Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so

2026 work session for the budget. This is the third of four work sessions we'll have. Hopefully we can get it done tonight. And then next Tuesday is the fourth work session. Hopefully we'll get everything together by then. If not, we have time to do a fifth, but I don't think we need to do that. So anyway, just moving forward. You're on.

All right, good evening, everyone. Tonight, as he said, is our next session for our budget, and hopefully we'll get some cuts done tonight, if that's in order. I want to just take a recap tonight of what we've done so far, the first two sessions, so that you guys can remember what we had in there. So let me show you what we got here.

There we go.

Okay, first we'll go over the operating budget. We did have, what has happened here, the projected revenues have gone up slightly. If you'll see that, 48,818,195 is what's projected now. And that was due to, the last revenue projection I gave you was for March 31st end date, because we didn't have the figures out, we didn't have all our revenues entered. So I've entered April and then half of May. So what that does is it gives me a better picture of what to project for the next year. So that number has gone up. So as you'll see, the shortfall there is 2.7 million, as opposed to it was over 3 million, I believe, before. And that's just in the requested expenditures to the revenues. So let me show you the next one. This is the one for the draft budget expenditures and the projected revenues, the same ones. But the shortfall here is only $1.8 million. So it has gone down from $3 million. And so that does make your job a little bit easier. That, you know, that number will continue to change with, as soon as we get to year end, we'll, you know, we may have a little bit higher projected revenues. But for now, this is a solid number, I think. And even though it's a small decrease from last year, it's still a conservative number. And we want you to know that, you know, we've done a lot of research on that. calculated those numbers very particularly. So I feel good with that number tonight. The next thing we just want to show you here is where the revenues are. So obviously we changed the number there for FY27. That shows you the new 48-818-195 there. And on to the next one. These slides are just, I just wanted to give you the recap of what we did. This was from the first meeting and this just shows you our general fund. The total there for expenditures will be 17.8 million proposed for next year. It was 17.7 last year. So it's not a big increase there. This is for the courts, and theirs went down slightly. That total there is 3.7 million. It was also 3.7 last year, but a little, 3.87, and this year's 3.780. So it did decrease 6,700. Then we have the public safety. That one was 22,300,000 for the proposed. That includes all of our patrol, juvenile justice, animal controls in there, emergency management, all of those good departments for public safety. Then we have our public works department. The proposed there is 2.3 million, and that includes public works and fleet services. And then for our health and welfare, that number is a little over a million, and that includes our senior center, family and children's services, mosquito control, and the health department. Culture and recreation is slightly up 641,000 compared to 630,000 last year. That includes the library, so that's the number there. And the increase there is basically due to the library system. There's an increase over at the Woodbine, I can't speak tonight, the Woodbine Library. Our planning and development has 2.7 million up to slightly 600, almost 700,000. And that includes our planning department, county agents, forestry, code enforcement, and the JDA. And as you'll remember, I did mention to you all last week, I think, you know, we have that MOU with JDA. So that's going to increase every year for $500,000. So that's kind of like we're set with that number.

Can you explain what a county agent is? I'm looking at this. I don't know what that is. That's a county agent office.

The UGA Extension Office.

Thank you.

Yep. And then so our total expenses there are $50,651,430. That's an increase of $2.4 million. It's only up 5%, which is a pretty good number. So that's a recap of all of the expenditures and revenue. And then for the other, that was just the general fund. Now here we've got, these are curbside, which is your solid waste residential pickup. And that's got the revenue there of 1.8 million. So those are also the expenses there. They have their collections there. And the emergency 911 is 1.8 million. So they're slightly down there. And the next area that I'll go through is your personnel request. These here are the ones that I mentioned last week. These were the requested positions, but we did not include those in the current budget. So anything you want to change tonight, you'll just need to tell us. The four patrol deputies had the, if we include those, we'll also need a vehicle. And just that's the various totals there that are not included in our current budget. So they are separate. And these, the solid waste personnel requests, they are included in the budget. That's the 540 fund, though. That's not in the general fund. So that's for salaries and budget is the extra there. And then also, these are general fund, but these are personnel requests that are included in the budget. The coroner and the county attorney had a slight increase there. They increased requested there. So those are general fund. And then we'll briefly go through the capital improvements. These are the vehicle requests that were requested and we had a we can show you there were the SPLOST 9 funds that was part of that if you wanted to but obviously there's more requests than the funds that we have so there will need to be some cuts there because we can't you know pay for all those but That shows you what the SPLOST fund, as I explained to you last week, I think you remember it was 6.2 million for the entire six years, which is divide that out by six, you get the million 33,000. So that's what we have here to spend for this year. So that means there's going to have to be a cut of 1.1. So those are those vehicles. And basically, that was it. All I wanted to show you here was what meetings that we had left. Again, we talked about it. We can have one more budget work session next week if you want to. And then we'll have to submit the budget. on June the 2nd, and then we'll have to advertise the budget. There's certain dates that we have to advertise in the newspaper a week before the public hearing, and then the hearing dates there. So that's all I have for now, and now we will open it up for commissioners to give us some input.

