Budget & Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

[clears throat] Okay, it is 5:00 January the 8th. This is budget and finance and I'll call this meeting order. We've taken the role. [snorts] Uh we're sort of missing our packet so we're playing improvised there. Take a motion to approve. Oh, before we approve the agenda under budget amendments, uh 7B, no 7A, I'd like to add a rule solid waste to make a budget amendment for that. We'll talk about that when we get there. But under you're adding a seven 7A under 7A 7A budget,

it would be real solid waste to add a budget amendment for them. Okay. 71. Yes. And being with that, anybody approve the agenda? I'll make a motion to approve agenda. Second. Motion by Nettles and second by Terry Hirshman. Any discussion, additions? All those in favor by I. I. I. I ask about public comments. Nobody had signed up for public comments. Uh the we're going to postpone the minutes to uh to the next meeting because our packet was not read. So the meeting minutes from November will be approved along with today's meeting minutes maybe in the end of this month. Okay.

Okay. With that being said, the next thing on the agenda is the schoolboard presentation. And I turn that over. We are thankful and blessed for the opportunity opportunity to share with the budget committee. I appreciate Chairman Morris lining these up and mayor Hunt. We appreciate the opportunity. The purpose of our presentation is requesting [clears throat] funding for a new Hickerson and added space and classrooms and other areas to East Elementary. Um,

thank you.

I landed here and I and I've landed feel very blessed to share that I've landed in a really good place. Um, as I was sipping water from a fire hose back in June getting my feet wet, the first month it became really apparent and stood out to me. There were two things as I look at our student teacher ratio is very favorable and that has a huge impact positive impact on our students. And the other thing is I did my homework prior to to being interviewed for the position in the ages of our schools. As I traveled around and looked at our school buildings, there has been a consistent effort with directors and county commissions long before any of us were in in our chairs to keep our facilities up to date. Um, Mr. is going to attack the the historical part of our facilities here in a second. But that really jumped out at me and I think it speaks speaks volumes about the value that our county and our county commission place on education and investing in our young learners and the community. The other thing that that jumps out at me about that is um it's obvious that our commissions and prior commissions have been good stewards of money and I've noticed that in my short time here I believe our county commission takes pride in being good steward of the money

and that's reassuring as a taxpayer. We as a school system want to continue, that's our model as well. We want to be good stewards of the tax dollars. [clears throat] Um there's a lot of talk about the I24 corridor. I don't have a crystal ball. Um I can't see in the future. Uh, I I I won't predict, but when I hear the things that are going on in our neighboring county to the north west of us in Rutherford, it's hard to believe that we're not going to be next. At some point, I don't claim to know when that is. I think we're starting to see some of that [clears throat] shift into our um into our county. Um, but I don't claim to know that. But I also know this. They're having an additional 56 projected 5600 students next year. They can't keep up with their facilities. I think our school system and our county commission, we have done a pretty good job of comparing uh of preparing our our schools for order, but I'm not sure we're going I I would rather us be proactive than reactive and they're in a little bit of a mess over that. Wish them well. Obviously, Hickerson's the oldest school building in our school district, and in the last several years, you've seen a pretty significant rise in enrollment. I believe uh Hickerson Elementary is currently pushing 270 students, which is the largest population that stu uh school has ever been in. Uh as well as we've seen growth at East Coffee. Um outside of population shifting, the at Hickerson and East coffee lack several

important features the rest of our district elementary schools and facilities are able to utilize. So our classroom spaces and classroom or space in general is really at a at a premium. Our cafeteria at both those schools are extremely small and how that matters is [clears throat] it makes lunch extremely long. Uh that gets into the kitchen space. Uh our kitchen spaces are extremely small to the point where um our students at East Coffee as well as Hickerson have different menu choices because we don't have enough kitchen space to get the mach the cafeteria the equipment to make to serve them the same things we do everywhere. It also affects our schedules. Um, and please hear me say this, when I say gym, don't think athletics. In an elementary setting, those two gyms at Hickerson and East Coffee are extremely small. But when I think of gym in elementary, I think of parent engagement. I think of performances. I'm thinking about things that outside of the athletic realm because we don't play our elementary basketball in our gyms. We use those for a lot and it's hard to get a lot of people in our Hickerson Hickerson and East coffee gym. Um so the parent engagement activity at those schools the l the lack of space provides challenges. Uh their schedules are vastly different. We have to start serving breakfast and end or serving lunch way earlier than we do at our

other four elementary schools because you're only limited on space on how many children you can feed in in our cafeterias. Um there's been a commitment here. And when I say that the other four elementary schools have had those additions, had uh additional space added to them. I hope we and pray that we're able to make all six of our elementary schools equitable as far as this space because it does uh it [clears throat] does have an outcome on on our students and their families. But we've uh this county has made a commitment to education and you can see it in in simply the brick and mortar and the upkeep and the pride that we've taken and I I just I hope we would continue to do that. Um Mr. Shores will be setting up visits for our county commission and those will be at Hickerson, those will be at East Coffee and New Union. And the reason New Union is on that uh tour list that that gives you a comparison that gives you a comparison. Um I appreciate your time. Mr. Schwarz has a a short slideshow and uh we'll be answering any questions about historical facts about those two facilities. But thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.

Good evening. got a short slideshow. There's there's several slides here. Uh if I go through each one of these in in tense, it's going to take quite a while. Uh I don't think everybody wants to be here for two or three hours. So I'm going to go hit these fairly quickly. Uh I made a copy for each one of you so that you can take it home and actually look at a little closer and spend a little bit more time digesting different parts of it. Uh but but there's different parts also I think that we need to actually get. Uh I did not come up with a complete slideshow. This was put up made by Wood Wool, which is our architect engineer group that the the county board chose about a year and a half ago. Uh so they they've been working on this and we've been looking at uh East Coffee and Hickerson for a while now and trying to come up with what the best direction is that we need to go uh and to to make a recommendation to this uh group. Uh we do have a couple from Wald here today and if there's a part to it that I'm not put up on there they're if you don't mind they'll be welcome to jump in and answer it and might give you an answer that you need. Uh start off with the first page. Why are we doing this? That's to me the biggest thing is why why do we need uh to do this to East Coffee and and Hickerson? One of the big ones is equity. We started a building project and started to try to figure out how to make sure that we had space in all of our buildings several years ago with Hillsboro Elementary. In 2010, uh 2010 was Hillsboro and also 2010 was Deerfield. Uh we added on to Hillsboro and we also added the the new building of Deerfield. After that point, we went to the middle school and added it in 2014. From there went to the Raider Academy because the middle school moved over to their new building and we turned

it into a ninth grade academy. And then North Coffee got the renovation and addition uh started in 2019. And then 2020 was New Union Elementary with the same type of footprint which was about 22,000 square feet. Then we went to the high school and we added in six classrooms. We're down to the end of our our of needing to get things ready for our any kind of growth. We're ready in all of our schools except for East Coffee and Hickerson. And that's where we are. And this reason why we're here with you today or tonight. And so that's one of the main reasons uh we have equity of our buildings. If you we have the tours, if you're able to go to it, I'd love for you to see the difference in what East Coffee Hickerson India has. there's a there's a big change in it and I think you'll see it fairly quick. So I I hope whenever we set these tours up you are able to make it and come to it as well as the other commissioners on it too. Another reason why is to alleviate and address site issues that we have. Uh parking is a major problem over at Hickerson Elementary pick up in the afternoons. If you ever get a chance to go by Hickerson about 3:00 in the afternoon, you'll see the the line going out into the old highway and it's not safe. Uh I've been over there several times with principal and we've tried to figure out a way to take care of it, but it's it's just not a safe situation. There's not a good way to fix the the problem. Uh drop off and also pickup is a problem there as well. This is biggest thing is to address any kind of growth. Uh the county is growing. If you go out to our industrial park, I think the the commission has has worked well with the uh industrial board to start bringing in industries and those industries when they come in, people are going to come

as well. And it's growing. You could go out Asbury Road right now, see the Little Leaf project, and it is a monster. So, uh I I I foresee the the growth in our schools, and we need to take care of those those things and be ready for it. What are we looking at? Additions and renovations at East Coffee, replacement of Hickerson Elementary on the same site. And the total funding is 69 basically $69 million. Moving on to the next slide. And at any time, you're welcome to stop me if you got a question. Stop. Go ahead. So, you're wanting to build new Hickerson Elementary right on the same site. Are you building it behind it or you going to be behind it?

