Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right, good now. All right. Let us pray once again. Oh heavenly father, we come we come again once again to this place, Father. And that be with us. Strengthen us in mind and body, Father. that the things that we have to do or can do, Father, that regardless of what the outcome be, that we still be one of a cord, Father, that we can leave this place and still be humble and do what's best for the county kids and the sheriffs and the deputies and everything we have in the county. God would be with us and help us to uh be able to do these things and uh adopting the budget that we have set forth and give us the understanding as well as the ones that are probably watching and listen to us, Father, that they will understand in some kind of way that these are the things we have to do. And regardless of what we do, Father, we ask that it be not shameful to you, Father, but uplifting to you. In Jesus name we all do pray. Amen. Miss Hammond, would you lead us in the pledge,

please? Hey, ball. Mr. Walker. Oh, sorry. Roll call. Thank you. Mr. Williams, present. Mr. Bill Harris here. Mr. Kittinden here. Mr. Jesse here. Mr. Don Harris here. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Walker. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Well, we are here tonight for the board's deliberation, revision if any, and adoption of the county budget, school budgets, and tax rates proposed for SY 26. So, this is y'all's evening to talk, question, revise, deliberate, and make recommendations for or or not make recommendations to adopt what you want in next year's budget. And then we will take what y'all adopt here tonight and prepare an appropriations resolution which y'all will have at the May meeting, God willing, or June meeting at the latest. Good. Would you pull up the um uh the shot of where we are currently? Okay, you got it, Henry. There you go. Uh revenues or expenditures? Uh both. Okay. Well, that's revenues. I mean, excuse me, expenditures, and this is revenues. So, here's where we are on revenues. Here's where we are on expenditures. I'm sorry, I'm hearing voices. It's them talk. Oh, I'm sorry. I got one bad v bad here. So, and here's where we are on expenditure.

Okay. Would you explain where bonus where you say show zero? Uh, yes sir. The bonus is currently the $750 plan that was discussed in the last work sessions and discussed since. Uh it is located in the non-dep departmental expenditures at 88,500. Okay. Scroll down to the end. Where where are we with the budget being balanced? The budget is balanced. Okay. And what is the no bonus? No cams. That was a previous option. That's with bonus. That's no bonus. That was a previous option. So without a bonus, the county would save approximately 52,500 because we would have to remove the revenue line item from the state along with it. So it washes out to be about 52,000, but we have it in at 88 to fund that $750 option. Okay. Um so just for everybody's uh talking points that includes the uh the extra for uh in the budget is a 1.5 for constitutionals. Correct? Yes sir. And is the body cameras is not in the budget. The extra person for the Commonwealth Attorney and the sheriff is not in the budget. There are still two positions in the sheriff's department's budget because they were double counted

by error. Okay. Approximately $100,000 worth. What's the real number if it was counted twice? Uh, it was 108, wasn't it? I was speaking to the mic. One was 53, one was 52, right? But my numbers were 98,000. So that was what I was off. Okay. Okay. So, do we want to take your suggestion or opinion? Do we want to take a couple of items and let's adjust the budget now? And since we're on the sheriff's department, the the body cameras are not included in that. They are not. Okay. Why would we be including two positions at this juncture? Okay. Um, Amarie, you want to take that to explain that one more time and then I can chime in? No, I think you the question was why would we be including it and I wouldn't. You could take them out because they were in there by error. Right. That was that was a at the very I think what I told you all when I started to recalculate the $750 I did a complete recalculation of everybody's budget and we were over by two positions in the sheriff's office and that was the $98,000. Okay. So that is actually overbudgeted that at any time you can either leave it alone and they'll be over you know they'll they'll have a surplus in their budget or remove it. Okay. Do we need to have a a consensus or do we have to have a vote on that? I mean, it's whatever gets y'all to three or four or preferably five votes in favor for the budget. So, okay. It's however you want to handle it. Well, we haven't made a firm decision on the body cameras. We had our first meeting today, correct? And uh we have our next meeting on May 13th. Okay. And that that's a work in progress. And like we discussed at the last budget work session, you can probably handle that off budget if you come to a

conclusion on where we want to be with body cameras. Wasn't there one position though that he needed for the for keep the records and that person was going to convert over and I think that one needs to be funded. Is that right? Yes, I think you are correct. And he was trying to fund one of those out of his current positions plus 20. So is that 20% or $20,000 make the promotion at this juncture? Is that position in the budget? Yes or no? I think would be the answer. It is. It is. Well, I'm gonna look to Amory. I'm looking I was going to pull it up, but I don't have it right here. I thought we had enough money in the budget to cover the promotion of the individual in question. Um, and that was it. We had the money in the budget to fund the promotion of dispatcher. Yeah. But but they would still need to replace if they did it that way, they would need to replace the dispatcher. And he said we could remove that one. So, we probably still need the $53,000 in there. Yeah, it it was my understanding um that uh we were we had to fund the the records manager uh because if they're going to be moving the records over to the new building, they need to have a manager for that. Uh and then they said that uh one of the dispatchers is leaving. So that salary if you added uh the the person who would be working in the um as a as the body cam uh person would be it's it would be a little bit more money than the regular dispatcher. that person could could be in the dispatcher position, get the training that they needed, and if and when the body cams were uh were approved, then that person would be able to to move into that position and do that job. So, uh that that was the way it ended. I think it was it was the full funding for my understanding full funding for the U

records position and then it was like a $20,000 difference on the the one for the body cams who would be be a dispatcher when she's done training. I think some of that discussion happened with the board after our last work session. So, we'll have to defer to y'all's knowledge on that. Emry, have you heard excuse me, have you heard anything to that what Randy just said? No, we got any cars? I can say I've heard that. I've heard it, too. I talked to the sheriff and he did mention that uh you know, he needed about 25,000 to to get that position. Okay. Okay. Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You know, I thought the uh sheriff said he had enough money in his budget to fund one position and that and that was it. and and and what I'm seeing and hearing there is that things are getting backed out a little bit. He definitely said that he could fund one position. Uh and we told him then go ahead and hire the person that we're going to do with the body cam. That what was said I in in in this room and and and we nod our head say hey go hide that person so we can put the system together because we're going to get body cams. So, we got to start putting stuff into place and hey, man, we ga have to start getting stuff right down or wrote down so we can have as far as I'm concerned shouldn't be in the budget. Uh, if we want it to be there, you you know, you bring yourself and you have your proof of thing and we can we can we can give you the money later on to me right now. It's no pressure on just because he said that he can find the money and I'm getting a whole lot of places that's finding money now and I just don't like the sound of it. As far as I'm concerned, just take it out and just go from here. I agree with you, Mr. Williams. I don't I think it's premature because we don't even know there's been some discussions on whether the system that they're looking at is what really should be

purchased. So, why are we even talking about funding that position till because we haven't approved body cameras at this point. that's under investigation and I don't know why we would approve that position um prior to knowing all the details that we have in my opinion. Well, sorry. My my understanding again is from from talking to the sheriff and and being at the meeting today and everything that um they have to fill they're going to have to if if the person who is the uh the records manager is approved and goes into that that's she's a dispatcher now. So that's going to leave a dispatcher's opening. So they have to fill that dispatcher's opening anyway. So there there he's looking at this at one particular employee who could who has a an interest in being a apparently it's it's it's a real job now around the around the the state to be a body cam um what you call it a a person that collects the information and and monitors it and it requires a great deal of training. So he said that he has somebody who wants to do that, but in the meantime perhaps that person could be the fill in that job as a dispatcher and at the same time get the training that she would need to become a uh you know the body cam person when it when and if it's it's approved. And if it isn't then that person either stay as a dispatcher or could move on and will fill that position again. But I think that apparently uh people who take that job are there not a lot of people who really want to do it. And this this person is and I think that my my feeling and I didn't get this from but my feeling is that the sheriff would not want to if he didn't have to lose that person because if she doesn't if she's not approved to this she's going to go somewhere else to be a

body cam person. That's that's all I can know about that and I can say so too with that. I did talk to the sheriff on that too and see here it takes time for that person to get into that job and if he waits and and just like you saying oh well we we not going to have the body cam right now and all stuff like that but you got to have the training and she's doing kind of like double duty training while she's working. So, you know, in six months and when everything rolls back around again, then yeah, you got somebody that's already on the ground. When you when you get in that building, when you start rolling, she's on the ground rolling. If you gonna wait a long time, then then trying to find somebody else, it it's going to be slim to none. But, you know, that's that's up to the board. I I always like to pre uh look, you know, look ahead and say, "Hey, let's let's have somebody in place that wants to be here, that want to work here." But if you don't fund them, help fund them to get that there, then you know, you lose that person and now you got to start from scratch again. He got somebody that wants to be here. But if you don't want to uh, you know, help help him to get this person that he needs and and have, you know, work the job that she needs to do while she's here, then you lose him. So, you know, I'm just looking down the road. Yes, I think it's a good idea to work down the road. When you say, "No, we don't want it. You don't have it." And then you start from scratch. Now, you got another situation. Well, well, we can't have body cam because we we don't have a person. So, you you lining yourself up right now to saying, "Hey, we're going to get the body cam." You having meetings and this person can do that if we decide we want that money in it. If we don't want to side in it, come down the road 6 months and then another six months, then we go through another cycle. All right, we don't have nobody so we can't do it. So, you know, think about that. So I is what I'm hearing from you that the position that currently is a

dispatcher the county would absorb 20 grand to move her into the position to be able to start the training etc etc. We're not going to approve the other position for the record manager and this person may indeed become the records manager. Um, so are we all on the same page here of taking No, I think I think the the records manager position is is an entirely different situation there. Let's let's say you have there there are there's one dispatcher there who will would be promoted to the records manager position. That's a position that is required by accreditation to to if you're going to have a a records room, you have to have somebody who's who's trained and and and responsible for the records. Um, so one of the dispatchers moved in that that would leave a position open for and I understand that he said he could man I think if we if we funded that position he would be able to my understanding is he could find the money for the other but I'm not I I can't really go that far but but I think that they're two different he did say he could fund the money for one position he could find the money for one position and the other two positions we talking about uh was not there yet and and I I don't know why we keep you building that thing. He could fund the money and we did agree that you go ahead and hire the person because we didn't want to do and it was a coordinator and they have to do this. Now it seems like it it being talked about in I said politically behind the door because this dude's chair and said I have I found money to take care of one and the counties going could fund the other two when we don't know if we going to use the other two. Now he's switching around. everything is being said and I know for a fact that

what was said and and and that way use what they got because the girl that's I think had gone to class was going to be a coordinator uh and and she was going to you know kind of like put it all together. So, uh, I I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to we not clear. We we we not clear cuz we saying two or three different things based on where it started from. And all I'm saying is that if we're going to hire this person, it will be the coordinator. But this and we got our record be the coordinator that is going to class, which is a young person that work in Essence County. She's supposed to been off the job because she found the money. All right. That was the one that that we was going to use. Now we talking about records and and and all this other kind of stuff when we talking about one particular person that we wanted to keep and this is the person that we want to keep and have to offer the job to. Right. But but but being the being the body cam person and the records person are two completely different jobs. Well then they're going to have multitask a little bit because we ain't got money to grow our trees. Well, okay. They're going to have multi the record person and the body cams. I mean I'm not saying exactly could do the same thing. That's I come ask for the coordinator so I don't have to try to be or we don't have to try to be the coordinator to put the stuff together and the idea of her learning and training that means she can put the whole system together and then all we got to do is approve because everything is there that that's how I'm looking at nothing extra. When we looked at that zero down there the red zero was was that uh that that was that funding was that including these two positions or position ahead? Yeah, cuz we had mistakenly counted the two positions twice as Amarice explained. So there's actually $98,000 in addition to the 20,000 I think that we had in a budget for that position. So if I may suggest I want to get in the middle of discussion to tell me if you want me to let y'all go for a while longer. What's the question? Well, I don't have a question. I just have a recommendation. You made a mistake. You

