County Council - Regular Meeting

get moving. At this time, I'll call to order the April 14th, 2026 short county council workshop to order. Um, our first item is the fiscal 27 budget development followup. Yes, county council. Good to be back together with y'all. I hope you're doing well. Uh today we're going to spend this hour going through the latest on the budget. I wanted to remind y'all that come Monday night, I'm going to be presenting my recommended budget. So, uh we've done this uh I think starting last year, Trish, we did this uh because y'all shared you wanted to get the budget before you had first reading.

And so, Monday night is not first reading. It is me symbolically handing my recommended budget off to y'all. and then your first reading will be at the next council meeting. Uh and so we do have another budget workshop next month. Uh and then there's the potential for one uh in June as well. Uh however, the workshop in June is after conceivably what third reading could be. Right? So third reading of the budget is the first meeting in June. There's a workshop uh in June, but we might be able to cancel it if y'all obviously pass the budget uh at that first meeting in June. So, that's what we're lining up for. Uh and so, I wanted to give you some highlights uh of of the budget and we wanted to talk through more details than we've been able to share with you in the past couple meetings. And so, in your packet, you have some of this information that will be up on the screen and we can talk through that as we go. Uh I always want to root to what county council shared as y'all's priorities uh at our budget retreat. And so uh here are the 10 things that y'all have have spoken to throughout this process. We're going to address almost all these things in our presentation. So we want to connect y'all's priorities to what we're seeing currently in the recommended budget. uh then in connection to that uh this is what I as the manager see as our big rocks of the budget. So when when we put together a budget there are big philosophical things that we need to make sure that we're taking care of uh and these are the things that I see as the highest priority and I know y'all share this with me and the strategic plan emphasizes these things. Uh but the first thing that I always focus in on is our employees. Our employees are our most important resource. We need to take care of our employees because they provide the responsive and exceptional service to our residents. Uh so uh our

HR director HR director Lisa Davidson came uh at a previous workshop and shared with you that uh we're we're currently focused on a 3.5% merit raise. So this is based on reviews. uh this is in line with previous years uh in previous years and we'll talk more about the details about the recommended FTEES uh this is a lower number than we've had in terms of FTEES in the new FTEES in the budget uh related to previous years uh but these all these positions are very important and I look forward to sharing those with you the list of those positions is in your folder but we have also included the positions throughout this presentation uh I think that uh the the the best way to make sure that we as an organization are providing the services that are necessary is to take care of our current employees. Uh and and I I commit that this budget does that. In terms of uh protecting York County, we've had a number of conversations about this midyear. Uh but in FY27 uh the 10% sheriff raises that y'all approved recently midyear will have the first full fiscal year impact. We'll talk about about that as we go. Uh we've reworked the Motorola contract. It was going to go up exponentially. One thing we did to lower that cost was to take on some of the work ourselves. However, that has led to increased costs for us. Uh I I think and I and I have the number in the presentation almost worth a mill of increased cost. We have significant projects related to public safety in our budget as well in the capital with moss and the 911 tower uh that we think we need to um build next year. And then as we've talked about in previous retreats uh my focus really is on planning for the future. There are

things that if I were here 10 years ago, uh I would have pushed in terms of studies. It's not too late to do those. I think we need to do some of those now and those are in our budget. Uh but the biggest one is the is the required update of the of the comp plan and that's a significant cost. We'll talk about that. Uh in terms of the utility fund, one of the things we're going to share later is the need to raise rates. This is something that has not been done um since 2017 beyond the pass through rate increase that we get from Rock Hill. We'll talk about that later. Uh but the time is is now to make sure we're funding our utility infrastructure. And to do that, you actually have to raise the rates. Uh we'll talk about that as we go. Building for the future, we've spent a significant time as staff as we've developed this budget in updating the CIPs for both our general capital. So things like Moss Justice Center, uh, but also our utility capital, and we're we're excited to share more about where we're at with that. And this budget has an additional $2 million for county roads. So last year we budgeted 2 million. This year in the budget is 4 million. Uh, so yes, we had a value of the mill increase, but when when you look at all the things that we had to work into this budget, uh, it it ate up that increase. Uh but but I'm thankful that we were able to to utilize that and we'll talk more about what that looks like as we go through this. First, we're going to we're going to start with planning for the future. Tom has shared a little bit with this with you in the past, so he's going to give a high level kind of overview of what we've talked about and where we're at today.

Thank you, Mr. County Manager, and good evening, council members. uh some of this uh in terms of strategic investments. You saw at the budget retreat uh the storm water initiatives that we're looking at where we think it's very important to inventory and assess our storm water infrastructure that we we care and maintain. And then we also have some MS4 compliant compliance issues as the result of of a state audit that was done by by dees. But the the next few things which would be the Newport small area plan and the I77 corridor plan the these are are themes that we heard through throughout the fiscal year. So we very carefully looked at how we can scope these kinds of projects and these two projects in particular not only have uh relevance to land use and transportation but in particular economic development and can thus become a part of our economic development strategy as we go forward. We also talked about a park's long range master plan. And I think what we have going on with uh the trails plan right now will will feed into this plan, but we realize that we needed to extend beyond what what we did with the Clemson study. And uh I'm I'm satisfied and persuaded with the funding we have that we're going to be able to do a long range plan that will take this a lot further. The county manager already spoke of the comprehensive plan, but there are two other um items that we didn't discuss. Well, perhaps one of them we did, but uh I didn't discuss them or or present them. There's a space needs assessment, uh which is estimated to be at $1.2 million, but this is going to be a reflection of our growth in the

future, looking at what we have now, what we need in the future. Mr. Re can speak more to that if if he pleases, but we're also introducing an exit 90 feasibility study. Uh when I first came here, very shortly after I first came here, uh there was an event out of Carowinds where Governor McMaster uh had spoke of the state or or DOT trying or or he was trying to put in his budget funding so we could do a feasibility study for exit 90 because uh obviously there there are issues at the interchange that need to be resolved. It's our gateway to the community and we need better uh circulation with the on and off ramps at at that location. But through the course of many discussions uh we discovered we had uh funds available through an admissions tax that was collected through carolins carowinds I'm sorry always have my wife on my mind first but uh but u there there are dollars available and we're prepared uh to leverage up to $2 million but I think we want to talk to the state do and see how much leverage that we want uh to put in with those funs. funds or want them to put in and we're we're prepared to do that. But I'll um with with this particular slide uh I'll simply conclude by saying I think all of these projects have and will have a generational impact if we we can execute them. I spoke about playbooks and game plans at a at a previous workshop and these are definitely the the blueprints we need for the future that'll help us manage road and do it in a in a very smart way. Uh before we talk about capacity building, uh Mr. Rekit, did you have anything you wanted to offer on the space needs assessment?

Uh not really. I just say that um basically through the capital planning process this year we had a number of capital requests that were related to building growth and you know additional space needed from many departments. So we thought it'd be best to you know grow responsibly um by really looking at the space need study which we actually identified in the strategic plan as well. Um I will say that that number that budgeted number is an all-in uh budget number including uh parks uh libraries museums and when I say that I mean operational space not you know not to be confused with the parks master plan and park planning but actual operational space for the

thank you and um if I could ask Karen or whoever is the remote yeah I think that this particular

I'm All right. Can I ask a question about that 1.2 million? So, the space needs assessment. That's that all of these um strategic investment fundings are one-time funding and I I think you know the last one is something that comes from a very specific admissions tax fund. Um I would I would like to know you obviously not now where where do we intend to draw these funds? Are we going to be pulling them from ED if they're associated with an ED? Are we where is this the space needs one is is pretty large. So, I guess I would like a little bit more detail about what is that something we're doing in house? Are we having to hire someone outside to come in here and tell us what our needs needs are going to be?

So, real quick to your first question, I'll let Eric answer the second one. Yes, great question, Madam Chair. So, Newport in I77 South we currently have being funded by the ED fund in in my recommended budget. So, these are not all general fund projects. That's that's not the intent of this slide. This slide is intended to show all the plans that are in the overall budget, right? The uh storm water um and the um space needs assessment, we're currently recommending using uh fund balance appropriation to fund, okay? Because those are big one-time costs. Uh but the comp plan uh we're we currently have in our general fund operating budget. So

and I'll add the I believe on the go back to the slide I think um the stormwater compliance was is there within the general fund budget. Yeah, that's in the general fund as well. Yep. But we can give you the exact location of all these. But what we've tried to do is put them where they need to be. A big cost like 1.2 million. I agree with you. that's hard to put into an operating budget. So that's why we have it coming out of fund balance. But Eric, do you want to mention you you want to answer the second part of the question?

That is a uh that is a consultant study uh not to be done in house. Um there's going to be a pretty big effort inhouse amongst other departments, but um the the intent was to hire a consultant to do that study similar to the one in 2017 the last time the county did one of these. Y is the um exit 90 study. I know again getting that right is is critical,

right? And um with the advent of Six Flags being a major partner in the solution um as we look at this feasibility study, I know that there's always been a a major need to to design it to be able to look at some type of off-ramp to right into carow. So I I would assume that's all part of the conversation with that study, but I just again I think that's critical we get it right. I think so and and I agree with you, sir. Um so I I spoke with the DOT secretary and he thought that they would be wanting to conduct this study during next fiscal year. So DOT is working very quickly on this.