Could you go back to slide 18 real quick?

I sure can.

The SPLOST funds available are $1.33 million. How does that fit to the tier process about collections versus being able to expend that money?

That's a great question. That money is we first get the tier one and tier two, and we have to spend those funds first. These are not in the tier one and tier two. They're in the bottom. So they are the funds that we spend after those.

After the tier one? Yeah, after the projects, yeah. How does that fit into this coming year?

Well, what I have to do is check the collections on that if you wanted. I can tell you what the revenue collections are on that, and I can look that up.

Yeah, I'll get the SPLOST funds. It's just when is it collected? When can we spend those funds? Just to make sure we're all clear on that.

Well, on a lot of these capital things, we'll need to put in the order, and we might not get delivery of them for a year or so.

That's true.

Sheriff, how far out are they on cruisers?

What we have to do on those vehicles if we decided to include them was we would need to do, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Sheriff, but I think what we need to do is a purchase requisition, give them a PO, and we would have to encumber the funds for this year, but if we didn't receive it until next year, we would roll over that PO to the next year and pay for it then. But we do have to budget it for this year if you decide to do that. It's kind of a tricky situation with fire rescue and patrol division because the lead time on those is so long. It's actually come down quite a bit since COVID, but it's still out there. Fire trucks and ambulances are a little bit longer.

Thank you.

Sheriff, the two new school resource deputies' vehicles, are we hiring two additional personnel? Just new vehicles, right? I think that's something that we should keep for the school resource deputies on here.

Mr. Chairman, I think we should open up the budget book and go line by line saying whether or not we want to keep that item or not. When it comes down to... To the sheriff's office, I appreciate you calling me the other day to talk about the sheriff's budget, Cody. But the sheriff is countywide. We cannot prevent him from going into the cities. Like you were saying, that's a duplication of services. It's not. The cities have a police force for enhanced services.

I understand they pay double. I get that.

Well... You were alluding to the fact that you were kind of wanting to keep the sheriff's deputies out of the cities. I can't control that. Well, you can help control the budget, and that's what you implied during our phone call the other night.

I think you just misunderstood.

I don't think so.

So we're going to start with the Board of Commissioners?

I'm not a chairman. I'd say start at page one and go.

Start at page one. So we're in general government, Board of Commissioners, Department 1110. Any comments from the board?

Not about salaries, but my question really is, because she's at the 2.5% that we talked about, the step increase. That's not represented everywhere, so I do have a question about that. But then it's 5% increase on Social Security taxes. I'm just trying to understand why it wouldn't be 2.5% across the board. Board of Commissioners, the first one, Mr. Martin.

If you want the details on page one, if you want summaries prior to that.

This is one of those weird quirks of the budget that your salaries are not actually listed as salaries. They're listed as board member fees, but they're still the taxes that are paid on them are going to come back to those other categories. So that's why it's going to show a larger increase in the salary line item, more than that two and a half percent, because it's reflecting off of y'all, even though your salaries are not listed in the salary line.

It's in board member fees.

So that's where your actual funding is paid out of, but the benefits and taxes and all that still come back to the salary line.

So Julie's salary and our salaries, the taxes are all mixed together in that one line item.

Okay, thank you. I have a question about retirement line item. We are not eligible for retirement, but there's a line item for retirement in the salaries and benefits section.