figured it out. Well, uh, it looks like to me the sheriff needs roughly $20,000 to make the one position hold. Yes. And then he needs the funding for another position, the other $53,000. That's it that he needs right now. And that's setting the stage so that the body cameras can come into play once the decisions and everything's been worked out with the body cameras, right? Is that right or not? I don't think that's right. I do not, but Okay. Well, thank you. You know, please tell me if you don't think it's right, just tell me. My notes have always said he requested three positions in this year, right? The records the records clerk, the body camera, it's easy for me to say, the body camera clerk, which is the second position, and then a manager of the records department. So, those were the three positions that I recalled that I've written down that he needed. Now, I I I'm not sure which one of those we're all in agreement on, but my understanding was when he moved over to the rec over to the new facility, he needed a records clerk because he's taking the records that are being managed by the dispatchers currently that is now going to be managed over in his office because he's got to have his warrants or whatever things a sheriff's office does, he needs those over in his office. So that was why he needed the records clerk and that would be a $53,000 position. The records manager was a $58,000 position. Now I'm not sure how the body cam I think the body camera clerk was also a 53,000 55 55. That is those are the three positions that I know he requested and all I had in there was a um aside from the $98,000 error, which I I have to say one more time, a $98,000 error. I apologize. That was my bad. I definitely should have recounted that way early in the game. Well, and as I've said, I'm glad you aired on the side of higher than lower because we could always advertise

higher. We have We now know if he needs $20,000 and I'm assuming the rest of it he'll be taking from part-time positions to fund one of those. It sounds like it would be the records clerk that he is saying he must have. And if you all want to put to put funds in for the body camera clerk, that would be another $55,000. So again, we'd be taking that instead of reducing his budget by the 98,000, which was Amar's error. Um you would reduce it by less or you could dump it all in um non-EP departmental contingency, fix it later. My recommendation if if this is something that's going to cause the board an impass, you can always move it to contingent contingency and transfer that amount to 53,000. You still lower the budget 48. Yeah, we just put it in contingency and you still have to authorize a transfer. Okay. Get spent. So, contingency 58 for a records 53, wasn't it? Emory, I'm sorry. Leaving 53 in for the records clerk or moving it to continue. We're moving both moving it off. Yeah, that way you you would transfer it back in there once you get the uh Well, I'm confused. I thought we were talking about two people. Yeah, you know, the discussion seems to be talking about three people. It started off as three examples. It started off as three. That's where I am. It was like an accreditation manager, too. Right. That's Well, the the records manager would have been required. I think somebody I just heard. Was it you that just said that about required for accreditation? I heard somebody just say that. That's what the records manager would be required for. And it would be backing up both the records clerk and the body camera clerk. I mean, that that that only makes sense because the body camera clerk doesn't work 247 either. So it sounds like we are looking towards moving the $98,000 to

contingency which would make sense in a way 53,000 and then leaving the 20 and then the county would support 20 because he said he could come up with X amount for the person that's the dispatcher now that's going to come into this uh in particularly a different but it to be the body camera clerk or the records clerk understood it was the records clerk that he was looking. So that's that's one he says he needs to move into the building. The records clerk, right? The records clerk he needed to move into the building. He mentioned that in a body camera meeting today. Okay. Okay. The records clerk could conceivably also phase into one of those two full-time positions that we're talking about. Correct. Well, I don't see why not. Yeah. what he was saying today also in the meeting that like one of them take off then the other one come to the other position so that that caused them to uh cross the path cross trainining so it'll be in you know so so is there a consensus with the board to approve the 20,000 with what Mr. Bushy Bushy says he can come up for that transaction and we put the other two which I don't personally think you're going to need two more people to do what needs to be done but that's a that's a discussion for another rainy day that we'll have all of you okay with doing just that putting the two and we would have to vote on that contingency at some point transfer uh transfer um put those I really think you you only need one salary there if my numbers are right which I think they are that we had talked about two additional persons so this person that he's going to fund up to and in the county funding 20,000 I

don't know where we come up with two more positions it was one position that I've been privy to when he's come forward and talked that unless that's changed could somebody tell me Um, what about the uh person that uh Mr. Bushie said that he needs that person and she was working here part time. Correct. $20,000. Is that the $20,000 one? Yes. Okay. Okay. Can we live with that? All right. I'm gonna cloud it up a little bit more. My personal opinion is you put one person for a records clerk under contingency. I don't know why we need two because I think this person that's that he's found some money for and we're going to add 22 that everything that I've heard and that was presented was that person he would need two people that solves one of his people problem and then the other one uh would be a new hire. Did you not hear that that way? No, I'm actually thinking so regardless the 78,000 so leaving 20,000 in his budget moving 78,000 to contingency to be used for anything in the upcoming year. It does not have to be used. You are not giving it when you say you're putting it in contingency. You could fund whatever the board found appropriate throughout the year. That's and that contingency is for um specifically for the sheriff. Correct. No. Oh, no. Wouldn't No, that would be your decision throughout the year. Okay. That's your decision throughout the year. That's the thing about contingency. You could buy body cameras with it. You could buy work boots for all um got police

department employees. So, are y'all in agreement to to fund one position in contingency and to fund the 20,000 with what he can find? Are y'all okay with that? Well, when when is when's the sheriff scheduled to move into his new digs? He's thinking in May, right? Because he can't move over there without the records manager. That's what he's That's what he's saying. All right. Let me ask this. Why do why can he not move? Do we not currently have somebody that's doing that function now in this building? Right. But but they're dispatchers and so the dispatchers are over here with the records. If he moves the records over there, the dispatchers will still be here. So somebody's got to go over there and tend the records. I understand that. And that that can be covered with the person that they he says he has enough money for less 20,000 from the county. Why would that person not be the person he's grooming for the next step? Well, because that person is a is a dispatcher. And so when he's going to have an opening over here for another dispatcher. Well, I'll deal with the dispatcher later. I I I'm talking about the person he's going to offer additional money to be part of the records part. Okay. Well, my like I said, this is my understanding. It's it's it's gotten to be kind of confusing because he's talking record manager, records clerk, record, you know, the body cam monitor is that is that he he needed a new position for a a records person and then he was going to take the the the person that he wanted to be for the body cams to be a is now partly part-time and he's going to make that person a full-time dispatcher. here to fill that spot in for the person that went over

across the way. So, I think what he was looking for, my understanding, was a uh a records manager that we would fund. That's that's a new position and then just $20,000 for the other. So, okay. Well, again, I I hear all of what you're saying. I don't see how that complicates the matter if we put um in contingency for one person and this person that he's obviously going to be training for um body body cameras we fund the 20,000 extra to him for that and let that process start with that I but that person is going to be a records manager. He might be or he or she might be. Okay. Well, then they're going to need another dispatcher because they're not going to be in the building over here with the dispatch. They're going to be over there. So, uh either way, but if if you make it a contingency on getting a records manager and they're going to be moving in next month, then we're going to be getting in that contingency pretty quick because they're going to need somebody right away to go over there. All right, Randy, you seem like you have a pretty good handle on it. What does he need? He needs a $20,000 for a position and then another position or not? Yes. Okay. Do they need two more positions or just one will do? For now, I I think just one one position for for records manager and then and then to be able to take the person that's going to be the body cam person and give them an extra $20,000 to make them a full-time dispatcher. So, that that's my understanding. I think I'm okay with that. And why does that per why can that person not take care of uh without body cameras that we don't have? Why can that person not be trained for some records proposal at this point? They

can. But then again, we're going to be if we do that and we take that person and train them, put them down to Cook's Corner, then they're going to have an opening over here because that person we just took a dispatcher out and moved him over there. And so now we're going to have an opening over here. So where do you It doesn't matter if you're going to whether you want to fill a job over there or fill a job over here where it he's he needs another person. Okay. So I'm still confused here. You got to help me out here. And I'm looking to do some horse trading, just so you know. Of course. So, if we put one salaried person in the contingency, right? And we approve the 20 for the current dispatcher that wants to move into a more solid position, right? How does that not work? Well, because all I'm saying is that if you put it in contingency, what you're saying, my understanding is you're saying, well, when they need that person, then they can come to us and we can fund it. Yes. What I'm saying is that he's going to need that person next month if they're going to move over there because he has to have that person over there when they move in. He can't leave he can't take the records out of this building and put them in the new building until he has somebody over there to babysit for him. And who who is taking care of the records now? The dispatchers. Okay. and and and also the officers in a certain extent the the the deputies actually maintain their own records which is my understanding is in total violation of accreditation but since we're not accredited I guess it doesn't matter too much but but they're uh what what they're talking about doing is now taking the officer's records and all the the centralized records the ones that are that are um subpoenas and and warrants and and that sort of thing and they're going to move them all over there and they have a a trained records

manager who who manages that that broom over there that they don't currently have that they don't have. And so we're saying we make them a contingency. That's fine. But I'm just saying that we might as well approve it now because he's going to come back within the next 30 days and say I can't move until I get that person. Well, you know, um, if we give me $20,000, we can keep on we can go forward and put something continuously fun for him because you did say a few seconds ago that the deputies are doing it now, right? Yep. You know, they're doing their arrest records. Well, they you know, and and you know, in the meeting today, he was saying that when a deputy quit uh uh you know, whatever they do, they got to take their records with them, you know. So, uh, deputies going to have to do a little bit more than what they doing. And, uh, that's what I'm looking at. I I'll be honest. I'm You have to do a little bit more than they doing. So, we give him these a position of what they want right now because I'm what I'm hearing is so much confusion that he don't know what he want in Richmond. They don't know what they want that that accreditation is is is it's a it's a lengthy and it's a very very important process for any law enforcement. But I'm not I'm not disagreeing with that. We got to open the sheriff office first. we don't get credited the first day. And if we want to do it and you got people that already doing it right now, then if they one of them be trained to do the same thing, we we don't solve the same thing. I mean, uh you can't you can't do more with less like this. And and that's how I'm looking at. We give them we we you know, we give enough to start a fire. The reason why the officers carry their own records and they maintain their own records is because there isn't enough room over in this building to keep them. That what I got, Randy. That's what I'm talking about. So if you go to the other office and we have them hire a person and they start doing the same thing, you know you need more help. Or you could turn one of them over and let them be one of the person that um is doing some of what you're talking. Let them be credited. I'm pretty sure one of them volunteer to go ahead and do you have

another person. So um we can handle this $20,000 because he dig the rest from somewhere else and just go forth with it. That way the money is in there we got in contingency for it and you're not going to be able to spend it till we approve it anyway, you know. So well and there's some moving parts. You don't know what what do you I know there there's to me it's too many moving parts. I can live with the 20 extra and put in contingency um for uh call it what you want, records clerk or records manager or whatever you can and and do that. Can we all live with that currently? Now, brother, just like I like I was saying, put your money. I know the sheriff was saying he had it was 44 some,000 he could he could get together and all he needed was 20ome,000. I don't know what the what was do you know the the 20ome,000 more that he needed. Was it 22 21? Okay. And and that and and that's all he needed for right now to get in the building. That's what he told me. Okay. And man, we going back. I mean, I understand you gota have these other all these other things that got to be involved in it, but right now, you know, he said, "Well, I can come up with the 40ome 44 some thousand dollars, right?" All right. And I need 20 more, right, to be able to get in the building. That's what he told me. Okay. So, so that's in the budget. That's in the budget. Not the 20 though. Not the 20. Not the You have two. There's 98,000 extra. Okay. Yeah, you can take it take that. So, you're going to reduce that by one. That leaves in the 20,000. Okay. Okay. Wow. Geez, I need to take a pill. No doubt. Okay. Well, I may need some

