Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

[Music] It will be our pledge of allegiance. And Colonel, would you care to lead us?

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] All right, folks. Um, at this point, uh, we will do our, uh, usual moment of silence. Please join me in that. All right. Thank you. First um official order of business now will be approval of our agenda. And we need to alter a couple things on the agenda. Uh we're going to add we uh with time that we published the agenda, we weren't sure we were going to be able to have a a guest, but we have a guest with us tonight that we want to give a couple of minutes to so he can give us a legislative update. And that's going to be our North Carolina House Representative Mark Ples. Uh will be item number four on the agenda. That will move item number four down to five, of course, five down to six, six down to seven, and then seven down to eight. Um, and Colonel, I think we've got some a couple of amendments we need to do uh to uh to your portion in item number seven. Is that correct?

7E becomes property acquisition and close session. And uh so we've got property, we got personnel and property that need to go close session. Correct. Property disposal, personnel property, and property acquisition will all be closed session. Disposal is close session as well. Yes, sir. All right.

So, that will be item 7E is going to be property acquisition. Any other adjustments to the agenda, gentlemen? At this time, I will move or hearing none, then I will move that uh that we approve the modified agenda for tonight's meeting. Is there a second? Second by Vice Chairman Hensley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. So, our next order of business will be our consent agenda. on the consent agenda tonight. It's a little bit of a lengthy consent agenda and I apologize for that, but uh these are all consent type items. So, uh, tax refunds and releases, annual settlement of the 24 taxes, order of collection for our 25 taxes, Madison County Public School System lottery fund request, every angle contract ratification, Madison County Sheriff's Office, uh, Fair Labor Standards Act settlement agreements, Madison County Transportation Authority Unified Grant Funding Pre-lication for 2027, the 6 community transportation rule grant admin agreement for 5311. The fiscal year 26 community transportation rule grant program section 5311 capital agreement. The fiscal year 26 enhanced mobility of seniors and individuals with disability grant program agreement. The juvenile crime prevention council funding plan for 25 to 26. The Juvenile Crime Prevention Council certificate county certification for fiscal year 2526.

The Vanoi design bill public service complex change order and addendum. The approval of settlement agreements in the mission health antirust litigation. Fiscal year 26 home and community care block grant. fiscal year 25 audit services contract and approval of the July 8th regular meeting minutes and July 22nd special meeting minutes. At this time, I'll entertain a motion we approve the consent agenda unless there are any desired modifications. Mr. Chairman, I go ahead and approve the consent agenda if it was consent. Motion by Vice Chairman Hensley. Is there a second?

Second. Second by Commissioner Wyatt. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Consent agenda is approved. Up next is public comment tonight. We only have one individual that signed up for public comment. Big change from the last two months. Um but uh keep just a reminder when you come up when we call your name, please come up to the podium. Please state your name and the community that you're that you reside in here in Madison County. Um, and then you've got three minutes to uh to speak and um at that point uh we will uh let you know when your time's up if you exceed the three minutes. So, uh Brienne Nelson. Hey, Miss Nelson. Hello.

How are you? Good. How are you guys doing? Good.

Um so, Brienne Nelson, you guys know me. Um again, I just want to say I'm not here representing the Spring Creek Community Center. I'm here just as an individual citizen. Um, thank you guys for your work the last couple months with the very contentious um, meeting about the board house. There were a couple comments that got brought up in it that I wanted to follow up on. There was um, the other Mr. Honeyut who talked about um, the environmental health and um, that that was his big issue that he was seeing. And it made me think about the fact that I have lived here for quite a while and um been looking at the postings that Madison County has for employment and the rates that you guys pay are really low compared to other counties um in our area. And I know that you know this. I know there has been a big push to re-evaluate salaries. Uh but his comments about the environmental health being understaffed made me really think about the fact that like universally it seems like every position that is posted in Madison County is paid a lot less. I have talked with people in um human services like economic um financial services in Bunkome County who will readily admit like yeah we we poach from Madison County. They train in people for a couple years and then we offer them a little bit more money and they're willing to make an extra 15 minute drive. Um, and I know that you guys worked very very hard on making the budget balanced and not raising um, taxes for everybody, and I appreciate it. But I think that it is worthwhile raising taxes a minimal degree so that we can ensure that our employees are paid well and offered a good life so that they will continue to work for Madison County because it's a real asset that we are losing in terms of um experience and education and knowledge and knowledge of the community. I just think it's a shame that we can't keep our own employees employed by the county

or things like that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Nelson. That is our only individual signed up for public comment this evening. So, at this time, I'll entertain a motion that we close public comment.

Motion by Commissioner White. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice Chairman Hensley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. This public comment is none. And uh up next on our agenda is North Carolina House Representative for u uh for district 118 and that's uh representative Mark P. And Miss Ples, please come up to the podium and uh have an opportunity to uh just have a legislative update from Representative P.

Thank you guys. I appreciate it. the last I guess eight months we've been in Raleigh pretty much Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and uh we got a lot of work done but it leaves a lot of things left on the table that we didn't get done. A lot of question about the budget. So that was one of the the biggest things that I want to address and I think being a leadership in the county I think you understand you can't budget on uncertainty. So, I want to talk a little bit about some of the changes. We don't know the full effects of Medicaid changes. We don't know the full effects of the SNAP changes, but I can tell you where the SNAP is going to hit at the local level, and we're going to have to make some decisions next year probably on what we're going to do. I won't hesitate to say no one knows. Um, the way SNAP set, I'm sure, uh, manager Honeyut knows, your employees are the ones who go in and do the qualifications. Right now in the state of North Carolina, we're 11 to 13% depending on who you talk to in people that are getting awarded that are erroneously recorded. They'll go in, they'll award them, they come back, the feds audit them and realize that something was done incorrectly, something was entered incorrectly. So, we don't have a good track record. The SNAP part of it is the thing that's going to be causing us the most concern because we don't know what it looks like. I'm told we have the mandate that you either pay the difference which is a penalty to us the state even though it's not our employees or you do away with it and you don't get anything. I don't have any idea where we go. We're told right now about 180 million is what ours is, but it's based off of three years ago.

So, I can't speak for everybody that's in Raleigh, but I would encourage if there's something that you can do, especially manager Honeyut, at the county level to increase the efficiency, that's going to help the state of North Carolina in the long run. None of this stuff is going to come about for a couple of years. So, we're fine right now. But the problem is they grade us three years past. They don't look at where we are today. So even knowing what's going to happen if we went in tomorrow and we did something at the state level, say we made them state employees and we controlled them and we got them to where the accuracy was was below 5% doesn't change the fact that we've still got to come up with $180 million because they're grading us on what happened in 22. So that's the hardest thing for most people to understand. Personally, I think we're going to eat it and go on. There's a lot of people in the state of North Carolina that rely on SNAP. And I personally think that we're going to take the penalty and some folks in DHS will try to address it at the local level to try to get those numbers corrected so that we can reduce our liability. I don't know that the state will ever get down to 5%. Because it's not people we control, it's going to be people that the counties control. So regardless of how that turns out, you need to understand anything you can do to help us is going to ultimately help you. Over the last few years, we've given out millions and millions and millions of dollars to local governments for everything from water, sewer to private projects to buildings to all kinds of things. We want to be able to continue that, but we're going to have to figure out how to continue all of that and still make the difference. Now, the Medicaid part of it, everybody wants to say we're ending a Medicaid expansion. That's not necessarily true. You need to understand how the law was written. Okay? The way

we did it when it was approved, I agreed to it because of partially because of this stipulation. Right now, we're compensated 90% fed pay. We pay 10%. What they did was the hospitals are paying a bed tax, so to speak, and picking up that 10%. If the feds change us from what we're going to do, and they tell us that we're at 85% and we have to pay 15, North Carolina is automatically unenrolled from Medicaid expansion at the end of that calendar year. It does not mean that's what happens. the legislature at that time that is seated has to make the decision of whether we are going to continue it or whether we're going to let it lapse. And the reason we set it up that way, we don't want the federal government is historically gives you something and then start dragging you in pay more and more and more for it. We got care for about 680,000 people, but if we change that, that's going to create a huge issue as far as compensation because we're not going to know how much we need to come up with. One of the things I'm told that may be affected by Medicaid is reduced compensation rates. So all of a sudden, the people that are paying this for us in the state of North Carolina may not have the money to pay us. Okay? So there's a large picture that we have to figure out and quite frankly we don't know what it looks like. It would be nice to say and I joke about it all the time. We're not getting along with the Senate. It's kind of like a husband and a wife. If you don't get along that you just kind of fight and you figure out a way to get through the middle, but that's not really the case. That's just a funny way of putting it because most people aren't going to understand what I'm sharing with you right now is we've