Yes.

Who is that? Is that for Julie? Julie. Okay. Just want to make sure it's clear.

May I ask why we don't represent our salaries under salaries? That was a question that was asked to me.

That's not a question I know the answer to. Since I've been here, it's always been that the board commissioner, your salary is paid out of a line that is called board of commissioners fees that is listed separately. So I don't know the reason. I just know that's what it is.

Because that was the first thing I wanted to cut.

Mr. Chairman, I think it's important to point out that our salaries are set by the state of Georgia. They are. We don't expect an increase from the county. It is not within our control to do that. We're not asking for a raise, and if we did, we wouldn't get it because it's set by the state. Correct? Thank you. It absolutely is. Thank you.

Contracted Services Administration. Can we go to that one on Board of Commissioners? We're in Contracted Services now. Contracted Services, yes. I think it's the second item there. What is that? That's the claiming, isn't it? No, that's janitorial. Okay.

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, that's where strategic planning is. is listed in terms of paying whomever we hired to do that.

I was told other supplies was strategic planning, though.

No, that's the supplies that we do apply towards that, but we have to pay someone to come in and do the services for us.

Food and all that stuff. Okay.

So we're expecting $15,000. You know, we cut it, I see.

Yeah, this year we hired University of Georgia Carl Vincent Institute to come in and do it instead of our usual person. So we pretty much cut it in half, a little over half.

We've already paid them, right?

Yes, that was for this year. This is projected for next year, though.

The year-to-date activity says zero, though.

The PO might not have come in. I don't know when they've actually billed us or not yet. But we've had that. I mean, you all were a part of all that, the strategic planning. But it's just we have to wait for the billing to come in now.

Is our strategic plan going to change drastically?

It may, but I think that's very important that we have one every year so we have a vision for the county.

You've got to remember, a vision without funding is a hallucination.

Well, we're hallucinating right now, it seems like.

I believe that's why we went with this company, because it cut it over in half.

Okay. And then, Shannon, we discussed other supplies. It went from... It went from $5,000 to $7,000, and you said that the addition to that was for Camden 250, correct?

That and also we're going to be doing town halls just in case we need stuff for town halls. And, of course, it includes Citizens Academy and things like that. So that's just for other supplies. And strategic planning is included in this as well.

I guess my question is, what are we expecting to be able to do for Camden 250 if some of the money is for town halls and some of it's for 250 and some of it's for strategic planning and for Citizens Academy?

Claire, did you want to speak to that?

I just don't feel like you can get very far with two grand nowadays, that's all.

Some of the confusion I think comes in is that the 52 line items, the contracted services, that's always gonna be paying the outside source to come in and help us with something. Versus the 53 line, the supplies are gonna be the physical things that we purchase. So for that, it is talking about physical items. Our discussions have centered around so far, and they're still preliminary, pins and then an actual celebration event. So small, more marketing style to help build that enthusiasm and excitement around 250 years of Camden County. Like lapel pins? Lapel pins are part of it. I mean, we haven't gotten very far in the planning, but we're not looking to do a massive event, but we need to have some funds to be able to do something is what we're working with on this one. We're talking about all kinds of ideas, but we have not gotten very far in the planning process yet. So we're not trying to do something massive, but we're trying to do something, and that's what the increase in funding was for, the physical supplies to do something.

Is that going to make or break your ability to plan?

That will make or break our ability to actually implement something of the plan.

With like the pens and stuff?

Yeah, I mean, if we don't have money for it, we can't do it.

Right.

So, I mean, I'm not sure what you're asking.

So the $3 million deficit, that means we've requested more money than we project to be able to take in. I know it's come down some. So I'm not asking to criticize what you want to do with it. I just don't think we have to get creative in the things that we're trying to do.

Oh, absolutely. And so that's why we came up with just $2,000 as opposed to something much grander.

Right. Well, I know, Shannon, we had talked. Well, I had spoken with a consultant from ACCG. Were you able to speak with Ms. Alicia as well?

No, I have not had an opportunity to speak with her yet.

