Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this workshop on the Gaston County budget We will have the presentation given by the administrator and his staff and then we'll have discussion Good evening

Let me see if I can work this magic here. I need a little helper in the back there.

You got him walking.

OK. We're going to walk through this presentation, and I'm going to try and explain how to walk through it.

I don't see the motion.

OK. We're actually, this is kind of backup information. What we're gonna do is we're gonna go from the top left to the middle left. We're gonna go top left, bottom left, top middle, bottom middle, top right, bottom right. So just like the arrows in that order, we're gonna be talking about those blocks. So the first block is one of our first meetings we had for budget meetings. We had 10% budget exercise. Yes, it's in their book. It is in their book.

I've kind of gone through this. numbers are we hitting numbers numbers numbers because that's where we got to be today where we're doing definite numbers we got to know where we where we are number wise is is this going to do is the presentation going to give us what we need numbers numbers and you also have a couple of other documents you have the budget summary

Okay. All right. And you have the breakout of revenue summary and you have the breakout of expenses summary, too, as well. Those are in your packet. Okay. Thank you. If you can, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. OK. So the first budget workshop we talked about, we had a 10% budget workshop, and we presented things about potential cuts. Then the department heads came up, and they spoke, and they told you about their potential needs and cuts. And then the budget team met and we revised everything. We took all the possible operational reductions out and the mandatory. We added in mandatory increases in FRS, property insurance, utilities, updated all the current salary information for every budget. Then you had some legislative analysts come in and talk to you about the impact of ad valorem. Then the budget team reviewed all the budgets and determined which were mandatory and which were discretionary and based on the Florida Association of Counties and statutory references, we prepared that, an analysis for the board. Then we did a workshop for the board with the analysis of all the budgets, only adding in just the increases for benefits, insurance, and utilities. We presented that budget book to you on July 28th for review and recommendations to be collected at this meeting. The board voted on preliminary millage and then we went back this last couple weeks and we've been revising those budgets with preliminary millage and we've also been reviewing every budget for accuracy, creating new revenue and expense summaries and revised budget summaries. And we did not add any new expenses to the budgets other than the ones you had in your books from the July 28th meeting. The board asked to see an analysis of potential revenues that could help to replace losses from the ad valorem. We provided that information to the administrator. Today's presentation, we're going to talk about the revenue and expense summaries and budget summaries, and we're going to ask you for board direction on some budget revisions, if any are there. The budget summary is now balanced right now. You have the budget summary in front of you. It's balanced at nine mils. A return to the rollback will create a shortage of $1.2 million. The impacts to the fund balance will be even deeper if other expenses are added. As of Friday, we got the sheriff's budget. The sheriff's budget was due on June 1st, and we got it on Friday for $859,912. I'm going to need some direction tonight from the board as to what to do with that budget and how, if, whatever they want to put into the whole budget. Right now, budget without that in there is 3.3% higher than the original adopted budget of FY 25-26. Now, I say that because during the year, there was almost $3 million that were adjusted in grants and budget amendments to that original number of $70 million. So our current budget is $72,438. $72 million, I'm sorry, yeah, $72,981,948. It rose the original adopted budget up to the current budget of almost $73 million. This new budget is at $72.4 million. It's actually about half a million short from what the current budget is, but it's still 3.3% higher than what the adopted budget was. We're gonna go through each of the funds. There are like 14 funds that make up your budget. The general fund is up about $447,000, and most of that's attributed to the inter-fund transfers. Anytime we have to raise inter-fund transfers, it raises general fund, and we have more money going out to the constitutionals in inter-fund transfers this year. Our operational costs are down about an average of 10%. There are some increases due to benefits, utilities, and insurance increases. Fire control is up $189,552. That's mostly attributed to the increased funding that was done and adjusted during the year for the volunteer fire departments. Court facilities are up $59,356. That's attributed to the insurance and maintenance increases. Landfill is down about $1,700, attributed to the reduced operational costs. County transportation is up 514,928, attributed mostly to increases in salaries, benefits, utilities, insurance, and cost of materials for repairs. They will still be over by the end of the budget year because they have falling revenues. We hope to discuss potential ways and look at potential ways of assisting those revenues, and the administrator will address that later. The judicial fund is up about $89,900, attributed mostly to an IT implementation that they need. The sheriff's budget, as I said before, it is up right now, but it's up because from the original budget to what it is right now in the current budget, it's up $724,192. It's only up because of the amendments that happened during the year that were not included in the original budget that you approved in October of last year. Again, I say we received their budget request on 8-19. It was due June 1st. They have an increase of $859,912 in there. It is not included in the budget you have in front of you or in the budget summaries. Property appraiser is up $42,621, attributed to increase in salary benefits. The board must approve that budget. It is controlled by the Department of Revenue. Tourist development down $27.80 due to cuts in marketing and promotional costs. That includes a split funded position this time, which was added to the budget. Building inspection is down $43.50, attributed mostly to split funding an employee with another department and reduced operational costs. Library services up 23 to attributed mostly to reconfiguring staff from administration budget and assigning them to the branch libraries Also attributed to a decrease in operational costs Supervisor of election is up 29,000 attributed to increase in salary and benefits and increased operational costs the board must pay overages in this budget based on statute The tax collector is up $400,306. The tax collector's budget is a little bit confusing because the previous tax collector was handling the budget one way where it all fell under general fund. The new tax collector is handling it a different way and because of that it had to be moved out of there into special revenue. Under special revenue, we had last year, it was kind of split funded, so it only looked like we had $800,000 that we gave them, but the $800,000 that we gave them was not their whole budget because we had to end up supplementing that to make up for the fact that we had to collapse two different budgets. So this year, it is now at the $1.2 million range, which is up $400,000, so that it all becomes one budget. Debt services up about $87,000. That's only because of that additional payment that we're paying to pay that equipment off. Indigent surtax is projected to have revenue increase of about $35,500. Big Bend Transit, there's no change, it's a contract. Emergency Management Services is down about $313,000, attributed to not having to purchase or retrofit new ambulances for this year. The budget will still be well over by the end of the year due to falling revenues and we are addressing that. We have done an analysis and it will be presented to the board at a later date to show you potential things that can be done. Chief Ford has been involved in this analysis and potentially we can recover some of the shortages that we're experiencing right now. We're also seeing rising Medicare costs and falling Medicare reimbursements. And the Emergency Management Prep Program, which is our EOC, no change. It's grant funded. Let's see if I can get this to move. A little help from the back.