got some serious hurdles that we need to accomplish. And because of the time frame that it was dropped on us in the spring, even though the budget stuff is being discussed, it's hard for the state of North Carolina to recover from a major hurricane and take on things that there's so much uncertainty on that we don't know what our bottom dollar is going to be. Uh we're still doing the tax cuts, all that stuff. continues. The mini budget that we just passed is only going to keep us moving. State of North Carolina does not have to have a budget. We are not the federal government. We do not shut down. We have what's called the continuing resolution. So July 1, everybody still got paid. Nobody went home. But there's extra money in the bank and we get a revenue report every week that kind of tells us what's in there that is not appropriated at this point. That money just sits there until we get a budget. That's what happened in 24 with a budget adjustment we typically do in the spring. That money is still sitting there as well. The problem is going to be when we come and we decide where our revenue picture is at. We're going to have to take in consideration the loss in taxes. So, you're probably looking at a budget in the spring. We'll get a bannual budget probably on the employees, the folks that needed raises or that's getting raises, those will be retroactive like we have always done it. So, we're going to take care of everyone, but we need some time to absorb Medicaid. We need some time to absorb the SNAP. We need some time to absorb what our tax cuts are going to do because there's so much uncertainty right now. We're not going to tackle it. And I know that leaves some folks in limbo and we've talked about your courthouse. Uh the goal is still to take care of you. We were able to do it in Helen because it was damaged in the storm and that may be how we continue with it. Uh I spoke to manager Honeyut a minute ago and I know there's some more money that's

going to need to come in by the end of next year. So I don't know which way we're going to go but I have spoken to uh speaker hall and speaker hall is very committed. He's met and talked to every one of you. He's very committed to helping us get where we're going. So I don't see that anything is going to go wrong at this point. I just don't know how we do it yet. We may continue to do it with Helen and just leave it at that. Or if we get a budget in the spring, he may go ahead and put a large trunch of money in there for that or he may pay for all of it. We don't know the answer to that yet. Do you have any questions on what I've told you so far and I know I live this every day. So, I'm trying to make sure that I can get it in something that you can understand. But if I confuse you, by all means ask me because Sometimes it gets overwhelming.

Sure. Anybody have any questions? No. No. Um, you got so far.

You're good bluffers or are you understanding? So far, um, one of one of the things I spent the last two days with flood coalition, we have had some conversations about the flooding. One of the things that we've noticed in conversations is local governments don't know how to tell us they run across an obstacle. Um, it can be as simple as remember when we did the initial loans, we were going to give you money to keep you going and then after talking to you and meeting with you folks, you said the rate that we don't know the uncertainty of when we're going to have to pay you back. The short time limit of seven years. When we went to our last lean meeting, we fought to put it under a different plan. And I'm sure you're familiar with the new plan. I only found out yesterday that the interest rate at the third year is something that's not able to be handled. But you need to understand how we keep making this same mistake. We're not trying to create something new. We are fulfilling an obligation which we have always done and this is the way that the state of North Carolina has always done. The first plan that we had had the seven years on it. They want everything cleared up within seven years after a disaster. We can continue to fund it like we're doing with Matthew and Florence right now. But if we don't continue to fund it, it ends at seven years. Okay? That's for our accounting purposes. You have to understand there's about $80 billion to play with every two years, every every bienium. The last thing we need to do is go back and look for money from 10 years ago to see if there's money sitting in accounts that we need to reclaim. So by design,

disaster money is designed now to where we claw it back automatically at the end of seven years. If it's not spent and it's an individual funds like the way we have done this so far at the end of seven years that reverts back the state of North Carolina doesn't have to do anything. It comes out of OSBM and it goes back into the general budget and they see that as a relication of this funding that can be used for anything else. When we did this last one, we went through commerce because commerce has a loan that says 20 years to 30 years. So what we did was we were like when we fought the fight, I say fight, but more or less had the discussion I guess in committee uh between us and the senate, it was like we got to figure out a way to help the local governments and something that's a little more easily and readily accessible. They they don't have this uncertainty. They need time for them to look at the big picture to make a decision. So, we moved it to this loan that was already in commerce. There's no reason to create something that's already there. So, we put it into the one in commerce and we thought, okay, that's a 20, 30 year thing. We can look at it in a few years and see how that's going. And our intent is to not have you pay that back. Plain and simple. With all the uncertainty, we can't do that right now. But that is our intent. So by putting you in the 20 to 30 year frame now we have a vehicle that we have time and hopefully people will take it that need it. Well then I found out yesterday which we didn't know. I was told that the third year it went to 20% interest. That's absolutely unheard.

That's mafia.

So we were like okay so now what do we do? And I contacted the speaker staff and they didn't know that either because what when we legislate, we don't know how implementation goes. The governor's office is charged with implementation. The agencies that we send it to, they are charged with implementation. So nobody knows how this works until it doesn't work. So, I want you to understand that so that as you're rebuilding, and I know the county had some vested interest in some of this, but you also have communications with your towns. You have communications with your people. I have 86,000 plus or - 5% that I need to take care of. You're closer to the people than I am. I am closer to the people that Senator Heis is because he has 250,000. So, we need local government to tell us if what we have done so far is not working for the people. There is a thing, and I don't know if anybody ever watches the oversight. I got a little upset with them. I'm on Hurricane Matthew Florence oversight, but I'm also on Hurricane Helen oversight, and I've been doing Matthew Florence about four years now, so I've got a better understanding than some of the other people that are on the committee. We gave $120 million to build houses. $81 million on the dashboard says it's being spent. That money is not spent.

That money went and was transferred to Horn, the people that we have a huge objection with them being in charge of rebuilding. And we're not done with that yet. We have a huge objection to it. That $81 million that they pulled off of that is for them to start up. It doesn't they've not nailed two boards together,

but they're writing on the nonprofits saying there's over 300 people have been returned home with the $6 million that the nonprofits have spent. Well, we gave them the $6 million in the first budget we did because we knew the nonprofits were going to be faster so they could get people back into homes. Then we would have ours set up and be putting people in homes. But so far that hasn't happened. And I have met with Max Clay. He's the director. He was with me yesterday, most of the afternoon, and he's been with me today. And we've had some serious conversations. You know, I don't need to see where they're standing money. I need to see where they spend it. Just so people know, that the agency that you just referred to is now known as NC Growth.

Correct. It is NC Growth. Um they are a spin-off. Governor Cooper did North Carolina Office of Recovery Resilience, which failed miserably. This one is headed in the same path. It is failing miserably. They're going to get a little bit more leeway, but I promise you that they're not going to get eight years. They the last one got eight years before it really really got nasty. And now this one, they've got probably a few more months. And if they've not got it together, then North Carolina General Assembly is going to take different action. We're going to fix it if they're not willing to because we can't have this kind of stuff happen. But if you look on the dashboard, it looks like there's a lot of money being spent. But where the rubber meets the road, nobody's out of the cold. Nobody's where they need to be. Private roads and bridges, even the new constructions are going to be first of the year or later before they build the first one. Now, we have a lot of people in my county where I live that I have sent talked to personally that have taken out money and built their own. So, that's why the reimbursement came about and please share that with people that did it. They may have never intended for the state to pay for it, but we put $25 million in there. And if we need to put more, we will, but they should be reimbursed because they actually took the initiative and went ahead and did it first. This one couple that I know, $150,000, they're not going to see their money in time to pay the mortgage or the mortgage, the loan that they took out because NC Grow can't get their act together. They have pictures. They have contractors. The work's done. the seven households that were on that brid that were on that road that needed that bridge are able to get back and forth to work, everything is fine. How hard is it to take and hand them the receipts and let the state of North Carolina pay half of it? Fayment looks like it's going to make it on time. FEMA's going to give them their money, but NC Grow is failing miserably at getting money out and they tell us

