Commissioners - Regular Meeting

can change. Okay, we're now Okay, we're back in session with no action taken and we will have Jackie do her presentation.

Thank you. This is Jackie Risinger, register of beats. Um, first and foremost, congratulations Trish. I haven't seen you, but congratulations. Um, so I am here for a new e-reing discussion and um hopefully here for an approval. I did enter for the packet items that are on the website which I hope you all have um the quote that I got from Harris Recording Solutions which is our current software vendor for recording. Um I also handed out uh before I got started a calendar just as an example for something we'll get I'll get into a little in a few minutes. Um, so the quote, without boring you, I'm not going to go through every single page. I, this is a quote to integrate and get them to set up e-recording in our current software. I have done a demo with them on it to see how all of that would work. I have also done demos with three other recording software companies in looking to expand NC recording as well. the cost to do that with other companies, not to mention the cost, but also taking on conversion of where we are now versus starting a whole new software, learning that and then also adding in e-recording. It just made more sense to look at our current vendor as far as cost of it, time, the stress of it all, everything. Um this so on the first page of that it's showing integrating that to test configure test and deploy e reporting for us it would be $16,320 and then the professional service hours would be $1,785 with the total being $18,15. Um, further into that quote packet, it does explain that the annual maintenance cost added for e-reing to our current

cost would be another $2,500. And last year, I should have looked this up for the exact number. I want to say I paid between 6,500 and 7,000 for annual maintenance. So, this being added on to it would put us at about $8,000 to $9,000. that is still about half of what the quotes for annual maintenance were that I got from the three other software vendors. So, it made sense to me to try to stick this out and see what we could do with Harris Recording Solutions. Um, it hadn't really been looked at before I had kind of looked into it. Some companies love or some counties love e-recording. I've also talked to the counties that had it and then they stopped. I asked them why. there were very varying reasons whether it be their relationship with the vendors um not being sure that they were recording original documents things like that which I also took into account I started looking into this probably three years ago when Diane was still here we both looked into it and I've done my research as far as talking to other counties um so it would be paid out of my tech fund out of my registered e technology fund that's where we currently pay all of our software, annual maintenance costs, anything like that. Um, that is the fund that it's paid out of. So, I wanted to bring it to you all, get your questions, concerns, thoughts, anything like that.

How many counties would you say have it? Um, there is a list with how many do I would say comfortably I would say like 30 counties e-record. And so the back and forth with, you know, liking it and disliking it, you still it would still benefit you. I think that's probably a long time coming, right? And and probably the ones that don't have it are just the smaller counties that don't do a lot of those, right? And so I'm sure that that this helps and and because we have a lot of, you know, because we're such transient community, we're higher than most counties our size. So I I think it's going to be,

you know, of course, you know, whenever you go to new software, it's challenging at first, but eventually you'll say, "How did we live without this?" So I I personally think it would be great. Well, it's out of our tech money. That's what that's spoken to for,

right? And that's another thing, too, is I think most of the counties that I hear about that do e-record do like it. I think that there are a few I know, for example, Riley County, I've talked to Amy, that's the register over there. they did have it and then they stopped for a few reasons. Um, and I think that that's going to be more of a situational thing. It's not necessarily like an acrosstheboard problem. I think it's just what you're comfortable with. I was not comfortable with the idea of people submitting um copies of documents and not knowing uh because now if somebody brings in a copy, it's pretty obvious or I get out our little magnifying glass and I get into the light and I check it. Um, so I won't be able to do that and that kind of takes that out of my hands, but at the same time that's why we would have vendors. Um, and I didn't really fully understand how this worked, but any title company or any bigger nationwide company can contract with the vendors that I choose to use. So sometimes I think I'll probably have like three or four. Um, Simplify is a big one, CSC. And so those are the people that I will haveous with. Those are the companies that I will have anou with and they are agreeing that they are going to be submitting original documents. So the liability, the legal part of it, that would fall on them if it happened to be that it wasn't, which I would probably never know because

even papered out anything is going to be it's going to look like a copy at that point. So that was one of my big concerns. I don't like I mean that's kind of you know a big part of what we do is making sure they're original documents. So in that I am there are certain ones I'm not going to record um death certificates is a big one plat and I've put on the list sort of asking other e-recording counties what they don't accept via e-recording just to get their ideas and see um haven't gotten a lot of responses yet. I sent that out last week, but it was spring break, so I'm getting over a little bit. Um,

so how does that affect your um Oh, what do I call it? Um, where you keep it for historical? I mean, you got to keep Oh, archiving and all. Thank you.

So, um, with with archiving right now, what we do, um, it's recorded in our system, we scan it, and then we return the original. So we can certify anything we record to say that this is just as good as the original because we saw it in our office with our own eyes. And then once we get done with a deed book, a mortgage book or a miscellaneous book, I um upload I export those from our recording software, put it on a flash drive, and then once a year I send whatever completed books happened in the last year, and I have those backed up on microfilm that are sent to the salt mines. And then um so that's archiving. So I would still be able to it would still give it an instrument number like it has now, a book and page. The only thing is like with a deed, I'm not going to be taking that hard copy over to the clerk's office to have it stamped like we do now and they get a copy. Um that ties into the calendar that I gave you all. And so I another one of my concerns was how do we account for the documents that we're going to have to get to the clerk's office somehow with e-recording. It will be an electronic stamp on the document and then that would be imaged and that's what will be saved in my system. But then we're going to have to print those out and get them to the clerk's office. And so I created a calendar where I me or my deputy Stephanie would sign off for the rod spot. the county clerk, somebody would sign off whoever they they designate. I think Tom handles a lot of the deeds. So, it may be Tom and then we would put the number of deeds on there for that day. So, that would be something that's signed off on every day. It might probably seem a little bit annoying, but I would rather do too much and have all of that done so that we can account for our side and for their side of how many deeds there were so we can't say that they didn't receive all of them. How would um they this would travel

along with the so mean one copy or I mean because they had one and you had one then

I think I would keep the original in my office and then um until the month's end and then can provide a copy to them so maybe they have that for they can account for those too. Um or we can sign two copies. I mean either way we're just putting our initials on it for that day. So, I did talk to Courtney about um after we did the demo with e-recording of saying, "Hey, we're going to have to find some kind of solution. This is what I'm thinking if we just both sign off on it for the day." Um that way it protects all of us. And she seemed she said, "Yeah, whatever whatever you think would work." So, that would just be another little thing. Whether we had one or two copies, I'd be fine with either one. But um I tried to think of all of try to think about possible problems and also I think it's just a really positive thing the efficiency of it the accessibility for we have so many calls of bigger companies in the you know in the country wanting to know if we e file and so

well I I think we should go ahead so I make a motion that we approve Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded to approve the quote for reporting um services for the register of deeds. Um all those in favor. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. Good luck. Yeah. Thank you. And thanks. I'll see you guys in a little bit. Yeah. Bye. Congratulations.

Oh, thank you. Are you okay if you just tell me when you zip through here? I'll just give you a little turn. I will do that too. I said you spoke it into existence. We had already. I figured your suit was really nice. I said there's no way she found that last minute. She had she was prepared.

Okay. Okay. All right. So, good evening or good after or good morning. What time is it? It's Monday. Um, good morning commissioners. My name is Jordan McCann and I am the executive director of Junction City Main Street. You can go to the next one. Um, our Main Street organization was established of May in 2021 and we are a districtoriented organization meaning that our revitalization um bounds are from 6th to 10th Street from to uh Jefferson, Washington and Franklin. Um, so we have a few blocks, quite a few blocks actually in comparison to a lot of other downtown districts. Um, but that is where our bounds stop. I don't think a lot of people know that we are that's that's our point of revitalization is our historic buildings um downtown. Um, and our mission is to um recognize that we are part of the community and to preserve and restore um the buildings and bring back all of the people that were once there. Um, and I think that we have really done a good job with that. So, next, um, we are a very small staff. Um, I am the full-time executive director and then we just brought McKenna Krauss up to a full-time events coordinator and community outreach. So, not only is she coordinating all of our events down to actually she gets all the fun events. She gets to coordinate all the fun events. Um, but she is also attending um events that our community partners put on. So the um back to school carnival um uh um a day or the history alive for the historic historical society um Valor did a val shops valor shops where we were able to go and set up and hand out flyer. So, anything that we're able to promote, Junction City um and partner with another organization, um she does that as well as attending victory welcome every Wednesday from 3:30 to 4:30. Um so, we're able to capture those new soldiers coming into Fort Riley um every single week that range from