Mr. Administrator.

A little help from my friends.

OK, there it is.

Okay, county operations. Now, we're looking at the same budget, but we're looking at it by department now. Under county operations, there are eight individual budgets. It is up about $119,000, mostly because of the rising cost of the Medicaid, because the Medicaid is one of the big budgets underneath that. The other increases are due to benefits, utilities, and insurance increases. EMS Fire, there are three budgets under there. It's down about $124,000 attributed mostly to the cuts in EMS because we don't have to purchase those ambulances. We will be purchasing a new ambulance and equipment with the Opioid Corps funding though. Elderly Affairs is down about $56,000, that is almost entirely from reducing operational costs. Extension Services makes up two budgets, and it is down about $5,600, attributed to reduced operational costs. Building Inspection, four budgets down $124,000, mostly to reduced operation costs and the split funded staff between departments. Facilities, five budgets, is up about 13.8, attributed to the benefits and operational costs. Other governmental, which is 21 budgets, it is attributed mostly to the increased costs of the interfund transfers. for constitutionals, EMS, public works, the library, et cetera. The interfund transfer will increase based on any decisions you make about the sheriff's request. Library Services is down about 23-2, attributed to reductions in operational staff. Growth Management, three budgets, down about $40,000, attributed to outsourcing some duties and attributed to reduced operations. Judicial Services, 14 budgets under there, is up about $89,000, mostly because they're putting in a new IT system and devices. I'm sorry, I skipped management services, five budgets, up $362,000, mostly because of the rising costs of software licensing, digital equipment, and additional cybersecurity insurance and security cameras we've had to do, we have to do. That's also attributed to some rising advertising costs and frequency of re-advertising, and rising costs in benefits and insurance. Public Works, five budgets, it's up about $509,000, attributed to increases in salary and benefits and increases in material and maintenance. Constitutional Officers, 14 budgets, up about $1.3 million, attributed to increases in salary and benefits, shifts in recording fees from tax collectors, budgets. The board must approve most of those budgets They're either controlled by DOR or required by statute. Again, this will change with the budget request from the sheriff. Debt services is six budgets. It's up to $87,000. Again, that's from that additional payoff of the heavy equipment. The total budget, again, up 3.3, but still down a little bit from the current budget. The increases we have for 26-27 that make up that 3.3% are a total of $2.3 million, with general fund budgets only going up 19%, which is $447,000, and special revenue going up 81% with $1.869. Major concerns you've seen before, ad valorem, rising personnel costs, health insurance, property insurance, road repair, security, cybersecurity, need for replacement equipment, falling revenues. Projected fund balance going into 26-27 is $9 million. It's subject to change with the final audit and expenses necessary to balance the budget out at the end of the year. This will decrease quickly with any other decreases in millage or increases in revised expenditures proposed by the Board. Basically, this is just a quick graph showing you how we're going from point A to point B. We've got falling revenues and rising costs, rising needs and rising increased demand for services. These are deadlines that the budget team has. We have to finish all the changes to the tentative budget by August 28th. We have to post the tentative budget summary online by September 2nd. That's by statute. We must hold the first tentative budget hearing September 8th at six o'clock. At that meeting there will be any discussion about tentative millage rates and tentative budgets. We must finalize those changes from the first hearing by September 11 to get the budget summary to the newspapers. We must post the final budget online by September 16. The final budget hearing is within 15 days of the first hearing. So we're having the final hearing on September 22 at 6 PM. And we're talking about we have to finalize all budget documents within three days of the final hearing and submit them to the state. All budgets have to be in before October 1st. So if you'd like to go over the budget summary, the revenue summaries.