This is a high priority for them. And so he wanted to make sure because this was in our agreement with DOT uh and the SIB uh that we were able to budget for this in the upcoming fiscal year. So the feasibility study is going to look at the interchanges and obviously that could be a part of the interchange. That also might be a part of the fast lanes coming in as well. So it might not actually be a part of the interchange, it could be a part of the fast lane, right? uh because most of the traffic that they're trying to divert directly into six uh Six Flags is going to be uh coming from North Carolina and so I know that's something that NC do and SC DOT are talking about, but it's too early in the planning stages, right?

But I think this feasibility study will support. Yeah. I just didn't want to lose sight of that overall need to get make sure we get that right. So definitely. Yeah. Thank you. As it relates to space needs, will the space needs assessment take into consideration the economic development office above the library and maybe the library taking over that space? ED you looking at a different space. So I've actually got something about that later in my presentation. Uh there is the need for libraries to increase space.

The libraries are doing their own kind of study to determine how many additional libraries they need to build. the study that we're recommending would make sure that our employees all have the space they need, right? And so, yes, I don't know if we're going to be able to solve for ED before the libraries really need that space, though. So, yes, we need to figure out where ED should be long term. I don't currently have a solution for that. I don't think it's in the Baxter library though, right? Long term. And so I think this study will look at that, but I think ED might have to move before the study's done quite honestly. But we'll talk about that.

Are we gonna talk about that more tonight because I have a suggestion I'd like to make. Yeah, we'll see how much time we got tonight. But yeah, I've got something in there to say that it's more of an open-ended question to y'all that we need to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay. All right. And Mr. Edwards, if he'd advance one more slide because this one's a y

just rhetorical, but in terms of building capacity, uh we did discuss at at the budget retreat uh the the need for a long range planning position, which is a recurring cost. We also discussed an adequate public facilities ordinance, which would uh require a consultation to help us study how to set up an ordinance and how how to implement it. So, we spoke of those things before. What has been uh embedded in the uh budget process since its origin, but we didn't bring up at the retreat was a senior building inspector. And we thought it was important to uh reveal that position and uh what it would be used for and how how it can obviously uh benefit the building inspections division. And we are uh experiencing more complex projects uh whether they're bigger industrial commercial projects. But the other benefit would be this uh gives us a way to improve our quality control and enhance our customer service. So we weren't playing a a shell game at the budget retreat. We just thought it was important to emphasize that this position is just as critical with the long range planning position. But at the same time again things would hurt through the current fiscal year. Uh in lie of impact fees uh adequate public facilities ordinance could be an option for us if we want to tie it to infrastructure capacity in the future. And the long range planner me is integral because not only are we updating the comp plan but there are different area plans that we hear from council that you all want us to be able to do. We simply don't have the staff to do it. So, Newport, for example, is something that, you know, we're gonna we're going to seek a consultant for, but hopefully something like the

Carowinds Boulevard entertainment area someday could be a small area plan that this long range planner does. Uh, so we're trying to staff up because we are a very lean organization so that we can do more complex projects and we don't have to use as many consultants. And I think the long range planner could help in making making we're all or making sure that we're all on track with what we want to implement through all the plans.

So So go ahead. I mean these these are all planning I don't know if you have other planning positions that you proposed in the budget but one of the ones that we talked about is an onbudsman to be able to identify the problems that are are in planning um from a res a resident perspective and from a business perspective. how to identify those things and be able to act quick quickly to change RCOD which has been something that's been very concerning for the council for the past two years. Is that being addressed at all in the budget?

Yeah. So in your folder and this will be in the budget that I hand to y'all Monday night. I've got the recommended reclass list and so my recommendation is to create an unbudsman through a reclass and then that person would be in the manager's office. U yes they'll be working on planning related items but a lot of our customer say recclass are you saying take an existing position and add more duties to it? It's a vacant position. Yeah. So I'm trying I'm trying to limit the total vacant position. It's vacant right now. Yeah. How long has it been vacant? Sorry,

it's a long time. Uh we can talk more about that. I mean, this is so this would be uh the executive assistant position in the manager's office. Uh and and that position really helps with customer service for the entire organization. What I want to do with that position is create that more as the liaison for customer service and responding to council concerns and and resident questions through one one avenue and that person coordinate with the entire organization. I think that would help with our response. And so as I went to try to hire that position um and went through a whole process, I had clarity about what I really needed to be successful in terms of addressing residents concerns and questions that we get. And it is a full-time job. Uh trying to keep up and make sure we don't drop the ball on anything just from y'all, let alone from residents. And so having that person in the manager's office is important. I I think that they'd obviously be very involved with planning as well. So, and and on the adequate public facilities ordinance study, is that is that amount that you've identified is that um going to cover the cost and is that something we can do in tandling with the comp plan? So, obviously the adequate public facilities is designed to ensure that when large developers come in that they're paying for the infrastructure needed to do the work that they're doing at least adds additional

responsibility for that.

I'm sorry. We're presently evaluating when we look at the whole scheme of of plans that we're proposing. Uh if they are all approved in the budget, a lot of uh the scope has been written already. And if you were to approve these plans in the budget in late May after third reading, uh we're we're already uh logistically trying to position ourselves with procurement where uh we can get RFPs out before the end of this fiscal year and seize the opportunity to try to bring all of the consultants in. But we're also trying to logistically think about where is it appropriate and where could we actually establish some cost savings by maybe bundling some of these plans as ad alternates into a comprehensive plan. So um I think we're we're able to do that successfully. We we may actually be able to save a few dollars doing it that way, but I think we deserve uh or we need to talk to the procurement manager to get some additional advice and guidance on that. Make sure that we're not violating our procurement procurement rules.

Two quick. Well, let me back up to Buzzman.

Are you sure that's only a single position if you need to move it into the manager's office for more? because everybody that I talked to and and Tom went up and spoke to a lot of people in Lake Wy area about books and everybody was extremely excited about getting that. We didn't get it last year, but I feel like that's a that would be a a full-time position in planning at least for now um until we kind of get the some of the edges smoothed out. uh you know I still get a lot of uh calls about different things going on up there that it's not that planning has a an issue it's just things don't fit inside the box and so I could see I'm sure if I get that much in my district I'm sure every district has that much and will that one position be able to assist the manager's office at all

it's a fair question I wanted to try it but but quite honestly if if that's what y'all think we need to do. I'm not going to argue with you if you want to add an additional position. I was just trying to come up with ways to make sure we didn't have to add a full time equivalent and and try to work with what we had. Uh but but that again, if you guys y'all want to talk about that further as we go through the budget process, I'm I'm open to that. or maybe you can put it into a uh you know have them maybe dedicated more of their percentage of time to planning and then fill in on your position when when needed. But right that that's my I know it's it's very much needed in planning.

Right. And it's and and for me, you know, as the manager, when when things go to a department and they don't come through us on customer service, we might not have any idea that it's going on, right? And so, obviously, we could we could organize it in a way that we we have reports that we're getting, so we're aware of what that position's working on. Uh, but if it's in the manager's office, it's easier for me to be involved and know what my departments are working on, where I need to push, where I need to pull, and make sure that we have they have the support they need to get back to people. But, but yeah, we're we're more than willing to talk through that and where it sits. And

I have no problem for them answering directly to you and not, you know, just where the majority of the time. The other one was uh

the uh adequate public facilities. Is that not the exact same thing as an impact fee? I mean, generally, it's the same thing as an impact fee. Why are we creating something new for South Carolina, not just following the impact fee method, which then goes back to last year when everybody was, we wanted to do impact fee studies and everybody's so been out of shape over impact fees that we couldn't get the study done. Are we just renaming it something else so that it's palatable to get into the budget this time? I mean it's not the exact same thing.

It's not theoretically the impact fees are based on uh a more finite mathematical model and uh I I think with what we've experienced this year with impact fees u we were trying to offer an alternative which has been brought up in the past s since I've been here. I I wouldn't call it impact fees by another name. I would instead say it is a a way uh to link development to paying its fair share uh but not necessarily proportionate share of of infrastructure. Uh now on the other hand uh if you wanted to reset the clock or res uh just do a total reset and do impact fees I don't know that there would be a big difference in price uh in terms of consulting but an adequate public facilities ordinance isn't necessarily a bad thing to have either

the thing I have with the adequate public facilities is that the impact fees are well established, been in process for decades. We have a pro. You start on this and it's very subjective and um then there's going to be people say, "Well, you're hitting these people harder. It's not fair to me. It may or may not get us tied up in a lawsuit because not many people in South Carolina are doing it already." And as I said the very first time uh last year when I first got on council, we are not the most businessfriendly county there is. And so this just looks like another way to scare off business from your county. So, another thing with that is the adequate public facilities ordinance can also target things specifically that necessarily impact fees can't, which is why like like assistant manager Couch mentioned,

impact fees are tied to a study that are very specific public facilities ordinance. I don't disagree with your point, but it's more broad because it's more receptive to the county needs. And additionally at the state level, they've even tried to take a stab at this through concurrency, and it has fallen on its face. And so, unfortunately, it falls to the locals to have to come up with something like a adequate public facilities ordinance um because it's not going to be statewide. So, you know, not saying that we should take our leave from the state, but it's being looked at, but it's just not gaining the traction. So, but this type of ordinance is more targeted than impact fees which have to be tied to a study system and they have to be spent on system improvements.