anywhere from 80 soldiers to 120. So, quite a few. Um next, um this is our 2026 board. So, since we are a very small staff, we do rely heavily on volunteers. And I may be biased, but we have some of the best um in our community that uh not only volunteer their time um but the resources and um are really able to help us move our organization forward. So we have Terry Butler serving as president, Josh Stanlin as vice president, Ryan Huffcut as treasurer, uh Petty Noriega as secretary, and Sheila Markley as past president. Um Ashley King, Ray Ibera, Matt Hoover, Paige Mendoza, Freda Warren, and Barbie Wonderland are all um members at large. So, we're very thankful for all of the time that they commit to our um downtown. Next, um and before we move too far, uh a lot of the projects that we do, we could not do without the rest of the community. Um, not only does involving the community help move projects forward um, faster, but it also means that we're not duplicating efforts, and that's really important when it comes to um, community organizations such as ours because we tend to have our hands in kind of a lot of different areas. So, being able to partner with people that are already doing it or might already have the information um, really helps, you know, us make sure that we're not um, spending more time on something that we need. We don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. we just have to reach out and ask. Um, and luckily our community is phenomenal when it comes to those partnerships. So, we're really thankful for everybody. Um, these are our investors for 2026. Um, so these are um, companies and organizations that have invested in us um, and that we're able to leverage funds through to apply for grants and things. So, we're very thankful for all of them. Um, Key Office is actually an inind um, investor. So we are able they print uh all of our stuff for free when we give out a lot of

flyers. Um and so that is a really heavy cost that's able to get deducted that we're not able we're not you know doubling up on next. Um okay so Main Street America is um the model that we uh run our organization after and they run after four points. So these four points attack revitalization from all standpoints. Um, so you have design and design is really important when you're just starting out because it's everything that you can see outside. Um, and it's what people notice. It's the fun things. It's the facade grants. Um, promotion is the fun events. It's the Facebook posts. Um, it's promoting our community outside of our community. We have economic vitality and that's helping the businesses behind the storefronts, making sure that they're sustainable, they have resources. And then we have organization, which is kind of the I joke the one that keeps the lights on. So that's going to be applying for grants, trainings, um you know, basically to fund all the other points. And then we just kind of added market as our fifth pillar. Um because of our partnership with Live Gary County, it's kind of taken on a life of its own. Most main streets have that kind of tucked under like either promotion or economic vitality, but we felt that it does deserve its own kind of pillar up there. Um we now have two downtown markets, so it it needs its own needs its own place up there. Next. Um, okay. So, with promotion, um, we had a really big year. So, we gained 1,000 followers in a year on Facebook, which if you dealt with any Facebook, that's a lot. Um, we've created a, um, a fun downtown map that you can see up there. So, this is really nice when we're promoting Junction City. Um, and we're able to hand out, you know, our, you know, where to where to go, visit maps. Um, it just looks prettier on event maps where they know where their stops are, sip shops, all of those types of things. It was something that we really needed

to invest in. Um, deals and steals. This is our kind of thing for tourists. It we partnered with a few businesses downtown. Um, I can pass this around to you guys where they donated or they offered a discount for people coming to visit just kind of enticed them to, you know, visit downtown. Um, we had a soldout booze and bruise tour with 210 attendees over two nights and that's a partnership with JCT. Um, we hosted eight signature events, five partnership events. Um, and really McKenna did a phenomenal job with our promotion pillar. Um, so we're really excited for to continue. Um, we also had a very successful fall downtown and so we're really excited to do that again. And next, um, economic vitality had a big year. They hosted JCE 101 and 2011 with 21 total attendees. Um, hosted first and only innovation expo, a virtual pitch contest where we gave away $29,000 to local businesses and organizations. Um, we started the downtown dollars, which is a program through gifty, which is like a subsidy of Mastercard. Um, and we were able to sell um, $3,675 worth of downtown gift cards last year.

I need to remember to use it. Pretty phenomenal. Um, that was purchased in uh, 2025. And then um, we hosted six first dollar presentations including one in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce. Nice.

Um, next, so organization. We put a billboard on Grand A. We hosted our last community forum with David Rendall as the keynote. He did the pink goldfish presentation. Um and uh we became a finalist for the RERC technical assistance program. We were one in 25 communities selected out of over 200 applications. Um uh we were mentioned at the Main Street Now conference by the CEO of Main Street America for our groundbreaking work at the opening preliminary. Um, which was a really I think we all blacked out at that moment when we heard Junction C's name, but it was a really big moment for all of Kansas Main Street programs because there's a lot smaller cities that do a lot of great things too and um we really do have a phenomenal group of uh Main Street directors in the state. So, um, next and then flags of Gary County. We, this is kind of a subsidy of organization, but we have 95 flags sold in seven holiday, um, and they're up over seven holidays. This is kind of our motion towards sustainability and trying to create a non-event revenue in order to sustain um, funding and continue to grow um, our budget. um design. Okay. So, we had two facads done in um 2025 that equaled about $22,000 worth of work. So, our facade grants are 50% up to $5,000. So, we only give them a max of $5,000 and then anything over that they're responsible for. Um so, they both went over their facade work, but um I don't know if you guys have seen uh Twitch's gallery and gifts is now framed and engraving. Um and that looks phenomenal. I mean, just night and day difference. They did such a good job on it. We're still waiting for some tile work to be done, but we just still been a little too cold for that. Um, and then Tom's men's wear, Mike Goody, he did a phenomenal job on

the side of his building. Um, and he was very uh excited to be my guinea pig for uh soft washing on limestone. So, I was really excited to have that done for the first time. Um, and it's been really great to get um to be able access to that because um we don't have um like a lot of um masonry any masons anymore. So to be able to have that as an option, it's so much cheaper. It makes it a lot more um accessible for our downtown owners. We finally finished our JC statues. Um our last one is located right in front of the Gary County Courthouse. Um, so I was very thankful to be done with that project and we uh put banners up in our arts district. We installed 280 ft of holiday lights. Um, and we assisted Nancy Baylor in getting her uh Nit Street District mural up. We also hosted four downtown cleanups. So, a lot of fun design stuff happening. Again, I think that's the most fun one just because it's so many projects that you get to see that get to stay around and add just so much color and vibrancy um to our downtown that is much needed. Um next, okay, so alley activation. So, this became another subsidy of design just because of the amount of work that it has entailed. Um and so the pictures that you see up there, so the first picture is what it looked like before. The second picture is the conceptual that the um two uh students that we hired from KState landscape and architecture. Um that's the conceptual that they put together. And then the third picture is what you see as it coming to fruition. So it was really really exciting to see so many people came together to put that on. Uh I think Terry and I both lost a lot of sleep over this alley. Um but we are we are grateful that it is um finally done and we're slowly adding kind of the finishing touches to that. So, and then the um fourth picture is

actually um interactive art that we used a local artist, her name is Kathy Rankin that does woodworking. So, that was done all locally here in Erie County. And the top parts, those are drums that you have like their little mallets and then they've been out loud, but it's really cool. So, if you haven't walked down there, definitely recommend. Next, um all right, our main street market. So you kind of take a look, but um these are held on Saturdays from 9:00 to 1 pm at 901 North Washington. We hosted 46 vendors over 11 categories. Um raised uh about $3,900 in vendor fees, hosted 24 events, had almost 5,000 visitors, and uh were able our community was able to access about $2,700 in nutrition incentives. Next, uh, Giri Community Farmers Market. Um, so this is Little Giri Counties. Um, but it does happen in our downtown and it is a partnership. Um, and so they hosted 34 vendors, over 11 categories, raised about $3,500 in vendor fees. Um, and they were able to access over $7,000 in nutrition incentives for our community. So, really good push for our for local fresh produce and shopping local. Um, okay. So, a big question is that I hear is why does the county why does the city invest into Main Street? What's the return on investment? Um, and I don't believe that this data report has ever been put out. Um, but since our inception in May of 2021, we have accessed over five or $588,100 in grant funding. Um, that's just in four four and a half years um that we were able to to do that. So just that alone is an incredible feat for such a small organization. We've done over $120,000 in facade improvements. We've

had um so much in public investment in private investment. Volunteer hours alone are over, you know, over 22,000. Um we've improved vacancy rate and then filling vacancies when they um come back on the market. And we've had a consistently 20% increase in non-resident visitors. So, not just our community is going to our downtown, but we're bringing more people from outside of our community into downtown. Actually, 30% of our visitor, 37% of our visitors are from Manhattan. So, it's a really big accomplishment for our community. Um, and why we do the things that we do. It's not just, you know, people coming to spend the night, but people spending tax dollars here, coming to eat here, um, choosing to come to our events. So, it's really exciting to to be able to see those statistics and know that they have had such an impact um over four and a half years. Um next, so then in 2025, just a quick snapshot, we raised $15,000 um for community projects from our eight signature events. Um we invested over $118,000 back into our community. So that's through giving grants out to our local businesses, uh art projects, um the alley activation, um everything that we've been able to to put into um use in 2025, we've been able to put that right back into our community. Um our $50,000 T-Mobile Hometown grant. Um, so with the T-Mobile Homes Grant, I believe we were one in 25 that were selected out of hundreds of applications, hundreds. And a huge reason that why we got that was because when Terry applied for that grant, she actually used data that we got from the area assessment saying that we should activate this alleyway. And that having that that um area wide assessment saying that this is something that would be you know viable in our community is a big

reason why we were able to you know um be applicable for that grant. Um we were the opening steps in getting the um Highwood Brewing awarded the uh community development block grant. Um so that was really exciting. That was $300,000 grant coming straight into our community. Um, and we had over a million dollars in public and private investments. So, very exciting. Do you keep looking at my shirt? No. Oh, you're looking over there. I like your shirt.