Yes, thank you. We went ahead and started with this. I have a question for Ms. Raynette, though. Not necessarily on numbers right now, but when is the last day we can make any changes?

We need to have the tentative budget We need to have all the changes by the 28th, which is Friday. Okay, that's where where we need we need those changes We need your new revisions.

We need to know what you have to do if I may finish I The numbers hammered out have to be hammered out today. Yes. In order to make any final decision by the 28th.

Final decisions for the tentative hearing. Right. There can still be changes at the tentative hearing.

Right, but I'm saying our changes need to be by the 28th because I'm going to tell you why. What's going to happen is when we get to the hearings, it's going to be very tough to squeeze everything in because at those hearings, the public's going to be there. They want to know what's going on. They want their stuff in there. So we're going to have to have something sound to say, to respond. to the public. And the reason I'm saying that is that if we don't have these departments and these numbers down where they need to be by then, it's going to be a free fall in here. So that's the whole point and that's why I asked the administrator earlier that we need a whole day on this. We needed a day. And I know there was concerns about the election, but there was really no concern about the election because the county goes on anyway. Doesn't matter who wins or loses, we go on anyway. But what I'm saying though is this. We would have to, in order for us to have another workshop this week, if we were to have one, what are the requirements? By the 28th.

What are the requirements? Yeah, we decided, okay, we need another workshop.

Mr. Attorney?

We could notice a workshop now because it's a non-voting meeting. You could notice a workshop now for the end of this week if that was the board's pleasure.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We nailed everything we could do to satisfy anything that we don't satisfy today. Okay, those are my concerns right now is we need to have some numbers in place because you know people are very hyper about this tax. I'm not talking to you, I'm just talking to the board in general and the public. They're hyper about this tax. So if we don't get the cut in or if we go to the rollback rate, which is heavier, the elephant or the building, which one makes more sense? If you go to the rollback, you can go to the rollback now It's not necessarily permanent. It's permanent for a year, okay? But if we know that we're looking at that rollback, doing it now and taking, don't get penalized, what is it, 1.2? We don't get penalized at 1.2. But if we go to the rollback and we can't fund any of this stuff in here, that's the problem. So we need to take an eye. I know you said that you guys met and all that, and I was saying we all kind of needed to meet on this because of this. If we said we're going to put this much over in the road and bridge and we can't do it, then what happens after we already gone to the road back? What happens? We can't fund it. We said we're going to fund this much over at the library, then we can't fund it. So then what do we do? We've got to have those options kind of in the way right now as to what can we fund and what can we not fund. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Chair.

Commissioners.

So do we have the numbers? Because I'm looking at this and it has the nine. So do we have a budget that's prepared with the rollback rate?

It's in there. No. No, we do not have a budget prepared at the rollback rate because the preliminary rate is at nine.

Okay. Well, it seems like we need to have a... It's due what time on Friday? It seems like we need to be meeting Friday morning. We need to be having a budget meeting on Friday morning because we need a budget with the rollback rate.

Ma'am.

And I... Commissioner Holt.

Thank you. My question is this. If we had to eat that 1.2 million, where would it come from? Because either way, if we go to the rollback, we're going to have to eat the 1.2. If we don't go to the rollback and we can't fund and we get hit later on, it's going to be a mess. We don't go to the rollback from everybody saying, we want the rollback, we want the rollback. But we can't fund those departments. Something's got to give. I mean, the rubber band only stretches so far.

The county administrator is currently working with each of the department heads. Right now, we have 22 vacancies, which has a value of around $1.5 million. If a freeze was put in place where the county administrator would be the only one allowing for any hiring, then that could help some to replace the revenue you won't get with rollback.