But I don't disagree with your points about impact fees but it's you know that that is a balancing act between those two. But I think there's a I mean but I from a state from a county level we have more controls over that um from a structural standpoint but what what we've talked about before and I think it can be more targeted in order to possibly interact businesses in certain ways because we can redirect where how we want to portion you know where we need to target specifically in order to maybe again maybe possibly attract you make it better for businesses in some ways. But the the other thing that you're now that know we're having this conversation is that, you know, we're we're hearing a lot of rumbling from the state, right? And there's some real concerns I'm hearing from the state when it comes to supporting and maintaining our our state roads in the county. And um so I guess that when we go through this budget exercise, the concern I have is that if the states going to pull going to make a move as they've talked about with pulling back on on funding of state roads and having kind of thrown out in the backs of the counties, then I think that's a whole another discussion that I think we have to be open to as we look at our our budget and make sure we're planning appropriately. Yeah, we have a a couple slides at the end of this talking about the um where we're at with some of the legislative priorities. Uh and we'll talk more at length, but great great point and question. Currently, the DOT bill is still voluntary. So, early on it was not voluntary. I don't think there's many counties that are going to be signing up for this, but there's some other details we want to share later in the meeting

related to that. But yes, we're we're not in the position to take on more roads. uh especially because we feel like we're currently underfunded by the state anyways. Uh and and the incentives to take on roads that they've currently offered in the bill are not worthwhile and and and or advantageous to take on more infrastructure. Okay.

I'll be brief. Um so as I prepared tonight, I too wrote down I was hoping we'd see the long range planning position back into the budget this year. I think it's critically important. the own budsman and I think it is well positioned in the manager's office for the assistant county managers and the managers to utilize that owns budsman so your highest and best use is with other things other than the things that we're calling you and having you work on today I do believe in what you said too the first hire will lead to the second hire because this becomes a cultural change in what we're trying to accomplish here in York County in delivering a better level of active not passive service to the citizens and the businesses that look to do business here in York County. So, I think it's something that we build upon. So, it's not the end, it's the beginning of a new process. Um, adequate public facilities. I had actually written that one down as well. I'm glad to see that here because in a way when we talk about growth, paying for growth, just school growth is part of it. There's a whole lot more growth that goes along with growth paying for growth. It's the future expenses we have that the taxpayers have to pay. And so why not have the entities, I won't define them, that come into the county help pay for these expenses that are in the future as a result of them being here. I realize that does get a little sensitive with is this a um is this the kind of place you want to come and open your business or or create a development or whatever. That's something we'll have to work through. But there is an expense down the road to many things and we need to get ahead of it in my opinion.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. I guess looking back at this ombbudsman and some of the other documents. So are you saying you're taking like Linda's secretarial position and that's what you're transforming into an onbudsman? Yeah, it's been vacant this whole time. I'm happy to talk about it more offline, but but the the work that we need to prioritize is responding to residents and engaging and the executive assistant did a lot of that work amongst other things. But I've been able with with staff's help to, you know, to to manage without it. And I think that's a critical position. So I'm trying to find ways to fund it without creating additional positions. Right. Yeah.

And a way that you can get a qualified person to actually fulfill the responsibilities of an own buds. That's right. But I'm happy to talk individually about that more at length. I mean, technology has changed a lot of things. Uh just like we've been planning for the future general capital and planning items, I wanted Eric to speak how we're doing that on the utilities front.

Yeah. So basically this is just a quick road mapap of um you know how we're planning for the future now that utilities is its own standalone department. Um we're we're looking forward uh so over this past year we have been um we've been undertaking uh a comprehensive system study of the entire system. Um there's five separate studies going on right now that are all going to finish at various times this spring. Uh we were hoping to have that done earlier so we could incorporate it more into this budget process but um uh it just didn't uh the study went on longer than than we ant anticipated. So coupled with that uh comprehensive study we also have a financial rate study. Um this includes you know what our rate structure is going to look like what our rates are in the future to fund this future for growth. Um along with that, our impact capacity fees must be studied um because by ordinance they will sunset at the end of this fiscal year at the in December of 2026. So we need to have that study to come up with a recommendation for those fees as we go into the future. Once we compile all these studies including the financial study, our plan is to get together uh you know collaboratively and have a good capital plan to present to all in the next budget process next year. Um really looking at prioritizing what's the most important projects that are identified in those studies and then coming up with a game plan over the next 10 years to move that forward. And our goal is to, you know, increase project execution and get things done on time, on budget, within your priorities. So, um, that that's generally the roadmap moving forward. And, uh, we're pretty committed to, uh, getting a good capital plan as we go forward. We'll get into more of the actual this next year's capital plan as we move forward in this presentation.

Thanks, Eric.

Does our utilities include anything along the lines for storm water? So currently storm water is within the planning department. So we have not created a storm water fee. We do not have an enterprise storm water system. What we're starting to do with some of these storm water plans is study our infrastructure to begin to determine if we were to do a fee someday in the future. And I think Tom at the budget retreat you said in theory we're potentially 5 years out from that. We've got to begin to study our infrastructure to figure out what the fee would be and what it would pay for and what area of the county it would cover. So, so we're in the the very beginning stages. If we were to ever create a storm water utility, then potentially, yes, they could be a part of the utilities department. They might get spun out of planning. Uh sometimes they're in engineering departments. We would have to cross that bridge if we were to make the if if council were to make the decision to create a storm water fee someday. But at this point, the operational impact of storm water issues are fixed by public works, right? The planning side of it and the future focus side of it is is within and the inspection side of it is within planning. And so there there's a number of things the public works does that are storm water um operational fixes but they're being paid for at the general fund and I don't know if you want to speak to that at all.

Yeah, I mean any um you know right away or drainage concern majority of these issues are within the county right ofways um but we're only limited to that. uh we cannot work on private property with which some of these utilities address some projects that would that would address that um depending on how they're set up but uh primarily we're just focused on any storm water related issues um either on at county facilities andor uh rightways owned by I know one one of the things I get a lot of calls on from people in the rural county areas is when the water's supposedly going through that cover under the driveway it's grown So, they just need to be trenched back out. You know, I don't know if our

staff has a regular maintenance program, but we also have 630 mi of county roads that um we're go through and address them and we're also reactive when it comes to those complaints. I mean, that's that's generally what we receive. Um, and we go out there and and address it at that time

because what what that does is if that that ditch isn't kind of trenched out, that water goes now starts to go in people's yards and if it's heavy enough, it's getting up to the homes and you know, whatever. Um, do we take So, if I'm getting calls and and say, "Hey, I live on blank road. Our whole road, our yards are flooding because we don't have this trench. Do we take those kind of calls to send people out to to look to the trench? Okay.

That's only that's only if it's county roads. Most of the water issues are state roads and the culvert issues are stateowned infrastructure which is why I think the whole issue of storm water obviously is something that we're studying and it's important and we have to do and we have to identify where that infrastructure is because it wouldn't be fair for folks who are never going to ever benefit from a fee

to pay into something they're never ever going to get there but in the areas where they need it they need it and so I think we need to be very we need to use a scalpel because I'm a little bit concerned that I'm here and I understand but that I mean when we talk about utility rate increases and doing a rate study I mean we're solely talking about water and sewer. not talking about anything but water and sewer and we have we have historically only passed along my understanding is that city of Rockill's rate increase for water and sewer it went up tremendously this year too hasn't it didn't they say 11% this year this year's 8% for sewer only and 0% for water that's currently proposed but not approved I thought it was different because I think sometimes

it started at 11 and went to eight that's I didn't make that up in my head so Um, I just think it's it's I like to hear that y'all are seeing that it takes very specific planning and not knee-jerk response, but it's obviously something that we've been talking about as part of this. Um, we need to have this in our long range planning now so that we can we can identify and and investigate the infrastructure needs. Well, not to prolong our meeting. Go ahead. Not to prolong our meeting, but going back what you said. So, what happens? We have a state road that has a covert that's clogged. Is the state going to take care of that? Do they pay us to take care of that?

Yeah, the state is going to take care of that. Um, generally if we if we get those complaints, we pass it along for the resident. I mean, that's our sort of internal policy that we will pass that along to the state, but we also encourage them to do so as well so they get it twice. Um, there's an online system. I do everything online so that weighs a record of it. Um, and that seems to be the best approach.

Okay. Thank you. I think however we can make that easier when we get one to make it automated to apply to the actual infrastructure the jurisdiction that has uh the entity that has jurisdiction over that infrastructure needs to get notified and a lot of times they don't I mean they I do it when my folks call me I immediately email it straight to DOT but I didn't mean to interject what were you saying

let me uh just uh expand and a little bit or not expand but uh reinforce the uh going back to the storm water and the comprehensive plan. We definitely need that. Uh York County is from a development and roadway standpoints not that old compared to a lot of places, but there's a coming storm for these uh covert pipes and whatnot. You know, they say corugated metal has a 50 75 year lifespan. It doesn't. It's going to start rotten out. These roads are going to start failing. We're going to have a lot of them coming up. We've got, you know, real development as far as I know. Started in the 90s. And so, we're getting close to the lifespan on a bunch of roads. And it's going to overwhelm public works if if we don't have a way to fund these things through some type of fee. And as we see with uh the state, I know that we don't want to fix state roads, but we've got the pennies program that is out there fixing state roads and we're going to do the same thing for storm water. Storm water, these roads are going to start failing. The ditches and the creeks are going to grow up. They're never going to flow as good and we're going to end up with flooding. Luckily, we don't have that yet. But as more development comes to York County, they're going to start developing in areas they really shouldn't be. Now, luckily, we're far enough along, unlike some uh places like Charlotte that started in the, you know, 70s and 80s with development, we've got good floodway and flood uh plane plans. But, uh but that's we're going to have to deal with storm water sooner rather than later. And it's going to be an issue and we can either fund it in a big chunk in the future or we can uh start preparing for it now. And then as for the rate studies, if we haven't increased our rates for water and sewer since 2017, other than passing through the rate increases that the county or that the

city has sent us, we're doing a disservice to the county. We obviously whatever we were at in 2017 and what we were spending money on cost that much money, inflation has been through the roof since then. So, where we were buying pipe for, let's say, a dollar a foot and we're paying $2 a foot for it, we've lost 50% of our service right there that we were providing to people. And I would go out on a limb and probably say we weren't taking advantage of our residents back in 2017. So, we're even worse off now trying to keep up with them. And uh you know it looks good that we didn't make any rate increases but just like what happened in 2017 because I remember I emailed uh council about that um when I first heard you know we did like a 15% increase for several years and I was like what have y'all done? And it had been because we hadn't done an increase since like 2003. And so we need to make sure if we're doing increases that we do at least inflation because we're losing buying power. Um you know everything is going up. I know people hate to hear about increases on you know all their utilities and everything else but you know everything that the utility buys is increasing in price. So if we're buying the same things for more money then we're not buying something else that or not doing something that really needs to be done. And then we're going to come up and hit people with a 25, 30, 40% rate increase. And it happens to every place that's ever tried to go and not raise rates.