it's going to be January before they do that. So, you tell me where the errors are. I would love to know if you see it, but I want you all to know kind of what we're fighting. And we're fighting it every day. We go out and we meet with people. We talk to people. Anybody that calls us, we sit down and we want to have conversations with them and figure out how we can get things moving. But you're closer to the people. You're probably the easiest accessible if somebody knows who you are because they know that you are in charge of the county, but they know that Matt is in charge and all of these gentlemen up here in charge of what's right by them. So, anybody that gets contacted that you feel or hear an error, please let us know because we are hitting as hard as we can at the moment, but it's leading up to probably this spring. You're going to unless something drastic changes, you're going to see an entire rework of how we handle disasters. We have to be careful with Helen because we can't undo anything that might already be in place, but we're fed up with it. We're sick and tired of the delays. And I know the last time whenever we had our meetings, we're tired of the state holding it up. We got the money out. We got the money where it's supposed to be and they're sitting on pretty close to $2 billion

that has not gone out. Uh there's a lot of money that's been transferred from accounts, but as far as handing money out to the people that need it, it's not been happening. So that's kind of where we are. And I hate to be the gloom and doom, but we're going to fight as hard as we can. And unfortunately, this is not something that has this is the first time it's happened. Matthew and Florence, we have people that are 10 years later that are still not in houses. They wound up $330 million short and us telling them two years ago they were going to be short and they insisted they were not. and they came up at the end of the year last year and had to have another 215 million so that they can continue to build houses. That's unheard of. 2016 2018 storms that people are still not home. That's absolutely crazy. And we're not going to let that happen with the lean. I've assured you. I told you that we're fighting the fight. Is there anything that you know of right now that that we need to know about or anything that you think we need to address when we have these meetings?

Carl, you aware of anything? I think that um right now the county has and it's a small about $700,000 uh that's stuck at the state level. FEMA has obligated the state on two and that's their dug at top tower or dug at top road. We've been there for about three weeks now. You know, we keep hearing the checks coming, checks coming as part of our emergency communications program. Okay. So, FEMA is FEMA has obligated it to the state that we approve and now we're waiting on the state to cut the check. It actually comes to the county. Does it come from emergency management? It come Does it come from commerce?

Who is emergency management? merch management pays for it. I'll make a phone call. I can't call him tonight, but I'll make a phone call and talk to Director Ray tomorrow and see if he can find out where that is. It shouldn't be that hard if they've already authorized it because that's the hold up on some of this stuff is FEMA has to tell them they're going to pay it or FEMA has to authorize it and then they'll go ahead and pay the bill. So, if they've already authorized, there's no reason why you shouldn't have it. Is that the only thing you

The rest of ours uh out of the 17 projects, six are complete. Two are pending that to the rest of them at FEMA level and the county level to work back and forth on the different requirements to get it settled. So, we're in a good spot as far as that's concerned right now. Well, stay on top of it and if you run across issues, always keep in mind we have the unmet needs portion that we can go in and we can try to do something. I don't remember the exact amount. I want to say there's close to $40 million in there, but we have the unmet needs portion that if bad comes to worse and somebody tells you no, even if you're appealing it, then we need to go ahead and get that working and see if we can't get you the funding through that because that's what it's designed for. I've told everybody that we've met, we've talked to the intent of the state is that the counties and the cities are not responsible for this storm. You don't have the fund balance to pay for this storm. Right? We do. We are capable. We have put over $350 million towards the matches. And that doesn't even count the unmet needs and the many other things that we have put out there to help you do it. But let us help you. I know you have Forest and Forest is excellent. He and I have talked I don't know how many times the last few days where we found issues and problems and he's working as diligently as he can. But we've got to be able to move through this because the people won't know that you're trying if we're not getting success. That's the ultimate thing is we want them back as close to normal as they can as quickly as they can. This is going to be a long recovery. There's nothing I knew about it. It tore up. I'm still doing stuff from Fred and it was four years ago this month,

right?

So, we're still going to have issues. A lot of people want buyouts. I don't know if you have anybody issue as far as buyouts are concerned. If I understand correctly, we're going to be able through that CBDR grant that they got. We're going to be able to do some buyouts. The problem that we're going to run into and and please share this. We're helping moderate to low income. There is an application process. I have a lot of people that reach out and they need help and I I feel sorry for them and I really do. But the state of North Carolina is very clear in everything that we've put aside moderate to low income and so is the CBDGR grant that came from the feds and everything else that comes down from the feds is going to be for moderate to low income. It's not going to be for everybody and they need to know that. A lot of the folks that I've talked to have moved on that didn't fit into that category. And if we can reimburse them at some point, we probably will, but we've got a lot of folks that fit into that category that have to be taken care of first. Mr. Chairman, two points. We have 16 residents who are in that program. 13 are for buy, two for elevation, and one is for uh two for mitigation, reconstruction, one for elevation. uh the state finished their review of it on 6th April. So now it's at the federal level waiting on decisions in that buyout program.

Okay. So has the state said they're going to work a buyout program this early in because I've got people four years ago that are still waiting. Yes. For buyout. So I think that the state has said these are tenants we approve and now it's pending federal money to back it.

That's the problem. Sir, and I want to personally thank you um for setting up the meeting with OSB this week. Myself, Madam Finance Director, Madam Clerk, and our grants coordinator had a very good meeting and they were very clear on their instructions on how to get to the funds and right into the works and expectation management. That's a very productive meeting. So, thank you for arranging that. Well, anytime we can help, let us know. on I'm going to follow up on the buyout thing. Who who was authorizing the buyout. Is it through or is it through somebody else? Steven Jackson with emergency management is a contact.

Okay. I'll I'll follow up on them and I don't know if you know the folks that have applied or if they've gone through the county and what they've done and I'll try to find out. Typically this and I learned this with Fred. Typically, there's a five-year wait on federal money for buyouts. Unless they're planning on using some money that we've got, they're not going to tell these people that they've got this long to wait. So, they're going to get a year or two in, they're going to get very frustrated and they're going to reach out to you and they're going to be upset with you because that's exactly what happened to me. And and that's when I found out that's the last one we had that was successful was a 5year. It was almost 5 years to the day that they lost their house. Yes. that before they got their money. Yes.

From the from the federal government. Yes. And if this is only a federal program, then that's what they're going to be up against. The 120 million that we put aside where they blew the 81 million to set up horn, that money is allowable if they're planning on using that. That's why I need to find out if they're going to let them use what's left of that money to do buyouts because that's the only way to fasttrack it is to use state money. I'll forward you the email chain with the addresses of these residents and and have you met with those people or they mostly just fill out applications and you're aware of them through your meetings.

So the applications were direct from the resident to the state. Um we elected up front take us out the middle of it to streamline the process. Okay. So we bypassed that part but now we're since April stuck. Well, I'll have the conversation with the folks emergency management and if they are alluding that they're going to be able to handle this, they need to let them know. But if there's going to be a wait period, I'm going to tell them that they need to be the ones to contact these folks back and tell them the typical way that this is handled because it's not fair to put all of you in a hot seat on something that you aren't directly involved in because they're not going to go to the state whenever this fails. They're going to go to you because you are the face of the community. That's who they're going to contact.

I I take an opportunity. I don't want to throw the state under the bus by any means, but No, no, that's what we need because we are responsible and we tell a lot of things. I say we the state of North Carolina leaves a lot of information out whenever we're trying to help people and it it may not be intentional, but I'm always big about trying to give you every piece as I know the truth to be. I'm going to give you every piece that you can to make a good decision, but the state agencies don't always do that because they they don't do well with conflict resolution and they're afraid someone's going to get upset. So they take their application, they speak to them, they go through the process, and then they put them in a pile to wait on the money to come in. They just don't tell them that pile. They be better for five years.

We got one more hole in our swing. So the state started a smart program got to help counties deal with the pre right now we know that we've had and I'm going to say 13 residents approved but there's a 20 number or something that has been ineligible but there's not a mechanism in place right now to inform the citizens they're ineligible right pick up say again for debris pick up

repup personal property debris removal right now we're trying to figure out whose responsibility it is to go tell citizens. The smart program has said no, you can reapply. You can try again. But right now, that communication who responsibility that's fell through the cracks.