Okay. So, that gives you more when you take this one down. take care of the the parking and the the car issue of staging cars. Continue on. Yes, you're exactly right.

Moving over to the next one. Um when we brought wool in, one of the main things that we asked for was we want to make the buildings equitable to all of our students so that our students at East Coffee and also Hickson would get the same um same type [clears throat] of amenities that that North Coffee New Union, Hillsboro, and Deerfield have. Uh started looking at other things. One of the big parts that we started looking at with those schools was the core space. If we can get the core space of our cafeteria, our lunchrooms, uh same place, sorry, uh library, uh gymnasiums, um I'm trying music rooms, all the core areas. If we can get those build up large enough, then we can add on classrooms as we need. Right now, if you go and look at Hickerson East Coffee, those areas are very small and there would be no way to actually just add classrooms. We have to get the core core building built up. But then we want to take care of when you're in that construction mode, go ahead and take care of the the possibility of over u oversize for our classrooms. Um the the second thing that was asked for one was to determine what's going to be the best thing to do with Hickerson. Is it better to add on to or is it better to to build? And that's two of the things that they jumped on with uh both of those. And if you want to, like I said, I'm gonna go through this. I'm not going to read it to you so that you can look at a little bit later. And wool actually was brought on by our board in May of 2024, as you see down at the bottom, that's in large print. And that kind of let you know this is not a quick thing that we just started and bringing it to you today. This has been discussed and looked at by our board and wood for about a year and a half now. And it was talked about before that even. Moving on to the next page. Uh what was studied?

Physical conditions capacity versus the enrollment utilization of the building grade level organization uh function functional adequacy uh security analysis and audit site conditions analysis expansion options as well. The other information that we pulled, we went through Harpet research, which is a third-party research group to find out where are we with our growth. And through that growth, we started noticing that Hickerson is one of the areas that was growing, one of the largest growing areas. Now, Coffee County is growing all over, but we did also find out Manchester City is the largest area of growth with it, but Coffee County is growing as well, and we need to take care of those areas. Uh, as we go through this, there's going to be a lot of information. The blue text that's in here is basically the things that we are looking at and that we're we're really needing to see with that page. Um, and what we're asking for. Going on to the next page, physical condition. uh even if we don't do any renovations or additions to our buildings, these are things that will locate that needs to be taken care of no matter what. So even if we're we don't go into a building program, we're going to have to start looking at these different areas. And as you can tell, it's going to get very pricey there, which is also where it comes into, do we look at building a new building or go back and remodeling? Is it is it is it economically sensible to do that? And that's that's some of the things that was actually uh looked at. Do we need to reinvest or do we need to remodel or replace? And that's where actually Hickerson came in to to being the the replacement. I don't know if you're all aware, but Hickerson

Elementary is the the core building was actually built in the late 1940s. So, it's a fairly fairly older building. Now, there's been a couple of additions. The latest edition was in uh 96 and uh but but it's it's it's a fairly old building and also it makes it challenges that well I'm going give you an example. in 1947 1948 they didn't have the computers we have today. So the just the electronics of it even but the size of the building and so forth makes a difference in the square footage of the classrooms. Moving on over to the next cl uh next slide. This is where the and I'm not even moving in advancing. Boy, I'm doing bad on my job here and I apologize. Okay. Forgot I had that. Okay. This is the the setup of our building at U East Coffee. Uh if you will notice, there is a black dot on each one of those classrooms. Those black dots show that uh those are currently with a class that is needed that fullsize classroom. If you see the ones with a an open circle, those that's where we could possibly pull if we had to if we grew a little bit, we could pull those classes together. Now, they're not going to go away, but you'll see four of those classes. We could possibly take it down to four of those classes going down to two classrooms because those classes like interventions, academic coaches, counselor, they don't need a full classroom, but they don't have another place to go. So, if we put two classrooms together or or split a classroom, we could actually put those two groups together and that would gain us two classrooms. That is a very small fix, but but That means we do have a little bit of space, but not much. You're looking at for two classrooms, you're looking at 40

kids, 20 for each classroom, which is not much. Okay, moving on to the next. Uh, can I interrupt you real quick? Absolutely. I I hate to interrupt you, but what's the average time on say lunchtime? just I'm going to do East do uh East Coffee first and then you can tell me what Hickerson is because I believe they're both probably a little different. I want to say and I can actually ask the principles but East Coffee was about 10:30 was starting the lunch for preschool. Now they might have changed it with somebody else and they were finishing it up around 12:30 12:50

12:50 right at 1:00 uh to be able to get through all the lunches and and I I'm glad you asked that because I used to The reason why I asked that question, I wanted people to know that they're too small. This is one of the reason why they're too small. You cannot have everybody eat lunch at the same time and and you're doing basically shift work. Try pushing them through. You're pushing them. You're pushing each Yeah. That's why I wanted to bring that up. 2:30 for for lunch. Y'all, to me, that's a little early. Y and I always I never liked it, but you do what you have to to make it work. Now 10:15 10:15 is the start of lunch for prek probably and 1:00 at Hickerson brought it up.

Uh lunch room is a little bit smaller than what East is. So good question. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. Where it says STEM lab is actually an art classroom now. Uh when this was actually made up it was not we didn't have art class. So we we do have art class now. So where it says STEM class is no longer STEM lab is art classroom. Moving on to the next and like I said I'm moving pretty quick trying to so get out here.

The next one is actually uh Hickerson Elementary. Same type thing. If it's open circle I could probably take two of those classes and split a classroom and put one on each side of it and it would it would suffice. Uh but right now we're the fear of if we need it as a classroom, you don't want to have it split in two.

So it's it's a problem there. So we're using that type of setup. Once again, that would give us enough space for 40 more students. Uh and the way things are looking, it's going to be larger than more than 40 students. Uh Hickerson's really growing lately and it's it's making a difference. And the study actually even showed it as well as and and I don't know that this group sees the the building going out there with the subdivisions in the building that's taking place. But it it's it's happening. It's happening in our areas. Okay, moving on to the next one which is the Harpet research. Um even though that some of these all these are Coffee County schools systems excludes, we have the full report. Coffee County is growing just like other presenter person. Thank [snorts] you. Appreciate you inviting me. I'm tired.