And I can pull out documents from where I work from the 1980s where they did the same thing and did a 40% increase for three or four years in a row to try to catch back up. So yes, and I we completely agree with you. I

I want to make one more quick comment. We did try to implement a storm water fee probably 6 years ago. It's been a while. And so this is not a new topic. It's just whether we're going to bite the bullet and do it. Just like Andy was saying, we can't keep putting off certain things because we fall that much further behind. Um, I know everybody, it looks good and sounds good when we don't raise taxes, we don't raise this fee, but in the end, somebody's gonna have to bear the burden of doing it. It never sounds good, but it feels good when we're able to dispatch somebody to take care of problem because we got the money to do it and not keep putting it off, not taking the money. Then we say, "Well, we really can't do it because we didn't plan for it. We don't have the money in the budget." Well, they don't give a crap about that. They want it fixed whatever it is. They want to address whatever it is. And we got to sit back and say, "Well, we didn't really we're not taking up money for it or we don't have that in the budget or we're not doing that." That's no that's not that's not going to go over well with citizens when we're obviously taking in property taxes and money for other services. They want they want the services when they need it. Because if my yard is flooding because my out front hadn't been trenched, that ain't going to help me when you say, "Well, we don't really we're not prepared for that."

It's easy. It's easy on us. Yeah. because we may or may not be up here in 10 years when these residents get hit, but it's the same residents that are getting hit. They're going to get the abuse and the and have to pay for it. Whether they pay for it now incrementally getting there or they pay for it all then, it just looks better or if we the present council gets to kick the can down to somebody else.

I just think it's a it I think we're all we're throwing a lot of different things in this. the storm water fee which is totally separate and has totally different infrastructure than the water and sewer issue. And I just I I think we all recognize that we have to take care of that. At the same time, one of the beauties of pennies is that it is people can't ever complain because you know where that money is going. You may think, hey, it costs too much for us to get there, but you know when that money is being taken where it's going and it takes it from folks that live outside our district and it can only go to those projects. It can't go to other project funds, only those things. What I think is extremely important and as stewards of the county taxpayer money though is to make sure that we don't just raise rates. And and again, it it amazes me when folks don't understand when you're talking about a rate study, that only applies to people that are on a water service. People who have wells, that doesn't apply to you. That doesn't it has to do with that. But it needs to be directly tied to project enhancements. And until we have that, it is I mean I think it is, you know, that that's part of the thing that this council has really tried to focus on these last two years especially is planning

and that reinforces what I just what I was saying about impact fees before. Impact fees have a direct study. You know what you're going to spend those fees on. Just like the Penny's project, you know what you're going to spend it on. ain't a ain't a percentage as far as we do the adequate facility on the new stuff that can be worked in a percentage of that storm water for the new ones coming in to have to cover that right in with regard to impact fees storm water no on just in the adequate facility if if we make them start sharing the burden of Mhm. Now, that ain't going to do much for a pre-existing, but

yeah, I I think the big in the bigger picture with storm water is uh the focus is probably going to be on the urban service boundary because that's where most of the development is occurring in the unincorporated areas. You may and if that holds and we follow our plans and our ordinances, the storm water impact isn't going to be that great. But I think the most important thing to understand very succinctly is is that the process I spoke about at the budget retreat, we we need certain kinds of intelligence be uh before we follow through with a storm water utility fee, we have to understand what infrastructure we have, you know, what needs to be replaced. We have to have have a grab on what the growth is going to do in the future. uh you know just doing a rate study m it may not cover all the cost and then there's a bigger issue too is we have to have a good engineering or environmental understanding of how our basins work throughout the county because that influences not only flood flood control but storm water flow. So all of these things tie together and that that's why it's a little bit of a longer game to get to a storm water utility, but I think if if the phase one and subsequently phase 2 inventory assessment is funded and we can keep rolling the ball down the court in 5 years, we can get somewhere where we can have a fair, equitable, but um meaningful utility fee to help cover the costs of storm water management.

I can't I can't let go pass without this one thing. We also we are supposedly in a system where um engineers who do the bigger projects that water has to be a water neutral facility. I mean it has to be water neutral and so

the the concern that I have which is part and parcel of this we talked about this before is you have to enforce the current ordinances and if there isn't the enforcement there we need to have those ordinances ASAP that give us the because if somebody is not maintaining their pond that is why it's causing the problems downstream and we have got to be able to enforce that and keep it there because technically um or we need to figure how how these plans are coming in and why it's still causing the problem, right? It's already supposed to be fixed.

I agree with that. But it's also like Andy said though, if you take like in the vast reason of my part with having the hills and the gullies of York County, I mean, I've got a lot of roads that wash out. Well, the retent but back to retention or detention ponds, the basic concept, the basic understanding of maintenance of the detention and retention ponds should be something that we make sure that we highlight to make sure that that each of the developments again are holding are held accountable

because as Christie was saying downstream you see downstream impact from retention and detention ponds not being maintained and and that's already in ordinance. We just got to, you know, what's on the books, we got to make sure we're we're upholding pennies for progress, though. I mean, the the value, we've seen the value of that and how we can structure something like that into um you know, what we're looking at here from a utilities perspective, I think, is is going to go a long ways, too. When

when we do that study though, you know, this great thing of where everybody got into the wetland credits and all and and we allowed a lot of building up and a lot of that that played its part in a lot of this problem, too. Well, we appreciate all the feedback y'all are giving. This has been a good discussion. Just like we we have to plan for the future, we're also currently building for the future, too. And I think it's important that we recognize there are things that we need to build uh that that we're behind on and we need to get done and move forward. We we've got property and parks that that we want to build out. Uh granted, Kataba Bend is not something we're going to build out overnight, but when you look at this list up here, uh in your folder, I've got your f the FY27 recommended capital projects list. And this will be in the budget obviously Monday night as well. But I I wanted to highlight on this slide the total dollar amount. So for for capital projects, and these are general capital projects, uh which is which we've talked about with y'all at retreats as being our 1420 projects, but this includes, you know, the animal shelter, the booking center, um the corners facility, um the amongst many others that that's going to total in my recommended budget $38 million. There's a number of projects we need to get moving on and a couple big ones. Kataba Ben, we're continuing to work on the trail uh and and trying to um move that forward uh with a design of the entire trail. The five mile trail along the river is part of that. Uh capital maintenance uh is is has its own millillage. Uh and so one of the things that I'm recommending is that we increase that millillage to account for the everinccreasing cost of capital maintenance. uh and and you'll see that as we talk about millage rates later. Uh saw waste saw waste collection has

projects as well as 13.6 million for water and sewer. Uh I know you know pennies is always a big number to many of you all have mentioned pennies tonight. It is a significant investment and is a very important program for for our county. Uh in talking to our delegation a lot recently all of them mentioned how great Pennies has been. Uh but you see $145 million in the budget is related to pennies. Uh and then and then we're also recommending continued work uh on woodend uh in the Bethl Lake WY uh parks district. All that together is over $200 million. And so it it's important and one of the things that we've worked hard as manager's office is try to improve our reporting for capital projects. We're going to continue to work on that. Uh but I also think it's important that we add a capital projects manager. This is another reclass that I'm recommending from a vacant position. Uh but this person will make sure that our 112 total capital projects are delivered on schedule on budget but also report it accurately and be able to manage the budgets uh to make sure that we're adequately funding these projects uh and everyone's accountable to that. And I might just say it's not really adding a position. It's more of a request. We're shifting a position out of engineering to accommodate this. And engineering, they do a good job at getting the end product, but just like a private business, we have to make sure that we're getting things done on time, under budget, time, and money. And we we have to make sure we're effective with that across all facilities and infrastructure, which is not to replace what engineering is doing, but the whole shooting match with what you're seeing on this slide. There's a lot of work that we're committed to doing. There's a lot of work we're doing this year. Uh

but on your list, you'll see in the FY27 column. So, we've included 26 because that's current year, but you'll see the FY27 column uh that that uh that lists all the projects. All right. Go ahead. I think that the parks are rec master plan in that is it's 125 in this PowerPoint. It says 175 on this. I'm hoping it's 125. Yeah, we'll take a look at that. I think that's a typo. Sorry about that. Yeah, I believe it's 125, but Trish Yeah. Yes.

All right. So, we've talked a lot about roads with y'all over the last couple years and we're continuing to to improve our roads plan. I wanted Eric to talk a little bit, you know, and and we're going to try to speed up the rest of the presentation to get through this tonight, but I wanted Eric to speak a little bit to kind of what we're doing in house.

