project will be

complete. Uh some CDBG updates. The service line improvements project installations are are nearly complete. Uh this is notes from last week from Andrew. Uh so DES has the permitting. Uh working on a couple of minor issues to finish up there. Uh the CDBG valve assessment. Uh the mapping is 70% complete. Uh some pipe sizes were discussed with town staff in the coming days and uh the field work is complete. Uh that should be completed soon but not this month. Uh the the most recent CDBG uh grant is for lift stations. That's uh been delayed a little bit. working on some shifting of things from Sluda County to Lexon County. Um, but that one goes until 2027, I believe. Uh, water project decommissioning. Town staff has met with engineers. Uh, they visited the water plant, the pond, Brody pump station in January. Uh, we're working uh with uh the state to determine exactly how much money is still available and trying to utilize that state revolving fund money. uh how we can utilize that remaining grant funds from the water project to use it towards decommissioning so it's less out of pocket.

Jay, when you say just decommissioning, you you talking about tearing it down? No, decommissioning is like the removal of pumps so that you cannot produce water. It's it's to take now now the Brody pump station is supposed to be taken back to nature. That is down at Brody Pump at two notch. So that one is supposed to be taken back to nature. Uh but it does not require the demolition of the water plant or anything at the time. You plan on repurposing the water plant? That's possible. Uh the the basins are in rough shape, but at the moment Andrew would be sitting outside under a tree if we took down the building cuz that's where his office was. So it building is still in use. Um I thought you were imploding it. I was about to say

I'm thinking Wy Coyote with the TNT. Um but uh so we're working with uh the staff from Hazen and Sawyer and also with uh staff at uh rural infrastructure on on that funding. Uh the solar project, you know, that one

we've kind of inched it along. They uh did have a site visit last week with staff in Central Midlands. Um the deadline for bids is March 27th and we hope to bring that to you in April. The again as a reminder that is a 6040 grant. 60% is the uh federal funds that are going through uh central Midlands. We are a subreient leaving 40% as a match. What is also available is an IRS uh rebate even though we don't pay taxes. We are eligible for that 40% through IRS with a couple of you got to be started by this date which is I believe July 1st. So, we are on a little tight schedule. Uh, but we have talked with Neil at at McGregor and Associates. They would help us work through that IRS process to make sure that we would get it. They've done similar things. So, the goal is that the 60% comes from the federal, 40% comes from IRS, which is also federal, and zero comes out of our pocket. And again, this is a 0.5 megawatt uh solar array at the wastewater plant that would offset energy cost at the wastewater plant. Um, North Fork Commerce uh just some information from Thomas and Hutton. The the PER for the wastewater treatment plant is pretty much complete. They're waiting on the waste load allocation to go from the four to 5 million gallons a day. Um, basically they're working on on all of the permitting. uh they are working on uh the final design. Uh they are designing everything from pump station one and the force main. The remaining pump stations that would be on the site would be built as the park develops. Uh they would have one main pump station and then as the park grows you have a secondary pump station that will pump to the main one and up the force man. Uh they are saying that they're 75% completed on the design. So that project

is moving forward as well. uh financial update. Uh you've all got that in front of you. Um the big numbers uh the utility account $221,14044. The to keep it on a little more consistent the utility 8 uh LJIP is 3,287,14987. Capital improvement impact fee which is also a utility is $814,2629. Um, as we talked about on the town side, uh, we have had some good tax revenue coming in recently. So, $1,391,633.89 cents in the checkin account. General fund Elgip is $489,454.79. Uh, spoke with Lisa earlier. We're going to transfer a good portion of that checking account over to the investment uh, this week. And on the HAX side of things, $296,44.31 in the checking account and $985,5591.18 in Elgip. Anybody have any questions? Again, you've all got that on your your desk.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir. Uh, how is Summit Engineering being paid for the U North for project? That is all being done through u picking up the tab. Akin County is paying for all that. Okay. Yes, sir. So, good. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, sir. That that brings us to item 12, executive session.

January. In executive session, we will discuss water contract with CSWR, a South Carolina utility operating company, which is somewhere out close to the lake. Ordinance to amend the Batesburg Leville Code of Ordinances, title 4, article G rates and charges, section 41-1-113, schedule of water and sewer charges and personnel matter town attorney position. Do we have a motion to go into executive session? So move. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes. If not, we'll vote. District one,

yes. District two, yes. District three, yes. Four, four, yes. Five, yes. Six, yes. Seven, yes. Eight, yes. And the mayor votes yes. We are in executive session at 9:35.

We go. We're going to go ahead and start without bothering. He said he said he was

Yeah. contracting the water and then giving us some

I apologize. Take your time, sir. TMI and 12 gallons. It takes so long. Make a motion that we return from executive session. We all second. I think I have a motion and a second that we return to executive session. Any discussion? If not, we'll vote. District one, yes. District two, yes. Three, District three, yes. Four, yes. Five, yes. Six, yes. Seven, yes. Eight, yes.

Mayor votes yes. We are back in in session. Okay. All right. Do we have any motions that need to come up? Okay, Mr. Mayor, I uh move that we accept the ordinance to amend the BBE Leedsville code of ordinances title 4 article G rates and charges section uh 4-1-113 scheduled of water sewer charges as discussed in executive session.

I second. We have a motion and a second that we approve the ordinance. Uh I'm not going to read what Steve just read, but anyhow, it's now open for discussion. All questions. Questions called for. We'll vote. District one, yes. Two, yes. Three, three votes. Yes. Four. Four. Yes. Five. Yes. Six. Yes. Seven. Yes. Eight. Yes. Mayor votes yes. That ordinance is approved. That takes us to

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we uh approve the water purchase contract as described in the executive session and as in um the white paper in our packet. A second. We have a motion and a second. Now open for discussion. Call for the vote. Motion's called for. Our votes call for. We will now vote. District one. Yes. Two. Yes. Three. District. Three votes. Yes. Four. Four. Yes. Five. Yes. Six. Yes. Seven. Yes. Eight. Yes. The mayor votes yes. That motion carries.

Potential agenda items for the next meeting. We want to put on there by discussion. I believe uh council had one who who something for next session and we we we discussed the research on the research on the BBA women's society matter that was that was one that was discussed. Okay. C uh Councilman Oh BBA. Yeah. That we add that to the next BBA and getting all that information on whether we reimburse or not. Second, if we can add that on, please. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second that we put the BBA BBA back on the agenda for next session.

Remove it from the table. Remove it from the table. Uh any dis do we have we have a motion and a second. So we Any discussion? Call for the vote. Votes called for district one. Yes. District two. Yes. District three. Yes. District four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Yes. Seven. Yes. Mayor vote. Yes. That motion carries as well. Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Councilman Knox, I thought you brought something up that you wanted. You mentioned specifically wanting it added to the agenda for next meeting.

Is that what that was? Okay. misunderstood. At this point, I can't remember, but move to adjourn. That was it. That was the actually the planning commission the the item that got voted down at the beginning from the public hearing three hours ago, it was brought up about modifying that ordinance to go the other way to be single district. I think we need to be having a work session on that on that session about that. Can we put that on for work session? We were just reminding you that was discussed 3 hours ago. Move to adjurnn. Uh we have a motion to adjurnn. So move second. It is privilege will vote district one. Yes. Two. Yes. Three. Yes. Sorry. Four. Yes. Five. Yes. Six. Ain't nothing open. Yes. Seven.

Yes. Eight. Waffle house. And the mayor vote. Yes. We are adjourned.