And then last, as I mentioned earlier, we were selected for the recreation economy for rural communities, which we were one in 25 communities selected. Um, so it's a really big really big um accomplishment that we've had. So, that's awesome. Um, this is just a kind of a quick over overview of our economic impact that we've had. Um, so we had almost 6,000 volunteer hours and yes, most of them are probably Terry. No, I'm just kidding. We've had so many volunteers that step up, whether it's community meetings, uh, downtown cleanups, so many people make this vision come together. Um, we had, uh, just under $900,000 or 900,000 visitor or visits to our downtown. So, not only do we did we have new people, but people keep coming back and that's what we that's what we want to see. um we used over $118,000 in uh grant opportunities and um our public our private property investment was over 170,000 or 470,000. So pretty big impact. And then your overall return on investment for 2025. So basically your ROI is for every dollar that you've given us um in 2025 we gave $19.40 back into our community. So, we are very very proud of of those numbers and we're thankful for your guys' continued support.

You have any questions on those? Very good.

All right. So, then since I'm here, I thought I would just do a quick quarter one update because we've actually had a very busy quarter 1. Um, we have applied for two grants already and we have two in process. Um, so we applied for the science grant with three businesses and then we also submitted the um um we are working with the historical society to upgrade I don't know what these are called. Historical freestanding signs is probably the best thing that I can use for those but there's three of them downtown located on uh Washington and 7th Washington and 8th and Washington and 9th. Um so those are in the process of being redone. And I have um somebody coming to clean the limestone on the bottom of them and then they'll be repainted and then the inside will also be updated as well.

I don't think they've been updated for probably 25 years. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time and they're pretty they're really damaged too. Um you can't read half of the words that they say anymore. That's great. I'm

Yeah. So, we're I'm kind of coordinating all the efforts to get the get them cleaned up and then the historical society is doing the insert with all the information that they have collected. Um, yeah. So, uh, in big news, we attended the Kansas Main Street Awards up in Topeka and Highwood Brewing was awarded the best historic rehabilitation um, award and this is the first year that they've brought it awards back since they brought back the program back in 2019. Um so they won that award and then we were also awarded the AD Astra which is the highest designation for um main street programs in the state of Kansas meaning that our average accreditation score was above average. So yeah so we did our accredititation this year and we out of I believe 40 items 45 items we only came back with threes on one of them. Everything else was fours and fives. Um so basically one being you're not doing it at all. Two means maybe you've had the conversation. Three means you've done it and you've met you're meeting criteria. Four is above average. And five means like you're great America main street ready.

Awesome.

So we're we're really excelling there and it's very exciting. Um McKenna rebranded promotion a little bit to call the hype committee. So, I don't know if any of you saw the Facebook post, but essentially we're just going into businesses um a month and hyping them up and doing a promotion um for it, just creating more um draw downtown. People saw everybody in there and like stopped in and um so it was a lot of fun. We are also doing a fundraiser for 250th shirts. We do have them in the office and we're about to launch the um web page to order them online, but they're these shirts right here actually. Um, and they are 250th and just kind of embrace everything that Junction City is. The cars, baseball, the arch. Um, we have a little, it's not a Coca-Cola bottle, but it just looks like a Coca-Cola bottle. Um, just um, so they're just fun 250 shirts if you guys are interested in purchasing one. They're $20 a piece. Um, and then we've been working really hard on our recreation for rural communities. Um, technical assistance. We've had I don't know lost count. I think we've had four meetings already. Um, we have one coming up this week. So, we're getting ready. What?

One today. Is it It's not today. There's a Zoom today. I'm sorry. Zoom today on for the R. No, I think it's Thursday. Oh, well, maybe. Okay. I think it's Thursday. I better be early than late. I think it's Thursday. You're going to be on hold for a while. Yeah. Oh, no. It's a different one I have. Sorry. Okay. It scared me. I was like, I can't do another meeting today, guys. got it. It's child care. Never mind.

Um so that's really exciting. And then our community workshop will be hosted on um I wrote it down. It's on May 27th and 28th of um so I think it's a Wednesday and a Thursday. And then we are also welcoming Main Street America on campus main street back on May 5th and May 6th because we have already outgrown our transformation strategy. So they're coming to do an update on that and tell us our vision for the next four to five I'm gonna say four years. We we need one every three to four years probably. Um so yeah we have a lot of really really wonderful things happening. That's that's it.

How was the assessment surveys you all were or going out on the community? Is that what that was called? City. Yeah. The city that Oh the city's doing that for the CBDG grant. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but I I I did I sent a message um saying I could help this week, but apparently they're done. So, you got all of them back already. Well, they said they didn't need anybody. So, I know Terry was working to get some of those and so was Bryce. And

yeah, well, Terry's the one who told me yesterday because I was like, "Hey, Tuesday afternoon." No, you I um I've been very pleased with our main street and our return on investment that the county has given and um I I think that um you guys have done a phenomenal job over the last four or five years getting that and you know and that that started with volunteers. This is not a city county venture. This was volunteers that saw that they wanted to do something and made it happen. And I am very proud that we're able to help you with that. Yeah, it's I mean it's an I mean I know a lot of like in the main street world it's it's definitely different but when you're able to see you know how far our community has come in four and a half years it's it really is incredible and you're right I mean Sheila was an OG of the um start of main of can of junction city main street so this was you know we had an interimm director and then we had Michaela and now me so it's it takes a community to do downtown revitalization and we would not be here without the support of the community. Um, we actually do have one more update that I did forget to include, but we're actually able to send six of our businesses. We've been working with Network Kansas to Destination Boot Camp, which is a boot camp that John Shallard puts on out in Denver. Um, and Network Kansas covers 100% of them to be able to attend the workshop. So, it's about $13,000 worth of grant opportunities that our businesses get to now access. So, we're really grateful that we're able to to do that. And what that will do is help them kind of niche down and and create become a destination of why somebody visiting Milford Lake would say, "I want to go here because I've heard that this is what they're famous for." So, any other questions or

and those monuddies have been available to us for years um and I just don't think that we have taken advantage of them through the EDC and I'm glad that you guys are taking the steps to do that because I think that is something very important to do and you know there's so many things to economic development not just industry and these are things that that strengthen our community I think um that is much needed to be addressed. So, thank you. Yeah, I think the downtown, you know, it's it is it's not just, you know, the downtown businesses. It's also just the quality of life. Exactly.

Um that, you know, we're able to give the community to kind of come shop downtown to walk around downtown to experience their community. Um you know, creating a lot of people don't like this term, but creating that third place outside of work and home. Um and kind of redeveloping a community after COVID, you know, that's a big thing that we have to take a look at, too. Well, I think you know I just hear wonderful things about it. Um I mean the community buyin is really Yeah. Well, thank you.

We are we're very we're very fortunate to have what we have and to have the other Kansas Main Street programs that you know you ask they're all about ripoff and duplicate. So we never reinvent the wheel. They're like hey how do you do this? And then sometimes you have to refit it to make it to to fit your community but it's all out there. Um, so having those connections and I do feel like being a main street program, it's gotten us in, it's gotten invited, us invited, and we've been able to sit at tables and doors have been opened that necessarily weren't there before. So, yeah, thank you. Yeah, good work.

Thank you. I do have these two for you guys. Um, just for you guys. So, these are the uh historic walking tours. Um we're actually going to redo these again. So, these were the ones that were created a few years ago. Um but we're actually going to use the this information to put building signs on our historic buildings as well. So, just a lot a lot on the iron work. Yeah.

Okay. Well, that's it. Thank you guys again. We've had set up. I didn't realize that you had to ask. I'm very sorry. I'm sorry. time coming up. We can review the new quarantine. We just passed a new bill.

Yeah. Uh and it's just because you know we have to do it again. No, this is

Oh, yes. Okay.

And it a lot of it falls on the town instead of the health. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make sure you get it.