Yeah. I just want to give a quick in-house update. Many of you probably haven't seen this. Um, so we've been doing in-house paving for about 5 years. We're resurfacing in house. Um over that five years, it resulted in about $3 million in savings. Uh we can do a road for an average of uh about 400,000 or three $350,000 a mile versus contracting it out at about 6 or 700,000 a mile. Um so we really look went into this next year like looking at our capacity, what we had to do, what we could do to increase that. Um really where we're at now is we wanted to prioritize our efficiency and our quality and uh we had some issues with recruitment and retention of employees. No one wants to work in the asphalt business. So kind of focused on that this year with some reclassifications of the of the roads division to sort of provide a career ladder to allow those you know experienced employees to uh come in. um they can get incentivized for training where they get the special certifications just in an effort to uh retain them and recruit better more experienced um people. So if you look at the chart that shows the uh you know the five years we we are expecting to increase a whole other mile on this next year just based on our current staff and improving those efficiencies um for about a half million dollar savings over 2.7 miles. So, um that's uh also in this next year, the county manager uh talked about in the beginning, uh we are increasing road funding from 2 million to 4 million. Uh our our cost here is about 850,000. We'll contract the rest out. Uh but this will be a big improvement. We uh you know, engineering went through the efforts of doing a pavement condition index uh doing that study and really prioritizing those roads. And I think uh Mr. Couch is going

to speak briefly on the roads plan update regarding engineering.

Yes. Uh thank you Mr. Reken. I um we discussed roads plan uh where we at budget retreat where we talked about a schedule roads over a 5-year period based primarily on the condition index ratings and the uh traffic counts. And there has been some additional traffic count data that has been uh put into that 5-year schedule, but it doesn't substantially or otherwise affect the re recommended schedule by engineering of which roads to do over the next 5 years. Of course, it's always a discretionary decision, but ba based on the data that we currently have, uh we would recommend that if the funding is approved in in the budget that we we go forward with the schedule that engineering recommended. All right. So, you know, both Eric and I have mentioned this earlier in the presentation, uh, but we believe we're long overdue for a water and sewer rate increase. Uh, the there is the need, uh, to do this. Uh, one of the things we originally hoped to do was to wait till the rate study was complete. Uh however, at this point, having dipped our toes into the rate study and understanding, as Councilwoman Linton shared, the likely result of the rate study for not in with not raising rates since 2017, we think it's it's prudent to begin raising rates this next year. Uh this will limit the rate increase in future years and also begin putting money into the infrastructure we need. We also are seeing significant operating increases uh that these rate increases will go to. So there there is a significant increase based on the infrastructure we have. I know a lot of you all have experienced some of the impacts of this

infrastructure. Uh but in order to fix it, we need to have money. This is an enterprise system and so uh this rate increase will account for about potentially $2 million to address some of those. But I'll let Eric speak to this uh as well.

Yeah. So if you look uh we talked briefly earlier of the 10% sewer that 8% of that 10% is what the is the Rockill pass through. So we're adding an additional 2% and then increasing both uh water volumetric rates and base fees for both water and sewer. Um so we t so maintenance costs are obviously going up and I just threw a couple bullets in here of certain things that really drive up that that cost and and we've got this proactive tank maintenance program now. We've got a in an active parts inventory that allows us to respond to leaks and everything faster um you know without having to try to source parts. Um so all these are driving up and another thing we're doing is a number of uh smaller pump stations were identified for replacement through our capital planning. Uh we we're able to do that inhouse for cost savings but that also drives up that cost as well. Um talking going back to planning for the future that kind of relates to our uh personnel request. Uh we we we're limited to one project utility project coordinator uh in the department to manage all these projects. So we're requesting a utility project manager to help facilitate that as well as a uh utility accounting manager. you know, we have 35 to $45 million in operating costs and 10 to20 million in um uh capital costs annually. So, uh we're really requesting these positions to help manage that better. In regards to the capital, uh projects, uh we talked earlier, we're requesting 13 million uh just over 13 million. That's really to finish up existing projects that we already have moving. Um, in addition to that, 2 million of that is to identify the priorities and start the design process in this next year after those studies come back. So, we're ahead of the game. So, we're ready to go under construction with some of these projects

leading into the the next year and we don't get behind. What's the uh what's the pass through cost? You said 8%. 8% on sewer only. So, we're we're basically raising it by 2%. Yes. Okay. And then what about water? What was water? Uh there's no pass through for water. So we're raising water 6%. 6%. And and we do believe these will be a drop in the bucket compared to what the rate study will bring back. Gotcha. What to help me understand the $247 is that an estimation of what you anticipate the water.

Exact. So a B every uh you um you have a base charge for both water and sewer. So the existing base charge is um uh somewhere around 950. Um it's 200 and so it's going to go to $12 and the sewer is going to $10 from $850. And so all of that when you talked about $13 million that that 13 million is coming from the enterprise fund solely, not all of that. That's how you're raising that correct from the rating from the capital. Million of this is coming from the enterprise fund, right?

Not as tax. As we look at water and sewer for the future, and I'm not talking about the 26 27 budget year. I'm talking about 2728 forwards. We're surrounded by seven counties. Is there any benefit to us looking at partnering with any or all of those counties for our water and sewer needs? I I think that, you know, obviously a lot of the things is that we deal with from the county perspective are regional challenges, whether that be housing inventory, we're doing a regional study for housing inventory, uh transportation issues, uh affordability issues. Uh I I I think in terms of utilities, uh each of us are trying to figure out how we fund this ourselves someday down the road. Yes, regional utilities make sense. There's pros and cons obviously, but we're nowhere close to our neighbors over here, right? There there's there's no clear connection to our neighbors in Cherokee right now, right? It's a long ways. And so I don't think this area is right for that yet. But in future generations, is there a multi-county regional system? Maybe. Uh is this not something we can look at? Sure. But I but I don't think in terms of talking to Chester and talking to Cherokee, Gaston, Meckllinburgg, everybody. I don't I don't think there's that ability right now. But it's a regional issue. Sure.

I will add that they did do a regional look. I don't know what happened to that study. There there is a study out there. Yeah. On it. We can get it for there was something you all get your hands on the study so we can see it because there is growth occurring that we didn't expect even on the western side of your county and all it takes is water and sewer to come into the area then you have growth

right and and I think part of what county council needs to consider is yes you're exactly right but do you want growth on the western side of the county I think I think that's one of the things too you got to be be be careful of so so I think there's areas in in the county that we would want to extend utilities to in our urban service boundary, but there's also areas we would not want to. That's exactly why the comprehensive plan is so critical for the community to get out and for the property owners and for um you know all of our the municipalities and everyone to get the urban services boundary

um nailed down to where truly where that growth is intended to go. It's it's it's it's a big thing. It's a very boring taxing process, but it's very very important. But we control annexation creek. Yeah. And that we get smaller and smaller. Yeah. It's that min it's the municipality. I think that you know that broader discussion where where it comes in you know especially on the growth component is is is um is a big deal. Hey, Eric. Just question out of curiosity like me and you was talking about those tanks the other day with the float system and the problem

and not having do they have a a actual when when they overflow there since they ain't already at the meter. How do they calculate is that loss revenue that just run out of that those water loss is calculated water loss is calcul that's accurate. Are they metering it right there at the storage also master meter? We have master meters with Rock Hill where we purchase our water. So once it it's already beyond that master meter. So So it's beyond just that system beyond that meter is water loss and that's that's a lot of water.

So for the sake of time I I I value this discussion. This has been great feedback. Uh, we're going to talk, David's going to speak to the next two slides and then the remainder slides I will go through very quickly, but I want to make sure you all know what these slides are and you can look at and we can have future conversations. Uh, but I want to make sure we give time for for public safety. So, in terms of protecting York County, uh we have significant investments in this budget, uh related to both fire, EMS, uh the sheriff's office, and Dave is going to speak to to the priorities.

So, I won't read this entire slide. I'll try to be brief with it. Um and I'll start at that fund balance. So, um, what we've seen is a kind of a perfect blending of of two issues coming together. Um, dating back all the way into 2021 and 22 with our capital purchases, uh, we were looking at 3 to four year build times. Uh, changing and realizing that that was not efficient and we were uh, while we were locking in prices, we were extended delivery times. We have now moved to a different method of purchasing uh, with stock units. And what that means is that's shorter build time. Sometimes it's actually on the ground. Well, in doing so, those two windows have now collided where we had POS that were outstanding and being carried forward for potentially three or four years. Now, current costs coming due in the year. So, in 2026 and 2027, what we see is those two those two situations colliding and we see a significant decrease in the fund balance because all of that capital is coming due at one time. Um, it's good. It's a benefit directly to the first responders and the fire departments, but it's a crunch on our budget at the same time. Um, so for that reason, um, and additionally with with the other items that this will accomplish, uh, we're proposing a a one so even one mil increase um, in the rural fire uh, millillage and that is the unincorporated fire. Um, so that's from 6.6 to 7.6. Now what does that accomplish? Number one, it continues the capital replacement. That's the most significant. It continues ordering trucks and the capital replacement. On top of that, it advances our level of service. So, if we've discussed numerous times, our hybrid staffing model where we begin uh integrating uh county firefighters and supporting uh some of the fire departments by putting firefighters in there and increasing their staffing. Uh it also supports our reorganization of county fire uh to be

able to grow with this in the future. We've been very segmented with divisions in county fire. Now we're actually creating some structure where we have a suppression division, operations is what we're calling it, logistics, which is largely our shop and our maintenance, and a lot of the I think most people are surprised to learn that York County maintains all of the equipment in in the county fire system, including breathing apparatus, gas monitors. It's everything is actually maintained by us. Um and again as another priority increasing that direct assistance to volunteers the um state association dues uh one of the impacts of 1% is included in there um and increasing the direct assistance. The really key to hone in on this is that funding allocation. So you'll see um and some of this is the combining of of those two situations coming together of the equipment ordering is it's an increase of 65% direct funding to county fire departments whether it's through equipment, vehicles, maintenance, whatever that is. And that's all direct assistance to them and then 7.4% of that is the increase to the fire service which is is really just enough for us to keep up and maintain the level of service that we're trying to offer. So, we are really trying to to directly invest back into fire departments through the staffing, helping them accomplish uh either keeping or increasing their level of service.