Uh specifically, I've already mentioned we've we see the higher growth in Hickerson right now. And um if it continues to grow like it's growing in in two years, we're going to be well over oversized. And that's from the actual data and the information we have today on the numbers that's coming in at Moving on to the next one. I have a quick question. Did that did that study include the potential or well the anticipated growth from Arnold Air Force Base because that's going to impact there there's going to be a huge growth out there.

They they looked at everything that they could find. Now if they didn't pull if that was not told to them and when they were doing their research then of course it was left out. I can't remember if if [snorts] Arnold Air Force Base had anything that they were saying when the study was being done.

Okay. uh and kind of give you an idea. Those numbers are actually our board felt like they were a little low. They got back in touch with me and said, "Hey, uh what about this subdivision that's going out on I think it's Cat Creek Road and and and they didn't get that information." So, I gave it to Harpath and they included that information. So, these are very conservative numbers. They're not inflated or anything. It's it's from a third party. It was not our architect team. It was not the school system. We wanted to pull away completely so that it was an unbiased study. So that's to me that's very important on it. Uh look, did I ask you a question? Do you have any other questions with that?

No, that was Thank you.

Okay. The next one is the boundaries. One of the things I had actually heard of was well, we might need to move some of the boundaries. We have noticed an increase at Hickerson and a decrease somewhat at New Union. But if you know where those two are, there's a city between the two. And it it really makes it difficult on buses to to get those kids in that type of setup. And also, you're tearing up communities when you do this. And anytime you do move boundary lines, now Coffee County has not been through reszoning except for the Only time I can remember in my 31 years is that when Deerfield was built and when Deerfield was built, there was a reszone to to move some kids from East Coffee, from North Coffee, and [snorts] from New Union out to Deerfield. Now you're moving kids to a brand new school. When you start moving families from the school that they bought a house in that zone for their child to go to that school,

I think they are. And now you're saying no, you have to go over here. Okay, y'all know what happens.

I don't think I have to to elaborate anymore. But one of the things we do run into like New Union would be the one that we would need Hickerson kids to possibly go to it. It's that the boundaries don't touch and and it would make it difficult. So, they actually drew these dotted lines and you're looking at having to to completely rotate all these kids to the right uh clockwise and but you know what's going to happen. So, but there's a little bit more information you can read through uh with the enrollment and the projections and the boundaries. Moving on to the next page. um enrollment projections versus capacity immediately needs are three sections. Wherever you see three sections or four sections or two sections, what we're talking about is the number of classes for that grade level. So if it's two sections, then there's two sections two grades or two classes of fourth grade, two classes of third grade, two classes of second grade. If it's three sections, it' be three sections of it. So when you see that, that's what that's talking about. And here I get caught up again. I might need somebody else to take care of this. [laughter]

You've got a volunteer. Y'all, I don't care to say I'm passionate about this stuff and I it it matters. I'm good. That's not part of it. Y'all look at this just like I am. But but when we're looking at three sections right now, Hickerson has two sections in every class except for fifth grade. and for them to make it [snorts] work with the numbers and the size and the square footage. They actually have three classes that takes care of the fourth and fifth grades. So, they're actually it's it's kind of sharing a [clears throat] teacher amongst grade levels to be able to make it work. Uh, as of right now, I think this the only school that we have in the county that doing that. We actually do have two of

Okay, so that was last year, wasn't it? So currently it's grown. So now we have two of every every grade level, two sections at at uh Hickerson. But those are some of our reasons. It's growing. Um we if we did just an addition at at Hickerson, same [clears throat] thing as U. Terry had brought up it. It's going to be the problem is is is parking, staging, drop off. Please Well, just just go by there. 3:00 one day. It's It's That's not your only problems at Hickerson. Well, no, but you know what I'm saying. That's gonna be one of the big problems with it. Thank you.

The age of the building is the problem that I know of because of Florida. There's a lot of stuff that that's having to be braced up because it is failing. There's a lot of people don't know that, but I do. So, okay. I'll shut up.

All right. Uh but That's mainly what I want to hit on this page and I'm going go ahead and move on to the next slide. Square footage for current uh the next page is uh the current square footage for classrooms. There are standards for classroom sizes and we the ones that's the the the ones that's in pink. They are the ones that's not meeting those standards at this time. And as you can tell this is for East Coffee and also Hickerson. uh by doing the renovations. If you want to go ahead and switch to the next page, uh you will see that this is the remodel square footage. And even with remodeling at [snorts] Hickerson, there's going to be a couple rooms that's still small. When they built those that building in in two uh 194748, they didn't require the the classrooms to be as large. So it they're they're still going to be undersized if we stay with the current building and just remodel and do an addition. Um and that's one of the reasons also another reason it needs to be uh a new building. Next page is it says private on it. Uh this this slide is about security. And if you know anything about security in schools, you don't put it out there. You don't tell people what's going on. And in Rockley, you should have. And there are things that we are constantly uh working to make them more secure. I feel secured with our buildings, but there as you know well know a new building is going to be a whole lot more secure than a 1947 building. Uh and so that's one of the things we'll be taking care of as well as at East Coffee. It's just going to be there's going to be things that we can do to to make it more secure and we can talk about that later if you need to, but But that that is a big one and especially at this day and time it's a sad day that we have to do what we do

and have to worry about things we have to worry about but you know it's what it is. Um next slide it it's a picture of the the campus at East Coffee. Uh this is to show you uh that we can accommodate the addition. Uh you see the building the East Coffee Elementary is a very large campus. Uh there's a lot of space out front, quite a bit of space out back. They put the yellow to kind of show you plenty of room to put the addition of a gym and the the other things that might be [clears throat] needed. This is not a set in stone, but this just to let you know there's places to put the building and do the addition with it. U moving on to the next page is East or Hickerson Elementary. And if you'll notice with Hickerson Elementary, it's close to the road. when they built it, it's close to the road. Uh doing any kind of additions, they put that in yellow. We're still going to have a lot of problems up front. We're going to have problems with parking, staging cars, drop off buses. We try to put the buses and the cars in the front at the same time. And you know, it's it's a mess. That's all I can say. It's it's a mess. Uh and it needs to be needs to be taken care of. Uh but let's go and there's going to be another page a little bit later on that you can see a little more with it. uh recommendations. Uh our recommendation is uh to try to get equity uh between all of our elementary schools so that they have the similar experience. While enrollment projections show slow growth in districtwide, East Coffee needs to be a three-section school to accommodate growth. Hickerson is already over capacity and we'll need to need a four section school uh for future enrollment and growth. We got to be ready for the growth. Like I said at the beginning and I'm going to bring it back up. We're ready at Hillsboro. We're

ready at Gerfield. We're ready at North Coffee. We're at ready at New Union. The only two schools we're not ready for is two that we're bringing to you today. Um boundary adjustments along with not accommodating loan growth. Uh so we could do boundary adjustments. It gets hairy when you do that, but it's still not going to take care of everything with it. The site at East Coffee can easily be addressed, but the placement of the building at Hickerson creates major issues for traffic and accessibility. Before investing additional maintenance funds at Hickerson, a long-term decision needs to be made. Uh because we we got to put some money into our buildings. uh we we've done well taking care of them, but there's things that's got to be done. Uh as Terry said early earlier, we have to take care of those things. Uh educational spaces should be appropriately sized for each building. Uh and that's classrooms, that's counselor's rooms, that's all the different uh needs that's in the building. Um, on October 13, 2025, the board of education voted unanimously to do an additional renovation at East Coffee Elementary with three sections that's going to allow for growth and also a replacement at Hickerson Elementary with a new four section school. And that's going to take care of all those other things that we had at at Hickerson Elementary. Do these additions take care of the of the cafeteria area at East Coffee?