Who who do you know is who do you know at the state that's dealing with that? I need to talk to them and find out what denial is because when we did the oversight, that was another thing I had forgotten to mention that we hit director A pretty hard because they would go into Lake Shim places like that and they would have a pile. This is Representative Johnson's area. They would have a pile here and they would have a pile here. They would come in, grab this pile up, throw it in the truck, drive down the road, and do the exact same thing, but three more piles down there and leave this one only to have to come back and get it. So, we had a very serious park conversation with them about why they're doing that, and they say they're going to dig in and find out. If it's a delay in processing, we need to know that. But if it's an error in the application process, we need somebody at the state to walk them through it.

Jerry Gideon is our point of contact and he is stadium stadium. I'll find out and see. You said there's 13. 13's been approved out of 35. So the math the 22 that's left over have not been informed um that they are ineligible. And right now we're asking, you know, if the state's got if the state's going to deliver the message they're ineligible, we need to do it. But right now, we've got 22 citizens who, hey, what's the status? And we found out this week that they're ineligible, but no one has contacted them yet. And we don't know which 13 and which 22 it is. And we also don't know why they're ineligible.

We don't might not be their primary residence. I mean, it could be a host of reasons why they're ineligible, but um we don't know what what the answer is yet. And we don't even know, like Colonel said, we don't even know which ones they are. But we also gave Mountain True, and I say we we didn't do it. The governor did it and some of the money we sent him gave Mountain True money for debris removal in some of these areas that could not be helped with machinery, I'm assuming, because they can't get them in there.

I don't know if we could send those folks cuz Mount TR is a nonprofit. If we can't get them approved, we might be able to go that route and try to get Mountain True to help them because one way or the other they'll pay for it, but if there's a stipulation, I'll find out from emergency management. And I think Ash Green Works is involved in that too. I think they may have aligned with it with uh with Mountain Tree, but I'm not positive on that. Last I heard they Ashley Greenworks was doing their own thing, but I haven't talked to Eric lately to see if I feel like I I feel like I read somewhere that that they have kind of joined an or created an alliance between the two of them. But I know Ashley Greenworks was doing something too along those same lines.

Okay. I wasn't aware that about Ash Greenworks. I haven't heard about that. But uh if there's anything is there anything else that is falling through that and that's the hard thing. I know I put you on the spot, but if you think about it, shoot me an email, give me a phone call, tell me what the situation is so that I can follow up on it because that's really the only way we get these little things resolved is by one of us calling. I'm going to take off one more of finance directors staring through back here. all the grants and we're appreciative of the grants very much so but when they are reimbursible it's getting tight

taking our fun down trying to keep up it's just you know DQ products project projects and the grants we've got a whole lot of money out there that we could spend but we got to show a receipt and get a reimbursement for it to the point now where we very much have to watch everything we spend for the reimbursements. They told us they were doing 30-day reimbursement. Is that not true?

Well, there was a change in the last there was a change in the way we asked for reimbursement. Midway through back in June, they changed it from one site that you had to log in to another through NC. So, there was a delay most recently up about seven weeks we were sitting on quite much. But, but I just got noticed like yesterday that we have they approved it and then we should look for it in 10 days. Who who changed the site? Uh TQ

and we're a fan of direct dispersements.

Well, the way it's supposed to be said is they they had an issue with reimbursement. We discussed that before. So, we got on to them and they were going to get it 30 days. they were going to have the money back to whoever it was that needed the money. Well, it sounds like they have done something to disrupt that. They didn't tell you or us that they disrupted it. So, I'll ask Joe Kleti. He's our gobox person to find out how that's been going cuz he can he can get me the information on how long the reimbursements have been across the entire region and we can look at it and see if they did it this time and it's took them this long to actually reimburse you. Are they still doing it? Because until we know that, we don't track it. But I'll ask them and see. But I will I'll see what I can do about the reimbursement because you guys can't fit the bill for it. I mean, you're you're in a good place. You're you're a healthy county, but these towns, most of them have very small fund balances. The counties, my county is good as far as the fund balance is concerned because they take care of their money, too, but not everybody is in a position to do that. And we don't want anything held up because you can't afford it. That was the whole point doing all the things that we've done. So, you know, you've got Hot Springs, their annual budgets around $750,000 a year, and Marshalls is only maybe 88$ 825 somewhere in that range, I think. So, the small towns really uh they felt a lot sooner. Um, you know, we're feeling it now. We had a pretty healthy fund balance at the time. Um, but it's it's starting to starting to add up for everybody right now.

It was kind of a joke this morning. We were standing there talking and Mayor Norton said something uh or actually I think it was one of the engineers said something about the fact that she wasn't approved to buy a pencil or something like that because they didn't have the money and I asked her later I said so what's the deal and she said well we can't really af you got to courthouse because you were ready uh camp got some money because they were ready but I asked all my counties and we had already talked about it what we were trying to do was a direct appropriation because we knew Everybody was having trouble with getting things going. So what we wanted to do was give a blanket amount of money to every county and to every town so that you could do it. The problem is is we couldn't find a agreement of what we should give because we don't know how far you are in the hole. We don't know what your finance director. We don't know what you're having to play the numbers and hold off on ordering things because you have this much money tied up at all times. if you can get us that and we've asked everyone else to go back and and we have a lot of representatives this the first time they've ever dealt with this and it's huge. Some of us have dealt with it before so we kind of understand it but if you can get me a number of what you play with in order to try to keep this thing moving we may be able to do a direct appropriation with the money that is in the grant program. I've had the conversation about if if they're not taking the grant, then we need to pull that money and instead of letting it sit there out of both of those funds and we need to send that money to the counties so that the counties and the cities have money that they can use for just this purpose. You spend the money to pay your matches or whatever it is that you're doing for the grant process until you recoup the unmet needs portion of it. So, I'll work on

that and see. But if you can tell me what would be comfortable. Now, I gave you 20 million. So, let's let's not do another 20 million. Try to figure out something that would be reasonable. And if you know of any of the towns that are in the same situation, um I've got to do something for Mayor Norton. But if Marshall is the same way, I need to kind of know what they would be comfortable with so that I can fight that fight. I don't always get what I want, but I know if I don't ask, we're never going to get anywhere. And Senator Heis has been really good to work with, and he understands when we have a lot of these conversations in the committee that these are the things that we need to do. And he helps fight for Madison County just as much as I do. And a lot of times we're able to be successful. And sometimes we get weight. And that's okay. I can deal with weight. I don't like no, but I can deal with weight and and we'll see how this thing looks. But I think we're beyond the waiting phase because we have most of the avenues created. Most of them have money in them. We can go back and stuff money as we need to, which was the goal. So now we can move forward with trying to help out at a a more intense level at local government. So I'll look forward to that and and we'll fight to fight and see if we can get it and try to take some of the pressure off of you. We we appreciate that and I know we're we're very grateful for the 20 million that the that the legislature provided to us for the courthouse. Um very grateful for that. Um, and and I hope uh I hope I didn't overstep my bounds, but on behalf of all of us here, I sent thank you notes to u Speaker Hall and also Senator Heis, this the western North Carolina Senate delegation and western North Carolina House delegation reps. Just all thanking them for being supportive of Madison County and trying to help us through this situation that we found ourselves in. And um we're very grateful for the work that you and Senator Heights have done on our behalf

along with Speaker Hall's assistance as well. We're very grateful for that alliance and appreciate you very much for for what you've done for us so far. Look forward to uh hopefully keeping that rolling and uh and we'll see what we can do. I think you're fine. I really do. I can't say anything with certain, but I think you're going to be fine through this whole process. I think you'll get to the end of it. You'll have something that the county has needed for a very long period of time. And the goal is to get it as minimal as possible on the backs of the people of Madison County because we have the money and this is something that should have been done years ago when it flooded before that. This isn't the first time this has happened. And if we fix it now and we put it right back where it's at, we're going to be back in the same boat. It may be 20 years from now,

right? Or it could be a year. It could be a year. I hope not. Well, I hope it's another, you know, another hundred years or or more, but you know, hopefully it'll never happen again, but at the very least, we'd hope it's another hundred years or more. But, um, you know, you never know.

And that's the problem. And and that's again with the like the American Flood Coalition work that we're off that we're doing um is trying to figure out that resiliency component to try and help minimize that. And I and I keep promising everybody that we're going to build a courthouse now. If it ever floods there, um we uh we're we're all going to need more than than government assistance. We need Noah's arc. So, um you know, we're going to do our best to make sure that we get that we do our part to make sure that it's resilient and and we appreciate the support that that state has provided to us. We're very grateful for that.