Say that again. We are not going to put any money in contingency for a position. It was if that if that y'all's will and pleasure. I mean, if you put it in contingency, we've already advertised the budget. It's the difference between doing a line item transfer and transferring it later whenever we get the body camera stuff worked out or just doing a supplemental appropriation from fund balance. That's the only difference. You can do it either way. Okay. It's just Matt fund. Yeah. What are we talking that Matt fund? So, you got to love that Matt fund. Okay, Ann Marie, click. Tell me what you're doing. Okay. And does that also that includes the 20 as well, correct? You're not on the mic. Hi. Okay. So, 20 20 is going to stay in his budget and 78 is going to go in into contingency, right? And I'm one question. What's the difference putting in contingency and putting in the fund balance? Because either way we got to vote on it. I can answer that. Either way we got to vote vote on it. Yeah. What is the difference in putting in continuously fund and just putting it in the fund balance? I am right. Although Matt's fixing my my math here. Um, state law limits how much money you can reappropriate during the year. Okay. And by already having it budgeted as a contingency, it's they look at it

differently. They look at it differently. It's just a little bit easier to spend money out of spend your money out of contingency. Okay. Okay. Put a couple hundred thousand. What What does that do all year? What does that do to bad? That's never a bad idea. I can recommend it this year, but in the future, I would recommend that, too. Okay. So, what does that do to our budget going forward? [Music] Okay. Zero change so far. Turn away. I won't kid. We put a couple hundred,000 in it and we need it. It's the same thing anyway. We at least didn't get what you were saying a few minutes ago. So what happened? Got 88 off. We put $200,000. We might probably going to need it for something else. And by the law, that'll be the way to go. Generally we would but the board this year decided they did not want to appropriate any fund of balance. They wanted a pure balanced budget. So we re because in my experience we've always I don't know if you do that here we always budgeted a certain amount in contingency for that purpose. But this year if you want but if you want to have a balanced budget that doesn't use as much fund to balance that's usually the first place you cut too you know I'd like to continuously fund right now could think about it because it's less numbers and when you need you do the subtraction a whole lot better than you can the fund balance all the time so you leave the fund balance alone and the continuously fund will give you the revenue that you based on some decision you making and that'll be whatever it's for and that way you wouldn't be taking money out the fund balance to do some of the other things in the middle of the year. we have more control over it and it be more transparency by using contingency

fund in a bigger way and the way I'm understand it right now because they're not the only ones going to come to uh us and need money you know so you put a couple hundred thousand dollars in that'd be right nice we can we can always add that though right Matt or Anmarie not this I I did that you know um not this year because Frank you've already what's the word advertised it without the so in terms of advertising it we wouldn't be able to go down so I'm listening very hard to what you're saying for next year we did advertise 500 better so is everybody consensus on what we're going to do do you know what we're going to do leave 20 that's correct Okay. Long as you say you got a contingency there of the fund that I can go to if I need it. Right. That's good. Okay. Well, and that's not an automatic. We still want to We still vote on it. We got to vote. Sure. We still will debate whether or not we want the body cameras. We're looking a little bit forward to that ends of why we're making the changes of what we're changing and um and then we'll see where we go with that. Then the stakeholders committee will report back to what their recommendation is of hidden and then we will move forward from that. Everybody in agreement. We're good with that. All right. What else you got, Miss Ricardi? All right. Hold on. We have a couple other items that we need to talk about. Um and I'll just take the lead and y'all can follow in or jump in when you want. Um, the current budget, does it or does it not have a person for the

Commonwealth Attorney? It does not. It It is not in the current budget. Correct. Okay. Show you. I'm sorry I took this over, Matt. Um, you see the Commonwealth's Attorney, it says body, camera, attorney excluded. And as a reminder, that was $113,000, which included approximately $100,000. His his request was about $100,000 for the attorney plus 13,000 for And that wouldn't have been enough for benefits. So, we're not going to give that. That'll be a big stretch, but we change. We'll talk about that later. Answer your question. That is definitely not in there as you can see. Okay. What other big ticket items do we need to talk about? I got one. Let's talk about what the state uh by the way, would you educate everybody to what what the state budget is and and when it may or may not be approved. Yes, indeed, Mr. Chairman. There's been some news articles recently. I think last one I saw was in the Mercury pilot or excuse me the the Mercury uh Democrats failed to override several vetos from the governor. The 1 and a half% bonus is still in the budget. It looks like it's going to survive. They estimate or they anticipate having budget uh all the budget amendments approved by Friday midnight. Friday, May 2nd, midnight. That's the last I heard. I talked to some VEO staff today and that's what they're hearing. A lot of the uh other issues that the Democrats and the general assembly and the and the governor, Republican governor have fallen apart on, they seem to be able to work out. That's what is anticipated. Okay.

Um can I go to the bank and borrow money on that? Well, I'll put it to you this way. I won't. Never mind. Great. Um, it it surprised me when we got the comp board estimates as early as we did this year. We normally don't get them that early, so we have to estimate what the comp board's going to give us, but we got our estimates and they included the one and a half% bonus for the constitutionals and state supported positions. Uh, that was a a pretty confident move on their part because that's a lot of math they have to do if it wasn't going to stay in the budget. Okay, since you brought it up, thank you. Um, let's chat about the 1.5% Um, my understanding is, and correct me an Marie or Mr. Walker, my understanding is the state is going to do that for constitutional officers 1.5 with no contribution from the county. They are funding constitutional officers and state funded positions. Correct. They're they're not covering any county funded positions, only the compport position. built in air budget however is uh 1.54 um the constitutionals and uh thanks to your creative thinking and looking of not only the constitutions but the county would pick up additional funding for other people in those offices. Correct. Right. So, that was the what's in this budget is the $750 um match plan, if you will. And that is for people who are not constitutional officers or funded by the state comp board would instead get a $758 um one time one-time bonus. So, be very clear that's just a one-time um and that's what the one and a half% is. It's a onetime bonus. And for the constitutional officers or the comp board, excuse me, the comp board funded

positions, it's one and a half% of what the comp board funds. So if for example, the comp board only funds 50% of her position, it's only funding 50% of the 1.5%. So we would have to pick up the rest to make that $750. I know you're not comport funding. Okay, we need to debate that a little bit. My opinion is that we fund the con the state funds the constitutionals and we decide not to fund extra people in those offices. That's my position on that because those people will be already receiving a 3% increase. Correct. Right. Everyone in the county is um everybody gets a three. Um I'm not uh in favor of singling out the additional people on the one and a half% since everybody's getting three. Um that to me is a little bit inconsistent with several things. One with um the school budget. Uh, and number two, if everybody's getting that and the state wants to pick up and they can pick up anything they want to pick up, but without a cost to the county, it that just doesn't make sense for us to do that actually. And I know you did a whole lot of work on it, and I think it was great work. I just don't think it's advisable at this time to fund additional money from the county to provide that. I am. It's y'all's vote. I know. And remember, you may leave that money in contingency for anything. So, that's the other thing except Okay. Well, Reggie might get something you want. So, that because that's not that's not tied to exactly using that for that particular

purpose. That's right. And you can't do it until Heather writes until you authorize Heather to write an ordinance allowing us to give it anyway. Remember bonuses are something that is not allowed by Virginia statutes without you the board. Correct. With a separate bonus. All right. What's your what's your opinion on that fellas, ladies? I can start my opinion. Huh. Um, but the state made everything complic, not complicated, but you know, I think all our workers, you know, this is just a onetime bonus and and for the county workers and everybody, I think it with the 750 was very creative and uh, and it's out there and and I feel that not just because it's out there. I feel that if the state gonna give son of workers and you working right beside them and the county can't support the workers and the job that they do um you know and and and think about it too things going to get worse before it get better and and that's how I look at it right now if you look at the economy but this is just a onetime bonus it's not nothing that going to be as everybody know every year and if the state going to do their workers I think for the for our workers that work 24/7 for us to do the things for that the county needs to do. It's a onetime bonus and for 50 some thousand dollars and we got a healthy Matt fund. I'm just a joke though. But anyway, I know I we're in a good position right now. That's all I'm just saying. And we don't know what what what the future going to hold. But if you're in a good position and and the way things if you look at what things in the society now how things are going and the way things are heading with you know uh a lot of things that a lot of grants and things that that are not coming in and uh we're going to have some tough time because uh even come going to the PDC

meeting uh Virginia is one of the states that uh mostly uh gets a lot of grant to help support a lot of things in the community and we going to get that cut. So, I'm just saying right now, give these workers that because I can tell you next year around things going to be tight. It's going to be tight. And you going to say, "No, no, no. I don't think our workers deserve it. I I I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong. Our schools going to need more money, too." And and and and we gonna sit back and say, "No, they don't deserve it." And and and a lot of that education funds and different things. We don't know where that's going to go. So I I'm saying do our workers that we I I want to know let you know I appreciate all the the the workers that we have in the county sheriff department, you know, and our county employees give that little bonus this time around. I'm not I'm not going to sit here and go, "No, no, you don't deserve it. Let the state comp workers do it. You don't deserve nothing." And and everything's still going up. I think I might have bought me some chickens. That's just a joke. But anyway, don't put that in the paper line. Don't put that in the paper. But I'm just saying I feel that to cut to cut to the chase and be serious. Uh I feel that our workers need that at this time that in environment that we're in and I'm just going to leave it like that because uh uh I've never I never seen it like this and it's going to get worse. Any other comments? Yeah. Um, I'm not very happy. I'm not very happy the way we treated the employees and employees. I'm talking about the schools, too. Last year, we started the budget. There was no raise in the budget. And then we got into the process and the board setting up here and they said, "Do y'all want to

give the employees a raise?" Well, certainly we want to give the employees a raise. They're the backbone of of what makes Middle Sex being able to do what we can do. But it was using the employees like a pawn or something and putting a board of supervisor up like we're on trial. You know, we don't we don't give raises. We don't hire employees. We don't we don't do evaluation on employees. We have a CEO that does that for both of the big departments, the county and the schools. and to take employees and take take the expectations up and down and back and forth. We should not be doing that. That's not how you treat employees. That's not how you treat people. We should have something solid that we're going to do before we bring it out. So, we don't run the expectations up and down. Now, this year, here we are not going to do got something got a raise in there for them, but no, no, not going to do any bonuses. Not going to do any bonuses. Well, then we board of supervisor sets up here and we get going through the budget process. Hey, y'all want to do some bonuses? Well, once again, of course, we want to do stuff with the employees. They're the backbone of what's going on. And the board of supervisors on trial again. It's it's not our budget. We approve a budget that someone else puts together for the county. Very capable person, matter of fact, that puts it together. Does a lot of good things for the county. But to put us on trial here and to take the employees and get the expectations up and down and back and forth and everything else, I don't see any way that we cannot do but approve what the heck is in there at this point because it's not fair to the employees. And when I'm talking about employees, I'm talking about all of them to be going up, down, back and forth. It's not right to put the board of supervisors up here on trial over something that should be addressed between the two CEOs of those organizations before it ever comes out here. So what we got in there from the employees now has to stay as far as I'm concerned because we can't keep on using

them as pawns and moving up and back. There's no way to treat people. Uh I think that uh I think you're exactly right, Bill. I think that that the the most important thing that we have in county government is our employees. You treat them right and they will do a good job. And I have not had any difficulty with anybody that works for this county that hasn't that just everybody to me has exceeded expectations. And I think that I would hate to think that there's a one of our offices whether it be the revenue or or whatever where you have two employees are going to be sitting next to each other at desks and one of them's going to get a raise because they're happen to be state funded and the other one isn't. I think that might cause some some hard feelings, some division, and like Bill just said, we've we've already kind of advertised that we're going to do this. And um I think that that's uh I think that's important. I I I wish we could do more for the teachers right now, but uh we're this this is a lean year and next year I'm I'm not sure how it's going to look any better, but we're going to hope, you know, and that as Ann Marie said, that's not a strategy, but uh but I I I agree. I I think I'd be in favor of keeping that keeping that raise for the rest of the county employees. Well, you know, it's it's my fault, gang. It's it's all my fault because I said you wanted to create something that was fair and that was equal. But I also said, watch your language. The language was that when you give apartment money, could it be divided equally amongst the employees? So once again, Bill, they're

putting us on the spot to make a decision based on each department. And what I mean by that, you got heads of each department, but they say, some of them said, you know, I'm going to keep it for myself. Now, you want Reggie to come and say, I'm going to make you a better person than what you are. Well, I'm not because I thought the language was saying that if I gave you apartment a lump sum of money, and this is the only way that that that that I were talking about it, and we got now we got a number and everybody got this number. Now, you expect me to agree with the number? I I'm not going to agree with the number cuz I don't think it's right. If a person that's running apartment don't have enough respect to come to this podium and say, you know, this this raise is wrong. I shouldn't be getting this. My employees are not getting very little. This is not right. But see, we didn't do that. Only the comp employees in the positions and y'all know what position I'm talking about. They get they get the money. Now they came to us. Now we are not going by the information we had or standing up. We get the idea of what's wrong and what's right and whether we need the money. The way I look at it, it starts from the comp board gave some people like uh $27. Some of them get you know uh as much as 2400. Now I did talk to some that the very first thing that was said that everything in the department should be equal one person and therefore when one person say that I just cash out everything else I'm sorry because at least you came forth and said this is not right now I don't know how many y'all he talked to but once again they talked to Amarie and the work that she done and I said you know this is really not what I I wanted because it's going to create a problem and I knew it was going to create a problem. And and and