They do. They do. Yes. You are addressing that. We're going to come It's going to be on the slide coming up. Okay. Sorry.

No, you're good. Uh if you'll turn to the next uh page. This is a visual of the possibilities at East Coffee. Is this a set in stone? Absolutely not. But it kind of gives you an idea. We can go out the back with the gym and the stage music and support. As [clears throat] Mr. Harrow was talking at at the elementary, you have performances. You have parents coming in to watch their kids get awards. Um, at at both of our schools, East Coffee and Dickerson, it is a challenge is the only way I know to put it, to get all the kids in the gym and then get the parents that want to come to watch their kid get awards. We we think it's nothing but right for those parents to be able to see their child in in a performance. Oh, I remember the kindergarten graduations at East Coffee and oh my, it was a packed packed gym. Uh so th those are some of the things that we got to look at. Uh Mr. Hman, if you'll look at where the cafeteria is in the kitchen, the kitchen is actually where the old cafeteria and kitchen is. And the new cafeteria here is where the gym is.

Okay. Yeah. So, we would be converting the gym to the cafeteria. I'm with you. Then, if you look at the the blue, those are the extra added classrooms.

Uh, and special services and also the media center will be stretched out. So, some walls will be coming down to take care of those. Okay. If you'll turn to the next page, you'll see East Coffee. The layout on the land uh with a new addition. Once again, it's not set in stone, but coming out the back, it's easily able to accommodate. One of the things that East Coffee has never had is being able to drive around the back of the building. It's the only school in our system that you're not able to drive all the way around the building and this would actually take care of it. And the what what difference does that make? The difference is whenever buses start getting in

the front, we have buses in the front, we have car riders in the front, everybody's going to the front, and it's not a safe situation. You're able to move things around. You're able to put buses at a different staging area, you're able to put cars in one area so they're not crossing. And when you have a kindergartener and you have buses and cars going on, it's just not it's not safe. We've made it. We've been very very lucky and and diligent on on making them safe as we can, but it does create a challenge for us. Go ahead and turn to the next page. You'll see Hickerson. With Hickerson, it actually shows where you can put a new building uh back behind the the current building. Uh the way it would work is they would continue to work on building the building, the new building as they're having school in the old building. Once they finished it, then the kids would move over and teachers. And then they would demolish the old building creating more parking place and more area to drive and stage buses and cars.

What is the red outline pink area? Um and I knew somebody was going I think that's wed. Don't [clears throat] hold me to that. I think it's wet areas. Just wet. Is it called wetlands? It's just infiltration. Okay. Because we know that it's on a septic site right now. So you have to plan for new areas for infiltration and potentially for storm water. So where's your septic system located right now on this? Um it was on another one a big tank you

actually to the left in front of the building that the new building they're looking at. So if you're looking at it there is a picture earlier on that actually shows where the step is. I saw it. Sorry. I can't remember which slide it was right off. We only have 25 1500 gallon set. Yeah. Yes. Two of them. Yeah. So, are we going to interfere with those on the construction part of it? I'm assuming we would be because it looks like it would be there together, but I'm not going to guarantee that. So, why? Yeah. Yeah, I know. So, that's going to have to be a part is going to have to be addressed too. That would have to be That's right. that get into the details of

things that we have to look at because you have to have Yeah. Okay.

Yes. when one of the things that we're always going to talk about and it comes up later in the in the presentation based on the construction is how you pull off something like this and the fact that when you undertake this kind of effort, you have to spend a lot of time and effort working out a construction disruption avoidance plan. So that way you have a plan for continued operations of the building. You have safe separation between construction and ongoing activities. You [clears throat] also work out at that time the phasing that allows this to happen. So that's one of the reasons why you you build the new facility while the other one is in operation and then as soon as you can do the switch over you take the other one.

Right. And that's reflected in our contract documents. The documents So they know what's coming and you know that that cost is covered. That's pretty important. It is.

Now I want to make one more mention. If we did an addition to Hickerson, it would if you're looking at the building currently, it would be to the left side. And one of the problems is that actually the ground drops off and where the building would go would actually be a story lower than the current building, which is not good. If you've ever been into Hickerson, it already has a ramp that goes down quite a bit. This would actually take you down even further because it drops off. If you look at Hickerson, the the 96 edition, which is that left side, [clears throat] actually was built up quite a bit at that time. So, any other questions on that?

Yeah, I would like to bring up something that was mentioned to me regarding Hickerson. It's a unique in that it sits exactly between the municipal boundaries of both and Manchester and the urban growth boundaries actually meet on the old highway and the new highway which means the possibility of annexation from either or both could happen and this school could be surrounded by city residents a scenario.

This a scenario and and the way whenever I started looking at at that situation if you if you notice where the boundaries are for Manchester City and city they basically go down 55 and they meet and that they stop at the bridge one on one side one on the other side. They don't do that on onif on the old highway. But let's say that they go that way. What's the difference in it compared to what we have with Raider Academy, our high school, and so forth? Because it's still a county school. I don't I don't foresee Manchester City, could they? I'm I'm not going to say they couldn't. I don't foresee Manchester City going back behind and taking everything back behind Hickerson. I can see the meeting in the front of it and but still, it's our school. We're still having to take care of all the kids that's in the county in the Hickerson area except for the ones that they annex. So I still foresee that we're going to need a school for the kids of the Hickerson community.

Waterford Farm subdivision is in the city limits of Manchester already, which is just right down the hill, right, from Hickerson station. So it, you know, it's not too far of a stretch to see because contiguous properties are more advantageous through the annexation process. So it could easily it could easily be surrounded.

Now this commission probably knows more about this or or one of other committees. From my understanding, that was actually done at the time that they were able to go down a road and then just take a little piece. And I basically what I would call it Allen and and I've heard that you can't do that anymore. And I might be wrong. You you probably that what you just described is called corridor annexation. Okay.

Where they made the public thorough affair the contiguous parcel. Now the you are allowed to go as long as you're in the urban growth boundary, you can literally annex an island of parcels without contiguous properties. That now that's something that the Tennessee State Legislature, I think, is going to be asked to look at. I don't know if it's ever [clears throat] going to pass, but that is a possibility.

Okay. You know, like I said, you know more than I do on that. Um, but I we've got to plan for what we have and what we need to take care of for our kids and our families. And right now, we have this group in Hickerson area as well as East Coffee that we have to take care of. Uh, can can Manchester City continue to to take over until they take over the entire county? Maybe. So, I I don't know. Can Taho do the same? Maybe. So uh but I I [clears throat] we have come to you to take care of what we have and where we are and and I can't control what the other two municipalities do. Okay, moving on to the next one. Uh projected cost and this is where those those dollar signs start coming in. Uh you'll see on the left East Coffee since it's uh we're looking at doing a remodel in addition. It's going to have a few more things. And over to the right, you're looking at the Hickerson, which is the the building, a new building. And then in the pink area, you will see that there is if y'all if this commission decided to u do a four section addition and renovation uh at Hickerson rather than doing a new building. That was the price tag on it. We wanted to give you all the information we have so that you can make a a a good sound decision. And these are the projected costs. As somebody said earlier, it's the actual numbers is 8,845,000 for both projects and that is the projected cost. Moving on to the next page, next slide. This is the timeline for East Coffee. Uh it is a projection of [clears throat]