We are glad to do it. We hate you in the situation that you're in, but we're glad to be able to help you. be glad to be able to take some of this burden off of you because it's kind of hard to sit in the seat you're at and make county decisions when you know that your house is in in shambles and there's not a way for you to fix it. So that's our job and we have the money to do it. There was a time when the state of North Carolina did have the money and you remember that not been too long ago but we're in a good place right now and we're trying not to hold on to it and be greedy with it. We're trying to make sure that the folks that are out here that need it the most get it because the state of North Carolina is in good shape. We've got good buildings. We got good employees. We got a lot of things going on. We've given raises. We've tried to get people's salaries up. We've worked really hard to get everybody to a comfortable position. We're never going to keep up with inflation. We know that. But the best thing we can do is try to move them forward. But in this situation right here, one time money especially. It's a lot easier to help you with it than it is to try to put it in a bank somewhere and hope one day that you find a use for it.

So, we're grateful for it. Thank you. Quite welcome. If you don't have anything else, I'm going to go back to Hangman County. We appreciate your time. Thank you for coming to see us.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak. I know this was further moment, but I'm home from Raleigh. Um, at least at least till April, I hope that they have to check in once a month and if anything changes I need to know anything monetary wise that you need because they won't tell me two weeks or three weeks ahead of time say, "Hey, you think you want to talk about some of this?" What they'll do is they'll send us a email probably the week before and say we're ready for another bill. We have the funding to be able to go ahead and put it forward. We have some urgent needs that we need to meet and they'll assemble the seven vice chairs and the two chairs and we'll sit down and craft it. So stay on top of everything that you need and don't think we've asked for too much already. I can promise you if you don't ask I can't get it for you. But if you ask and nobody else does, there's a real good possibility you can get more than your fair share. Kent is a prime example of that. I've got three pounds up there that do not ask for anything, and I got one that asks for everything. Yeah.

And I don't know what he's going to do with it, but Well, I think Wayne Gretzky said, 100% of the shots you don't take never go in. So, we're going we're going to keep peppering away at the net and hope we're going to see if we can beat the goalie every now and then. And uh we appreciate your help in doing that. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for your call. Thank you. Appreciate it very much.

All right. Up next on our agenda tonight, get back on schedule is um going to be James Bench from Alden Jenkins who is our auditing firm and he has our fiscal year 2024 final audit presentation to do tonight and he'll let us know what we've done good and what we've done bad and what we need to continue to work on. So the floor is yours, sir. Well, thank you. Sorry to make you wait through that, but we appreciate you being accommodated.

Not a problem. Good, good to hear it. And uh I hope I get the applause when I leave as well. Bill Wley is the author. So, uh good evening. Thank you for letting me be here today. Glad to be here in person. I think the last couple years we've done this virtually. So, I'm glad to make it up today. Um I've got before you, I think you've got both of our documents. We've got our financial statements or your financial statements that we audited. And then the smaller document is what I'm going to go through tonight. I'm not going to stop on every page, but certainly if I skip over something you want to look at, you know, feel free to interrupt and we'll jump jump back into that. Uh, but just as a quick refresh of who Jenkins is, we are your audit firm. We're your external audit firm. Uh, I'm James Spence. I served as the engagement partner on the engagement. Um, we have u I guess technically now we have 15 offices. We just opened one in Greenville, South Carolina, but we have 15 offices uh in six different states and about a third of our assurance practice is working with local governments. So, we work with about 750 local governments across the Southeast. Um and we have about 18 partners and directors in our firm, myself included, who only work with local governments. And so, it is an industry and a division of our firm that we're very committed to and very dedicated to. Uh and we put a lot of resources and time into that. Uh all of our engagements have two partner involvement. We typically try to rotate the second partner. It always kind of keeps a fresh set of eyes. Uh they prov perform the quality control review at the end of the so once we're uh your management team and myself are in agreement of where we're at. It goes through the quality control review. They make sure we kind of met all the standards, crossed all the tees, dotted all the eyes. Uh this year, Meredith Lipson provided that review for us. Um and so again with our 18 partners involvement in the firm, we kind of make sure we rotate that so there's always some fresh eyes open to the reports. The uh what we call the 30,000 foot summary of this year's audit, we are

presenting the June 30, 2024 audit. Uh we did as your external audit firm, we do conduct your audit in accordance with government auditing standards as well as generally accepted auditing standards. uh that means our objective is to give an opinion on the presentation of your financial statements and not to give absolute assurance on those financial statements. that we uh do our testing based on those standards that I mentioned earlier. Uh it includes sampling and risk assessment but we did issue an unmodified opinion which is a clean opinion stating that the financial statements as prepared by your management team uh were material correct as presented for you a um uh it isn't in here but just for context on page four uh as you have in the past anytime a a local government expends more than $750,000 in federal funds, uh you're required to have a single audit, which is in our compliance audit report. Uh you all obviously had that last year and have had that in the past. Uh you've required a federal single audit as well as state single audit. Uh this past year, we tested your Medicaid program and your corona virus state level fiscal recovery funds program from the federal level and then the lottery proceeds from the state level as well as Medicaid at the state level. Uh so we tested those three programs for if you will buckets. Uh and you did receive an unmodified opinion on that as well which is the clean opinion stating that we did not identify any material non-compliance or material weaknesses in the control surrounding those three programs. So a good good clean opinions there. I will actually I'll start back. Um, one item that we'll talk about in a few slides later, uh, each year Gazsby, which is the accounting standard setting body for local governments, it feels like each year for the past several years, we had a new standard to be implemented. Uh,

this year in 2024, we did implement Gatsby standard number or statement number 100, which just dealt with specifically how you show and present changes in opening balances. Uh we did have one change in the opio opioid accounting this year that came down from the state that dealt with 2023's presentation uh but was pushed down kind of after the year had ended. Uh so we implemented that and then because of that we had to show the change in accounting uh required for Gatsby statement 100. Uh so that was implemented and actually put in action by county this year but we'll talk about that a few slides later on page six. Um, you know, one thing I do want to commend your management team on, uh, I'm we're not always able to say this with all of our clients, but certainly where we are, we'd love to say it, but we did receive full cooperation from your management team. Uh, the audit is an extra layer of of asks from management during the year. Uh, and this was an especially challenging year for your management team with all that went on. Uh, so we are presenting the audit a little later than normal, but obviously um pretty excited to get it out with all that has happened to the county this year. So I appreciate Car's work this year and being able to get us the items we need with with all that's been going on. Um, we did not have any disagreements with management and we were able to get our opinions issued and get the information we need to issue the opinions. Um, Let's go to the next slide. So, uh, we've got some information on fund balance. I know we just heard a little bit about the the countyy's health. And this, keep in mind, is as of June 30, 2024. So, numbers may look a little bit different now when you get your budget reports after I go away. U, but we're looking at your unassigned fund balance here. Really, your fund balance, but you'll see the blue, the bigger bar at the bottom. It's your unassigned fund balance. And you can kind of see, you know, I think we had this meeting a

couple years ago. We had some some conversations of your fund balance, your unassigned fund balance as it relates to your expenditures was around 27% which was actually pretty low compared to counties of your size and I know you all been making some good efforts to really work that up to a healthy level and you can see at the end of 2024 uh your unassigned fund balance was about 66% of your annual expenditures which is you know I think it's actually on this next slide your median average across the state for a a county of your size. They put the counties into kind of three buckets. And so the counties of your size, uh they're at about 39% and you ended at about 66%. So, you know, hats off, you know, a lot of applause for for really working that up and taking that into consideration. And that does allow you to deal with situations like you currently find yourself in where you're having to cash flow certain costs rather than just kind of being stuck through the hands of your pocket. So, not having funding available to kind of help you get through that. high level overview of how the budget year went. And I did note after I sent this out that it reads a little funny. So, I'm going to interpret some of the numbers down here for you. Uh but um we've got here your your original budget for your general funds you adopted at the beginning of the fiscal year. And then throughout the year, you make amendments to those budgets for activities that happen, obviously reacting to known items. Uh and you've got your final budget column here uh in the middle and then the actual just represents where we ended June 30, 2024. And so uh you can see we actually added about $7 million to our fund balances here in the general fund. Uh I'll as you look at this kind of the the $9 million expenditures being under budget deals with some projects that we had budgeted that didn't happen uh during the fiscal year as well as in the past, you've had this for the last several years. uh some