and saying that, you know, I can't say give each employee $750. I I mean, I just can't see it. The math is not there. The math is not right. I'm sitting by it. What you want me to do or fix your apartment you sitting in and just use me and him sitting doing the same job. And and the state recognized him as saying, "Look, this position we should be paying." some scenario we'll come up and say what if based on no data based on no data that we said we're going to feel bad well let the person head of the department feel bad cuz that's who should be feeling bad I'm not going to bail you out at least a person can come forward and say hey uh this stuff should be split amongst my employees I'm not saying not accepted but it's made directly to him right Amarie or her or whoever it is that comp positions are made directly to to the person. It's based on each individual position. Okay, that's directly to the person. So, and and and that's how I look at it. I can't support just uh you know the good old buddy thing like I'm saying, you know, we going to do the good old buddy thing. It's it's not right. Should they get some type of bonus, then you're talking another scenario. Now, we do $750. Well, the county is doing that. It's not the state. Is that right? Now we we we playing with something here that we got to look. Is it right? If it's right, if if Bill gets it from the state and the county gets it from uh uh from the taxpayers and Bill would say, "Hey, how come I'm not getting it from the taxpayers?" If you don't think somebody won't say that, you kidding yourself. Uh so, but we trying to fix something that's broken. It's broken. Now we're gonna set up and make just like you said put us on display that we got to make a decision. All right. It's easy decision to make. It's no decision at all because if you can't

divide it equally amongst your employees and I tell you over and over again we got to learn how to work together as a county and we can't work together when you set on or set in any position and don't want stuff created equally especially dividing up money equally. What does it mean? And and don't get stuck in our way. So now we at a position $750, you know, you know, we going to have somebody will get $27 I think according to uh Amarie thing. And I I don't agree with the uh yeah the comp going to give somebody 27 and and one department uh uh one department now everybody in the department is getting a thing from the state. Y'all knew that, right? You know, when I think about something like that, it's recognized by the state and they're doing a good efficient job and the rest of us between the lines because we always buy we we we'll say well we always need that because of we don't we don't talk about doing more less and you know the the the administration like you're talking about Matt Amarie Heather and all of them no they're not they you know they are not in that position as the comp position there to get money. They're high. They're not. It's It's a different ball game. It's different all together. And most of the time their incomes is high. Don't you find that surprising? The income is high. Now you're saying I'mma pat you on your back going get you something just cuz I think it fair. No. So I can't I I go long don I can't agree with based on I know where how it got started. And even when we saw it, it was it was put out there on there $750. I said, "Oh, this ain't the math, you know, and and and uh I made a mistake. I thought we could be fair and we can't." Okay. The only thing we can be found is stepping back and leaving

alone. Any other comments? Um, I appreciate everybody's comments. Wayne, I appreciate yours for sure. The bottom line is this for me. everybody in the county. And by the way, before I say what I'm going to say, the just because the state says we'll approve up to 3%. There are counties that historically don't go that match depending on how much money that and in our case we're kind of at a disadvantage with what the uh what the percentage is of what the state will cover and what the county will cover. But I think we've we've played that pretty well over the last few years. Um, but we could just as easily say we're not giving anything. State approves a 3%. There are counties that give 2% as an example. Some say no, I'm we're not going to afford that because of the extra cost to the county. So it it's not a given that the state says we're going to do a 3% cola or 5% cola or whatever it is. The county still can either decide to go and play that game or not play that game. Period. So we've tried to be equitable on everybody getting a minimum of a 3% raise. The one and a half% has definitely clouded the issue some. We kind of had to have something on and we probably need to be do a better job before we post it and send it to um you know to the con constituents and the and the uh paper that we our budget is this. We probably needed to be a little sharper on what we decided to do before we sent that. Yes, it's in the

budget, but it it can be removed from the budget. My biggest source of contention with it is we're giving everybody a 3% raise. We hammered the school system on what their ask was. Um, and to me, it's not fair to say, and I can't, you know, the constitution, what the state says they'll do for them, that's one thing. But the additional money that's out there that we would fund those other positions to me is not equitable as it compares to what we had asked the school system to live with this year. So for that reason alone I'm not going to support um I'll I have no choice with the constitutionals. they'll they'll have to uh they'll get their one and a half%. But I'm not going to further escalate the fact that everybody's not treated equally and the school board um um maybe not happy, but they understood what we were trying to do. And now to say, well, you know, that extra percentage that you guys were looking for, we're not going to fund that. we're going to fund these other people on the constitutional side additional money too. I can't support that. I just can't. Now, that being said, we are looking for the value of the two school board members that are there. We are uh chatting amongst ourselves. I'm chatting a lot with uh uh the county administrator on how we need to do what we need to do for bringing salaries up to a more level scenario. Um and that may or may not be contingent on our next year's budget. Uh but we are actively discussing how we need to do now. We we will have to meet with the school board to discuss in a work session how we

think that that should be applied at a later date. Uh but we are uh looking at that very hard on what we can do on teacher salaries to to get them to a more reasonable level compared to the other counties that are out there. But on the 1% we need to come up with a consensus um and move forward. Um do we need to vote it or do you need to discuss it and say what you want or what you don't want? Until you vote on the final, I think just consensus getting you there is fine, Mr. Chairman, because you're going to vote on it at the end with all the exact with all the changes and modifications and revisions, right? And in this case, it's already in contingencies. So again, I don't think there is a requirement to move it anywhere other than where it is. I would add if it didn't continue said, are you saying that if it passed, it got to be given to the ones it don't have to be given to? I I think two things need to be clarified before the board has a consensus discussion. And Emory, I'm going to ask you in a minute, bring your table back up. That's in here. That's under AM750. It's not a radio channel. Um, it's my understanding the school did receive some money for this fiscal year to give out a thousand bonus to all of their staff. Not all their staff, all the SOQ funded positions. And uh, yet to be determined how they're going to do that. They're still crunching the numbers and school board's got to weigh in on it. I'm sorry, Mike. Oh, I thought it was consensual employees. It's for SOQ funded positions is what I only SOQ positions. Is that what it is? Yeah. So, see, they have non SOQ positions, too, that they got to work out with and how they'll split all that. I don't think that's been determined yet, but I wanted to make sure the board's aware of it.

They've got to do that before the end of this fiscal year by June 30th. So, they may be doing something. Um, probably will be doing something. They got state money. They got to figure out how they're going to allocate that. And in Emory, I think there's some confusion because your 750 plan actually has a couple of employees that are only getting like $250 from like the comp board. They're getting 750 and we've we've elevated some of those lower paid staff accomplishing some of what I think Reggie has been trying to accomplish for several years. And can you give voice to that a little bit, please? Oh, because I completely lost track of what you were trying to say. Um, but right, I I knew what you were talking about and that is in this case, one of the deputy treasurers, the one and a half percent would have been $510, but the comp board was only funding 207 of that. So, that was how that worked. And so, this right here, this column is a number that would represent what the comp board would fund. Is that what you were asking? because a portion of the treasur salaries funded by the county because they do county functions too. But there are other examples in there with other positions where like okay the circuit court clerk for instance under the comp board they get 606 with one and a half% but under your plan they get 750. Oh right, right. this and and one other just quick thing and this is this is something where I agree with everything the board said from a certain point of view all of you are correct it's this is about trying to maintain as good a balance as you can but I do want everyone to remember this was kind of thrust on us by the general assembly midprocess it's surprise we're going to give a bonus out they didn't call the county administrators that I'm aware of none of us received a call from anybody body saying, "Hey, how would this send

ripples through the organization?" So, Bill, you're exactly right. They're kind of putting all of us in the spot. They're going to pay what they pay and they're going to feel good about it, and they should. They're doing something right for their employees, but then now the board is in a delicate position. Now, staff's in a delicate position because we had already built a budget on 3%. And now we got to do another 1.5 if when the state approves a budget. So, and we don't even have an ordinance that would allow us to do it. So, we got to do an ordinance to be allowed to do what the comp board's telling us they want us to do. So, it's it's a interesting times in this Commonwealth of Virginia budget wise. Do you have any data supporting some of the other counties around us of what they're are they going to do this? Are they not going to do this? How they they're handling it completely off budget. They're going to determine what they're going to do in May and June and then bring the money in uh I guess to fund whatever they want to do, but all their budgets are already complete, right? No, several of them are still in the process. I thought that nightly were speaking saying when they were talking about the schools that if we don't approve this will be the lowest there is, which would mean all those other would have had to have been approved already. Uh can't speak to that. I would imagine they were using last year's numbers on that. because I I think all the school districts around us are doing the 3% but I could find out for you Bill. Um some of them are still in the process. I think King Williams having their public hearing tonight. Yeah, the east um you know east of 95 we're going to be I don't know we can say that if the other places haven't compi completed their budget process then that might be a statement we probably not should have talked to. It might turn out that way but it's not true right now. now if they haven't completed their budgets. What may be true now and may get worse when

they approve. I I I'll have to ask them. But one one other thing just real quick. Amory, did you want to say anything more about your Okay, I did not. The budget and finance committee that we have impanled between the board and the school board would be the most likely place to vet some of those issues out between the board, two board members, two of the school board members. I've already spoken to uh the superintendent about the possibility of getting that committee meeting again when the budget's done to work on that problem of teacher funding especially those late lower level first, second, third year teachers. That's the honestly that's really a good venue for it because then you can get into details. You can crunch numbers. You can play whatifs. We can bring spreadsheets up. Tracy and I can play with the numbers in in real time. get that committee uh to make a recommendation back to the school board and a board of supervisors in a joint work session or outside of one. Just want to add that. Yeah, and you and you and I have had that conversation about setting up something to do that. Well, the high school renovation committee has been meeting more frequently um than the budget and finance committee meeting between the schools and the county. Uh that may need to be more we may need to have that budget committee meet more often at least once a month. All right. Okay. So where are we? You're still balanced. Huh? No one's told me to take anything out yet. So you're still balanced. Well, regarding the 1.5, let's hear. I know generally speaking, would you support that from our budget or not? You would you would

bill the $750 the extra I I support on a basis and I think the employees have been I support on a basis. I think the employees have been treated wrongly by this process for two years in a row and we can do better and to now we're going to say well no bonus after we advertised it but then we we're up here you know like I said and we're like we're putting been put on trial here for this this is how the process should go. It should be done and taken care of before it gets here and to throw the employees another curveball at this point in the game. I just don't think it's fair to them. I I would like to have seen the process better because we can do better. So I I support the $750 and we got to do better with the process. And Reggie, I support it. You won't you won't support it. So really, it's 3 to2 then, right? We're getting there. I'm not going to support it either. The way it is 3 to2. So we do have a consensus of a 3-2 to leave it in. Okay. All right. Where else are we here? What other discussions do we need to have, Mr. Walker? Any the board wants to have? Um, those were some of the big issues that I've heard so far. I've got one. It looks like that now we're able to do everything we've been talking about and we're not taking anything out of the fund balance that we're about. It looks that the budget is balanced. We're able to do every everything we mentioned without taking any money out of the fund balance. Is that correct? No. You're you're taking 216,000 out of fund balance for operating and 200,000 out of fund balance for reassessment. That's as advertised. So we are taking