course it's going to be dependent upon when funding is is available and and the goal [clears throat] would be to to actually be occupied in 2027 the fall of 2027 which is approximately a year and a half from now. But that's that's meaning we have to kick in gear to get moving and that a lot of things got to get get done uh to get this started and and that that that would be our our definitely our preference. Moving on to the next one is the timeline for Hickerson. Pickersons are a little bit bigger because you're building an entire new building. As well as we would prefer to be able to tear down the old building during that summer so that we could get the uh the parking and the the traffic area all taken care of. But this is once again a proposed. But for this to happen, the architect group said that it would be vital that we we get funding basically by March. And it just y'all it just takes a while. It it's not a it's not a fast process as you all know. Moving on to the next uh page. This is our recommendations and our conclusion. Uh we believe that this is the best approach to address immediate concurrent uh and future future enrollment projections. The proposed projects are needed to provide an equitable and appropriate experience between the schools and communities. And once again, please if you get a chance to come on that tour, you see the difference because until you actually walk through it, you really don't understand it and in seeing the different ones. Uh while the projects are large, the recommended solutions are the least disruptive for the students and the community. And I want to say we appreciate you you

listening and taking the time out to hear us and and for me to be able to present to you. And are there any questions? What are the tours? I don't have them planned out yet. Uh it will be very soon. And what would be the best way to get the word out to all the commissioners when we're when we're going to do those? Do what? tours. Tours for the commissioners. Just send it to the mayor's office and we'll forward it to the 18 commissioners. Appreciate that. I will get that out fairly soon. Any other questions?

I got an obvious one. Has anybody done a possible study on how this is get paid for? I think the study was that they're going to find out. No, I I I you know, I'm kidding with you, but but no, I I don't have a um I do not have a study with that. No,

it is a lot of money. Yeah, it's a lot of money.

On top of these needs, you know, you can ask any one of our judges and the judiciary that our judicial center, which was a uh a repurposed school building that served well for so many years. It's in extreme need, a total replacement. Uh those people need a new building as well. And I dare say we're we would be approaching this kind of money for that building as well. So it's it's I can see capital projects u overloading our current tax base. So, it's worth it's worth talking about.

Right. When when I came down here, I thought I need to touch on what we have done. And I went through this this sheet just a little bit ago. I didn't go through the whole thing. Hillsboro in 2010 to add 17,000 square feet and do the remodel that was done. It was $4 million. That's 2010. 2010 to add Deerfield as an entire school. We're talking about 15 years ago, 11,400,000. Coffee County Middle School, which is 160,000 square feet. 164 160,000 square feet. Brand new facility out on 53. $24 million. Raider Academy. I don't have the numbers, but we moved the kids. We did have to put some money into it. I didn't I don't have those numbers. North Coffee Elementary. This is really recent. Started in 2019. This this commission, there's several commissioners still on the commission that was here when that was approved. $5 million for North Coffee. That was for everything we're asking to do at East Coffee. New Union Elementary. Everything that we did, same thing we're asking for these buildings. $5 million. We got $10 million to take care of those. two buildings uh high school in 2022. We added six classrooms in the old hallways. We used the extra funding to make that happen and it was approximately $800,000 to make that work. Uh and we didn't come to this this commission to to make that take care of those and and to get that done. Um, I I y'all prices just keep going up and I don't have an answer, but if if we keep if we if we do kick this down the road, not only is our kids suffering on not

getting the placements, but the price is going to go up. It's going to get higher and we have two buildings left. We've got all of our buildings ready to grow. When when industry comes in, when growth comes in, we're ready for them. Those two buildings are not. And it's the final phase and and it was a a plan that was put together several years ago and and we're on the final final bid, final leg. So, I appreciate your time. If you have any questions, if any questions come up later on, feel free to contact me at shoresk k12c coffee.net. If I don't know the answer, I'll check and and find out. But I will be giving you a tour dates and we'll go from there. Okay.

I've got one more inquiring minds are going to want to know this. the ADA requirements when we're our expenditures on county schools. Uh are the capital projects like this exempt from the ADA matching funds? That was a question that at the time it came up at our one of our board meetings or work sessions. I can't remember which one. U Miss Nelson got in touch with Mariana. I think I'm gonna let Mariana be the one to answer that because she's gonna have a lot more knowledge than I do.

The funds would come from rural debt which is not part of the ADA to the other school system would be rule debt service meaning that the rural taxpayer pays for it not the count not all the county so it would be a higher tax increase and straight across the board but it would only be rural that way the other two systems would not get a Christmas present technically right it would not be on the uniform Is there any eser money left? No ESR money had to be spent. I can't remember. That was a couple years ago that had

and and we we we did pretty good with our system on on upkeep. We we did not waste any of that money. It was we could show you the things that we got with it. It was well spent for for our kids and staffs. Any other questions? Like I said, please feel free to give me an email if you Thank you. Are y'all going to present Tuesday night to the full commission? Okay. Do you want to take these back or you want us to keep these? That way you don't have to keep that way you don't have to print a bunch more.

You can look through it. Uh, I tell you what I'll probably do is if you will use yours cuz it is a lot of printing of color and so forth. We will make enough for all the ones that didn't get it. If you'll bring yours money is that everybody okay with that? Thank you. Thank you all for giving us opportunity. Okay, that being said, number six, it's capital projects funding plan.

Uh, yes. Um a couple months ago we talked about um some projects that we needed to have done and I was working on funding. And in case you don't know, this is Lauren Low with PFM. She's our financial advisor and she is here to talk about what we the plan we've put in place to get the funding for the um justice center roof and the library. And then there's a couple other smaller items that we have added to the list plus a contingency. Um so we do have the resolution ready and pass. Um, we did speak, Lauren and I, we did speak uh to uh the director of local government finance about that we had a pretty significant fund balance in our capital, excuse me, general debt service fund that instead of incurring debt for these projects that we need, could we pull uh so much that fund balance off, put it in capital projects and that would fund uh the the projects that are needed. They said yes that is allowed

this computer. Um so this resolution Oh, which would have to be approved by this committee and then forwarded Oh, I'm good. Sorry. And then forwarded to the the county legisl body next week. That would that's the funding mechanism to allow us to move 3503 $3.5 million from the general debt service fund over to um the capital project fund to use for those projects. Rural capital project or any general debt? No, no, no. general general debt because

so everybody's paying every that way everybody understands everybody's tax money not just the rural people is is this money we're talking about unassigned fund balance to see if [cough] that's having it right now and we do not need at this point in time for any additional bonds we have over 11 million fund balance and general debt and so that would leave us somewhere around 7.5 million in general debt service. Okay. And we have nowhere near that debt right now. So you still leaving [snorts] pretty good cushion. Yeah. So we don't have to do a bond. We don't have to pay anybody interest. We're using our own money and we're paying this as we go. That's exactly

which we ought to be doing all the time if we can. All of government would do that. Pardon? I wish all of government would do that. Well, you know that the um that's what the money is for, you know, for projects and it I mean it didn't make any sense to go borrow money when you had it. So, uh that's what we'd like to do and that way we can get those projects moving. Um I have budget amendments later that actually make other mechanism to move the money from one fund accounting wise. Do you need a motion to do this? Yes.