I understand. I understand what's happening because they're saying, we met with the departments. I'm saying we need to be in those meetings. That's what I'm saying. We need, because we're going to have to, well, I'm not going to be here, but y'all are going to have to respond to the public when you can't run the ambulance, when you cannot run the fire trucks and stuff like that. So what I'm saying, though, is this. When people are asking, why are y'all spending all our money? But we are not in the meeting, so we cannot respond. If you guys are in, not you, but I'm talking to the administrator, if you guys are in the meeting and the commissioners are not, they can't respond to this stuff because it's too much. You see, I mean, y'all see how big this book is, okay? If you say that, if we say that the, let's say the library's up, I'm just using that as an example now, I'm not picking on the library. But if a department is up, we never saw why it was up, really, to hear what the people were saying, what those services were that went with those numbers. We can see the paper. A long time ago, we had to go through this. We had to go through and say, this is what we're spending over here. This is what we're spending over here. This is what we're cutting. And we did, and each department came up. Even the constitutionals came up. And that's what we went through. So that's what I'm saying. It has to be something that between now and the time that that tax may pass, that people understand that some of these things are going to be cut and they still don't understand it.

Commissioner Woods.

I remember I'm the second child to a teenage mom, and I can remember when my dad said he was going to have to travel, go on the road, and that things were going to change around our house. And it was pretty tough. You know, no new shoes, no new nothing. Didn't eat out, no more Coca-Cola from the store. And I know that sounds, but that's pretty well where we're heading. And I'm sitting here and I'm looking at everybody's asking for more money, more money, more money. But I can tell you, talking to my constituents, this thing going to pass. Governor says, Gadsden County, you're going to get $5 million. We're going to put it in your pocket if you vote for Amendment 3. They're not worried that there ain't going to be a deputy. I remember there used to not be a deputy on the streets after midnight. I remember, Ms. Holt, when we had three ambulances and there were some personal losses because we didn't have enough. So... I really and truly, Miss Rose, I think you've done a great job on this thing. But we have to tell these employees and managers and these constitutionals that there's a very good chance that we're not going to have $6 million in the next budget. And we just don't want to talk about it because we know what it means. But it's like we have got to sit down and I think the last two polls I've seen 166 and 174%. Now the governor told us in a meeting the other day that he was going to take care of rural county, but he's going to be gone.

You too.

And so, I mean, it's like, and so now the sheriffs are meeting with buying dollars and they're trying to make sure they go back to that exemption for the sheriffs. That you don't cut the sheriffs. And so if you don't cut the sheriffs, then that means they're more cut for everybody else. And so it's got to come down and being a manager for several decades, it comes down to going, can we put everybody back into buildings? Can we figure out how we don't lose jobs? You know, what do we do to keep people on the payroll? And actually sitting here, most of your managers are here. That's where we're heading. And we're heading there like a freight train. We're 60 days. And when you get to that 60 days, you're only going to have six months to figure out during that how you cut that six million. And see, so if people had to go home because they cut six million, how many jobs do you think we have to lose before we get there? 20, 30, 40?

30, I think.

50 maybe?

Maybe.

And then you got to pay them out. So not only do you have to do that, and see, thinking like a manager, managers, you got a lot of people got time on the books. So when you start getting rid of 20, 30, 40 people, a lot of them people go home with time on the books. Sick time, annual time. And so it becomes this compound. And so what I'm going to ask you is, is this year, it's going to be a rock bottom, right? If you add another million dollars and you know that you're going to have, that means that next year you'll cut $7 million and not six. Or whatever the number is, Mr. Cunningham, I don't know what the rollback would mean or how much we're going to gain from, but it's like, it's a real conversation of you can't wait in December to go, oh my Lord, we're going to cut $7 million next year. And so I think Ms. Holt, you're dead on point about having to sit down and really line by line, and these managers are gonna have to say, you know what? We're gonna cut the parties. We're gonna cut the other programs. We're gonna cut everything we can absolutely cut because I don't want nobody to go home. But Mr. Chair, $7 million, Yes, but as managers, we can turn around and figure out, you know, because me and my brother slept in the same bed for, we laugh about it today, but we're 12, 14 years old. And so that's what I'm getting at. This space that we have and these things that we have and all these nice things that we have going. Guys, y'all are going to have to sit down and it may even be finding opportunities for people that are close to going home. You know, Tallahassee, I mean, they give them a bonus to go on to the house. It may be those things that we have to do to figure out what we can do because we got good employees. And it's no slam to them. It's just where we are.

Just on that note, the city of Tallahassee offered a $20,000 incentive and insurance until the end of the year. 171 people took them up on it, saving them $3.9 million.