Yeah. I saw it's a lot more steps than I did. So I'm cheating. All rubbed Facebook. How are you? Oh wow,

what an interesting question for you. Physical capacity is

messed up out Northwest. It was all crazy. I'm sure enough that was like At least we get maybe a good

Okay. I can't ask you because when that aunt had property along Highway 4. Okay. change back in the day.

Hey, Travis. I just wanted to show I mean I knew that there were some legitimate sequence ain't no princess. But yeah, sure. Okay. Well, help me. Okay, I will I will go back and try to find theation.

Yeah, exactly. Fair enough. Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, just brought you something. Congratulations.

We didn't tell him. Did anybody know? We actually didn't tell anybody and we felt kind of bad until the night before we called our mom our kids. She wanted to be our

cutie. She I gave her one of those busy bones. She's munching on that. season. Sweet. Thank you. Um January like

I Was there anything with that thing I sent you? Was it anything?

I know. Well, she finally answered. She lives in the street. Not even out where she is. Yeah, I I think it was just Well, I didn't want to not say anything to you. So, we were doing training guys. Yeah. Well, if I didn't, then it would have been something and I would have I'd rather Yeah, for sure. Congratulations.

Raccoon Central. Okay, that's it. Well, we'll go ahead and get started. Thanks everybody for coming. Um I don't have my agenda thing in front of me. Um Trish, did you want to get started on um some of those items that um see I put a couple things on here. Um the finance and tribal policy. I know we've had some issues. Um and you know, I just want to make I feel sometimes that the finance department gets made out to be the bad guy enforcing our policies. So, I just want to make it very clear that they're enforcing the policies that were approved by the commission. Um, you know, if there is something that we need to readress or address, um, uh, you know, please feel free and we can put that on the agenda. I just wanted to, um, make that clear. I didn't know, Kathy, if you were wanting to talk about the Were you wanting to bring up something with a meal policy? Well, we had um I I just had questions on there or how did people feel, you know, about the uh the meal reimbursement or anything need to

be changed? It certainly don't matter to me. We kind of had conversations amongst us about um you know again it wasn't my thing when I was asking about it that it what we do is is wrong but um I had a problem in the sense that I'm not sure that that's what's currently is happening is you know because I'm a gal that will have um a bag of chips and a coke for for breakfast and you know I don't want to get in the time frame if you, you know, of saying that you got to have breakfast from 8 to 10 and lunch is from 11:30 to 12:30 and the meal is from 5 to whatever. Um, I I just I was feeling like it was getting a little bit for you in your your office to have to go through and decide what when that should be happening. And I I I so that was my main thing is is that um you know a couple of these stuff what was on there we need to know what is acceptable um you know latte and and soda I don't drink lattes or coffee but also I have a soda and a candy bar for breakfast if I you know so you know again um should we put those barriers up you know to say you I mean, speak up, please, because I, like I said, it's here nor there with me. I just was like, am I the only one thinking that um, you know, it's just a little bit I Troy?

Well, when I first started, it's almost been 14 years. U, you only got reimbured if it was an overnight stay and it was for an evening meal because you're you're supposed to be at work doing your job while you're at meetings or whatever. Breakfast and lunch are kind of on you because you're going to do that whether you're in the office or if you're on the road or whatever. So now the fact that you had to spend the night and you've got to go out of your way to have an evening meal, then that's reimburseable, but the other two not so much.

And I think and Kathy, I I do know, you know, I mean sometimes I'll drink a coffee for breakfast, you know, that's my breakfast. Maybe we need to have a better uh tracking of it. Like, you know, maybe have a thing that we fill out. Okay, this is what this was. I ate this place for breakfast, spent this much money, here's my receipt. Then we know that that's what you did. But there are sometimes where you don't get breakfast. If you wake up at your house that morning, you do not we do not buy breakfast even if it's an overnight thing. And and so I those are the kinds of things that we need to have. Um I and I don't know if we need to spell it out more. Um um I I do think if you go out of town, we should do do lunch. I mean, if you're going out of town and and you're there over lunch, we should pay for your lunch. Now, you should go by what our you know, those the guidelines we have are set by the federal government. And for us, the easiest way for us to enforce it is it is what it is. Anything over that, you pay extra, you know. So that's the easiest and most fair for everybody because if one department head says, "Oh, you can go over a couple dollars." Another department head says, "No, you can't go over." It just it's consistency is is the most fair way to do that.

So I have a question because I was just in Atlanta and I know I went over, but when I go over like I would pay out of pocket my next meal. Yes. Is it I mean would it be easier and less cumbersome if you just did PDM and then here's your cash transparent though. Well, we don't hold cash to just Well, I know. But the check I'm like here's you could cut them a check. But then we can't say okay well this is what they purchased with tax money and and that's the reason why people ask there might be ice cream in in-house movies or alcohol. Exactly. Right.

You still could put the um you know turning your receipts in. I know places that do have the predium and that's what I asked about. Would it be easier to to do pdeium and because you know a lot of tax wise I don't think it'll be easier

because I just know I went over in Atlanta. I I did point like but that night I would um I would do a door dash and I paid for it for myself. Like I did not use my county card for that. But when you're going with, you know, other um your peers to eat at the restaurant in the hotel, sorry, a burger is $28 and a Diet Coke is $450 or $5.

And it's really about I mean any policy we put in place, there's going to be monitoring no matter what. They're going to have to look at the receipts to see, okay, did they stay within the 65? Did they spend less? Are we going to have to make it taxable? Is it going to be an accountable the non-accountable plan? Does it affect W2s? I mean, there's a lot of different things that are going to create the oversight, whatever. I don't think there's any perfect way to do it. Um, we've set a plan in place. We're following it for the most part. We have a few outliers that we're dealing with, but sheriff's department Justin under sheriff, he talked to us. He sent an email out to his people. He said, "You will do this or you will lose the use of your card. They took it away from someone because they weren't following the rules." If you have your department heads putting those rules in place and following them, we don't have a problem with it. It's when the department header, somebody that's not following it and doesn't enforce it that we start having the issues. So, I would just say that for 98% of the population of our employees, everybody's doing what they need to do. Does that mean we shouldn't look at DM? Not necessarily. I'm just saying I don't want to change everything and start completely over for one or two people. It doesn't make sense when everybody's pretty much doing what they need to do.

If I'm not if I'm one of those problems, let me know. You're not. If you were, you would let I can be oblivious and be a problem. I can relate to that. I went to Philadelphia last year in Tampa Bay the year before that and when I wanted to go out with my co my colleagues and stuff, I'm like, okay, I paid for that out of pocket, right? Um and and just, okay, you guys want to go to an expensive place, that's fine. Um, so those are all just the options that that we can do, right? And that's usually what I do. I'll do one meal with my card and then the second meal. Um, but if you go over with your card, you still have to pay the difference for that meal, even if you do on your own later. And that's fine. I don't care. Yeah,

you're already you're already comprehending what you need to do to take care of the issue. So yeah, and that's all we're asking is so we can treat everybody the same because if we let you go over on it and then we make somebody else pay. It's just it's not consistent. So for us to be consistent, that's what I feel unless the county commission wants to change that. That's the easiest and most fair way to do it because I we're going to we're leaving tomorrow for a conference and I'm there's six of us from my office. Yeah, six of us going to a conference in Missouri. So I know and the only ones that have cards in my office is myself and my supervisors. Everyone else doesn't have a card.

Well, and if you look at PDM, if the first and the last day of travels, you don't get the full amount. You get a percentage of it. Exactly. So then that's something we have to look at. And then if we say, well, you're not going to get breakfast and lunch no matter what. We have to figure out, okay, then we're just going to do a dinner pium on those days. Um, if you are having a conference and they provide you with lunch, we're obviously not going to reimburse lunchions over over just following the the guidelines. Well, not a nightmare, but definitely still going to have things that we have to monitor and over anything we do, we will have to do that. So, I mean, that's just expected. We know that.

Carrie, did you have something? Part of my problem is when you go out with a group of people and you got an hour for lunch and then you're go to pay and there's 10 or 15 people in line both in front of you and behind you and you got to put tax deal down then the people have figure out how to do the tax and all that. That's a pain in the you know what you get everybody else behind you upset because of what you're doing. So I'm But then you just reimburse if that's the case. I mean you reimburse. Usually that's what I do. Well yeah if you want to pay and then you just put in for your reimbursement. Then I mean there's you're comprehending what you need to do and you take care of it. So again, not an issue. Yeah. All right.

Valet parking was another comment that I think someone had made and uh you know um and I don't know if that specifies that in in the information and we I think we did have a discussion about that. Valley parking is sometimes needed especially you know safety issue. the weather's bad, you're carrying stuff in, you know, but just to use valid parking for for convenience, I don't think that that should be on the taxpayer time. Never go anywhere fancy.