Great. So, we would be taking $3.5 million from general debt service to pay for the roof on the justice center, fix the teleoma library, a contingency fund, and two other things and play pay for the architect and engineers. I already have a proposal from our general engineers, St. John Associates, to do that. And then there was a couple minor things um that came up during the budget process last year that we can revisit with

the balance once we get those two main projects, you know, get them bid out. We know how much they are going to be and then whatever we have left over, we can decide on these other minor projects we had. Okay. And that goes through capital. Yes. Those projects. Okay. So Terry oversees the Sorry. Apologize for that. [laughter]

I thought, ma'am, sorry [snorts] about that. Oh, thank you. That was a good one. All right. So, Mr. Hchman Capital Outlay oversees all that. So, these are not frivolous things that we're spending money on. The Justice Center needs a roof. The Teleoma Library by far needs to be fixed and whatever is left over, Capital Outlay will decide that they will spend that on projects that the county needs done. Okay. So, I was coming from the general debt service. General debt service. Yes, that's where every everybody's money goes into that, not just the rule, right? Everybody's money because this is everybody's stuff. The Justice Center, the teleome library belongs to everybody. Anybody want to make a motion to that? If not, I will.

You don't need to do that. Um, and I really don't need to make that motion either, but I will if I have to because [snorts] I believe in everything that we've asked asked for. Um, I would I would rather somebody else make a motion to do that. And well, I'll make that motion because to me it makes sense. If we don't fix the justice center, the roof's going to rot. I prefer chair not chair either. All right. If if anybody, you know, [snorts] we if you go in, we can get we can discuss it. If somebody make a motion, we can at least talk about it. All right. I'll make the motion to move 3.5 million from one account to the other from general debt service. I second. Okay. I have a motion.

Got a motion in a second. Now we can talk.

Okay. I I will tell you we have not um these projects that we're we're you know trying to fund is as stuff that has been kicked down the road for so long. Um we have actually wasted a lot of money on that tele library the way it is right now over years and we've came up with a solution for it. is not a cheap. It could have already been, let's put this way, if they had done this back in five to six, seven years ago, it would already been paid for because it was way cheaper back then. Exactly what Mr. Shores was talking about. Material is not going to come back down. It's not going to do it. Labor is not going to come back down. It's just that that's the nature of the beast now. We're having to deal with that. the longer we kick it down the road again, the worse it's going to be on the next commission, the next mayor, who whoever. Uh we we have fixed a lot of county property this last couple of years and I know that we have repaired a lot of things and we roofs were a must. The judicial building that where we have our our courtrooms at, the roof is deteriorated so bad. Um where the old jail part where we keep our records right now is disgusting to go into. It's almost a health hazard to me. It is. I don't like going in there because of the whatever. I don't want to say everything on it, but the these are issues that we have been uh fighting for a while and and we know they've got to be fixed. We are moving forward on getting things fixed and and and I think we're spending the money the correct way right now. Um if you want to go through in-depth stuff, we have we have numbers we put together pretty I I I'm I've put it put

a lot of this on Mariana to help us [cough] find the funding [clears throat] to to do this and she's done that. And to be where we're not sitting there throwing another tax burden on the on our taxpayers is is astronomical to me because I I know that I didn't want not want that happening, but I don't want to sit there and let our properties go to waste. And that's what is happening right now. And and this this will fix a lot of stuff that we have got going on that's bad. And when people ask about those records, state law mandates that certain records, just like the school system, have to be kept forever.

Even when that person becomes deceased, that record has to be kept, which maybe one day our state will see the craziness in that. But right now the laws that we have to abide by there are set records that have to be kept forever in the county file and the school file uh by state law. So we have digitizing those records and lowering that process. They're in the pro actually they're are in the process of having a lot of it digitized if if I'm not mistaken. We we've spent money on that.

We've spent money on that. Okay. Um, but you still have to keep the other records for that's a pretty good while if I ain't mistaken. Even if you haven't digitized, [clears throat] I'm down to maybe 20 books, general journals that I need scanned. But you're doing good. But the old jail, what what he's talking about is the old jail down there that is full. You get rid of your old your paper documents once they go digital. So you don't have to keep them very long after that. So but let me say this. We don't print them anymore now. They already are. So if you've ever been in the old county jail

and all the I was in there when it was a jail. Okay. [laughter] All those sale blocks are record holders right now. Yeah. And they are packed. to digitize it is going to take off the floors years. It was moved off the upper floors. Yes, sir. Where it was causing a structural damage. It was that bad. So, I'll I'll hush on that. Okay. But I think this is a great I think this is a great move. Any more discussion? Okay. The motion is to move $3.5 million from general debt service over to cover this these expenditures. Okay. All those in favor by I. I.

Any opposed? Okay. Next one is budget amendments. First, you want to go first? Okay. Okay. We'll just keep going where we're going. Okay.

Under the budget amendments, I was going to put one in because we talked about this yesterday and uh Real Solid Waste. Real Solid Waste has applied for a state grant which they qualified for. And this is for the convenience centers. All of the convenience centers where T deck is requiring them to take out if you've been to the convenience centers where the liftable dumpsters sit has become spongy over the years and they're requiring Tde is requiring Renie to pour concrete pads to hold all this stuff up. He qualified for $148,873,000 grant. We had put with that $37,000 out of our fund balance thinking that was going to cover the cost of the pads. Well, like you said, stuff has gone up. The cheapest bid came in and we accepted that bid was $27,90, which leaves us $21,000 in the hole. We voted Wednesday and Mariana, we voted to take $21,000 from his fund balance and move it over to cover the cost of this grant because we talked about not doing one. If you don't do one, then the grant goes down. So, you're chasing money. As you don't do what you said you were going to do, the grant money decreases, which still makes you still have to pay. Renie has money in his fund balance to cover the 21,000.

Could we not use go between two funds, but there's a sufficient fund balance in rural capital projects. You can do it either way. I mean, we voted we voted to take it from him yesterday. That way, we don't have to go back and revote. We can because if they can do this, they will start within the month. Okay. Okay. Can you tell me how much that was again? $21,000 straight out. Okay. So, what I'll do is since I already have amendments for the next week's meeting. Okay. We'll make that number 15. Okay. And I'll add that

and I'll just put that in there, uh, we can just do all the amendments at once if that's okay. Yeah, I did want to explain. Okay. A couple of them. That's the one that I started. Then we're going to go with her. So that'll be 116 2026 15 $21,000. Okay. And that's that's enough. Yes, ma'am. To do all six convenience because that that's how we were short $20,980 and I just rounded it up to make it fit.

Okay. You say that's going to be 120 20 26 what 15 or 16 it's 116 yeah I have here I think it's 14 14 so it' be 15 but I meant 15 rule it was my mind

okay so the first one is number nine it's 171 20 269 This is um Summitville. They had some things on back order, but they did not get last year. They came in this year. Well, that's part of their last year's funding. So, we need to increase I put cost centers on all the fire bond fire departments now. So that's Summitville, SVD, Summitville Fire Department. Increase $1,000 to pay that. Okay.

Uh the next one is the public health and welfare projects. The one that says site development. The second line there, that is the oil collection facility. I forgot that was on me that this money was in last year. we already added money to finish uh what they're doing out there with that site development. So this 77,678 was money budget last year wasn't spent. So I'm just reappropriating it for this year to for that oil site. And when you're speaking of that whole collection, isn't it?

Yeah, it starts the construction on his oil and freed collection starts January the 19th. Great. Of this year. I realized that when we did the bid and we ordered it and all that, oh, I didn't move the last year of money over and that is across the street from real solid waste. Then there will be no garbage there because there's been some calls coming in. No garbage will be contained in that area, be accepted in that area at all. It's just for oil and antifreeze. Sure need that.