What's the difference in the amount of employees now? From 2019 to now, what's the difference? How many more we got?

About 33.

Before commission go on point that'd be careful because city tell us has over being our budget, right? Right, right People listen and they didn't know that we only 70 million dollars and They're a little bit over a billion dollars. So you take 100 million dollar be one-tenth over billion dollars So we don't have one-tenth True So there's something to consider. Commissioner Hogan.

Thank you, but I wanted to make a comment on that. Also, we don't have the responsibility they have, though. That's right. They're supporting two universities, junior college and all that, and they got utilities for all those. Utilities, too, as well. It's a mess. But what I want to say is this. Okay, if we go to the road bank, we're not... It saves the taxpayers 1.2 million. So we go to roll back, we gotta cut 1.2 million. Correct. Okay, so now that's now, that's not including, I'm clarifying, that's not including if the tax passes. Where can we get the 1.2 million from? It's as simple as that. It's not, if the administrator meet with the people, we are gonna have to roll up our sleeves and do it.

Well, we prepared a budget on that bill, but in terms of, Right, so we we took a look at what we had that was vacant and we have 1.5 million dollars worth of vacant positions So I've told all the staff and all the leadership team that we're not gonna fill any positions less that I got they got permission for me So we've covered that by that's just not filling those those those additional positions so we can absorb the rollback and by just not adding positions, filling vacancies. We can absorb the rollback rate. But now, going forward, if we have to add the sheriff's request or other interests, we'll kind of deepen the hole. But in saying that, I've been meeting with each administrator all week long. And they've come up with some really innovative ways that they can cut the budget. So we made some significant gains in terms of cutting even deeper in terms of building reducing costs. So I think we're making some headway in both directions. But I feel decent about where we are right now. But now if we're trying to project what's going to happen when we get the $5 million, that's a whole different ballgame. But right now, we're in a halfway managerial position. And I think we can manage the 26, 27 budget. I think we can do that. I'm not saying we can do it without some cuts, but I'm saying we're in a position that I can kind of see where we're going and how we can get there. And that's coming daily from each director. They're bringing me ideas and positions that they can consolidate and things that they can do to reduce costs. And I think that's what the public is expecting from us. They want us to squeeze down as much as we possibly can because, you know, before we try to get any additional money from them, and that's what we're doing. And I think one of the things you need to be aware of is that when you did the 10% exercise, I think all compliments to the directors, they really gave a full-hearted effort in trying to do that, and so that helped too. So I'm just saying kind of where we are, kind of giving you the big picture, and hopefully you can grasp where we are at the moment.

Okay, now back to what I was saying. There's nothing in here that tells us what happens if that tax passes. See, that's where the concern is. I clarified that the 1.2 rollback, if you have that covered, but we don't know what services may have missed if that 1.2 is covered. You see, the board didn't get to see what happens in the road and bridge, what happened in these different areas. So we never got to see that. And that's the same thing that the comments that I'm getting. If you guys do this, what happens? The board can't tell you because the board's not meeting with them. And that's our fault, the board. It's our fault because we should say we want to hear what they have to say and where those cuts are. The other thing is, is if we're going to cut, and we're looking at this, before, excuse me, when we've done this before, it's been years ago, we ran two budgets simultaneously, two-collar budget. And saying, this is what it was last year. This is what it is proposed. And this is what it is. And so what happened was when you ran those two to three columns, it showed us exactly what was being cut. This went up, that went down. This went up, that went down. That's why I was saying, I know, you know, because you do budget. What I'm saying though, it showed us exactly what was going on. That way we can go out and we can produce it to people. We're going to have two people in, let's say, animal control instead of three. What services were cut then in animal control? If we're going to have, we need another building inspector. I'm going to tell you that right now. You need another planner, really bad. But you're going to have to get the planner in, then something else has to be cut. Because if you don't get the planner in, you're not going to get the other things you need to get those other grants. So that's the stuff that I'm saying. If we ran those simultaneously, that's why I was thinking that we were going to get out, these are all the things we have to fund. These are the ones that we do not have to fund, by law. That one that we do not have to fund is the one the public needs to see. So let's say we don't have to fund, just think of something that we don't have to fund. Libraries. Libraries. If you say we don't have to fund libraries, and we're, let's say, at $3 million in libraries, if you cut it back to 5.2, I mean, 2.5, you cut it back to 2.5, you add three, you cut back to 2.5, the people need to know what they're going to be missing in the library section.

Yes.