They just leave the light on. Some of those hotels that are down in the middle of those, they don't allow they make you do it that way like really. Yeah. And there are some that do maybe do that. The Cyrus does and you don't have that's where we have our means that you don't really have and as long as you document that then we justify it. I mean nobody's saying don't use it. It was just if there's a reason to use it then Yeah. Yeah. This was mandatory. This was you know the weather was bad. I didn't want to walk at midnight parking lot. Yeah. They charge you parking lot.

Yeah. And sometimes they do valet and then regular just regular parking in their parking. And I mean that that's a justifiable expense, justifiable expense.

Um I don't really have anything else. I just, you know, it's a kind of if if department has any questions or thoughts of doing anything different or they like the way it is and you know that that was to get feedback. Well, I do want to let you all know that I looked up the costs and so right now we have 15 for breakfast, 17 for lunch, and 30 for dinner. That's 62 per day. And the federal PDM is 63 per day. Now, it's 68 if you include incidentals. Incidentals are if you pay fees or tips to a hotel staff or a baggage carrier. So, I ignore that. So, we have 62. Standard federal is 63. They have 16 for breakfast, 19 for lunch, and 28 for dinner. I've heard some complaints about not being able to find something to eat within those limits. Honestly, I think you can. It's a conscience conscious choice whether you do or you don't. It's not about whether you can find it or you are unable to find it. No matter whether you're in DC or whether you're in Washington, which are the highest loces that are out there, if you make a conscious effort, you can find it. And then that's the thing when you're looking at medium level, it's $75. Kansas City areas is considered medium level. And theirs is 33 for dinner, 22 for lunch, 20 for breakfast. And then your high local is 23, 26, and 38, which totals 87. So there are some higher. The majority of us don't go to those areas. There's a few that go to Kansas City, but not everybody. So I would say if there's anything that we want to talk about today, and this is my recommendation, I'm not the governing body. I only have to monitor and oversee the policy is if we would want to look

at making any adjustments to the limits. And then I would really like to do what Troy said and figure out if somebody's taken a day trip, are we only going to do lunch unless it's provided by the entity. No breakfast, no dinner period. Because that alone would alleviate quite a bit of monitoring. Well, I if you wake up at your house, I don't think you should pay for your breakfast. I agree. And I don't even charge lunch. If I'm in Topeka for meetings and I go to lunch with my colleagues, I I pay out my pocket. I do not use

counting of my dollars. That's just I'm not going to use my dollars for that. And I don't want my staff either. They have to pay for I guess I was doing something wrong. See, I screw up and don't know it. Does anybody else have any thoughts on that? Or are they really passionate about something on those

based on other counties policies and stuff? We're pretty consistent with what other counties do. So, I mean, if we want to go outside the box, of course, we can. We don't have to do what everybody else says, but we are fairly consistent with what they do. So, so I guess maybe I should know this and I don't because I don't use that very often. I don't go many places and if I do the meals are provided most of the time. Um but you were talking about the different cost in bigger cities and that kind of thing. So um if we were to travel to a bigger city, does that mean that you go off of those guidelines for the predium or or for each meal or we keep it to the count?

Not unless the county policy not unless the county board tells us it would be whatever pium they said. If we were that would be my suggestion then is to say it be like a case by case basis which that would be up to the department head and how do we find out like what where they're going what is it there's a general there's a website you just click on the state I maybe we need to set that but if we do that then that's more monitoring I mean that does create more monitoring because now we have to say when are you leaving and which days are your first day or last day and where are you going and we're going to have look all that up and make sure that everybody's

and with the with the website she's talking about um it also there's also some that are seasonal let's say what time of year are you going here so that's this part this part so there is a lot more for us to have to check and I say us because sometimes it has to go through HR for payroll purposes for W2 so that that creates more work for both finance and HR we're willing to do it if that's what the commission wants but we just want to make sure you're aware of all the extra stuff that has to go It's involved with that. And these are things if we create a policy, we've got to create them around all these things. The court has an instate rate and an out of state. But you they still have to monitor. Okay. Where did you go?

Right. But it's like if you go to a conference out of state, they it's not did you travel Washington DC or did you travel to New York City. It's did you travel outside the state of Kansas and then that's it. This is the rate for out of state travel. I don't know. So, can they get a coffee? I've never liked if we have a breakfast. I would think that they'd be able to say, I mean, you put that on there if it's if they're qualified for breakfast and if they go to Witchaw for a week, they can get the hotel if the hotel doesn't offer free breakfast or the seminar doesn't offer free breakfast and they can get breakfast.

Yeah. And they would consider that a breakfast. Yeah. That's what you want. But I mean, that's if you drink Pepsi and eat a a candy bar, if that's what your meal is, that's what your meal is. documents. We wouldn't expect you to get in and then go get breakfast as well. All they all we want is to be able to show if somebody comes in and says, "Let us see what we spent on that trip and we can show this is what she had for breakfast. This is what he had for lunch. This is what he had for dinner." Yeah. I was Yeah. It's not hash browns and eggs, right? It's whatever you want. I mean, there's a big difference for the

You can't have margarita. Well, that's what I do to the to the back and forth. He might have hash browns and whatever, but I might have a bag of chips and a drink. What constitutes breakfast? I just want to annotate that we sub who is what. Just go with the HR mantra. Document, document, document. Exactly. That first and permission later. So anyway, yeah, if everybody's good with that, otherwise, you know, you can let um Tammy know thoughts or whatever pros or cons with what the email. Yeah. Yeah. And in the meantime though, we have a policy follow.

So the next thing on here was uh non-county employees in county vehicles. And the reason why we have that on there is because there are several people that have had non-county employees in the vehicle and I I believe we check with KAM and those people that ride in those vehicles are not covered under our insurance. So, um I think we just need to have that covered if they were in there for an official reason or permission or if they're granted permission.

Who has the I guess that was it. Who has the authority to grant permission? the commission and the department heads I think that that have been issued vehicles. Um, so and so for example, if I'm going if I had a county vehicle, which I don't, but if I had a county vehicle and I was going to an HR convention, I could take the um HR director from Riley County or Selen County or whatever because we're we're colleagues with the same location for the same work related conference. We could go together, but in no case and no circumstances is family allowed in the vehicle. You cannot have family members are not covered period. So, I' I've heard that we have some county employees that are taking their kids to school in their county vehicles, dropping them off, whatever. That's not authorized at all.

So, if there was an accident, those pe those people would not be covered. No. And not only that, because they're running a personal errand while driving a county vehicle, they may decline cake or cake work. They could decline to cover that at all. on that seems pretty

seems odd. I would know that the people weren't cover there. I don't know. I'm assuming with KM police protected custody kids and our probationers if we are transporting them. You're fine because it's part of it's part of our business part business. Yeah. You can't exactly give him a bus ticket, Christine. We don't expect you to give him a bus ticket. No, one way ticket or Uber ticket.

Um Oh, and the tax statements and deed issues. I I there were some stuff on Facebook. I already um uh talked a little bit with um Sherry. This wasn't a new issue. It was for it was back from the old issue. That was my question. One of my questions as far as that now I know that we had a bunch of deeds that from the sales u uh tax sale are all those deeds filed. Do we know all the deeds? They're recorded. They're recorded. They got recorded the um 20th and 21st of January or the 21st and 22nd. So,

but it was like 35 deeds that my office recorded in that two-day period and then got they got returned back to for a law firm. Okay, awesome. Good. So, um they've been mailed out. I think we Yeah, because I got and the taxes have been evaded. It's all they're all done. Oh, great. Great. Awesome. So, I know um I we had an issue at my house and then um um I emailed

Ashley. Yeah. So my question on that is because I know that I went I know the treasur's office I went and had that changed but then it still when we got our tax bill it still didn't have the correct thing on our tax bill. So do when you change something does it read in the clerk's office or if the treasurer changes something are we talking to each other as far as the computer wise on on depends on what year you're in. Oh okay. I don't think it matters. I work in the current year. Yeah. The clerk's office works in the next year and depending on the time of year, he's in two years ahead of me.

So, how how do we get it to where if I come in and get get something changed that it's changed for everything? How do we do that? I think I I'm under the if somebody comes into my office, if their tax statement is wrong, if whatever wherever it's showing up, that it's incorrect. Yeah. I've always known to take them to the clerk's office because since they are the keepers of the tax role. Yeah, that that was my understanding is that then they have their procedures to go to the appraisers's office or give them or vice versa. Well, it used to be that way with CIC in this year thing like Sherry said, you have to watch what year you're in

and and you made all those changes in one year and didn't make any difference on the next year. So, yeah. So, I had gotten our ours to where, you know, our tax bill should say what it should supposed to say, but then when I go on the website to look at my taxes, it still says what we needed it to be changed from. So, how that I guess that's what that's the issue. That's supposed to update nightly. I don't update it. It's supposed to be an automatic update. Okay. And it's not a very friendly um tax search because it will have your name like four times out there and you have to keep clicking on each one to find the current one. Yeah, it it's not very And that's a state one. That's a state.