The next one is for the general fund. This one's quite lengthy because I have just um some things that were over obviously. So, sorry I'm a little tired. I'm good.

It's number 10. So the the the top part of it, the things that are just normal added to the budget or taken away, I didn't put any notes, [clears throat] but the ones where I have a a number out to the side, I thought that's stuff worth mentioning. Like I do have to take $110,513 for fund balance from fund balance. Um, the major reason is, excuse me, uh, the liability insurance. Lots of times I don't get the quotes adequate enough when we're going through the budget there in in the month [snorts] of June. So, you can see 79,452 of that is our liability insurance. You know, we have more vehicles now than we have. And plus, we did a little bit of an increase on our buildings because, you know, if our buildings are demolished or whatever, tornado, god forbid, earthquake, we rebuild at the cost now.

Okay. So, so like replacement cost. Yes. That's why I was, you know, it's better to me to pay a little bit to keep it up than Yes. to, you know, get a $100,000, let me know it's going to cost$ 25 million. So

that's the main thing. The other thing was, you know, Bonnaroo didn't happen. So we did not get the event fee this past year for this year. The So that's $265,000. That was significant. But all that aside, we don't put all our eggs in one basket anyway. So, a lot of this is just moving things from transfers like with the sheriff's department here overtime [snorts] because he has uh personal shortages. That's moving from like deputies to overtime or from jailers. You can look through there. That's where a lot of that is. Longevity pay. Some were over a little bit. Um, some didn't use all their money, but I do I do have the comments on the down at the that last page on that amendment. The things I thought you might want to know about. Oh, and the other thing that number five on the explanations we did not talk about, HRW had sent a request to reimburse the city of Manchester for courthouse decorations.

So, I did put that in there. I think it was $2,000. Yeah. No, it's 35, isn't it? 35. It's on It's on Yeah. 35. 3500. Okay. And that was for the decorations for Christmas. Yes. [snorts] And we're hoping to next year have the Christmas tree. You have a Christmas tree planted there and it be the county Christmas tree. That be nice. What kind of tree? Christmas tree. Cedar tree. You can grow Christmas trees right in there. Well, we were gonna have a cut tree this year and it didn't work out. So, it's a I've had so many people comment about the square.

Yes. And and even um when we did the um strolling on the square, I I go I go there every year just because I like going up there. Um but so many people addressed the lighting [clears throat] of what we did on the square. I think it was really done very well. What this year that it's been progressing every year and it's really looked good. I hope everybody gets to go by there and see it. Still on. So Well, they're taking it down today. Oh, they were taking it down today. I thought they were When I was a kid, the Wilkins Christmas tree in Tele was down by the Verbo tracks. Yeah.

And it was lit every year when the Christmas parade happened. And Mr. Ben Wilkins owned the overall factory during World War II. So he was a very wealthy man. But this was a humorous tree back then that was lit by him. And I remember as a kid, I mean, if our children have that same look back nostalgia of this town that I have of my hometown that want to live here. Exactly. And you do things to entice them. Well, just encourage them to live here that we do Christmas and we celebrate the birth of Christ. So,

sorry. Okay. It's okay. Um, next one is just for the ambulance fund. This is uh increase in liability and vehicle insurance. That's the main what that is. $28,460. And they've done very well with their their ambulance machinery because the the trucks are not blowing up like the Fords were. Right. Right. Fixing to buy a new one.

Okay. The Biggie E. This is what I was talking about. the general debt service. This is moving part of this is moving the money, the 3.5 million. Also, we have a note [snorts] I would like to pay off. Uh that's the one for the roof. That's what the principal notes, the 1 million 1,256. And then that'll take everything out of the general debt except for the jail the two jail notes um and the enterprise leases. Okay. So anyway, that's what that is. So we'll pay the roof off on the CCAT building.

Okay. Smart. And the other thing is as you know investment income is is dropped right now. So I do have to reduce 411,281 estimated. Okay. So, all of that aside, that's moved. That's a reduction of 5,245,786, which still leaves 7,732424 in general debt.

The next one is [clears throat] the account, the fund that's very busy right now, general capital projects. about the transfer in is that 3.5 million moving it from 151 over to 171 to do those projects. Um the other thing is breaking that down between the estimates of 3.5 and also we had previously approved EMA to get a vehicle and a drone.

So that's what that 83,814 is. [clears throat] So that's a reduction $83,814 from capital project C. You can see why we needed the 3.5 to do those other projects.

And then the last one, local purpose tax. Uh this was another situation, you know, we're doing Rogers group is doing the interstate park um improvements. The engineering cost. I set that up in last year. Nothing got done. It started this year. So I needed to increase the engineering engineering cost to finish that project. So that's it except for the new one we added to number 15. 15. That's that's that. Okay. Are we going to have these for next commission full commission meeting, right? Yes.

Yeah. So, we're going to have them broke out when we [clears throat] vote on each one of them. Are we going to try to do them all at one time again? I think it's the way they key those in to the agenda. I can uh I can put these on, don't they? I can put these on the agenda. This is the reason the agenda haven't been sent out on this meeting. But I put the all these on by unanimous consent. If it's uh without objection, you know, and if anybody everybody's got to understand when it's unanimous consent without objection, if nobody objects, you've done it. And if you do have an objection, state it

so we can get through the meeting a little bit quicker. If I had all of these amendments on the agenda approved by unanimous consent without objection. So when we approve the agenda, you're done. But if somebody wanted to pull number uh 2026-11 out, they better do it when we're approving the agenda by objection or if you get into the meeting, it's going to take a twoth3 majority to amend the agenda. So Okay. Okay. Anybody want to make a motion? I'm going to make a motion to approve these amendments as as presented. I'll second it. Second.

Could you could you state that approval that you would like for it to be presented on the main uh legislative body agenda as a unanimous consent? Yeah, I I would like to approve them when we present this to the full commission and it be uh run through and approved on the agenda as we're as we're voting for the by consent. Thank you. I agree with that. Okay. So, motion and second. She agrees. Anybody have discussion? No discussion. Okay. All those in favor. We don't have work session, correct? Yeah. Monday night. We sure are. Get on Monday. Yeah. That way we can talk about it Monday night, too. All right. All those in favor by I. I.

Any opposed? Okay. Let's go board budgets amendments. Oh, is that the number? I'm pretty sure it's going to be okay. We've already got I do like that them all. Plus, if you come Monday night, [clears throat] okay, [clears throat] three budget amendments. Would you like me to all the same or

just go through them all one time.

141 202610. Um each year we're able to restrict funds within our budget to carry over the next school year and we also have some grants that we we need to restrict each year to carry over to the next year. Um so we're dipping into those restricted funds to pull out to use in our budget um where we need them. So our biggest area is um the need is transportation which is 72710 and that should say transportation services but it says community services there. Um we are in need of five school buses. So um when we ask for those the prices have gone up tremendous amount. So the school district will pick up whatever not in the county budget for those school buses. And then um medical and insurance has skyrocketed up to 9% in some areas. So, we need to pull from that plan to cover that. And then um if you look on the second page, another large area is the vocational equipment educational program. Sorry. Um we are going to buy some large pieces of equipment this year for vocational. He has some areas that he needs to replace equipment in. So, we'll need to use some of that funding for that. And then um also insurance and retirement went up. Um this does reduce our our um restricted fund balance. You can see at the bottom the first section it reduces it to 7.1. Um questions about that one 141 202611. Um this is a new grant that we received for $2,000. Um it's called healthy student strong learners grant state grant. It's a state grant. It's already been approved in E plan all the way through the state department. This is just to bring the funds in our budget to use those.