$400,000 out of the fund balance. $416,000.39. Okay. Okay. I kept seeing that zero down there. All right. Now, we took the sewer fund and zeroed that out. That's 267,000. Yes, sir. The non-EP departmental uh expenditures were taken to the capital reserve portion of that that was you to be used for future fund balance of the sewer project was taken to zero. Yes, sir. Okay. So that $267,000 that was in there, well that was basically a place marker that the money was in the fund balance. So what we did is we took money 267,000 out of the fund balance. 2 227,000 was out of the paper here that we sent to the paper to 267 267. So we took it may have some contingency. We took $267,000 out of the fund balance. We put it in the sewer fund and then we had the sewer fund transfer it to this budget and then we closed out the sewer fund. Is that basically the route of what we did? Well, I I can't refer to it as the sewer fund though I know exactly what you're talking about. We had set up a capital reserve line item in the operating budget to fund the reserves until the sewer system would come online. Uh last year we had left a small portion in the non-EP departmental for I guess that purpose. This year from the very beginning we zeroed that out to help balance the budget. Um so that that's all I need right there. So we help balance the budget. So we so that 400 and some thousand is really plus 267,000. So it's really 600 and some thousand we're taking out. It is I you could look at it from that point

of view. I don't know if that would be correct though because we took the money out of the fund balance, transferred it into the sewer fund. So just a place marker and then we took from the sewer fund and put it into this year's budget and then we cancelled the sewer fund. We took it out of the fund balance $267,000 and now we're taking another $400 and some,000 out of the fund balance. So, we're taking I I I don't think that's an accurate description. And and here's why. The capital reserve line item is a line item in the operating budget that the board has used to build a fund balance. And it was put in the budget for an amount of 887,000. Then we bumped it up to a million in anticipation of using that money in the operating side of the budget to pay future debt service. Well, the sewer projects on permanent pause, we have funded 262,000 uh from fund balance or from that line item to fund the sewer fund and that continues in this budget as the sewer fund uh or the sewer uh enterprise fund. It pays the debt service for the coach corner office complex. So I think a more accurate way of saying it to be completely transparent is we are no longer setting aside monies in the operating budget under capital reserves to build fund balance for capital projects sewer or otherwise. That line item was taken to zero. Uh it's been zero since January. So, if we took our fund balance before we started this budget process, it would show that we've only taken out to to um balance this budget 400 some,000. It won't show the other two 267,000. Well, we weren't taking it from fund balance. We lowered a line item in operating budget that was used to build fund balance in future years. Let Let me say it a different way. Okay. How about this? How much money was in the fund balance before we started this budget?

Okay. So running through it, you had 18,500 in fund balance as of the last audit. Wait a minute. Where are we in the capital budget walkthrough? 185 185. Okay. 18 8,500. Okay. The recommended operating reserve from your auditors is 20%. That's 9 million. You have 9.5 million left over for appropriation. However, you've got set aides. Uh you got the dredging fund set aside. So, we would pull a million from that uh appropriation amount to set aside, make sure it doesn't get spent for other things. Uh CD uh the PDC grants match of 500,000 election equipment reserve. We have the 2027 reassessment that if we don't do the reassessment this year, we can pull that money back in and create that set aside for it. And what that would look like is we don't fund the reassessment this year. We push that off to the next year. And it would be my recommendation that if we do that, we put $200,000 in that set aside so we can fund it in 2027 calendar year. Okay. Uh so moving down, we have the property acquisition nights match that we put in a set aside to make sure we always have the money to match that grant. And then we created through the process if the if y'all choose to do it uh a new set aside amount of $500,000 for emergency services. So that brings us to available funds after set aside of 6,445,000. From that we fund the capital projects and after those capital

projects you have a estimated amount of fund balance left of 4.6 6 million total fund balance and I apologize I'm having some battery issues over here so it's jumpy total with reserves of 146 14 million6 okay so so so we started we're pulling in 200,000 for the reassessment and that's what we've done in the past and another 216 to balance pull 200,000 from uh from fund balance okay all right now if we choose not to do the reassessment. We can put that back. Well, we got 200 coming from fund balance. Then what else do we have coming from fund balance? Uh $216,000 to balance the operating budget. Okay. And nothing else come out of the fund balance because I don't understand then where the $267,000 went. If we took it to put it in the sewer fund and then and then and then we moved it into this year's budget and we canceled the sewer fund. I'm with you now. Okay. So the 262 on the wastewater fund, we started paying that last year when we started paying debt service on the Cooks Corner office part or Cook's Corner sewer fund. So that 262 comes um really it's a transfer from the operating budget. Uh it's handled right here. Hold up. Right here 85. That money was pulled from the line item last year which lowered it that much more cuz we had I think a million dollars in it. I'd have to go back and look. We pulled out six. It was 800 the year before and then we bumped it up a million and then we pulled out the 262 which lowered it and then we used a portion of that line item to balance the operating budget last year. So yeah, it looks like to me we're

supplementing the budget more than 400,000. Look like to me we're supplementing 600 some thousand. I I don't Yeah, I don't see how that would be. But if you look at the revenue side, you can actually see the sources of revenue. So I think that it I can see where you might think that. But if we go back into the revenue side, right? Yeah. And you can calculate O Whoops, I'm in the wrong place, Matt. If you go money coming from sewer coming from that sewer fund and going into this budget would show as a revenue. There isn't money coming from the sewer fund. There is no money coming in from the sewer fund. Yeah. And let me show it a different way if I may. Let me just say what this is. Yeah. Go ahead. So it says waste water revenue. Revenue. I got to get it from somewhere. That's correct. Yeah. $262,000 total revenue. Then expenditure $262,000. So we got the money from somewhere. Y we put in the fund and then we spent the money right here. This is this is where it came in to the sewer fund. It came in from the wastewater fund transfer next year. What would we do? We need that money there again next year. Uh yes sir, you will for the term of for the term of the financing for the silver. We took so so in order to make a payment this year and last year we depleted the fund over the two years we deplete it's gone now. Well, no because the capital reserve line item was established to help pay that fund balance. So, in order to I think get to what you're saying, Bill, we would have have to brought in $262,000 from fund balance in addition to the other operating revenue. But we started budgeting for that 262 last year by lowering the capital reserve which

the original board that created that and they created it in my recommendation created it so we would always have funding for debt service for the projects we were proposing and that's the only one that moved forward. And let me say it this way we could not cut the capital reserve line item. So, let's say we leave $100,000 in there. So, we're going to put $100,000 more in the capital reserve, but you don't have the revenue to put another $100,000 in it. You would need to pull $100,000 out of the fund balance. And it's just a circle. Then, we didn't have the revenue to do it. That was one of the cuts we made very early on back. I say adjustments, so I won't call it a cut. We had to adjust that final $227,000 out of the capital improvement reserve very early on to get this budget even close to balance. And maybe Emry and I can walk you through it. But the 262 is a transfer from the general fund to the sewer fund to pay that debt service under that enterprise fund. similar to how we transfer money to the schools or to the EDA or to the water authority. Uh it's transferred operating budget to the sewer fund. We didn't pull in 262 from fund balance to pay it. Not saying we may not have to sometime but not this year. Okay. So, next step, I guess, is to approve the budget with your change whatever final changes. Yeah. Yes, sir. And we've put those changes in. And Amarie, we're still

balanc. Yes. I just want for the record, we're still balanc. Um, we simply move money into the contingency line item. Um, and yeah, that was it. We moved $78,000 to the contingency line. Uh, 88,500 for bonuses. Yes, sir. That is still showing in the contingency line item. That can't be approved until after you all I mean, it can be approved in the budget. It should I mean if you're going to do it it should be in the budget but after that there is still the second step which requires the county attorney to do the ordinance for us. Yeah. You got to pull approve an ordinance to allow for that expenditure and then you have to approve the transfer to the right line items which am will get you after uh that discussion either in May and June. But do I I don't think you can fund it through contingency. You'd have to send it to the departments. We'll think about that to payroll. In any event, we need to make sure it doesn't add to the operating budget next year because it's a oneand done. Exactly. That's why I was scared to do that, but Okay. What's your pleasure? You want to vote on the budget now? Unless there's any other changes. The school's just getting 3% is the schools. Uh it's just 3%. Okay, help me out. What do you mean by the school raise? We giving money for the schools to get a 3% raise. Yeah. What is in the budget now is $461,000. That's enough to give a 3% cola match the state fund two sped positions, two special ed positions, and a small inflation factor of about I

think she said $50,000. But that's what's in there now. 3.7%age wide. So what I think the chart they had a chart up there a few minutes ago. Yeah, you had a chart saying the uh 1.7 and um you had it on. No, go ahead. Move it over some. We're wrestling for the mouse control. Most of that we'll be looking at. So it's a step plus 1.7 or 3%. So, I don't know. I don't think the math is right on that jump because you got to 1.7 and then you got in parenthesis. All you got to times is that 1.7 times three. So, as the schools have explained it to us before, what they do when they get a cola increase like this, they want to do a step. 1.7% on top of a step is 3%. I'll clarify between each step is approximately 1.3%. So when I'm going from step two to step three, I'm that gives me the 1.3% and then the 1.7 makes a total of 3%. Yeah, that's

so that's how that got to be a step plus 1.3 equals 3%. And as you can see, regardless of the percentage, the state match is always the same because the state is only funding up to that highlighted portion. Yeah, they're only funding the compositions, not the compet, right? So Chen left which means you all have to trust me. You have to speak very slowly when we do these motions. Okay. So, uh, county attorney, help us out with a motion, please. Sure. This will be the blind leading the blind. Okay. Um, I believe I say this because I have I can't read my own hand, right? I was trying to write so fast. Okay. I'm gonna say back to the board what the general consensus is. Maybe not what everyone agrees on, but what I heard and tell me where I'm wrong. So, the board would be making a motion to approve um fiscal year 2026 with a modification to the sheriff's budget, which is leaving 20,000 in the sheriff's budget and then putting 78 in contingency. Right, Amory? So far so good. Okay. And in that contingency line item, we're not the board's just kind of it's putting the money there and it could be used for other things, but the thought right now is it would be used

for these positions and you're going to include in the non-depal expenditures how the 885 $88,500 which will implement Ann Marie's 700 $50,000 bonus program which is all county employees will get Emory $750,000 $750. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No, thank you. This is why I was like I was trying to $750 or the the 1.5% of the comp board, whichever is how did we put that? Um greater So essenti or whichever one is greater. Yeah, there's your motion. I think I butchered that as badly as I could. Sorry. I so moved on that motion. Wait, wait. What about Wait, wait, before she finishes, what about the tax rates, too? Does that get And and the tax rates remain as advertised, which means no change. Can you pull up the ad for me, please? I don't know them off top of my head. it. You've gone beyond my bedtime. So, I'm I'm I'm like Matt after 8 my brain stops. Okay, that's not the ad. I'm getting there. I've got it pulled up somewhere. You got it on the small screen. Emry, can it be sports? There you go. So, you will be adopting the budget as advertised with the change to the sheriff's budget would be a different way to say that. That's it. There you go. Apologize. Eventually, I'll get there. Okay. And the tax rates as presented, which is no change. And again, you can't give the bonus until she gives you the ordinance anyway,

right? The money is in contingency for you to fund it, though. Okay. I so moved on that motion. Motion so moved by Mr. Jesse. Second. Second by Mr. Kittin. Any further uh discussion? One clarification. And we're not funding under this current budget the Commonwealth Attorney position. Correct. Any further discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Bill Harris. No. Mr. Kittinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? No. Mr. Don Harris? Okay. Um, before I vote, I got a question. Will the What do we got? Two two nos, two yeses. If If my vote is no, then do we have to have a another meeting to approve the the budget? Somebody else would do another motion. No, sir. Tonight's that night. Yeah. Make a modification, make another motion that pass. the motion would fail and and I understand it wasn't the most eloquent so forgive me but and we would do another one. Okay, I'm going to vote no as well. So motion is not carried. Uh I will ask the uh my other fellow is there a specific issue that you're not going to approve it because I thought you were going to approve it.

I don't like the fund balance withdrawal. I think it comes down where say we're balancing the budget. We're really not. We're taking out $400,000. I think Matt's tried to do a good job of explaining to me about the other $262,000, but I'm not so sure it res that answer really resonates with me. I um know that we've got, you know, the um state police checking out budget right up here. They got state police checking out the budget over across the river. and the way it's put in the paper and and the way that it's put out there to me, I I have some I have some concerns about it. I think it almost ought to go back the way it was before it ever started. That that's my biggest concern other than the fact I do not like the process that we went through. That's uh I'm not doing a protest about doing it wrong, but I do not like the process that we went through. Okay. So, what's our alternative here? Um, if we can't come to a resolution tonight, when when would we I I would say back to the board. Um, this Okay. Um, you have advertised that tonight is your adoption of a budget. If we're not able to reach that consensus, then I would ask for elaboration on what we cannot what you need or make a substitute motion. Yeah. and see if there's three votes for that or five votes preferably. What's the substitute motion? Make another motion. Move the boat.