No, that's See, I see. Oh, all right. I thought Well, I've had a few people ask me, too. I thought the issue was taken care of. I did see it on Facebook, but I had a few people ask too about what's going on with the taxes. I said I thought so. It's just nice that we know because we're the ones that get asked as well about it. And if I think I as far as I knew, I thought everything was going well and then they're like, well, blah blah blah blah blah.

We have a very large check that keeps coming back to us from Cora because they can't seem to understand that it needs to go back to the mortgage companies they got it from. And so we've sent it to them twice now along with the list of who it belongs to, the property it belongs to, and how much goes to that property. And they keep sending it back to us asking what they're supposed to do with it.

So that must be what they are talking about then with not having those that are supposed to be getting money back or or whatever. They're not. The lady on on Facebook was upset because her mortgage company sent three payments through Core Logic and they should have only sent two and she is on our list, but we can't get Core Logic to give the money back to the mortgage company. They keep sending it back to us.

And so I we wrote a letter. We've broken it down into customer's name, parcel number, address, the amount that's due to that property, and we sent one back about 3 weeks ago or four weeks ago. So, I don't know what else to do with them again. And I would say if someone comes to you and says, I moved and my tax bill went to my old address, I would have them go to the clerk or me because we maintain a tax role that ends up as the tax bill. So if the role doesn't get changed, the bill won't change. Yeah, that I agree. Well, I did have mine changed with you guys, but yet when we still get our tax bill, it was wrong. So then So then we had to

So then I had Courtney fixed that out, didn't we? We did. But I guess my question is if I go to you, do I have to go to every single one? Shouldn't have to. Yeah, that's my point is how do we make sure that you go to one, get it changed, that it's changed everywhere? In the old system it did that. In the new system it does not.

Yeah. Because didn't you clerk? You had a a city official come in the other day that went to all three offices and back and forth and you know and then they contacted us and they say, you know, I've been and whatever. I'm going to throw my hands up because I didn't get don't know still the answer to that question. And I don't look good on us. night. It was like I needed to find out what was going on with it because I understand the frustration when you go three different places and you say you go here. No, you need to go over here. Well, you know this, you know. So, I understand it, but I understood that it was taken care of. So, then when people come to me and say, there's a problem, it's like, well, sorry, I'm hands are tied.

Yeah. Go to the treasur's office. Not I think some of that Teresa was that the the guidance that they were given was to mail the tax bill to the new person. Now we know that it's actually should have changed the name itself, right? An instance being where we remailed the tax bill um that after it was created now has late fees. No one paid it. Well, then they paid the full amount

and there was still a balance due because it was a late fee because it wasn't on the original bill. that the answer was to mail the original bill back to the person. So we we discovered that anyway we have to change the actual name on our end which will trickle down to the end of it instead of trying to fix it in the middle the guy too. Well, we don't want to be dead poor stuff because again that's what we talked about is having me talking something specific and these others need to want to get on with their business. Um but um that seems to still be an issue. So hopefully we're trying to help those that are frustrated or you know the young families that want their money back.

Sure. Um you know uh get their their money back. We're refining the process as we find every one of these. And I think we've got a pretty good handle on that. Okay. Good. Scenario. Yeah. That's all I wanted just because that you know just because I know what happened. I know I went to you and it still wasn't. Yeah. All right. Well that's all I really had. So, and I I don't know why the department head um needs commission approval. I think you told me put that on there. Oh, well, I didn't mean to. I No, I don't think this next one. The department. Yeah, the policy to policy. Maybe I would misunder I'm sorry. That's what I thought. But she was excited about the weekend. Yeah. I don't usually say

I could. No, I'm good. So that the budget timeline is under for Tammy. Al I I just want everybody's opinion too real quick. Um would you rather have monthly meetings or bimonthly weekly uh meetings?

Unless there's something that comes up. Yeah. That's right. If something pressing comes up, and at that time we can only call the people that I mean, you know, poor Ginger, she wouldn't she care about the tax bill. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're gonna um go with monthly from here on out. Okay. Okay.

Okay. I have more than just the budget timeline, but I'm going to do that one first. Um, so I presented this to the commissioners this morning. On April 6, they'll finalize a baseline estimate so we know how we're going to formulate our budgets. Um, it's I anticipate to have your personnel reports out by April 17th for you to review. Um, nothing has been finalized as far as how we're going to calculate wages yet. I did propose my recommendation this morning and then it will be finalized with their baseline estimate on April 6th. So, um, the other thing that is important for you to note is that you'll have to have those back into me. April 28th, and then I will send out your budget reports by on or before May 26th. And then June 8th to the 19th is when the commissioners will be having their presentations. They haven't determined which days they're going to do or times yet. So that will be provided to you at a later time. Uh budgets are due in October 1st. So that's the quick short version of the budget timeline. Any questions or any concerns?

If we know we're going to have uh some additional expense for whatever reason. Uh do we need to get with you ASAP on personnel or on on the regular budget? Regular budget. Um no. you can when I send out your your information then if you want to talk about it we can talk about it. Okay. Um we get a lot of questions about taxes people concerned how do I make my voice heard is that June 8th to 19th is that a good is that I know it's not hearing. Was that a good time for anyone in the public to come? Well they can definitely come and ask questions. I mean, during those presentations, if you're presenting and they think you spend too much, they should be here to ask you so you can answer why you have your budget.

Okay? And we're going to put out like who's who's going when and you know those so if somebody wants to come and listen to your presentation or the historical society pres the right time isn't necessarily to wait till this hearing. Correct. This is the right time to 19. Right. Because you're going to be best armed to answer their questions for your budget. Yeah, when you got maximum time to react, right, to their But then June 22nd to July 3rd is once we have all of the appraisal values in and the RNR is set and all of that, then that's where I pull everything together and start preventing the the whole picture to them. Y and that's also a very good time to be there because then they can ask more questions, okay,

when they see what the impact is. Travis, we've also talked about having to plug in during this that time frame. uh what was it? uh what whatever that was uh June 8th uh you know between June 8th and actually the June 22nd or even into July 3rd that we hope to put more information out with information as to how we come up with it how val you know all those worksheets we you've seen you know with uh property tax levy in our uh you know those those sheets we hope to put more information together as a packet put more things on social media We hope to have invite some community members to come to these sessions

and to have input at that time to see how we come up with what we're doing and how and why. So, we're hoping to put some education out there ahead of time and invite folks to come in and listen and have our input to help us make those decisions. So, that too is um we're hoping to get that stuff together. So, maybe the 8th or the 19th would be a good time to them to listen to the requests. Sure. And then the 22nd to the 3rd is a good time for them to come provide feedback. Yeah. But anybody can come anytime for sure. Anytime. But to be most productive with their time as long as if they want to ask questions about your budget, we know so that we can have you in here and you can answer it.

Yep.

I had said that I we've had some that you know we have um pre we want feedback after the fact. you know, this is our budget we're presenting. Do you have any questions? And so, we want to get ahead of the game to for people to have those questions answered and concerns. And again, that was ultimately up to us. But at least I think that we it would help if people understood and hopefully we put more information together in in layman's term because some of that stuff's hard to digest for the average Joe. So hopefully we could get that information um generated so that they're able to understand a little bit more. Just be just be more informed.

Yeah. And we used to tell them full transparency, hey, they're holding a budget hearing on X day. Let your voice be heard. That's actually a little late, right? The work sessions, the presentations are a better time. Exactly. To work their concerns into your budget, right? Okay. And to learn about it. You know, some people will show up at the hearing and they say, "We don't want you to raise your taxes." What, you know, what's your where do you think we should cut? Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. After they do it, what your what is yours? Anything else on the budget?