Yeah, you see what I'm saying? And that's the way when you really start cutting, when they say come the blank cutting time, that's what you have to have. You have to have that for people because they're going to vote. They're voting on what you're saying, what we're saying today. We're going to get this back tax back, save some taxes, but they don't know what they're going to be missing. You see, it solves two problems.

In every budget sheet that you have in your books, it shows you what their budget was last year line by line, and it shows you what is proposed this year line by line, and then there's another column that shows you where the differences are and what happened. I know.

But that's not getting out to the public. You see? If we're going to cut these, and the director said we're going to cut them, have those on two or three sheets. This is what being cut, guess what? You can give that to any church, you can give that to any organization that say, well, y'all are gonna cut these things. It's easy for them to see that. That's not on you, it's on us.

At some point, personally, just for this year here, at first I was big on the road bike, but when I noticed that if this thing passes, it's like a double hit. You cut 1.2 plus another 5 point something million dollars, that's six, seven million dollars added to the cut. So that's the reason why I didn't... So personally, I think you should just focus. I mean, it's up on the board, though. This year now, I think just focus on 9.0. So we get this out of the way, just try to focus on the rollback and the 9.0. Because we may hit, like Quartermilk Commissioner Wood said, we get hit with that 5.0, $5 million or $6 million. that's gonna have a negative impact on the county anyway. So I think that, like Commissioner Wood said, as well, we gotta be aggressive this year. At least show us how you being aggressive so we can know next year we're not gonna go back into this point. So we gotta pretend as if we about to hit a hit now. That's what most small counties are doing now. They can't wait until next year and then say, we're going to do this. You got to do whatever you're going to do and do it now. Then we'll figure out that. And historically, Commissioner Woods, how it always been, normally with the budget, unfortunately, the budget's not there. We normally just go with what we have. then we can go ahead and make some changes once we approve the budget. That's what we did for almost five years straight here. And so if we have to do that, we can do that too as well. What we'd have to make some changes as we go along. But we got to approve the budget by when? September what, 2020?

September 22nd is the final budget.

That's the final budget.

That's the final budget hearing.

But then after that, then we can make some adjustments after that. Absolutely. So we've got to be aggressive before September 27th. At least the people know exactly what's going to happen. If they've got to make some, whoever employed, employees need to make some changes, then they can at least be aware of that. Commissioner Wood, I'm finished for today. So...

Road and bridge, you know, I guess when I became a commissioner, I didn't realize I was gonna be Commissioner for road and bridge And finally all y'all had the same thing. Yeah, and I guess a million dollars is what we were Over road bridge.

We're over right now about a million dollars this year.

It's no fault of road bridge. I don't want to sound like that but Yeah, so the thing is I get more calls about roads and potholes and those guys are Johnny on the spot, you know. And in saying that, you know, on one side I'm telling you about taxes, but it's where we're going to have to figure this thing out on gas tax because it goes straight to the roads, right?

Right.

And so for me, if I know that that's where it's going to go, then the other counties around us have higher gas tax than we do. And so what does it take? To get to that point, guys, to where, I mean, I'm not going to make me popular on this one, but if we want to have good roads and we know we're fixing to start taking it, we don't need to wait. And I think if the citizens know that the gas tax is going to go right back to the roads and ain't going nowhere else, it's going to fix. Because what is it now? A million dollars a mile is what they're telling me? Something like that?

That's it, man.

Yeah, so I think, I don't know, we've got somewhere between 700 and 800 miles of road in Gadsden County. And so right now we've got almost a billion dollars if you include the cities. And you know every 10 years they're going to have to be replaced. And so that's a lot of money. And we get a lot of that through the state and federal. But for me, what will it take for us to, and what will we gain out of gas tax? Go ahead, Mr. Chair.

Yes, sir. And so I think that the staff and Rose's office have put together preliminary numbers. I have an agenda item that's not on your agenda tonight, but I'll share with each of you. What it outlines is that right now there's a $0.12 per gallon tax option. Right now, Gasson County is at the lowest threshold. But you guys have a couple of options. The one that staff is immediately recommending is approval of a $0.05 per gallon gas tax. That will immediately go into effect. And so you have the additional option to get up to $0.12. But immediately, you can put, by ordinance, $0.05. If you want to do another penny, we do it by supermajority, which means that it'd have to be 4 to 1 for supermajority, and you would be voting on an ordinance for us to go up. I think the $0.05 option, we could do by majority of the board, and we could do that relatively quickly. I wanted to, I knew this might come up, and so I pulled some data from Leon County, and what that data showed is, is that, and this comes from, the data comes from gasbuddy.com, which is a website that tracks pure fuel prices across the state. And what it showed is right now, Tallahassee has gas prices. Their fuel tax is at the maximum. So that's $0.12. You guys only have the option over fuel tax, not diesel tax, because diesel tax is regulated by the state. You can't mess with that because of big trucks, essentially. But if you look at Leon, if you look at, and I'll get you guys all this data, but what the data shows us is that you have a average price in Leon County of 390 for fuel. That's as of today. The average price for fuel in Gadsden County is 389. That's as of today. And so what that means is you're looking at them operating with maximum gas tax and you operating with minimum gas tax and the only difference in, according to GasBuddy, so I've given a citation, in costs for the actual consumer at the pump is a penny and a half, 388 to 389, which means the consumer's not feeling a major difference in the cost they're paying at the pump, but Leon County's getting several million more dollars and their gas tax that you're not getting.