Okay. Well, uh, I'm g put you, Bill, back on it. I see. What do we need to do for for you to feel comfortable? Think I think that 262,000 the 262,000 I think needs to go back into fund balance because it was an air to me it we had the fund balance and no money was really in it. It was airmarked. That's all we talk about is the money that's in the fund balance. We have stuff that is airmarked there for it. And dredge money. Well, there's not really a million dollars in there, but we've got it airmarked in the fund balance. It was the same thing for sewer that we always went through. Now all of a sudden we've gone and done something that really to me just, you know, the board didn't even vote on shutting down the dag on um sewer fund, which I'm not saying I'm not I'm not saying I'm opposed to doing that. What I am saying we first I heard about it is when Matt gave his talk the other last Monday night that we were shutting it down and the money was being transferred into this budget. The way I the way I heard it, way I interpreted, don't me wrong, I'm not taking away from you trying to explain it to me. But to me, it just seems like that should go back start because I don't want to do anything and next thing you know, we got the state police knocking on our door. Well, let me let me respond to that. Well, respond. Yeah, the auditors are with us every year and and I think what's going on up in Essex is totally different, but the 262 was in the approved budget this fiscal year. So that was done last year where we lowered that line item to pay the debt service on the sewer fund. And I could go back and check and see if it was even done the year before. I think what was new last year was we moved the sewer to the enterprise fund called the sewer fund. And and not to I mean it's probably not a time or place to try to

explain it, but I'll do my best. So the sewer fund gets a transfer from the general fund to pay the debt service. Now, how we were doing that, Amory, is we could have left the sewer uh debt service up with debt service. But that's not transparent at all because the sewer fund was removed from debt service to be more transparent. We're paying debt service for sewer and debt service for everything else. And if the county ever did move forward with a sewer project, you would hope that it would pay for itself, maybe with revenue collections, but that's not the case with Cooks Corner because we were already out of the way with that project and it's Hampton Road Sanitation District system, but we had to pay for it under our agreement. So, I guess I understand your concern. I just don't think you um I don't think it's accurate and and putting it mildly, I mean the wastewater fund was established last year and funded. We fund it with a transfer, not from fund balance, but from the operating budget, just like we fund the airport fund transfer, the water authority fund transfer, the EDA fund transfer, the county schools fund transfer, and all the other transfer that we show there. Um, if it's if it's a different way you would rather us account for that, we can look at that next year and start that process. The only other way I know to do it is to move the sewer loan back up to debt service. And to me, that's not very transparent. At this point, though, it doesn't matter because we're not going I don't think it's going to be making a viable, profitable enterprise, which was the goal. Right. And when we when we lowered the capital reserve line item last year, there was robust discussion on this same night saying that's where

we should balance the budget. Okay. Well, we did it. Um and there was other discussion too if my memory serves where listen if we decide to move forward with a sewer project then we should have the political fortitude to get back up and reestablish more in that capital improvement reserve line item to pay for the future debt service and that's my memory of the discussion but uh we serve at y'all's pleasure and we want to build a budget that y'all are comfortable with. If there's a different way you want us to show that we can. if it's approved by the auditor. But the idea was to create an enterprise fund that shows all of those different type of enterprises separate like the airport, not bury it into operating budget. Right. At this point though, again, I would I would also be of the mindset that it probably doesn't need to be a separate enterprise fund for a while. We um well we can move it back next year and just cancel the enterprise and then then it would be showing up here in the debt service and it would be still funded in the operating budget. Yes, sir. But it would still be it still would have a net effect. It would have the same net effect. Um so that's I that's a great address of that one. What else can we do? It's it's it's a debt. It's a bill that we got to pay for the next what next 20 years. I think that it's under the Clean Water Revolving Loan Act or loan fund and I think it is a 20-year note. Do you have that in here? You can look at the debt service table. I think it's this debt service 49. Yep. The 49 2.9%. So not too bad. So basically we, you know, we look at it much we want some way we done, it it done came out of fund balance or whatever balance it got and it and it we we paid the bill. Uh we we paid the bill come out of fund balance. I'm going to have to correct you there. It's coming from the operating budget as a transfer.

Well, that's the that's the part. I mean, you know, you got one source of income is taxpayers money and the other force you put it in the fund balance. So I see part of what Bill is saying that uh maybe have to do a little different your debt and you got your debt service and all of that but that's a bill that we going to have for the next you know to 1949 that's a bill that's a debt and we got to look at it as being a debt and and uh that that got to be in the budget so you can see it it's you know uh income and revenue I mean one side is revenue and you you would see it clear you know and uh if you want to move it back to debt service next budget year we can do that we've already advertised this way. Well, you know, I look at it just like any other bill that you got. You know, you put it so it can easily be understood. That's what I'm looking at. And you are right. And why we were doing it this way was we expected the sewer fund to be like the airport fund having revenues coming in and having operating expenditures going out and that would have helped pay for this debt service. So again, that was us jumping the gun saying this along with the auditors, mind you. So everybody's saying if you're going to be getting revenue in for example from the sales of service in this case the sales of sewer service you would have a revenue source you wouldn't want that does not go in your general fund. Yeah you're required to operate an enterprise fund when you're doing that. So that's why we were putting That's right. So that's why we started it in the enterprise fund and now as you both indicate, you know what, it didn't work out that way. And we'll um I'm meeting with the auditors probably the end of June to redisuss how we could probably do that. Um because I just don't I don't know what anybody's plans are for the future. I don't think they're going to like us putting it back in debt service, but we can check. No, I mean I don't they may I don't know but if if if and when we ever do decide to move forward with any kind of sewer project then you don't have a sewer wastewater fund to operate out of that

fund would be built similar to the airport fund and have its own funding but it's board's closure right definitely an argument for a long term day I got a question Bill you remember you were talking about you know I think this fund was in another fund and you said it's good you had the the in a different fund. Don't you remember that back some time ago because you were talk telling Matt about something and I could be wrong. I just you know we go through a lot of things but I remember you saying well how can you designate this and then y'all decided putting it in this certain fund wastewater fund. Oh I'm talking about something different. I could I be talking Do you remember that? I know we created the wastewater fund in 2025. No, I would just remember something because I remember you was saying something about it. You say it shouldn't be in this fund. It should be in a specialized fund so you know where it's at. And I remember you saying something about that, but I don't know was it this one or not? Because the county had it in another fund and you said it should be dedicated to a fund so you know where this money is going. Don't you remember that or you don't remember that? I remember some I remember you saying something like that. I remember you saying something like that because you said, "How can you know where these funds are? It's best to have your own dedicated fund for the sewer." And I remember you saying something like that because you know you you're pretty up on sewer system and stuff like that and the accounting part of it and and I could be wrong, but I just remember you saying through the whole thing. It's always kind of been like all those items we went down through uh when Matt just went through it trying to explain it. Uh there were place markers, you know, just and and just to to walk away from this one, the dredge fund sitting there as a million dollars. Well, that million dollars was really in the reserve fund on the fund balance. And then as we needed it for this project, we moved it out of there over into that fund. So somehow another, the sewer got some funding of a million dollars a year or

so ago, and we spent some of it out. So it had to that that money had to come from somewhere and then we took $600 and some thousand dollars out of it to balance the budget. I believe it was last year. So and that left us with 200 and some. So what I'm saying is that money originally was just a place that million dollars was just a place marker and we moved it in to the fund. It was more than a pl It was more than a place marker though because it was a line item that we created in the operating budget to make sure that funding went into it every year to build the fund balance. There wasn't a place marker down here that I'm aware of. I can go back and look where we set aside from fund balance for sewer. We helped build the overall fund balance by putting 800 and how muchever. I'd have to go back and look and then it went up to a million every year we put into that because we said, "Well, we'll leave it in that line item." And this is previous boards and we've talked about it in work sessions where the idea was you leave enough money in this line item in your operating budget to cover any kind of debt service. And I and I keep coming back to this. We created that because of something that one of the executive directors of HRD said here in a meeting one night. Well, y'all can talk about sewer all you want, but you'll never fund it. Well, the board that year started putting money into that capital reserve line item to fund sewer debt service. And then up until when it was needed for sewer debt service, it would just go into the county's fund balance to build our overall project reserves. And that's the way I've looked at it. And that's history. And I'm boring you, I know, but that's what the thought was. And last year we created that enterprise fund to separate out the wastewater debt service from the operating bud from the general fund budget. It's its own fund now. So next year, where will the

$262,000 come from? Uh from the operating budget, just like any other debt service payment you have right here, we have to pay the debt service on that sewer loan. So, in other words, let's let's let's put that on the an analogy of the family budget. You have a uh you decide you want to buy a car and the uh the payments are $400 a month. So, you figure that into your budget. But then the end of this month, all of a sudden, we had a lot of bills come in, so we have to dip into savings to pay a couple hundred extra. And that's kind of the way I'm looking at this is that this the sewer anything that's that's in that particular fund that we've already figured it comes out of the tax money or the revenue that we get every year. But then in a lean year like this perhaps we may not have enough of that revenue coming in to cover everything. So, we have to dip into our piggy bank and get a little bit to cover it for this year knowing that it's going to be a lean year and that next year or the year after that when we are able to do the uh the assess reassessments then we'll have more more revenue coming in and we'll be able to pay pay that back off. And to me, when you say that dipping in part, that's why I'm saying that dipping in should be added on to the 400 some thousand. That's what's still So, let me chime in here and show the dipping in. 216,000 for operating that pays for your operating budget. The 200,000 pays for your assessment. We've always funded that. Well, let me rephrase that. Since I've been here, we funded that from fund balance. Based on my understanding, it's a large one-time expense. We pay once every four to five, six years. If we don't want to dip in and pay for a reassessment and put it put it off a year, then you're putting that number

for fun bounce for reassessment into your set aside. So it's there for you next year and then next year you take it to zero. Okay, so that's one thing. The operating budget, remember we started and it was actually higher than that because the departments have adjusted a little bit based on the latest data. You remember we started, I think, with a $1.6 million gap. We got it down to zero with $216,000 coming in from Big Bank. Now, I want to say one thing and and you remember this from early on in the budget process when we talked about future expectations of our reassessment. Oh boy. I don't want to open up a big discussion on that tonight, but I think it's important for the board to see and what and and call your other board members from that you're familiar with from Lancaster and Essex and talk about their recent reassessments. We could be seeing a 30% increase in property values. That means you would be lowering the tax rate next year by 14.1 or doing a rebate. I want to make sure I say that because we got pins and those discussions. That's a lot. And in years past before I got here, the county made the big mistake of lowering it too much. And every year coming out of a reassessment, we always had a shortfall. We stopped doing that. We started says we need to lower it 14.1 cents. We're going to lower it or do a rebate down to 10 cents. And then that four sense is cover and buffer because until you get the actual collections coming in, you really need to hedge your bets on the side of robust revenue and not have uh a shortfall in revenue.