Okay. I also handed out a flyer from Kansas Works. So, I had a connection from the CPM class that I'm taking and um the department of revenue is working with campus groups workforce one and families together specifically. Um so they have a program where they work with young people up to age 24 and the program is called Kansas Network for Employment and Career Transition for Youth. They're interested in partnering with governmental organizations and their organization will pay the wages and the work comp for the first four h 400 hours of an internship. If you determine that there's additional duties that you could assign, they can extend that to a second 400 hours. They have a career coach that works with the host business to track how the individual is doing. Then if we would decide to hire the individual on a permanent basis, they would work with us on negotiating a portion of the salary for up to the first year of service. Um so some of them have uh what they call they consider it a disability but anxiety is considered a disability. So, it could be many different things, but they take the strengths of the individual and they determine, you know, where they could potentially place them. They've told me they've worked with sheriff's departments and they've placed them in like the admin department doing um work. I think public works would maybe be an option, especially for like your uh temporary building maintenance positions, I think would be really good. Um, so those were a couple that right off the top of my head because we have hard time filling some of those conditions, it might be some things that

we could look at. It would be a benefit to us. Uh, I wanted to get you that information so that you knew if you're interested, we could reach out and have meetings with the individuals um that monitor and oversee these programs to determine how that would work, how they would get a hold of you. Uh, I also sent them out to all the other counties that are on the list serve for Kansas governmental financial officers. Crystal did it for the HR list serve because really they want to use their grant dollars and this is how they do it. And so if you know of a need or anything that may work for your department, definitely let's reach out to them and see if we could utilize some of these services. Any questions on that thoughts? I'm like really wanting to put somebody in there with mine and do they can work on budget. Not

don't scare them off. No, you know, I bet somebody will be a genius with numbers that I could definitely utilize. So, I think it's a good idea to get younger people involved and let them see how county governments work and maybe that is what they want to do because we're all not going to be here forever, right? Sure. Well, and that's for yourself. You look at the workforce are millennials, right? And by 2035, 31% will be gzers. And so under but but you know 24 and under we need to get them interested

in working in government civil service those kind of things because it's hard to get them in the door.

So the last thing I have I just wanted to share that I'm still working on my capstone. I did submit my rough draft which was due April 1. And some of the survey information I was just going to share with you. Uh, also I want to let you know that I have a project team and that project team is helping me sift through the information, giving me thoughts and ideas on how it functions in their office, the things that we need to look at. And then once we have all of that together, then we'll pull the other departments in to discuss it more in depth because likely while it would be ideal if we could all have the exact same schedule, I don't think because of the way we serve the public that will be plausible. And so that's why it will be important to get input from all of your departments if you choose to um participate in this because I know some departments may not be able to do that. And so anyway, for public surveys, we got in 53 surveys. 26 of them said no, 27 of them said yes, and three of those 26 nos said it was because of parents with schoolaged kids as an issue. Um, the most popular answer was to change to a Monday through Thursday, 7 to 5:30 with a 30-minute lunch and closed on Friday. There were 19 of those that said that. There were a couple people that gave me alternative schedules for departments to look at. One of them was similar to a Fort Riley type schedule. Another one was that they had a 37 and a halfhour schedule. And so theirs would be different. It would look different than a 40hour. Um, from the departmental surveys, I received 20. There were 13 nos and seven yeses. Two of the nos said it was due to school age kids as an issue.

um some of the key takeaways because we sent out information to other counties and the ones that had already implemented this provided information. And then of course with the surveys, the parents with school age children may be an inhibiting factor. We may need to consider a seasonal change summer instead of year round. That came up with the task force meeting. Uh, I thought that was a really good idea. Not all departments will participate. We may need multiple hours. Um, it was suggested to do a like a six-month trial run before you fully implemented anything. And then I already told you the most popular answer. Um, and then just looking at some of the savings when you're looking at utility costs. If we had Friday afternoon peak times or late afternoon, early evenings, we would save some extra dollars on utility costs for being closed on a Friday afternoon. This didn't cost me a lot because I had the paper and the printing for the surveys, but the employees that I pulled in on the task force are all um exempt employees. So, we did it during working hours and so there's not an additional cost to that. We've looked at I've looked at a lot of the turnover metric uh metrics on what you're accounting for and I think it was 16 just over 16% uh turnover rate in government and 8.2% of that is voluntary

and on average 16,800 per employee is what the cost is to turn over an employee and have them retrained. And that's just an average. But when you look at uh the level of the employee, you could look up to 100 to 200% of an employes's wages when you're looking at an executive level employee for what it costs you if they leave and you have to start over again and have them retrain. So that's pretty significant when you're looking at that. And part of the reason, if you recall, that I'm even doing this is to look at uh recruiting and and retention. So that just supports that idea. And then um when you're looking at competitive factors, flexible um flexible scheduling is one of them is the second highest reason that people leave is there is no flexibility. And so with that being the second highest, this also supports trying to do some sort of an alternative schedule. So, so that's just where we are at this point in time and and I'll try to keep you updated. I don't want anybody to think that we've left them out or or ignoring their departments because we're not at all. It's just that I can't have everybody involved when I'm trying to get to this end result before I pull everybody in. So, that's it for me.

That's it. You're good. Does anybody else have anything? Um, should we go around? Gary, do you want to start

real fast? Uh, of course, our fire department's real busy. Uh, Saturday night, I appreciate the sheriff's office helping us. We had a big fire, a couple methad started some fires out by the lake area, and we were on scene for about five hours and one went to jail just because he had a warrant, but they stayed on scene and helped us. We we couldn't do our job. Those guys running around. And then a couple weeks ago, public works came out and helped us on the fire. So, we were all working together. If you drive 70 going east, there's a lot of construction. We've had a lot of accidents out there, fires and stuff along Interstate. So, be careful. There's no other way to go because Boulder Road is still shut down. So, you can't sneak through that way unless you got Fort Riley Pass. Um, when we get done with this, I'll be meeting with the commissioners on station four edition, the one on Bar Road. Uh we're going to use about $100,000 of our local fire budget and our special budget that we've got and we receive donations in excess of $160,000 that's coming in from taxpayers to help pay for that station so we can get that going. So that's going to be more construction out there. And I appreciate Tammy's help on this whole deal with the building. It's been a something different I'm not used to. and Tammy been helping do the financing part of it and stuff with our people that are donating the money and stuff. So, I appreciate that very much.

That's all I got. Okay. Um, just about the uh fishing tournament this weekend. It was very successful. It was our first sponsored fishing tournament for the year over at Milford. Um they had about 86 registered boats and so it's super busy out there which was great to see and it was perfect weather for it too. So did we get any pictures? I didn't see any on Yeah, Sam was out there took a bunch of pictures but he's off today so I think um he's going to hopefully put something up. Okay.

Can you let us know ahead of time if you got big tournaments or something so we're aware of in case we got medical problems or something out that way we know what's going on? Sure. Appreciate it. Y

I'm here for Jeremy. Um but I brought Lee Anderson along with me. He's our new facilities manager/ assistant public works administrator. A super long title. So this is Lee. You see him around in the buildings. Um he is now in charge of helping building maintenance and making sure our buildings are where they need to be. So, um, we just had a couple of things. We, um, utilize some of the RAG money through the risk avoidance stuff with Gary. Um, so there's remaining $71428 if any other department needs to utilize it. Get with Gary on what you can purchase because I don't know all the facts, but um, we've used it the past couple years, so we want to make sure other departments can use it as well. Um, we have a retirement party on Friday for Steve Meyer if you guys would like to attend. It's at 3:30. Um, we'll have some cupcakes and some um, deli sandwiches, just some light refreshments. Um, down at our office. Um, for him, we just got notified this morning. Um, we did this recycling event last year for early childhood. Um, they contacted us again to attend this year's event. So that'll be April 17th um from 8:30 to 4. We brought a truck and trailer last year of our recycling bins and just educated the kids out there on how to recycle, what to recycle. Um so we'll do that again this year. And then last little push on our grant um the safe streets and roads for all um project, our engagement map on our website will close on April 3rd. So I have my flyers. I will send out again to everyone, but if you can just really encourage our staff to put some markers on our map of any issues you guys know

of or um want to make sure we are aware of. As of this morning, we had 107 um comments, but some of those are in the city, so they're not all county. I know there's more than 100 people that live in this county. So, um I would like to get more responses, but I will take whatever we can at this point. So, I'll send out again. You guys can just pass it along. Um, it takes about 2 minutes just to put in your comments on this pothole need fix or better lighting or we need a sidewalk for walking or biking. Um, we would just appreciate any input we can get and that's all. Are you already working through those

like someone put one on the map? Are you guys already I put some trees over here the road? Oh, so I don't know if you did that because of that. So then yes, we are success.

I think some of the little things, yes, we are, but mainly all of the comments on there will build a big like project house for us. So we know like where to start, what road is the most in dire need of repair or whatever in the public's eyes. So then we can match it with like analysis that they've been gathering for when we need to ask for money or apply for grants. We can show we've done both sides of it. So little things, yes, I think we can knock out. Bigger things are going to have to wait.

I'm good. We're good at the health department, too. Is nothing really for the group. Uh not that anybody else is going to get excited except maybe Travis. I got notice last week from Eagle View that people that are flying the county for us this year have completed the capture. They said they've got probably six to eight weeks of postprocessing and then we'll have new new orthos and what we can do. So pretty exciting. I'm excited about that.