And also, too, most people can be paying for it.

I think Rose had a figure on what projected.

About $2.5 million. Between $1.5 and $3, but they said it would average probably around the $2.5. That would be in addition to what we get. $0.45. for $0.05. One cent penny tax is projected to be not the diesel part, but the other one cent is projected to be only around $350,000.

Reason reason why I did that mr. Chairman because it's figuring out how you take part of your budget that you're paying that you can so Appreciate staff really working with me on that and so it's a way of saying you want your robes because it is what I hear you Commissioners probably don't hear I'm being facetious. I'm sure y'all's roads are great. But I think it's one of the things that even the public, if the public knows that this is going to fix them potholes and keep them, you know, the grass cut, I don't know if that comes out of that or not.

It goes to Public Works, yes.

And so I don't think you'll have a problem if we turn around and do something. As long as the public knows that it's going where we say where it's going. But we know that, but like you said, getting things to the public, right? So they know that that's why we'd be doing it.

And another thing, too, we've got to sell it so they will know. The majority, we've got four interstate exchanges, too, as well. So Midway, Quincy, Greensboro, Chattahoochee, right? So the people who are going to be buying gas, it's not from Gadsden County. Unfortunately, if you talk to everybody here today, half of the people here, unfortunately, bought gas, purchased gas in Tallahassee. or 75% of y'all. So reality is the citizens here will not get hit hard with that piece, like property tax. The people will get hit hard with people from California, Philadelphia, Tampa, across those energy exchanges. So that's how I feel. Make them feel the burden, not the citizens. So if you're going to increase it personally, The same compensation you're going to get for $0.05 is the same compensation you're going to get for $0.12. The only difference is that they can see some improvement once you go up. So if you're going to go up, you might as well go up. There's no reason to play around with it. Because this year to do it because of, if we lose our property taxes, it's too late to talk about that then, to follow you to do something.

Commissioner Holt. Yes, Mr. Administrator, when can we have a meeting and meet with these directors and find out some of the things that are being cut? So if we're going to meet again on the budget, we need to hear what they're saying. And that should be a requirement of this board to require that.

I have some of their suggestions with me. You want them to stand before you?

I want them to come to the podium like we normally do and they talk to us. That's all. We've done that over the years. It's been done over the years. Now another thing I would like to say is this, ladies and gentlemen, is that before we had to do a 3% across the board cut. And we raised saying I'm a property appraiser, former property appraiser, everybody. They were saying, you know, but we had to make those cuts. So I'm saying sometimes you got to get everyone in the mix and say, what's your opinion? Can you do this or not? Can you not? And just ask the question. Is there anything that we can do to work with you to get this budget where we need it to be? That's all. You're not accusing anyone or anything, but you're trying to get to where you need to be because that $5 million is not going to be playing with this board. So if you find out now, because when I walked into the meeting in June in the hotel down at the conference, Franklin County was the first one that told me they had their budget ready. Their cut budget was ready. While Color County had their cut budget ready. We don't have our cut budget. So that's what we need. Where's the cut budget that we're going to look at the moment that we need it instead of trying to get it?

Commissioner Woods. So I agree with you, Commissioner Holt, but I would like to add, and I know this is to where they do the nine, they do the rollback, And then you do the $5 million. And I tell you why, because we keep skirting around it. But it's like we're 60 days from them saying you're going to get cut $5 to $6 million. You got to make it. And so the tax will cut some. That'll cut some of the loss out if we do that. But it's going to make these, and even the other people that we provide their budget to, they're going to have to, and it's painful. But I'm sitting here looking at what I catch about the tax. People are not happy about these taxes. Yeah. When you look at that sheet, you call it where we take all these old ladies' houses, the sheet men or whatever, sheet men or whatever, what's it called?

He cheated.