It's one of the reasons we've been as success successful as generating but it's one of the reasons we've been as successful as we have been creating this surplus that we're enjoying now because we've been very conservative with revenues and very conservative with expenditures even if it meant we had to raise taxes or advertise a tax increase coming out of a reassessment. Now, from my point of view, and this is where it's going to get a little tricky, if we know we got to lower the tax rate, if and and by the way, let me qualify this. And Larry, you if this gets in the paper, it's going to be all befuddled because that's only one category of the reassessment. That's only the uh suburban housing. That's not commercial. It's not industrial. It's nothing else but suburban housing that I'm using. And I'm doing that for simplicity purposes. So, be careful quoting this, buddy. just that one category, we can be looking at $4 million of revenue. And I knew this coming into January. And that's why I said you can do just about anything you want from fund balance this year and not raise taxes or not do anything cuz you've got to do a reassessment next year or the year after. And whenever you do that, you're going to have a windfall of revenues. What you don't get back. From my point of view, it's easier to come down than to go up. We're at 61 cents. What would that take us to? 61us 14. Amarie, what you got real quick? Do math quick. There you go. So, instead of going 47, you get 50. You get 55. You do something like that. The rates decreasing or you give a rebate down to a certain threshold. I mean, that's still in play, but you do it in a reassessment year because I mean, we could have we could have raised taxes this year one penny and not brought any money in other than the reassessment money from fund

balance, but then you're just going to be lowering it by a lot next year or doing a rebate next year. Um, I just wanted to restate that. We we talked about it a couple times. a lot of seemed like a lot of people got their eye on on any kind of um extra funding that were coming in. Like that's what scares me a little bit. Like if anything like that happened, it's already people already. Um and real quick, one county around us said that many of their waterfront properties went up by 40%. So if it's 40% guys, the biggest decision we've got next year is how much to lower it. And we're going to be lowering it a lot. But I'm gonna just gonna say it. You'll hear me say it next year. Please don't lower it too much because we've done that one year. One year we lowered it to 35 cents and we ended up missing a target or the estimation came in wrong. And well, Wayne, you live through that. Those were unpleasant times, weren't you, brother? And and and we just that's why you have your staff. will guide you. But in the end, y'all get to vote. I'm going to need a little bit more um on income and your uh bills because it's no excuse to me that under the check and balance system, what I grow up in that we can be that far off and you know like $162,000 and we got a bill for 15 years on that. So um yeah, we got to establish exactly our bills um for the future and we can't don't need to guess at it. We can do a reassessment and a reassessment all that does is increase taxes but I feel we got to do a better judgment of the things we need to do now and because it seems like if we telling a lot of

people got a lot of money in fund balance need asking for I think we're a little heavy in a in a lot of places and until we tighten up at the things we need to do that's when as a candidate we can uh uh we can go forth but I I I like more transparency on on debts I'm looking at I figure the first one I would ask her where the $162,000 went to I said I guess I ask the treasurer see what how it was written then I'll be satisfied that way I like what Amarie did with the airport but also at the same time when you uh take the tax revenue out and put in the general fund we should be able to see that I'm just getting you know you look at these numbers and you got to figure out stuff and like Bill said we got to sit down you got to figure it out I'm going to figure it out basically we took 252,000 out of something, it basically added to something else and then it's it's a bill. It's a debt. Either way we look at it, it's not an income, it's a debt. And it's somewhere along that line back even when they had the water authority, for instance, when they opened up and they borrowed $1.7 million from the county and when they got their loan, they paid the county back $1.7 million. So at the same time what you did you what what was did was that um you increase your fund balance and now you got to pay for the increase for 40 years. So these kind of things is what we to me we make a mistake on. I don't it's a lot of things that I felt that the uh we could give uh the teachers more money but for somebody to ask for something you got to know what you're getting and we keep on doing the same thing that we always did. And you know I'm I'm looking at it and it's it's it's not a big deal. You cry for something and you don't know how to get it. It just to me that part is a shame. I couldn't vote for it because you're not getting the teacher stuff money. Why? I don't even think the formula works for me, you know, and I really don't like the um you giving somebody on on and I'll use the word on a friendship base. I mean, you get what you get and

that's the way it is. U leadership got to take responsibility to me and the things that they do in department and show that they care for their employees. And from my understanding, it's only it's only one department in the whole county that really care about the employees because action speaks louder than uh anything else. So uh uh you probably won't get me to vote for the budget cuz I don't like them two things. I don't like for teachers not get an increase. We put it on a we put it on a whole last year. I asked them uh to work on it a year ago and they did nothing. Nobody they didn't do nothing. uh they didn't do uh uh didn't want to talk to a a a step program or or change the steps that's doing nothing. Uh they know that percentages not always going to work. Percentages is not going to always going to work. We're getting percentages this year. We show separation once again and in even in looking at the uh 3% cola in the one step one one step is equal to a certain amount of money instead of we said that we give 3% this is the amount of money we get to a teacher that's making $50,000 I'm looking at if we give a teacher that making $50,000 we give them 3% and the state is doing something I want it a little bit simpler uh 3% of $50,000 $1,500. Uh that's that's simple. We can make it as complicated most of us don't understand. Then we look at the part that the uh the state going to give and and we make simple complicated because evidently the state know more about our business than we know you know and it gets kind of crazy. I just hope the software and stuff that we getting we can show some of these things cuz we got to do things a little bit different from what we have did we have did and and and and hopefully that uh we can come out this budget is not complicated. It's simple, but everybody wants something. And we got to make our mind up. You put us on display like Bill said. And then we got to make our mind up on who is favored because you lack it. You don't like me because I don't agree with I'm sorry. I may figure you don't deserve it because you leader in

your department. As far as these are bonuses, if you're leader in your department, don't think enough of you. Why should the county taxpayers come around and say, "You know something? We got to make fair. I I can't vote for that because you got to stand for your department. you care about your department then sometime you got to make a sacrifice. I've been uh uh u throwing around that and with Matt and also Miss Sites. I said, you know, sometime you making enough money, you got to look out for your employees. And then when you start um uh going with percentages and you and your the school's SOQ position, well, guess who going to get the money? Everybody at the top, everyone at the school. And you say you want to give the teachers more money. How you going to give them more money? I say that uh you looking at everybody else schedule. They looking at yours and they they just just looking at yours and picking apart. you doing nothing and isn't that more money? I talked to Thomas. We talked and we we didn't really get down to the rocks of it, you know. But, uh, I know it can work and I'm not going to change my mind, but you going to have to change the steps because you put money in the steps, then you get a percentage. And the longer you wait, the less you get from the state based on our power index, the less you get from the state, the higher income you got, regardless of where we at, the state will give us pennies. But at least we can get there where we where you want to be. But if I say one question, schools, where you want to start from? Where you want to start from? Then go from there. Where you want to start from? But they can't even tell us where you want to start from. We go over the same thing. You go back with a 7%. Well, you look I know what a 7% is. 7% of 75 $70,000 3500. 7% of $50,000 is a whole different ball game, you know. So all of a sudden, you put this stuff there and it don't work out. And I say it over and over again, you got to flip it. You got to have flip the tables when you flip the tables. And there's a whole lot of things that I feel they put their mind to it that it can't be done. But I think that what happened in the

uh uh for years now. Ain't just happened. It it don't happen years. We don't build a problem for years. And and now can we do it overnight? Yes, we can. If we want to do it, that's the only thing if we want to do it. And um the budget is here. We can't go up. So, Reggie, isn't that isn't that what we're doing now as far as with that 1.5% that we're we're instead of giving them the the rest of the employees a matching 1.5% we're we're doing it 750 across the board so that the lower level people get more money percentage-wise than the upper level people. So, you're kind of following your plan. No, it it's not following my plan because we have nothing to do with this 1.7 1.5%. We had zero to do with it. The state brought it to us. The state made it so complicated. Them made it so complicated for us that we can't make a decision. If a state had gave it to us in a lump sum, then we got a decision made because we said we going to accept it and you going to divide it up amongst everybody equally. But now 750 is not equal. When some getting 22 and $2,400 how it's going to be equal to everybody. It's not equal because uh it just not equal. The composition of whatever they are is not equal. Okay. And we can say we throw some money at you. Maybe I would. Yeah, I I don't know where to go and I can't I I can't go for it because regardless I feel regardless of what we go at it or this 750 or nothing ain't going to make a whole lot of difference because the ones who get it, hey, they got it. The ones who going to get it from the com board, they going to figure they supposed they get something from the taxpayers because that'll be direct. We can't fix it. It's broken. The state give it to us. Only thing we know, for instance, that the state just made us a problem. And by me running my mouth a little bit and Amarie put up a good formula and she know when we talked about it trying to be fair just one word the same thing in the schools how did they send the language uh only 3% I I I really don't know I've been talking about them for three or four months how is the language written

and and from what I was told is the county got to give the teachers 3% the compositions the compositions but what What what we did we gave to everybody and now the fortune is is going to be enough revenue. You got different programs that you drive that the the the bus drivers for instance they was getting $10 an hour up the last year to drive your precious car go all over the state of Virginia 10 bucks an hour. All right. So do the 3% you count on everything or only account for the positions. Uh because once we get 3% and you can do what you want to do with it, then if we satisfy the composition, the other 3% don't mean nothing, you know. So until we can meet in the middle of the road, we can do best we can. We can make think we doing a good thing. But I I just I just don't know. We got to have more transparent all all these bills that that we got to pay. We got to see it clearly. We know we got we we we know we got this $257,000. We know we got another one for the water authority. We got these bills now. We sit in a I guess a finance uh thing and look at the debt when we think about doing something for schools or school renovation and uh uh you know uh cop before the horse on that thing to me and and and we got to make our mind to see revenue in the future because when we do a reassessment we going it's going to be increase on taxes. Okay. Reassessment. And I guess some see the same thing I'm seeing. you got to do a reassessment because the the the uh the girl from eternal revenue said we don't have to do a reassessment for next year. So I guess the the you know some of them I just don't know. I I'm I'm I'm post and I don't have to go by the history on this thing because you basically you hear me say all the time, you know, y'all screwed up a lot, you know, right? You know, so that's how I look at. I'm

sorry. We Yeah. Okay. Appreciate everything everybody's saying, but we need to make a decision on this on this budget. Uh what we're going to do uh because we just going around in circles. It's going round in circles. We got to make a decision of what we going to do this budget. Is you going to leave it like it is or you going to lower it? you can't raise it, but if you're gonna lower it, let's make a decision so they can advertise and do what we need to do because we we just going around in circles and uh I get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again and and no budget perfect. Uh and and just like you say the payments and all that stuff, you know, you got revenue and you got and you got expense and it's set up it been and and and also been audited. So, you know, you're still paying about and now it's still going to be the same amount the next 30, 40 years or whatever it is. You know, it's there. You just got to manage it because you gonna have money coming in, you gonna have money coming out. They're just going to balance the budget right now. Try to just get it balanced and then next year you just do what you need to do. I mean, make a decision what you want to do. That's all I'm saying. I'm asking let's make a decision cuz cuz we just going around in circles and and and and every time this this this wastewater transfer or whatever came up and now that just turned this turn the whole story around just changed everything over and over this amount which can be sat down and discussed and if you want to bring another auditor in and find out what's what we pay Matt to get do this and if it's wrong sit down and find out where it's wrong till we can get it right. But right now, I I think he's doing what he's supposed to be doing. Well, the auditor said so last year. Yeah, that that's why I'm saying that we got now we got uh I mean, I wish it had come up during the work session. We could have invited the auditor in and taken care of that. But if it's coming up at the last minute like this, we give you the best uh description we can. And and Wayne, not to cut you off, but you can always

go lower. So, the next motion could be maybe you take $500 off the $88,000 that you're leaving in contingency and make a motion for that. See if that pass or you remove the bonus all together and you just handle it off budget like other counties. You got a lot of different options here. If there's three votes for no bonus, do no bonus. If there's three votes for some modification of a bonus, like Reggie, maybe you don't like 750, maybe you like 500, do 500, do 250. Well, do 207 because uh that works too. 207 is more than some people are going to get if they don't get anything. So, hey, there you go. You got a lot of options, gentlemen. You just can't go higher than what we advertise. So, you got flexibility because you did advertise a little higher. And that's because of the sheriff's department positions. And we're good on that. Trying to be help. I'll probably go with 207. Go down 207. Everybody getting something. You're patting them on the back for something. Okay. But to be clear on that, I because I think I finally I'm trying to make sure I understood what you were saying, Mr. Williams, if you do the bonus and accept the state's money for the comp board funded, you can say 207, but that's only for the for the county employees. The comp board funded employees would be getting No, no, no, no, sir. Amry, pull up your your spreadsheet. This is a very important point cuz I just want to make sure cuz you're right. The state made this extremely complicated. Thank you, state. So that's what I'm trying it. If you say 207 for the bonus program, that means the county employees