of the budget loops maybe that we have for uh DSS those didn't happen in time but that also means that we didn't get the revenue reimbursement for the grant so you'll see budget our expenditures were under budget but also you'll know revenues are under budget for the same reason you know as we don't have those costs we obviously aren't getting those reimbursements from the state so um we still are able to add about 7 million to the fund balance uh at the bottom one of the items that We were trying to note here uh as you all know we did get a fee adjustment which helped with some of our juvenile housing which increased revenue this year but just to clarify that did increase the revenue individually by 2.4 million. Our revenue over last year is a total increase by 2.4 million. Uh and that was dealing primarily with some property tax increases. Uh mill rate stay flat. So that's the new new housing in our community. uh sales tax revenues and some new grant revenues of about 700,000 this past year that came in that we didn't have the year before. So all of that together is what brings the total revenue of about 2.4 million, not specifically just our housing revenues. I've got a snapshot here. I know we talked about this a little bit the last couple of years, but looking at your uh your landfill, your proprietary fund cash flows, uh proprietary funds don't really work the same way as a general fund does. So looking at fund balance doesn't really give you the same uh takeaway. So we tend to look at cash flow statements for proprietary funds and you can see uh you know as as we've kind of worked it to the last couple years our cash flows from operations we are netting that in a positive cash flow from operations. Uh at the end of the year we do still have an unrestricted negative net position uh because a lot of our assets for this fund are tied up in capital assets which are reported separately because obviously we're not going to liquidate those and turn them into cash. Uh but we are building you know with these positive cash flows we

are building that deficit to turn to a positive overtime. Uh a couple of these are some repeat findings but as a result of our audit we did have a few items that we ended up reporting in our uh yellowbook report which is the the government auditing standards report as uh material weaknesses in the controls or significant deficiencies in the controls. Uh, segregation of duties is one that we've talked about for a while. And I know we're we're slowly chipping away at some of the items in here. Uh, it, you know, not to to say it's fine to leave it here forever, but it is a fairly common issue for a smaller government where you have a smaller finance department. Uh, it's really hard to have an ideal situation where it's completely segregated, not only in actual control, but access to the the system. And so, uh, you all are overtime trying to trying to build those down. We have kind of trimmed it down in in the areas that we have the o or the the overlap but we still have that issue with some lack of segregation in the finance department. Uh the second bullet here deals with the restatement that again based on the guidance that came from the state on how we account for with the opioid settlement. uh we had the receivable on the books last year, but we weren't deferring that revenue. And so they said now it's a it should be recognized as essentially an unearned revenue until we collect the cash in because it's an exchange transaction with the uh with the pay. Uh the the last item on here is we did have a couple of your smaller funds that actually were uh over budget expended over budget in their individual line items. And so as the state requires those have been listed in here. Uh in total those funds were not over budget just the the the allocation within those appropriations didn't happen appropriately during the year. So we didn't we didn't over expend in totality but within those line items we did overextended.

Uh and then uh as a performance indicator, one of the things that LC requires us to communicate each year is as no surprise to you u anytime your audit historically was not out by December 1st. It was being delayed audit. This 2025 year that is now moving to December 31st rather than December 1st. Uh but obviously in 2024 we had a extraordinary event that that really impacted the timeline of when everything was ready to get started. So I believe and don't quote me on it but I believe it was a pretty quick turnaround once we were able to get going this year. U so definitely hopeful for 2025 but certainly impacted the priority. Uh the last couple of sides uh they're here just for your information. Uh I I serve as one of our audit partners. Um, but we we try to make one of them Jenkins kind of a one-stop shop because I know a lot of times, you know, local governments, they have a project they want to do, but they don't know who to turn to to get started. Uh, just to keep governments informed. I know you can talk with management frequently about this. But, uh, we do have advisory services as well as IT services that our firm, we have specific partners that are involved in serving local government specifically in our advisory as well as our IT services. So if there are ever any concerns or needs that you have, you know, please feel free to reach out to me and I can can connect you with the appropriate people at least to get you started thinking on where we go and how we address any concern you might have. So just just to say we try to be a one-stop shop to help all our clients, whatever your needs may be. Um I won't dive too far down into them, but I will point out Gazby 101 deals with a change in compensated absence. It does really change your uh everyday use of that. But it's basically historically the way Gaty has defined compensated assets was you only in your financial statements record a liability for unused vacation. Uh now they're going to open that umbrella and

basically say any any leave that you allow employees to take that accumulates over time whether or not you paid out in cash now will be considered a liability. So what we see pretty generically across the board is sick leave. Historically, most governments allow employees to accumulate sick leave, but we don't pay that sick leave out. And so, we've never captured it as a liability. Now, you guys saying, well, you do have a liability because theoretically that employee has the ability to take that time off to be paid in the future for services, the time they've worked currently. So your liability will increase in the future to some fancy math calculation for jet where management will calculate what they think what they predict the usage of that to be uh based on historical trends and that will increase your liability but it doesn't change the the overall operations of how people will take their time and receive the payouts. May not be a big swing in actual total dollars for you all but it will change how you account for that liability. But like governments, they're going to recognize this new piece of the liability as well.

Uh that includes all unfunded liabilities, vacation, comp, anything that you allow uh anything that you allow employees to accumulate that doesn't depend on a future event. So, you know, like jury duty until they actually have jury duty, they don't get that time. But if if it accumulates and they can take that time off in the future, that's part of this new compensate absence definition. Big time. Sick time is the biggest one. Yeah.

Because most governments typically don't pay it out. Historically, that was the cut off for when you recognize a liability. Now, it's but they do allow for a proportional capture of that because they do acknowledge not every employee will take that before they leave employment. So there is a partial definition. Uh and then the last thing I'll touch on and I know management does partic partake in this and I think I've mentioned in the past uh we do quarterly uh continuing education classes for both management and governance. Uh it's just an email. It's all virtually done. It's an email that comes out each quarter and it gives you a link to sign up and register for the class. If you not currently receiving that information and you are interested, if you'll please myself or let Carrie know she can get you get your contact information to me. Um again, it's just a it's a free registration for all of our clients. And so quartered class and periodic newsletters that we offer on generally speaking kind of topics with that if you all have any questions I'd be happy to dive into them further. If not I certainly appreciate the opportunity the presentation gentlemen any questions presentation. Thank you director. It it gets better every year. Even though we've got a lot to happen with CO and then especially with the lean, you have limited staff. We're going to assume government's responsibility is to be financially managed well. So, thank you, Colonel. Thank you as well. Fun balance coming up. The only real question I had was I'm guessing the expenditures and excess appropriations that's something that

probably the department would need to have done it request to offset so that didn't occur. I have not looked exactly at what those are but I'm almost positive one of them probably is the fire tax or the the reimbursement to the towns and that happened to me last year also where the money comes in after the fact and I have to spend it out. It's based on reimbursement. So, and I think a soil and water one as well. Got it. It wasn't a huge amount of money either way, quite frankly. But, I mean, I know they got to budget because obviously we were

we were we were off on our on our figures. So, you know, we get an animal and segregation duties. I try I've said it numerous times. I'm doing this because I don't want to give it up. I got it anyways. This is nothing. The segregation of duties is not a surprise to you. It was a conscious mind. Yeah, super good work. Thank you for your presentation and understandable. It's good too that we've worked as hard as we have to eliminate the comp time liabilities that we've had. It's good now it's coming up. Now that it's coming up, yeah, we we million and a half.

Yeah. So, I'm grateful that we were able to eliminate that before it became an issue. So, it's great. Um, I got to say, you know, I know you've done them virtually and I know it's probably easier on you to do them virtually, but it's much better having you here to do them face to face like this. So, I appreciate you coming out and spending your time with us this evening. And unless there's any other question, we'll let them go.

This is good because I can reference in the future pretty quickly. Whoever your team all thanks, you got any questions? I'm send you out with a round of applause and to Carrie as well. Appreciate it. All right. So, our next uh item this evening is going to be Madam Finance Officer Carrie Lford. Got longer to walk now.