Any questions on that before? I have a lot of questions, but I'm sure you do. I'll follow up after and we have time to talk through all these things in the coming months. I understand.

Um, backing up to a generalized public safety. I'm not going to go through the capital costs because we've already uh we've already discussed most of those. There are some design costs built in as we talk about part of what uh the county manager mentioned our 214 million is also beginning those design costs so that we can accurately scope and budget projects from the beginning uh and we don't have these continual cost increase as projects expand or contract based off of what we need at any given time. Uh so that's significant. the Motorola piece. Um I just did some quick math for your information and and there is a roughly two and a half million increase in uh public safety communications budget h portion of that about one and a half is is related to the Motorola contract but then the other portion are services that we brought in house. Now the question becomes well if we're having if if our cost is increasing that much why didn't we just continue with our Motorola contract because that would have been three plus million a year. So, we really recognize at least about $500,000 worth of savings annually by bringing these services in house. Um, so with that, on the personnel side, um, I'll just work backwards. Um, so now that we're bringing some of those in house, we will create a manager position. That's a reclassification in PSC. Uh, the sheriff's office has requested three new positions. So, that's in the in the patrol and the special victims unit, uh, focusing on sex crimes. And then 13 reclassifications. They have several reclassifications to LPNs uh so that they can offer the medical services inhouse uh particularly like medication distribution versus the detention center officers doing it. They'll actually have certified LPNs doing that. So that's actual migration to bring that inhouse and and some reduce some of their contractual cost in the long run. The fire service already mentioned this is uh the reclassification to support the reorganization and then the support staff for what we're offering in the

hybrid staffing model. And then finally, uh, as council's working through currently our EMS franchise ordinance, um, in order to properly execute our franchise ordinance, uh, we we need an EMS director actually focused on living and breathing EMS every single day as as the county manager has said before. Um, so that's very integral to make sure that we have accountability and oversight over our EMS system. um and not just passively managing a contract to see if it's you know is it meeting our expectations. So active engagement with that. So tried to be brief but again happy to have any conversations offline about this or anything that's pertinent for the group right now.

Um I know y'all mentioned you just mentioned offline just mentioned have any questions offline. Um, is there a way y'all can if y'all have some or for any of us if y'all ask some, you know, good questions or something in the can y'all share? Yep. I would just like to know what y'all asking, what y'all are having concerns about or what you're excited about because um I I just don't it's just for my my own personal mind. So, if so, if you're going to

I don't have any I don't have any problem sharing my question. The only problem is sometimes I need to understand it to know what question to ask. And I think more importantly, this is something we're going to discuss again, right, at the um next workshop, right, which is coming up. Yeah. And and what we try to do last year and and I'm committed to doing again this year, got a slide about this. Anytime y'all ask us a question as an individual, what we'll try to do kind of like the follow-up reports, package them all so you see the question and then the response and we just send it out to everybody. I just want to reiterate just because I'm curious and I really like to listen to all the questions officer

answer those those upgrades too David will will Motorola do its part before the county starts doing what we decided in JPS for the towers all yeah it's in conjunction so um they'll do whatever is under their contract through the end of June and then we will pick up in July um a lot of the things like you were mentioning the HVAC and generators are not due as part of their current contract. They would have been as part of the next seven-year contract, but they would have been exponentially more expensive. Right. Yeah. I remember talking about that. Yeah.

So, the next few slides I'm going to go through quickly and then y'all can look at u and and we can we can talk more at length, but these are specific to some of the priorities you mentioned. So, I wanted to make sure to include some follow-up information. We've talked about the ED related studies. Uh there is no general fund transfer to fund economic development this year. Uh so last year that transfer was reduced as part of the budget to about 87,000. This year the ED fund is supporting itself. Um so we were not able to adjust that at all. Uh we're working on a couple big initiatives this next year and I know the ED committee obviously is aware of these but we're focused on small business but also updating the incentive policy. Another thing is office space needs. I just wanted to bring that up. I know the library board is very interested in that space. Uh and likely we'll be asking for it in the in in the near term. Uh we need to start thinking about options we have as a manager's office and we've worked with ED and we're we're open to any ideas you all have, but I think it's something we need to consider. What what I think is important for everyone to realize is we have no funding for rent in this budget, right? So, it it's going to be hard to leave and then have to go pay rent somewhere. Uh, I think it's very important to also think about location. Obviously, there's short-term ways we can we can account for this, but I think that it's important to also dream longterm about what's best for ED as well. Right. So, so I just wanted to put that out there as a consideration as part of this. Um, excuse me. That's what I want to comment on earlier and since we're at this point, I'll be brief and say this. I almost think it makes sense to allow the econom development director and staff to work on an initiative for the 28 for the 2728 that year start working on that now because it's going to take time and I think there's some opportunity for us to collaborate with other entities

that need space as well and it could be a real win for the county. I think the more we collaborate with others and find a great location that we can share with somebody, I think that would council doesn't object. I' would love to see Mitch have the opportunity to start working on that over the next year. I think this is going to be a back and forth with the library board and us and and I think we've got that. I'm thinking about where he's going to land ultimately. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I hear you. That all this is going to happen. I'm talking about long range.

Yeah. I I think, you know, in terms of because the way I look at this is we need more space for our libraries. that's a definite need and the current space that ED is in is not necessarily ideal for them either. So I think that there is the opportunity to give space uh for the libraries. Uh I I also have begun to learn more and more about their needs. I think the study will be important, but even if they build another library in Fort Mill, they're still going to need the library that's in Baxter Village. And so when I learned that, that kind of changed my whole perspective on this. And so I I think what what I'm trying to do is is balance everybody's needs. But yes, obviously the economic development team is very important to me and I want to make sure they have the right right space too. So I I hear you.

Um

there are also some some things that you have to juggle. Um because some of the entities obviously some of the natural natural um working relationships that would be with with um the visitors bureau their lease doesn't expire for a number of years. And so that you but you we do have a short term. I am fully supportive and I'll go on record saying I do think that um there has to be we need to be looking at short-term places for ED to go and maybe having greater collaboration with the county manager's office in the short term would be beneficial because of some of the things that the community has asked as well um for there to be more transparency in that and and a little bit more collaboration. So I think in the short term we're talking about um kind of allowing Baxter uh finding a different place you know in the existing space that we have currently and and I know that you know there have been folks that have approached um council and county manager about that already. I expect that we'll hear some the library board come out and reiterate that. How do we how do we balance that and still plan for the future? But right I mean and and to to that point I mean their lo their location centric right so they need it in a specific area as opposed to long-term right as opposed to ED where we have more a little bit more flexibility I think from locationwise but you know plus there's a referendum component to that whole piece too

you know which is it there's that time frame that yeah I just want to put that out there this is is a work in progress and something we need to address. Uh, all right. Partnership with parks is something y'all brought up in your in your retreat. Uh, parks is actively working on creating a foundation. I know that there's a potential we need to get a HP meeting on the calendar, provide updates. Uh, but there's also other potential partnerships that we're exploring. Uh, we did want to highlight the parks positions that are in the budget as well. So, that's what we're doing on this slide. Anything to add, Tom?

Uh, nothing more than uh to say that the uh recreation funding we've provided to uh through the IGA with your Clover and the smaller municipalities are all very grateful and it's been a good cooperative effort and um I think they're pleased with the arrangement.

Uh one of the things y'all had prioritized was legal support uh on on your priorities. So, you know, again, the midyear positions you added recently, those will have a full fiscal year in the budget, but in terms of your priority how you listed, I think that those those were the things you were you were uh focused on. Uh y'all brought up council communication at the retreat. I don't think we have to delve into this, but I do want to kind of remind you I think that there's a future conversation for council to talk about committee committee communications because a lot of the feedback had to do with how committees share information with each other and I'm welcome. I'm I'm willing to to help with that and open to any ideas you all have. One of the things we've worked on is a form, and this is very draft, and we'll we'll share this at a later date, but a form for any council member who wants to make uh an assignment to a committee, a suggestion for assignment to fill out. That's one way I thought maybe y'all could share information better before the person makes the assign uh the request at a council meeting. They fill out a form, everybody gets it, contest, you know, and and then that form after the chair reviews it and I review it. That can be, you know, a point in time of here's what we were trying to do and staff can clearly understand what the assignment is, too. I think that's one thing on the front end that would help. But in terms of committee communications, I'd have to ask you all and I think that's a future conversation for y'all. on the budget communications, kind of what you were referring to, uh, Council Member Linton, I want to make sure when you all ask questions or or, uh, reach out to me and and my team that we're sharing that information with everybody. So, we'll try to do a at least a weekly follow-up report, if not more more uh, uh, every two days. Depends on how many questions we're getting. Uh but we'll really work hard and the more y'all share those questions on the leadup to the workshop, we can come to the workshop and share

the information at the workshop, too. So, so that's one way we could do it, too. Uh additional budget information. So, we wanted to provide a slide that kind of delves into the millage information. We've shared that in the previous slides verbally and on the slides. Uh but here's a slide that shows shows it uh for y'all to to look at. Any questions here before we move on? You're you're proposing a general fund increase of 6. No, I'm looking at capital maintenance. Capital maintenance.