that are not state funded get $27 onetime bonus. But I'm going to pick on the commissioner revenues office. The ladies in that office, they're going to get $725, $1,300, $539,400. Right. No. Oh, sorry. They're going to get the one, the 207, the 12, the 286, the 239, the 207. So, I just want to make sure that's clear. You what? You see what I'm saying? The difference there. The comp board people are still going to get their one point. I'm looking at I'm looking at it. I guess if you're in a department, no one came forward and the people that they want that uh that they are in a position that have people in the office. I haven't seen neither one that say, you know, y'all deserve more. Uh but I I got minds and and and then the county man going to do something for you. And that's what that's basically when we come there, all the county going to do something. Well, the county did do something. The county come up with $750. Reggie is just saying 207. Okay. And and and and that's what I'm saying. I do understand what you're saying and I know you the commission revenue 1,200 2200 down for somebody down there. Commonwealth attorney 2,200 and his sidekick, 1100. I'm seeing that. And even going down to the to the uh to the sheriff office some of them. And they got names that I ain't never heard of before. And uh the having record like I think a major he don't get slide that thing up a little bit. Slide the screen up a little bit. I look look I'm looking at major that's a high high dollar salary. They ain't getting him nothing on the combo board. I ain't getting them no $750. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do if I I'll be honest. I would not vote for it because I see these different things on it and if they can't come then it's too late now. I I can't I can't see that. It's it's not right. I'm seeing

the numbers here. It's not right. Okay. It's just not right. I wasn't I just wanted to make sure when you said the 207 Yes, sir. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same. So, okay. Well, so sounds like Mr. Williams is starting to put together another motion. I'm going to try and write better this time. Well, help us out. No, no, I mean, do you want me to I'm sorry. I get punchy. I also had us out based on what Reggie just said. Look, we got 250 instead. Okay. So, fair enough. Yep. So, the motion would be to approve the FY26 budget as presented in the paper and the tax rates with no changes to the tax rate. Excuse me. to approve a motion to approve FY26 budget as presented with two modifications. The first being to the sheriff's office to leave $20,000 in that line item and then to take 78,000 and to put into contingency. The second change would be to put into contingency so that the comp board funded employees would get the 1.5% state bonus and all other employees would get $27 and to approve the tax rate as advertised which was no change. That sound more eloquent. Thank you very much. That that was the school budget as advertised. So moved. So moved by Mr. Williams. Need a second.

Can I sing it? I don't think so. You can for discussion purposes, but it has been historically not the practice of the chair. But you can for discussion purposes if you're so inclined. Well, this isn't discussion. This is this this is a motion. Second. Okay. Second by Mr. Bill Harris. Further discussion. Okay. Amarie, roll call, please. I thought you were gonna ask my opinion and I'm like, what? I wasn't ready for roll call. Sorry. Uh, Mr. Jesse? No. Mr. Williams? Oops. No. Yes. Yes. Mr. Bill Harris. No. Mr. Kittington? No. Mr. Done. Harris, opinions as they are, I thought that uh that was a good compromise, Mr. Williams, and I will vote for it. Yes. Motion approved. No. Oh, it was two three. Wait a minute. It's three. Yes, sir. So, the motion for his motion, the motion was to approve it with the 207 bonus. Yeah. Mr. Jesse Mr. Mr. Jesse's a no. Mr. Williams is a yes. Mr. Bill Harris is a no. Mr. Kittinden's a no. Don Harris is a yes. That's three to two. Did I have that correct? Yes. Okay. So, maybe maybe it would be appropriate to take a brief recess so everyone can

use the restroom and get some water. I need to go to bed. Yes, sir. I'll do my best. The the the money that comes from the comp board Yes, sir. have nothing to do with anything else. How come we going through this process of uh making a motion to increase the other employees? Okay. How we how we get there? So, I'm I'm going to answer it, but I'm going to I'm going to repeat what Mr. Walker has said, and so he's going to correct me if my memor is incorrect. This came about because you remember Matt, we're going to get less formal. Matt was basically saying his position was it wasn't right to the other employees. So, for example, if Wayne and I both work in the treasur's office and I'm not compl I got over there and he is that that wasn't fair that I'd be sitting in the same office. So, I'll use another example. He works in the planning. He's Dave Cretz and I work in the treasurer's office. I'm going to get a bonus now. And I talk to him every day. We work together every day and he's not going to get a bonus. So, Matt came I'm going to pivot and let Matt answer this question. That's where it came from. It was a policy recommendation from your county administrator to be equitable to your employees in the sense that why should I get the bonus? My job's important, but so is his job. Right? I'm speaking for Matt. So these Oh, you're doing a great job. The these are the words that I recall him saying to y'all at the meeting, but as far as legally, the state comp board is I I tried to answer Reggie as best I could. Okay. Does that it was a policy. You pretty good job. You did a pretty good job. Okay. So, what we saying the only ones that really is the treasur's office and the um and the turn revenue office really are the only ones who get because they're the ones working down there together. So, the rest of y'all don't deserve no way I could re I think before

you take a recess. Okay. If you do take a recess, we need a recess. It's like we started the budget process. Guys, there's no right or wrong answer. There's just a good balance. I should Everybody's going to have their own point of view and you got to compromise a little bit to get some of what you want. Can I always get all of what you want? Can I say one thing? I think that to me when I see what would happen if if the state funded raises went into effect and we didn't do this then they're going to be the the people who are the lower paid people in that office are still going to get 207 or whatever. Whereas what we're saying is we're saying you you're a hardworking person. you're a you're a lower lower income person in that office, but we think you deserve at least 750. If if if the if the if the deputy the chief deputy in the in the sheriff's office is going to get over $1,000, then I think you you should get 750. And I'm kind of surprised cuz I thought that that's what you wanted to do is to help people who are in lower income to help help bring them up. And that's what this has done. That's not bringing them up. Okay. I'm also looking Well, 750 is better than 207. Well, then you know a th000 is better than 750. We go up the other way. But some money is better than no money because at first it was no money for zero. Zero. They wer going to get anything. Right. So just a scenario that it come up that was fair. Now the only thing that made it fair and I did talk to Amarie about it. The only thing that make it fair was the language. I kept on saying the language. What is the language? The only thing make it fair if the language came in and said we have to accept it as being supervisors. Vand a pot of money here and we divide it up amongst all the employees. That's the only way it's going to be fair. What we doing now? We we be kind of putting something on to me. We putting something on a bandaid. We we planned that. Are you going to lack me? Because everybody out there that I talked to, I told him something. I said, "Look, I'm not going

to vote on seven. I don't think it's right. I really don't think it's right." But if but if we said, "Okay, rather than give everybody 750, we're just going to just give the people that don't get a 1.5% raise, we're going to give them a 1.5% raise." Then the people at the higher end are going to get more money than the people at the lower end, just like like we've been doing on and on. We've been doing it for years. And now now we're finally changing the tide a little bit and saying we're going to make sure that the people at the lower get the same amount as the people up higher. But we're not doing that. Well, the ones up high $400. So we not doing it and just by giving them a little bit to pat on the back. The idea I'm thinking you're giving them something. We don't have to give them anything. So now we going to get a figure and we going to make it right based on numbers. I I I mean you know Well, Commonwealth attorney is going to get 2291. We can't give everybody 22.91. That's right. And he ain't going to get he he's not going to say that he divided 16 extra. No, he's not. And and the other ones are not. Like I said, one department showed me consistency. Showed me based on the numbers that they're doing a good job. Now, you got all these other employees that don't even title or nothing. And you don't want to even make a statement that your employees deserve. It's how many can't folk feel that their employees deserve anything. So where we going to get going to give it to give them something? I give your money away, Randy, but I don't want to give mine. Right. All right. And I I I have keyed that thing, you know, throwing it up when we was talking, you know, just throwing and see where people feel at. And that's how that's how I see it. I don't know. I don't think regardless of what we do, even at 207, I don't think you're going to be happy at 207 or more than 750. I just want to say one thing, Reggie, to that. Um, I will not speak for other departments, but but when I submitted my department's budget, I asked Matt, as many department heads do, do I need to push for individual

raises or are we doing an overall? And that's a conversation all the departments have. So, well, so what I'm trying to say is is please don't mistake, and I'm only going to speak for myself, but I can tell you I I definitely think my assistant Susan deserves deserves that. She's a hard worker, right? But I didn't but but we work together as a team and so instead of one of us saying I have a great employee and you have a bad employee and you get 1% I get 2%. We try to be a little more you know we're so small we try to be kind of uniform because I really do work with all the different groups. So I guess I just want to say to that end some departments do feel strongly about that but but we also have you know he's our policy leader and so he was saying this is what I'm going to recommend and so I thought that was that was fair right so I I guess I would just say let let's take a brief moment let's all clear our heads for a second and let's come back and figure out what what's a good compromise here what what can we get to that's pretty good but let me tell you some how I feel about the head of departments. Okay. All right. If my employees deserve it and and I'm it's hard for me to get if my employees deserve it. I think enough of them say I don't I don't want anything. I don't made a stand. I want my employees to get it. These kind of things I've already seen, you know, so I don't have to make them up and stuff like that because you care about your employees and it's a better working environment. So you got to communicate with your person got to communicate with your employees because a person is not going to give away their own money. They're not going to say then a good person would to say, "Look, I don't deserve it." But I said, "Bill, he he working for me." I said, "I I don't need it." Well, it's nobody making a sacrifice. It's nobody here making a sacrifice at all. Well, I'm here at 9:30 at night instead of putting my baby to bed. I don't Let's take a 10-minute recess, please.

Okay. Uh, I'd like to come up out of recess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I came up with an idea, another amount since we couldn't get the other one done. and and my rationality on it too. You know, all all those department with comp workers, they're they're different jobs. And I I sit down and look at this one up here. He's getting uh where 695. And with the 750, he he's getting what? $45 more, whatever. But regardless of that, uh I I want to do another amount at a lesser rate because like I'm saying, there's no perfect thing. And you got some of your dispatchers getting 478 and the county is just saying, "Hey, we going to just help everybody out, your lower paid workers, too along with the county workers." It's only fair. And cuz like I'm saying, everything's going up. So, I know I can't do the same amount, but uh I'm going to come down to $700. Maybe that might change somebody's mind, but I'm going just let you know it's not going to change everybody's mind because everybody, you know, got their mind set up the way they want to do it. they regardless because it's not going to be perfect but at least the majority of your lower paid people will be happy versus the the the one the your comp workers that get more money because you think about it some of your comp board workers are will be getting a little bit more and then but but you know and that's you got some that getting a th000 or whatever so I would like to make the motion of $700 because I can't do the same thing 50 so I'm going to say $700 along with my motion along with the rest of the motion. Rest of the motion. That's That is my motion. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Jesse. I need a second. I'll second. Second by Mr. Krennan. Any further discussion? I just for the record to be clarified,

this is a motion to approve FY26 with the change to the sheriff's office, the 20,000 and the 78,000 in contingency. And then this would be a 700 thou a $700 bonus for the county employees or the 1.5% from the comp board, whichever is greater. This would be no tax change and you would be adopting the school budget as presented in the ad. That's correct. Right, Mr. Jesse? Yes, that's my motion. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Mr. Williams. No. Mr. Bill Harris. No. Mr. Kittinden. Yes. Mr. Jesse. Yes. Mr. Dian Harris. Yes. Motion is approved. [Laughter] Motion to adjourn. Oh, is that where we are? But Larry, notice it was an amicable discussion and they all get along even when they disagree. Now, we could teach other counties around us how to do that. We'd be all right. A motion to adjourn would be in order. So, move. Second, of course. Wait a minute. pizza. Okay. The motion is by Mr. Jesse and second by Mr. Kittin. Um and uh before I had the call for that, I would like to mention that um the

um the school board uh renovation committee is going to meet uh which is Wayne and I on um May 1st. And are you guys all in agreement after and we'll discuss it at that meeting of a potential date? And I'm thinking it, don't hold me to it, but I'm thinking maybe we may do that, try to do the architect coming in and showing a rendition of and that's all preliminary. Um, I'm thinking probably somewhere around the end of May. I'm sorry, the end of April or probably more actually the end of May. I'm thinking that that might occur. Does that work for everybody? And I can't probably not until you give you the specific date. Can you really confirm that? But, uh, we're going to see if we can get that, uh, squared away to probably, you know, maybe starting around four like we normally do with that committee. Okay. Okay. Good. Roll call on the adjournment, please. Okay. Mr. Kittington? Yes. Mr. Jesse? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes. Mr. Bill Harris. Yes. Mr. Don Harris. Yes. That was motion. And we are now in adjournment.