He cheated. I mean, that's what I hear. I mean, we done took all these old ladies' houses for years. I mean, I hear it. They're like, well, they took someone's house around the corner. And I think, how many we got now? About 50, 75, 100? So we already got like 100 people that we done took their house. Some old lady, we took their house. And so when I'm out there...

But we don't take them. The government says that's what you do. We didn't say you don't take them.

Where the money not going? Taxes?

Oh, that's plenty of places not going.

Right. Taxes?

Yeah. And we don't decide.

That's my point. I hear about the taxes.

Yes, okay now We've got to figure out Whether we're building a budget Based upon nine meals or the rollback rate all or I mean we got two things in play here We're basically trying to figure out 26 27 budget and 27 28 budget so What the staff has done is they're basically dealing with the possibility of the rollback for the 2026-27 budget. Now, we haven't factored in the 2027-28 budget and what that might mean. So we're dealing with two different issues here. Now, if you put the 2027-28, property tax amendment passing budget, we got a whole different animal, okay? So I think I just need a little clarity in terms of where we are and how this board, as a majority, wants to move. Now, we can do whatever you want us to do. We've built plans or discussed plans to deal with the magnitude of the amendment passing. But right now, our budget is built on a possible rollback of the millage rate. That's what we're doing now. So I just need a little clarity on how you want to operate. And then I think we can push forward.

Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Simpkins first, then Commissioner Holt.

Thank you. I think we've kind of been saying this. We need all three. We need the rollback. And we need the, if this property tax amendment passes. So we need all three, we need what you already, you prepared the nine. We need the rollback and we also need the $5 million, $6 million cut. Be prepared if this property tax amendment passes. And I kind of thought that, Really, I'm going to be honest. I kind of thought that that's what I was going to be dealing with today, at least this rollback rate. Because at this point, if you're saying that something is due on Friday, then that means we need to be having another meeting to see what the... what additional cuts need to be made as it relates to the looking at the rollback rate, at least for the 28th. And then following that, we need to be taking a look at what it looks like with that entire. We need to have an additional meeting, maybe that next week, but looking at what it looks like if the property tax amendment passes. But yeah, like this has to be done like, yesterday. And when we're looking at this, we have to take a look at what are the mandatory services that have to be provided to the citizens. What services will impact all citizens? You're taking a look at that. I mean, decisions are going to have to be Decisions are going to have to be made. Everybody's going to be happy when they're made, no, but they're going to have to be made because we're going to have to lower this budget. It has to be lowered. So even if we stay at the nine, which I'm saying to roll back, but even if we stay at the nine, decisions are going to have to be made. have to be made. And we need to take a look at, like I'm sitting here, and that's why I was asking when we were looking at this, like, I like this, but I need specifics. We need to know, okay, in this department, this is what's happening. This is what's going to be cut. Understand this is going to affect, like you stated something about the library. Okay, that's specific, all right? That means ours will be cut or this will happen, right? So we have specifics and we know exactly what's taking place, what is going to be impacted. But we ought to have another meeting.

If we could just note that Commissioner agreed and sent a message that his connection was unstable He'll try to rejoin for the 6 o'clock Commission See

We met in June, and then I said, let's go ahead and look at the $5 million. What are we going to cut? Turn it into budgets. I said, cut it back to a skeleton budget. Ms. Rainey said, somebody was saying in the audience, said somebody zero balanced budget. It's the same thing. Cut back. Okay. That's what we were talking about, Mr. Administrator. There's no way that those other counties walked into that hotel and they already had theirs ready. and then we came back from June and we still don't have ours ready. See, wait, wait, let me finish. Let me finish. I'm not fussing, but I'm just saying we got to get this straightened out today. We don't have tomorrow. Okay. If we do not go back to the rollback rate, what's the penalty? What is the penalty, Mr. Attorney? Is there any penalty from the state?

If we do not, I mean, so under the current statute, the only way that this commission can avoid the rollback way is by a 4-1 supermajority. And so absent a 4-1, then if you don't have a lawful budget, it's not legal, you can't proceed.

Now, so if we do not get the rollback, if we don't get the supermajority, let's say we get the supermajority, is there any penalty from the state?

No.

There you go. So now we got that out of the way because that was out there on the street too. Okay, so we got that out of the way. We don't have to worry about a penalty if we get at least a 4-0 vote to not go back, to go to the rollback rate. We still got to include that rollback rate into that cutback budget in November. We still have to include it. So then we're going to be cutting back to 6.2. if we did include it, what that rollback rate would be. You don't do it right now. We did include the rollback rate into 6.2, so that would be the only thing that would move it back a little bit. But otherwise, otherwise, you need to do it this week. So instead of going at November,