That's pretty exciting. Um, so there's a group of us that'll be out of town this week. Um, there's six of us that are going to Missouri for um, their annual treatment court conference. Um, I send our staff there versus the national conference because it's so much cheaper and it's the same speakers. I feel like it's same quality of information. Um, so we'll be doing that. budgets, comp plans, everything was submitted to King's Department of Corrections uh a week ago. Haven't had it back for me on that. They've been approved or accepted. Um I think what else? Oh, uh in August, I applied for uh through all the national um association for treatment courts for uh foundations training for um the recovery court for Gary County. and was approved. And so as a team, we will go through that in August. I'm very excited about that. We went through it as a team for um refresher training in tuneup training in November for Dickinson County. And it was we came away with some really good information, changed some things, implemented it, then I implemented that here in Gary County. So, um that's about it. We're just plugging away. Sorry about the method from somewhere else.

I'm sure they were there for the fishing company. Yeah, I don't have anything around. I'm just recently back from personal time off, so I don't have much to add. Talk about counselor, do you have anything? Well, I appreciate you coming and we won't see you next month. We'll see you in May. Unless you have anything um going forward, just let us know.

Yeah, she Is it okay? That's their guidance.

Yeah.

So, you got new I mean, I just kind of wrote it off.

Well, I didn't know I had to. Yeah, we probably need to. Yeah, because she's asking to spend money, so Okay. I wasn't sure. Okay. Well, um then, uh I'm going to make a motion to amend the um agenda to have the CBB director uh propose her request for travel for the trade show. For the trade show, all those in favor or is there a second? Oh, go ahead. Okay, moved and second. All those in favor I I motion carried. So, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you for squeezing me in. Um there's a Tulsa Backwoods outdoor show is coming up this weekend and Sam will be traveling to that and um it's being requested that uh Mike Harris go to that show um with him being that it it'll be his first time doing an outdoor show by himself. um he'll just be there overnight. On Friday night, Mike will, and then he'll attend the show Saturday and then he'll come home Saturday evening. So, the expense would be approximately $150 for a room night for that Friday night. And um I don't know if if this is would be um granted or not, but uh for mileage since he's driving out there as well. So, um, my request is to for the county to reimburse, um, Mike for the one night of hotel stay and, um, mileage.

Is he going on to benefit the county or is he going to benefit his business? Well, it would be to benefit the county. um kind of like how Pat did when when she went to the Denver show. Um and again being that that and she paid for hers.

So we the county paid for her hotel, she traveled with me um in the county vehicle, so there was no reimbursement, but then she paid for her meals and all that on her own. I think Tulsa's um close enough that he can drive the morning before it and if he doesn't want to ride with um if he doesn't want to ride with Sam, then he can pay his own mileage. I mean, he can he's more than welcome to be at our table and and promote Gary County, which includes his business. Um but I don't think we should be paying him.

No, I don't have a problem with that. What about meals? We just had that discussion. I I don't think that we should be playing He's suing the county. He's already He's costing taxpayers money and I don't feel that we should be paying that, but he is more than welcome to use our our booth. So, pay the hotel. No, I don't think we should pay anything. No, he can go down there that morning or he would ride with Sam. Okay.

Is that a motion? That's my motion. Okay. It's been moved and seconded to decline the request for expenses to be paid for Mr. Harris to attend the travel show. All those in favor? Motion carry. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Gary, for accommodating us.

Won't wait for Tammy to get in here. So, she's involved in this. I left you all a copy of what we posted on Facebook this morning. So, busy weekend.

Busy. Most of us didn't get much sleep because we can't wait for the tones to go back off. But with 60 volunteers, we've got 20 to 25 that were busy over the weekend. We know some have family family deals. We got other ones that for some reason do not come out, but these guys work great together. U especially when we had three three calls all at the same time and we were able to delegate people and it was all up in Milford Township which made it nice. So we're right there south end of the dam area with a big fire. So we didn't have to go from one edge of the county to the other edge of the county. So it helped us a lot. But then Friday night we were 4 hours out in just north of out of Vista fighting a fire. One acre grass fire is what they called it in. Said they were going to burn. It was one acre. We had at least 60 acres done and u out of Vista rule came. Dwight Rule came or Dwight Fire and then Dwight City came. So the nice thing is they're all on the 800 system too and they can switch over our channel. So we were all able to talk back and forth following route so we knew what was going on. So

what time was that? Saturday night. Sorry. What time was that? Was that Saturday? Uh Friday night for the one down south. It was about five o'clock. We were just leaving the office when that one occurred. So I appreciate this information. And I wish everybody just write us a quick blurb because that way, you know, when people ask what's going on, we're able to

I was going to try to do it over the weekend, but I I was tired. I thought I would just do one for for over the weekend once everything done. And then the guys came in and made sure their trucks were all working. Uh we've got one truck that's partially down right now. Parts should be fixed on it this afternoon hopefully. And other than that, everything was working great. So, uh, a lot of fuel used, of course, stuff. So, and that comes out of the fire budget, but we'll have more once we get our, uh, do our monthly meeting with you guys here in a couple weeks. So, now to the good news. Uh, we took the bids that we opened uh, two weeks ago now. Um, I reviewed them, went down to Jeremy down at the public works, reviewed them. Brent Deem and his office reviewed them. Uh we'd like to go ahead and accept the bid from Rally Construction for $249,839 even. Uh they were the low bid. Uh they've done several of the fire stations over in Riley County. Um and they were the what we consider number one choice for us. Um, so, uh, we estimate with with that cost there, estimate a little bit overund or $10,000 if we need to move that water line. There's a water line that runs right right behind there. We we don't know if that's going to be moved. The power going to our current building is located just to the southeast with a power pole. It's going to have to be moved. I don't know what kind of cost is there. So, we've got that built into what we're thinking our cost going to be. So, looking at uh our outside sources, we should be receiving a wire transfer today from a benefactor for $160,000 coming in our account.

Tammy was working on that uh all afternoon Friday or she and I were back and forth on the phone. We weren't arguing. We were discussing stuff and we came out and uh she got that taken care of while I was busy with fires and everything else. So, we've got 160 coming that way. Uh looking at taking 50,000 out of our special reserve funds. Uh we've got money in there. I'm still waiting once FEMA gets back in working. Uh we still got 20,000 still to come from them for reimbursement. So, we've got plenty money there. And then out of our fire fund 730, our emergency vehicles have 175,000. Um, we need a place to store that truck. So, we're looking at taking 50,000 out of there, which still leaves us money to to get a truck and stuff. So, that's what we're recommending to get the approval on, but the main thing is getting that approval cost for construction amount of 249,839.

So, moved. Second. Would you repeat that? 249839 249 comma 839.0. Okay. Riley Construction. Riley Construction. They're actually based out of Wamigo. Okay. Thank you guys for working on that. Yeah, has a lot to approve to approve the um the bid for fire station number four for Riley Construction in the amount of $249,839. All those in favor?

Motion carries. and they are looking at uh proposed start date of May 1st. Uh final completion date within 120 calendar days, but I don't think it's going to take that long. And county shops is going to do the dirt work. So, we'll get with Jeremy once once we confirm everything and Jeremy will work with Riley Construction on the excavating of that land and stuff which is going to save us. So, I assume you know about the water and the power. Yeah. Yeah. Asking how she We'll work on that this week.

Okay. Well, we got a list already of stuff we've got going on this week, but that's on my list. So, a lot of lot of what I usually do. Kurt's going to be uh pretty well running a lot of the department fire stuff right now. He's already make sure all the trucks are up and going and more getting to that because I'll be busy with this and make sure this project's going good. So, so the propane tank there that that'll suffice for the add-on is per heat. It should. Yeah. We'll have to put we'll end up having to put one more heater in on the new side of it. But those heaters don't use that much

properly warm. All we do is make sure it's warm enough that our water doesn't freeze. 45 50°. And I think there was one or two heaters as part of this bid was was set in there already. So that will not be an additional cost. So I'm looking forward to it. So and then once we get it, we'll do like we did the glass stations. We'll get out there and do a ground break or open house and stuff. So Okay. Thank you. Did I hear more donated ground?

Yeah, the deed came over to us. We already had part of that, but yeah, we're finishing up that. I finish up the s the signatures now that we've got county council helped me on that several years a several months ago. We just we're waiting till this all got approved that. So, okay. Well, I just, you know, was still involved with what you said, but I had to be here.

I made a motion we go into executive session for non-elected personnel, including HR and legal for 15 minutes at first. So, okay. It's been moved and seconded to go into executive session with HR and county counselor to start out for 15 minutes. All those in favor