And then 141 2026 12. Um the board formed an innovative committee to allow um our staff to apply for meeting grants up to $2500 um to do innovative instructional things in their classrooms. Um they put out a to apply for those grants. They have to fill out a budget. Um once they submit those grants, the committee will will review them and then those will proposed to the board. Um and so they wanted to set aside $50,000. We probably won't use all the 50,000. I think last time we looked we had seven or eight that had been turned in. So we'll do it one time a year and this is the funding to set up for those um innovative grants when they come in. the staff the school system and that is taken from directly from our unassigned fund balance which will reduce it to 14.1. [snorts]

I'll make a motion to approve these. Okay, we have the motion to approve by. I'll second by Laura. Any discussions or questions? All those in favor by I. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Okay. Next thing is new business. I have two things. Yes, ma'am. Do you guys want the school budget amendments put on the main agenda by unanimous consent? Mhm. I

I'm need to change I want to modify my my motion to put them on there on the on the agenda as as being presented without objection by unanimous unanimous consent. Okay. So do you change your second? No [clears throat] second. You'll sec You'll second it that you agree with this modification. All those in favor by the modification say I. I. I. Okay. by unanimous consent. Yes, sir. Okay, that means one person can argue and we stop. Yeah, I know it. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Hey, thank you all of y'all for appreciate your presentation.

Oh, this is for the I had $100 million right now. I'd write you a check. Yeah. Yeah. So much I believe in the school system needs to be improved. You know, I 100% you started with the education part and then you build from there and I and and I I appreciate what you're trying to do, Mr. Short. I really do. So, the first item that I was Oh, okay. Grant from the sheriff's department, a training grant already.

We do have a process So this is to get formal process from the county legislative body for that to accept that grant. Okay. It says that grant's 100% match. Yep. Will that come out of his fund balance? His his uh the revenue will come in from the state and then I'll increase the uh that is actually in the budget amendment. Okay. It is. Yeah. You got the revenue to pay for the expenditure. So there won't be any fine balance. But he has to match the 14,000. Correct. Uh, no, it's 100%. But it says 100% match.

Yeah. Out here on the end of it says matching matching [snorts] is 100%. That means if awarding percentage or match, I took it as he's getting 14,439 because that's what the grant document says. Okay. Um if not, it'll come down in the budget. Yes. Okay. So, if it if it's if it has to have matching funds, the sheriff will pay for that. Yes. Exactly. It's already in his budget, right? But it it does a grant. We need to get that fixed on this sheet or What's wrong with my sheet? I did this. Well, it to me it ought to say zero. Yeah, to me it should too. Well,

means we don't have any matching funds that we have to match under because right now it tells me he's going to get 28,000 or $29,000. Well, he's going to get 14 and then he's going to come over somewhere else. He's going to come up with think I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm just I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm not as smart as you are in numbers. No, it's how you read in terms of it is how you read. Okay. Funding percentage or match funding percentage is 100%. So I'm not sure it's incorrect to be honest with you. Thank you. If you use that or well maybe funding ought to be circle

the or [laughter] maybe for the 75% or it's low people can figure it out. Correct. Okay. So, this is a grant that needs to be approved that she says that there are no matching funds needed so the sheriff can qualify for $14,439. Take a mo a motion. I make a motion to approve. Motion to approve. I second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor by I. I. Okay. Next one is ambulance. Yeah. The second is um striker five-year maintenance agreement. Um because more than one year, the county lessly body will need to approve it.

Did this go through the ambulance authority or did they just come to us? Because I have no idea. Okay. I imagine it did because um this is the equipment that picks people up when when the the electric or the hydraulic lifts for the uh ambulances. Printed. Oh, this is not a this is not a structure. Is this strictly a I mean, yeah, it's for this right here. There's a document there. What it's for. It's toward the back. It's on the like a fifth page.

Yeah, I see. I see it. Preventative maintenance inspections get pretty costly. This keeps it the schedule. Well, the striker is the the unit that that protects our employees from getting hurt by lifting someone like me. So, so yeah, they're it picks itself up for them. Yeah. For them to be able to load the ambulance and not get hurt and then our work must not go up. So,

so the schedule's on page three of the annual payments. Yeah, they're pricey because they they are expensive to replace. So, it's $15,000 a year. 15,000? No. Yeah, it's 15 15 a year. Yeah. Okay. Starting with a balance of 77,000 and then Okay. Does this come out of their ambulance fund? Fund. Okay. It's already been budgeted. Yeah, it's already it's already Yeah, the way they did their schedule, it's it's decreasing as the year goes down, but

because it's Yes. over a year. Well, it's got to the county legislate body has to approve it. When it's already in their budget, though, so it's no no additional money from us. Okay. I'll entertain a motion on that one if somebody and I'll send that on to the I'll make a motion. Tim makes a motion. I'll let the other end try to do something. I'll second it. Got a second over there. Any discussion? [clears throat] All those in favor? I will review my grant document and see

it just to me it does look like we're matching funds. We're good. I'm I'm good. I I got clarification on it anyway. Uh we are scheduled to have a meeting January the 22nd. Yes, we are. Do we need to? I won't be here. Okay. I I'm I'm saying no. And the only reason I'm saying that she's not going to be here. You're saying no. Anybody else? Only reason I'm saying that is we're going to be coming up, you know, here next budget coming up in what February and March. And we're gonna be looking for meetings. Well, in our meet and I was thinking about this the other day in our meetings when we do the budget and people are presenting to budget and finance whoever's here

it needs to be the flat budget what you're asking for and and I don't know maybe we need to adjourn and talk about this I don't know but I was going to send out an email and I love hearing people talk about their people I do but but some of our some of our meetings have gone on for three and a half hours because we don't know I was going to send out a request to say if you want to come talk to us about your people. I'm mourn for that. But it needs to be done in the month of February. We just need to hear what your but when we start do the budget process it needs to be limited to present presentation of your budget.

I know everybody loves their people. I love mine. I fight the devil for them. I'll fight a wild cat for them. But the three and a half hour budget I lose consciousness and and I don't keep things don't take good notes. So would that be ill fired if I said I think it's I'm going to write a letter then I'm going to send it to you and have it sent out by me the budget and finance chairman I think I think you I think you'd probably get all the budget people on the budget finance even have to sign that thing because

I just think that and if you want we don't need all that stuff when you want to come talk to us about your people I'm all for it I am I'm good for it but when we get into that March April May thing and it's lasting from here and we're here at 8:30 at night everybody's lost their their thought their fault and things fall through the cracks and we can make a mistake. So that's that's my only talk about the money. Yeah. Well then and that's what you're focused on is the money not people uh on that. So is that agreeable with y'all? Okay. I will send that tomorrow. So but if anybody wants to come talk about their people I'm open for it all day long though. Just not during that threehour run. It's hard to keep everybody. Yeah it is. So, okay.

So, we're going to for our next meeting pass on the 22nd and then we'll have one in February and I don't know when it's scheduled. I got it. Uh, it's the 26th in February. February 26th. Is everybody good? February 26. Okay. All right. Motion to adjurnn. I make a motion journ. Motion. Second. Second. All those in favor? Everybody, please turn your microphones off.