So, capital maintenance is 1422. That's a capital maintenance fund. It has its own ordinance and and there's the ability and it goes up and down based on current year projects. So, it fluctuates up and down every year. But is is it capital maintenance countywide? Yes. So, it is a countywide tax increase for capital maintenance, but that's that's something that there's a specific ordinance to and and something that county council created to go up and down based on current year projects. So, there will be fluctuation in that. Uh I don't I don't know if we have the historical fiveyear of what that's been, but we can definitely share that with council as we progress. Yeah, I'm going have some questions about that. Yeah, it's a function of the

value of the mill and why we would need to do that this year. Yeah. So, so it's interesting in in some projects that would typically be in capital maintenance like the HVAC for HVAC for the um courthouse the courthouse we've moved to 1420 to pay for it because you I I would tell you what that what that mill rate would have been if the HVAC system was in there would would be even higher. So, we've tried to bring that millage rate down as much as we can, but based on the current projects that have to get done, that's that's the amount that needs to be in there. But don't we already don't we have a reserve that that's in excess of the amount that's so so the actually going to be used?

Capital maintenance is for current facilities. So, it's like roofs and repair and HVAC, which we've done a lot of HVAC recently. Uh the general capital fund is for typically new buildings or new things and that's the 1420 with the fund balance. And as you saw in my my 1420 that $38 million we are leaning into that that fund balance and that fund to to really start moving on some of these projects. We're also, you know, for the sheriff to uh for the the uh the current year budget, uh we we lowered the transfer to the capital fund from the sheriff's office from two mills to 1.75, which is $575,000. Um so, you got to remember on the value of the mill, it's spread across uh different general fund groups, the sheriff's office, us uh and Solister amongst others. And so yes, that there there was a number of things in the sheriff's office and we wanted to make sure to afford those. So we reduced the the millage rate for that transfer to make sure the sheriff had what he needed. Uh this is just another way to look at new personnel. Uh y'all can look at that later. We can talk about a later date. In terms of legislative updates, uh we wanted to provide an overview of where we're at with the different bills that the manager's office has been working hard on. Uh I don't know how much time you all want to spend on this cuz it's 7:30. Uh but we've outlined, you know, the the different bills. The first one is a is a capital project sales tax. uh and we wanted to make sure as this got developed uh that uh it didn't impact pennies in the future. So this is something that we've worked very hard on because pennies have been such a

successful program. Uh in terms of the auditor treasurer qualifications, we're one of two counties that's council manager system, which means we appoint the auditor and treasurer, others are elected. So there was a lot of language in that bill that we were concerned about because it was written for the elected positions. Uh and so we've worked closely with our delegation to make sure everybody's aware of that and try to encourage them uh to account for our differences. Uh something as simple as where the person lives. You know, if you're taking applications, what does it mean if they're not currently a York County resident, right? They might move to your county someday, but if they're not currently, uh what does that mean? Um, so we we've worked through that.

Back up just real quick. I see a star beside the very last sentence says contact SC reps. Uh, is that a an item for us to do or is that something y'all are doing? Well, so we're we're doing it, but we we may ask you to also support us in contacting our our because uh currently that bill is moved to the house. So, we're going to work with them, but we may ask you to contact them as well to make sure that they include that exemption for the appointed auditors and treasurers. Okay. I just want to make sure whether it was an action item for us.

Yeah, we'll let you know. We we've been having conversations about both of these with our delegation and we've got a great relationship with them and we appreciate it. Uh I know a number of y'all have mentioned DOT reform. This this one has had a lot of changes and back and forth. Uh we mentioned this earlier in the night, but right now it is a voluntary transfer. Uh I I'm I'm willing to send our delegation a letter uh this week letting them know that we're not interested in any more roads, taking on any more roads. I think that's where y'all are at. Uh I've communicated that verbally and in conversations. Uh it sounds like most of my peers, at least in our neighboring counties, are doing the same to the point where this whole idea of a voluntary transfer, why are we really even talking about this bill at this point if nobody's going to be willing to take it on? One of my big concerns is that the way they're incentivizing this would mean that you would have to take over all the roads that they're asking you to. Uh and the municipalities in your county would also have to do that. And so with nine municipalities, obviously a lot of roads in the county, uh would we ever be in the position where we would all agree on that? I I really don't think so. And so how would we pay for this? Uh you know, if they're not willing to bring roads up to a certain level before they hand them off, that's another reason we wouldn't do it. I'm not quite sure this bill goes through. We'll see. But we've been in conversation and we'll continue to be. But, you know, I'm happy to send a very clear message uh in a letter as well. I know y'all have mentioned that. Uh but I've definitely communicated that verbally and it seems like they're hearing that from from all my peers, too.

Is there a push for this because we think the basic act may pass and it may push more down on the state. Which state is pushing more down on us and municipalities? So, a push from the state. Why is the state pushing this? Do we think the federal government the basics act that we we talked about at ourfats do you think them pushing roads down on the states is what's causing the states just to go ahead and think about pushing roads down I think that's a piece of it

so but if if we're not going to get any of the the revenue that the state's receiving for roads because they need it for all these other things that they that they're working on so they can't afford these things then it's really hard for us to to justify doing this but yeah in general across many different things. You see feds handing stuff down to state and the state handing stuff down to local governments. But I think this has been a looming issue beyond what you're talking about. I think this has been progressively developing beyond that as well. For sure.

Uh one of our our primary concerns with this is, you know, they've got language in the bill related to the makeup of the CTC. That's kind of changed as has gone back and forth between the House and the Senate. uh portion of this. Uh we're continuing to monitor this and try to understand what that would mean for York County as we are one of the few counties where county council is the CTC. So, we're continuing to work on that as well. Any questions on this? I just wonder if they're trying to cut out a lot of their employees and maintenance in all the departments across the state. Yeah, here's one thing on the next slide about toll roads.

Okay. and and and for this, you know, I think we all know that our our amount of sea funds and how much most of that in the next two years and three years is going to state interchanges as well. So there's not a lot of sea fund money out there for other roads as well. But yes, to your point, I don't know if the DOT knows how many roads they're going to be asking for counties to take over. And so yeah, I don't there's really no way for them to probably answer that question. Seems like a lot of unknowns. a lot of unknowns at this point. It is and and I I do think it's

I know that we've been sharing with our delegation if if the state doesn't have enough money to take care of its own roads, I don't know that sending them to the county is not going to make that any easier. Um and it's simply it's just going to we think we got people fussing now. They really going to be fussing that just a got no money and they're the same game we talked about earlier in here. Pushing a burden. Taking it on to somebody else makes them look good, but the residents still get screwed over either way. So, they just need to bite the bullet, do the hard work that they're elected to do, and get on Don't we have a big surplus in Colombia with a boatload of money somewhere?

Yeah, it's going to scout. And the last thing in this bill we wanted to highlight was the toll road. option. So, you this is the toll roads are important to us obviously with with I77. So, we wanted to make sure y'all knew that was a part of this, too.

Okay. Uh we wanted to provide a quick revenue update. This shows kind of where we're at with watercraft, heavy duty trucks, and homestead exemptions. So, there is obviously watercraft is happening. So, that top right box over the next three years uh will be the impact for the entire county. We wanted to boil down the impact to the count York county's budget. So this is when we talk about some of these revenues, the hard part is that, you know, you got to remember when we send out a tax bill, who's who who's that wild names on it? What the the schools are getting most of the money, right?

And so this watercraft bill will impact schools the most%. So, one of the reasons to to roll this out over three years is to to kind of lessen that that impact so that people can prepare for it. Uh, so you can see in three years, uh, it it'll be 2.2 million. Uh, but a a big portion of that is going to be the school districts as they have the highest millage rates. Those pink boxes are only watercraft, right? analysis

cuz heavy duty trucks at this point is we're not seeing any movement on. That was the biggest impact for us. Now, you never know if something's going to come up. It's it's pretty much too late in the session for this to happen. It could come up next year. We'll continue to talk with the delegation on that. Homestead exemption has also not moved, which has been surprising. We thought that one was going to move quickly and it stalled. So, but the homestead exemption wouldn't it wouldn't impact us tremendously because there they provide the supplement. the reimbursement comes right but it would create a c that one creates more cash flow for your smaller funds so like your special tax funds it creates a cash flow issue because the reimbursement comes later but it's the reimbursement is typically in full yes but are we guaranteed that reimbursement long term

yes no I don't think so is it current stat is it statutoily guaranteed it is it is today but that doesn't stop yeah not to say it wouldn't be in the future statuto today no it is so we've We've been working hard on all all three of these. I'm thankful for our auditor as he's been very plugged into this as well, Ryan, and and he's provided this analysis. You could see this the the revenue loss for the county is going to probably be about a little over 100,000. Again, this is kind of hard to project.

We don't know if there's going to be a positive impact to this or not, but uh what we're planning for is a loss of $104,000. So obviously that's something we can account for this year and I think we'll be able to obviously as the years go on but but it is it is something that we need to to keep our eye on especially if it involves heavy duty trucks.

The airport commission met just recently and recently released some data on the tax revenue and I brought this up when this came up. um in your county, if your plane is not here on January 1st, I believe it is, you fly out in 12:31, you don't pay taxes in the county. The plane's not physically here, you do not pay taxes here. I think, and I know this there's some state issues at the committee I sit on with with um South Association counties. you talked about this, but I think we need to take a hard look at this because not that we're looking to create tax revenue, but if your plane sits here 11 and a half months out of the year, you should probably be paying some taxes, whether it's a pickup tax on a monthly basis or however you want to do it. But we need to look into it and address that.