She's a hiker. That's right. Well, I got that over. So, that's good. This is the second hardest part. So, before you um find for your approval budget amendment number one for FY26 with this amendment, note the recording of donations from the friends of the Madison County Library in the amount of $49,931.90. see the transfer of funds from the register of deeds automation fund to the general fund for the purchases within her office. We received our second round of the state's Helen recovery loan in the amount of 1 million57,045.71 bringing the total to date to 2,65898496 and we have put in a request for consideration for the third round as well. Um,

do we know what that figure do we have? No, I don't. Do you I was just curious. I didn't know if we pinpointed that yet. Or they actually tell us what we qualify for, don't they? I think so. And I think this first was just show to show interest and then we'll have to apply again. But it's based off the amount of project worksheets you have loaded into FEMA for upcoming FEMA expenditures.

Okay. So also take note that we're transferring funds from our fund balance. These were funds received in FY 24 and 25 and were allocated to use the repairs to the detention center. See the recording of the lottery fund, the needs based funds that you approved earlier this evening for the board of education as well as the recording of additional revenue generated by the quarter cent sales tax in the amount of 58,9847. Pretty steady. Yes. Did you say PTA? Yes. Did I get wrong on my notes here? 55,46176. Thank you.

I cut and paste my little speech.

Anything else? This side note, our library director's here tonight. Wow, the library is famous every time we turn around. There's something big going on and the amount of revenue that's being donated and that's impressive. That friends group is a great group. Yeah, it's impressive. There's Yes, absolutely. All right, so this time I'll entertain a motion to approve budget amendment number one. So move motion by Commissioner Garrison. Is there a second? Second by Vice Chairman Hensley. Any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? Budget amendment number one is approved. Thank you, gentlemen. Ma'am,

next is July's financial reports. We are at 8.34% into FY26. For a general fund, we have received 6.08% of our revenues and our expenses were at 5.35%. So, trending in the right direction. Yes, sir. Still too early to count tickets. All right. So I guess the question in general TDA money we've already that money has already been transferred into the fair grounds for the building. Yes.

And we've got that money and that's not a reimbursement. That figured out the money from the OSM is in a bank account for this is nice because I don't have my glasses to see places. Well, we ain't nothing to look at. You're probably better off. I just had this conversation with the colonel about the new facility, the mod. I actually like the smaller bring about a little closer. does make it a little more friendly. It was nice having the extra space the last couple months.

It's nice to have that. Good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Good work. Nice job on the opportunity by the way.

Thank you. All right. Up next is county manager Ry Honey Carl. even let me start by thanking Pat, Chris, Kim, Connie, Jamie, and Carrie. Although I don't thank you vote for being here tonight. They were in the cons on standby, but it's good to have the directors in the building and whenever we have a meeting, we'll start tonight with the bubble gum chart. I'm going to use it to frame the discussion and go forward. Starting up on the top left, uh, as of today's date, we have 17 worksheets. adds two additional worksheets to what we had previously. And as follows of the March 24th date, anything that happened after March 24th have to have a new worksheet. So, we're working tandem worksheets. Anything before March 24th is one project. Anything after March 24th is another project. Uh number one, the Hot Springs Library anticipate that project being withdrawn uh because of the amount of insurance money and amount of donations you see coming and it will exceed any requirement we have going to FEMA. FEMA buys to leave it open until we are complete to make sure we do not exceed that money. So we'll leave it open, but I don't anticipate going back to FEMA.

Do we have an ETA on that repair yet? The last quote came in yesterday. We now have the three quotes and Clayton Honeyuts is the lowest and we will get the contract done for his review to begin that work down in hot springs. I'd say in the next two weeks, three weeks you had many quotes. I'm sorry. Three quotes. Okay. Thank you. That's excellent. I know they're anxious to get back in their normal space down there. Yes, sir.

All right. Item number two, the hot spring library contents. We have received the $71,000 from FEMA for the content. The sprinkle cell building and the courthouse are both in the same uh category. The document that was in the consent agenda tonight, which was the Benoi contract, we had to do an addendum. We had to add 23 paragraphs plus put a figure on what it would cost for phase two. uh that is now with FEMA uh for their review and ping their review they will award that 5.2 2 million and whatever amount they come up with and their determination that that brings to light, we will have to make a decision on both the sprinkles shelter building and the courthouse relatively soon whether we devest of it, dispose of it and how we mitigate uh moving forward. That will be a discussion we'll have to have relatively soon. Moving down to spring shelter content I said was withdrew because the insurance covered it. talk about the courthouse. The courthouse contents has been paid. That's 818 $8,500 seems like a slow is because the insurance has paid out 34,000 previously. Barner Park uh every annual got the contract for it. They're waiting on SDR uh to move out of the river down at Barner Park before they start. We think they will begin work in mid August. Doug top tower, you can see those two are in amber on the far right side. That's because FEMA has obligated the 639,000 and 21,000. I wrote 12,000 fact 21,000 has been obligated and we should see those come from the state. Usually taken 21 days to 42 days before we see the money. We talked a little bit tonight with the representative about the transition to the smart program. We originally had estimated about $40 million for our debris removal. that is

now down to an this is a high estimate of 5 million because anything after June the smart program will fund. So before that sounds like you saw a big decrease uh in that. Let's see. I really want to draw your attention down to items 12 13 and 14. The numbers in the column it says estimated versus grant portal. Uh we confirmed with FEMA this week those numbers are accurate. That's about $1.89 million for those down there 12 13 and 14 that we should see coming to the county relatively quickly now that it's that CRC pending their decision and that's money straight out of enforce account labor for overtime for our equipment and for our employees. So there was not a bill associated with that with the exception of the equip equipment rental um and the hours we put on there. Uh no change in the value added kitchen.

So Colonel, just to back up, I don't want to gloss over that. That's that's going to be that's money we've already spent that we're going to get resources we have used in support of it. Ours on a piece of equipment, hours on the sheriff's car. So the 1.89 million is real money coming back over time over time. What about regular salaries? If they were strictly, do we have any of that? If if one of our employees was in a job description outside of their initial or their regular duty day as I give an example like Ross and someone that worked great would be

Ross had a secondary job title written that allowed us to claim this money outside of his normal duty date. Anything over 40 hours. Gotcha. So that's over 40. and I had to get back. Why is that the receipts submitted to NCDPS? Is that just the clearing house for it or know what happens is the first round comes directly from FEMA. The second round comes from the state. So you start turning receipts into state after you get public safeties. Yes. And they they submit it to FEMA once it's validated. FEMA says they agree, send it back to the state and state you a check.

Thank you. Is that simple? Um, and I guess the big takeaway down at the very bottom right hand corner, uh, we talked about a little bit, but 6 $6.4 million that came in and that includes the $2.6 million from the state loan budget and we've spent right now 3.6 I believe the Dell 2.7 left over of where we're at. Uh, seems like a lot of money, but there's one bill out there right now for a million. is due. So, it's going to go quickly the new courthouse. So, you know, we've been very deliberate and put the guard rails in place that our operating budget has been separated from our FEMA budget as we'll be going forward. Real quickly, on the bottom of the chart, uh temporary courthouse, I've had three commissioners walk through. I'll walk the other two. Uh we're moving quickly two September and a little bit of jeopardy. We lost six days to rain. We'll see how the next three weeks go. Uh but everybody's tracking where we're at. Uh the hazard mitigation program, we talked about that everything last 16 total. Uh the radio tower upgrade, the Marshall Board of Adjustments on September 8th. Uh as we go there, we have to have um a packet submitted. It must include a site plan, any adjacent property information, a survey, insurance documents, lease documents along with various justifications and the tower specifications. when we go to that board and I've emphasized to Marshall Hot Springs Marcel this is not a Madison County endeavor this is a whole Madison County endeavor this it helps everybody so we will appear in front of that board on September 8th the radio committee

we being you and myself radio committee Chelsea league for the county um Vinnie Gaddy Vinnie Gaddy talked to him today he's tracking and good news out of that USL failure has waved the fee for us to use those towers and actually going to house their equipment in their existing facilities. Nice. So that is good. Uh that is with Chelsea to give to Donnie for review once we get the leases. Super good. Yeah, that is good news. Colonel, would you please make it a point to reach out to uh Superintendent Hoffman today? You did today. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that that happened. Thank you.