So, where would they pay taxes at somewhere? They go to Delaware or somewhere else. They won't not it's not really where your it's where your plane is sitting. And I know it's not like a registration.

Yeah. Okay. And I know our auditor works very hard on that too and collaborates with with with neighbor counties and we'll we're willing to dive into that in the future too. Deeper conversation to get ahead of that one I think is what uh this chart is just a an analysis over the the previous years the the growth we're seeing in general fund revenues. Uh I wanted you all to have that at your fingertips. The accommodations tax. I want to thank staff. We've gotten this done earlier in the process. One of the things that Trish and her team and finance as well has realized in past budget years and from y'all's feedback is that this accommodations tax recommendation came like second or third reading, right? Third reading.

Thank you for doing this. And so we wanted y'all to see what the committee recommended. You have that now. Uh we're able to fund it.

Uh and so I I I think that everybody received what they request in terms of the accommodations tax. Uh the other thing that y'all wanted to to see early and so this is this is the second agenda item this evening. Madam Chair, if you want to move forward to it real quick. This will be quick. But before I do delve in agenda agency funding because it's the second agenda item tonight, I wanted to make sure there weren't any other questions about all the previous slides we just ran through. Sorry. I expect council will have a have a lot more questions that because this is basically budget budget items but others.

Okay. So the so this so the the second agenda item is going to be very brief but what I wanted to do was to share with y'all again this is earlier than than we've done it before. We're trying to to listen to y'all and and and provide what you're asking for. Uh, so Trician Finance also worked on pulling together this spreadsheet for y'all. Uh, the top of the spreadsheet, we printed it for you because it is very hard to see in the screen. I apologize. We figured it'd be hard to see, so we printed it for you. It's in front of you. The the top part of the chart includes agency requests. That includes the airport. Yeah.

The bottom we took out the airport. The reason we did that was you can see that the airport doubled this year. Yeah. So that's another that's another budget impact. The original request we got from the airport was 800 some odd thousand. And so this number has gotten better. It was in the 800s. It's come down to 600. There's an ordinance that we've basically signed an IGA. It's an IGA. Yes. With the airport and Rock Hill.

That's pretty old that says we'll split these capital costs. And we've done it all along. Uh I see no reason to do it not to do it this year. They're doing significant construction at the airport. They have significant amount of grants that are coming in to pay for that, but there is a portion that we need to pay for. Does that bring us any revenue though? I mean, we just talked about the airplanes all fly away and we don't pay no money. Yeah, we can talk more about that. We do get some revenue. There goes your money. I know. So, just kept flowing. Make it look nicer if we don't get

there's some tangential benefits to having it too in terms of economic development. Yeah, we can talk more about that. But what I wanted apart from that I wanted to show you know I wanted to take the airport out of that because it does fluctuate and show um I can't what am I not seeing here? You're saying that they're asking for 600. Why why am I telling you got to go over to FY27 recommended it says 593,8 it's not the highlighted. Okay. Yeah. The highlighted is what I need. Yeah. You need that's why we printed it on a separate one. It's even smaller. Circle that for a second. Um, and we can send you this document, but it's in your folder. Yeah, it's in your folder. You saw that.

Aren't we transitioning out of the airport, the county, and it's going to be a Rockill airport? No. I'm not made aware of that. But yeah, that might do that. Yeah, might solve the problem. Oh, you downplay?

Yeah, he meets with us every year. And they talked about this at the I know council member Clowner was there with me and and Tom at the annual joint city county meeting with the airport and so he talked about this there too. I know a lot of youall had other commitments that day. Uh but but if you look at the list in the bottom that that is the list of kind of pure agency requests we received from from nonprofits and you can see in FY26 you all approved 646,000. Uh, and then you see what I'm recommending in the 27, which is 621,000. And so some of these agencies, maybe one or two asked for more, but I I tried to bring it down so that that number was close to what we approved in FY26. We also received two other agency requests that are not seen in here. One was after the deadline,

pathways. Yeah.

And another one we' never funded before. And you know, my recommendation at this point, y'all, is as in terms of my perspective, we need to draw a line on what total dollar amount we're we're willing to contribute to agencies and nonprofits. I I think, you know, the current level of 600,000, you know, is is significant. So, my recommendation would be if you're trying to add additional nonprofits to this list, potentially we think about, okay, how do you divvy up the the the money? you know, you keep it at 600,000, but if you want to add two people, who are you taking it away from? Like, what's that balance? Uh because we've added over the years, FY24, we had 400,000 and FY26, we're at 646,000. And so, I do think we need to pick that number. You know, you could add on top of this two discretionary funding and potentially there's some back and forth between those, you know. So, I think I think in theory it would be great for y'all to give us more feedback on that total dollar amount y'all are interested and then staff can create a process where we're ranking these requests and we're designating before we bring it to you. But right now, the way we've done it is okay, we heard from these people. This is what we requested. This is what they were receiving last year and so we bring it for you.

I would love to get more more definition

and cut it back a little bit. That's probably a discussion that that council needs to have. I will say years ago, and I hate the bump just left because he'll remember this that there was um a laundry list of these things and we would entertain those requests and these were this was whittleled down to um this small amount. I think it was millions of dollars that were being proposed. And so that was the tradeoff is that the discretionary funding was intended to address one area may have a fire department that needs something or the fire and dive team needs this and it wasn't something that was a needed countywide. So that was reduced. All of it was reduced in order to whittle this down. And so in my my understanding was this is the final list that depends on it. I think pulling funding at the last minute makes it difficult for these agencies that are doing the work of the communities, right?

But um if you're asking council to weigh in on that, I guess the more appropriate time to do that would be at one of the next budget workshops. But one of the reasons why that discretionary funding would and it was even it it all was pulled back in order to rein all of this in. And I think um the question was how do you how do you identify special needs in certain areas where some folks have more um volunteer fire departments that need to have some funding or their parking lot needs to be funded, that kind of thing that they didn't have funding for. So sounds to me like you want Well, all of that should go through the budget process. If there's a fire department, we give fire departments money. We should

there's a lot of fire departments that don't have special tax districts and don't have but we still give money to every one of them and we can allocate money to one if it needed a parking lot. This that whole discretionary fund thing I am it's too wide open and that money could be allocated to somewhere else and should be allocated into these just like we do. I definitely think having that discussion is important and probably council be prepared to have a discussion about that at the next workshop. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the 620 is what's going to be in the recommended. And so if we make process changes and cap it, to your point, Madam Chair, I don't think we do that to the nonprofits this year, next year. Cash, right?

This Yeah. So what you see here is my recommended of 621,000. Right. So, what what I would say is if to to to let the nonprofits know, hey, we're going to make some process changes next year and if we're going to bring in more nonprofits, you might not get exactly what you're asking for. We might cap the threshold. We can at the So, I think talk through it in the budget. Yeah. Yeah. In the next budget meeting, but I'm just glad we got it up front. So, this is got up front to talk about it. Can we get a write up on what they're actually asking for the whole mention discussion because I'd like to know for transparency wise what they're even asking for and we've got all that documentation and we can pull that together for y'all. Y sounds good.

Yeah. I was I just want to say this. The one that got cut was safe passage $25,000. Otherwise, we'd look at the same amount of money we were allocating last year. Yeah. And what's what I struggle with with this column and anybody else requesting money is what what's the reasoning behind making the allocation period. We have no metric. We have no measurement. In my mind, my measurement is this. If this entity didn't exist, there are entities here in York County that touch these u the ones at the bottom in particular, three at the bottom. They touch those three. They do they they're providing a service to those three now. The federal government's cut funding for Safe Passage as an example. So they had a they had a they got stripped last year financially. So we're going to take bless you. We're going to take a little bit more from them. But what if Safe Passage had to close their doors? Maybe somebody else would open up and fill the gap. I don't know. Then maybe we might have to fill the gap. Sheriff's Department have more responsibility. So somehow someway we need to come up with some kind of metric in my mind to determine how we come up with these numbers because this reminds me of the wreck tax. There's no rhyme or reason to that number other than they request it but then it goes back what are they asking what are they asking for this money. So I was thinking the same thing.

I think we I think we need to spend some time making a determination on the value behind the allocation and then ultimately if they weren't there, what impact is it going to have on us? Well, I think the des getting the descriptions I think that's the first step. Yeah, but I thought about the R tax thing, too. I feel like we're just throwing money at them. They need a slush fund with no accountability, no transparency. I think they need it. The question is voted Rock Hill and everybody else that was getting the Rex tax. But I don't disagree cuz I voted. I know. But I'm just saying. So, uh, a lot of a lot of people need money. Why is it these seven these seven were chosen?

Whatever you said several years ago or or for whatever reason. I agree. Why are we sticking with what about somebody else? Somebody else may be needing it way more than needs to. All right. So, y'all have that information. We'll get all the details in a follow-up report to y'all. You'll have that and then we can we can talk more about as we go. That's all we had for it. We do have a um an executive session couple executive sessions. All right.

Yeah. So, two two executive personal matter contractual matter in into a county manager attorney, excuse me. Receive of legal advice. I consider settlement of project number 17228- 003 track 97. Do we have a second? Any discussion? No. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? No. We will go into executive session. That's somebody call me.

We're good. We are out of executive session. No action was taken. Do we have a motion? Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion in a second. All in favor say I. I. We are ahead.