Zetron's coming to that meeting. Zetron is on track to come to that meeting a couple meeting today really for the specifications and they're the ones that really did a whole lot of the lease work with USL here to get us past that. Um and finally the covered arena they do the soil testing tomorrow um for the 144 micro pilots and that's how he's secured to the ground and after that they will begin staging equipment and we're estimating about 90 days once they get the micro pile in the ground and do the construction and that's for wind testing to make sure that the building don't blow away because that's a big arena with a whole lot of wind potentially coming underneath this

and that'll be a gigant gap day before the fall festival at October 4th or 7th. There's a gap. They're going to take two weeks off from that time frame. Very good. Thank you. So questions we'll transition to boards. Any questions on my chart? That's good. All right. So, moving on to the board board appointments that we have going on for this month. Now, um the chairman for the first two. Yep.

The animal control board. I talked to director Cody this morning. Alan Rayler uh wishes to continue the board. Wants him to stay on there as part of the animal control board. Pia is a vacancy now. She is exeicio as the director. She's automatically on it. We do have to find someone to replace her as a citizen, but that first one's up to the board's discretion. All right. We don't have an application for either spot. Vocal from Tammy and him that he wants to continue.

They've only met once in 16 months. They only meet Millie when there's a rabid dog or some kind of thing going on. So, this board does not meet a whole lot. Gotcha. So, our normal procedure is to have an application for anyone that we take into consideration. Uh, Jim, is this something that we uh want to make an exception for due to the limited use of that board or do we want to still based on the fact the colonel's had conversation, direct conversation as county manager, the indication is that not only does he want to serve, but the board wishes for him to serve. So, I so move. So, we have a motion from uh Commissioner Garrison. Is there a second? Second.

Second by Commissioner White to reappoint Alan Rainer to the animal control board for a three-year term as a citizen member. And uh any discussion? We have a motion and a second. So, is there any discussion at this time? Hearing none, move to a vote. All in favor? All right. Point Alan Rainer. And uh at this point, I will make a motion that we table uh the other vacant position. uh and give us time to solicit uh membership on that. Does the animal control board have any recommendations there? She did not today. She knows to reach out and I'll link back up with her in a couple days. See what

All right. Very good. Second. So, uh we have a second to table that spot. And that second was was that Commissioner Garrison. Um any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? We will table that second position. In regards to the board of health, we have a vacancy position. uh for the physician's spot as uh the uh the doctor currently serving or previously serving in that position has elected to resign. Um and at this time um we I will make a motion that we table that position because we had just appointed a physician to that board and we need to work out some logistics and legalities in regards to that position. Um so at this time I will make a motion that we table that spot until next month.

Second. Second by Vice Chairman Hley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. Um up next is economic de uh economic development advisory board and I move that we table that as well based on the fact that we having some transition um people who are resigning and our board needs to actually meet and have a conversation about recommendations for that. I'll second that.

And just for the record, Commissioner Garrison is the uh uh commissioner design on that on that board. So, we'll take his word for that. And uh we have a second by Commissioner White, motion by Commissioner Garrison. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. Uh jury commission Clayton Willis. Um clerk court has recommended that Clayton Willis be reappointed to a two-year term. And uh I will make that in the form of a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Commissioner Briggs with a second. Sorry, Bill. I should have let you make that motion. Didn't mean to steal your thunder. I was on

I was on a roll there. So, we've got a motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. Uh library board of trustees. uh the uh library director and that board has uh recommended the reappointments of Barbara Merrill and Anna Maria Watkins to three-year terms. Uh that recommendation comes from the uh director of the library and the library board of trustees. We have applications from those both those individuals. This time I'll entertain a motion to approve. So move for both of them.

Motion by Commissioner Garrison for Barbara Merrill and Anna Maria Watkins. Second by Commissioner Wyatt. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? And um the Mountain Area Workforce Development Board. Um I believe this is a position, Mandy, correct me if I'm wrong, please. Uh this is a position that requires it be a member from the school system. Correct. Education. Yes. I talked to Dr. Hoffman today. Okay. at the board's willingness. He said he would love to stay on it if the board's willing as a lead guy for it as education director.

Cool. Thank you, Colonel. We'll use the same protocol that we use for the animal control board. Then as Colonel's had that direct conversation with the individual, all in favor uh at this point, I would entertain a motion that we reapprove or reappoint Will Hoffman to the Mountain Area Workforce Development Board as the Madison County School System Representative

Commissioner White. Is there a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? And that's all the uh spots that we have there. Um let's see. Make sure that we don't have any other pending ones that we've got spots on. I believe that takes care of Oh, uh we do need to do a board appointment amendment request. And this came from the A Tech Board of Trustees. Uh because of the legislation passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, um we had reappointed Commissioner Garrison um last month, I believe it was, was it not? Um and uh so um but because of the new legislation, they have to have staggered terms. So, they have requested that we uh resend that appointment rec that that we resend that appointment and replace it. Um, let me make sure I phrase this properly here. Um, so uh we will change it to a one-year term uh that will expire in June 30th of 2026. And per the AV Tech Board of Trustees, they will then ask for Commissioner Garrison to be reappointed for a full four-year term at that point. So, at this point, I will make the motion just so somebody else doesn't have to remember what I just babbled. Um, I will make that in the form of a motion that we reappoint Commissioner Garrison. Is there a second? Second by Vice Chairman Hinsley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? All right. and we have uh rescended and modified that amendment or that that appointment as requested by AB Tech Board of Trustees. Now, I think we've covered everything. Am I correct, Carl?

Yes, sir. I didn't miss anything. Upcoming vacancies. Yeah. What's that? Upcoming vacancies down at the bottom.

Yeah, that we've got some upcoming vacancies. So, I will say this, we don't have anybody listed and uh for agriculture advisory board that's submitted any applications. So, if there's anyone out there in the audience tonight or anyone watching at home or catching the replay of this exciting meeting this evening at their leisure, um we uh do need some applicants if anyone's interested in participating the agriculture advisory board. We need have two positions there and um and then we have upcoming one for the economic development advisory board. Uh but again, we we need to settle the uh uncertainty of that board. I think before we move along with that, Commissioner Griggs, very good question.

Yes. Uh if we have somebody that's already there, I don't see if they agreed they don't have to have another application. I think that's duplication. I think if they've talked that communicated that to the colonel just like the two folks we did tonight, I don't have any problem with that. But I don't know that those folks have expressed that at this time. So

Maurice um currently pursue that. Make sure that that's uh that we're good there because that's an upcoming vacancy bill. We're not ready to anyway. No, no problem. So we'll we'll we'll fair that out.

Thank you, sir. Um any additional discussion? All right. We'll move on to Well, no. At this time, I'm going to need to entertain a motion that we go into close session. That's going to that's going to complete all of the business that we had already promised each and every one of you that signed up for your ticket tonight. Um, so at this point we will go I will entertain a motion or I will go ahead and make it in the form of a motion as we go into close session under North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 A3 um I'm sorry A5 and A6 A5 for land A6 for personnel. Mr. Attorney is that anything else we need to add to that? If you'll put A3 too on the property, that'll be the

So, okay. I'm sorry. That's right. So, A3 as well for the property disposal category. So, um I'll make that in the form of a motion. Is there a second? Second by Vice Chairman Hley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? We will go into close session after a brief recess.

Thank you.

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[Music] Tonight, [Music] Motion we return back to open session. So move motion by commission vice chairman Hley. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Garrison. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? We're backing over to session. Colonel. Gentlemen. Two items uh for the board consideration this evening. First is a purchase of 00112 acres on US 213 pin number 972723 8479 to increase the purchase price from $4,000 to $12,000 in support of the 213 water project.

So move second. Motion by Commissioner Garrison, second by Vice Chairman Hley. Any discussion?

Hearing none. All in favor? Gentlemen, second item is a purchase of 6.01 acres on 224 Carolina Lane, pin number 9716648413 for $357,000. And that is the ratification. I'll make motion we approve. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Garrison. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? question. That's all the business we have for tonight. This time I'll entertain a motion we adjourn. So move.

Motion by Commissioner Garrison. Is there a second? Second by Vice Chairman Hinsley. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? We stay journalists.