There's potentially an opportunity where we might be able to get funding for that. without having to allocate it in our budget. So I think I'd like to cut the $2,000 increase if we're going line by line and just things that we've identified. Thank you.

Noted.

I mean, to cut the funding, I think that takes, if you take the funding away, that puts more resources on the staff where they have to go look for that. Even if you do speak to the woman that you told me about, then that would be something that the staff would have to work on, figuring out ways to fund it differently. So we, I mean, we can look into that. It's just, I feel it's a very small increase. to celebrate something so big.

There's a lot of small increases. I disagree. No, I know.

Well, overall, the budget for the Board of Commissioners has decreased from last year. I don't have a problem leaving the $2,000 in there.

Then you don't have a problem with it, and I understand that. We can move on to the next one if you guys would like to discuss. Travel. Travel under Board of Commissioners. Yes, sir.

Are you running the meeting or is the chairman running the meeting?

I thought this was just a general conversation. It's a work session. I mean, I can sit patiently and wait. I'm sorry, Robbie. Go ahead.

I'll say this. I've been through every line item. And I have comments and I have some suggestions. Not a lot. Some of them are not a lot of money, but a little bit adds up to a lot if you do enough of it. So we can't ignore that. But I think to sit here and go through tonight every single line on every single item is going to be, we'll be here all night. And I don't mind being here all night. So what's the board's pleasure on how do we, as a group, I hope everybody here has some comments or questions or cuts. How do we summarize that, get it to staff so that we can make sense of all this rather than sitting here all night debating over $1,000 here, $2,000 there? And again, I'm not saying we don't need to do that. I'm just saying... We got bigger fish to fry than hitting the small ticket items. And again, I'm going to be redundant one more time. I'm not saying we don't need to do that because it adds up. But I think for the sake of time and efficiency, we need a better system to get the word back to staff for the questions and answers and the cuts that you want to do. So I'm in favor of the board.

And so I have... you know, developed a list, and I did get that to staff today. I mean, I've identified, you know, other supplies. That was a, I had that prepared. I have several questions. I mean, I have them written out.

Yeah, I have several here, too. I just have not summarized them in that same form, but a lot of it's just clarification to make sure I understand where the money's coming from and where the money's going. So let me make this general statement, is, and you and I have talked about this, Lisa, it's our chart of accounts, We should probably work on that next year to get it more detailed. We don't need 10,000 items, but somewhere along the line it needs to be where if we look at this, we understand where things are going rather than have to speculate. And we're not going back this year, but next year let's work on doing something better.

Sure, we could just do, like for instance, you wanted to know what supplies, what does that consist of? We could have a listing of supplies and then the things that are maybe purchased from that.

Something like that. Let's not look at 10,000 items, but something better than we have now. I've seen the chart of accounts that everybody uses. I get it, but when we're talking about small items, let's figure out where we are so we can take those out easily so we understand it better. Does that make sense?

Sure.

Is the board okay with that? Is that a suggestion?

As for next year, Oh, no, absolutely. I mean, I look at the updated version of the unified chart of accounts. I learned that from Miss Tiffany, so I went to go look it up. And when you compare the 2023, I think, edition, ours is severely, severely outdated. I mean, there are line items that are probably more appropriate for a lot of the things in here. And I look forward to seeing your work on that.

Well, I'm not saying revamp the whole system. It's just there are some items we can probably pare down to where we have more detail. Does that make sense?

Sure does. Yep. I could make a suggestion to you that might make it a little easier on you. If you wanted to start with your bigger ticket items and work down rather than start with the small, it's up to you, but just a suggestion if you don't, you know.

I would say, I'm looking at my items here. I think we need to go straight to public safety because that's the biggest ticket items we deal with. The others are important, of course. I've got some comments here about, let's see, just as an example. Hang on one second, give me a minute. Like in Workman's Comp, current claims self-funded is $215,000. I assume that's just a placeholder in case we need that money for work miscompensation. So we're budgeting a placeholder in the budget, although we may not need it at all. Does that make sense?

Yes, sir, you're absolutely correct. Workers' Comp is self-funded just the way that the employee health insurance is, so you have a pot of money set aside to pay the claims that come through. Okay. That's exactly what that is. It's a projection on what we think the claims cost will be for the next year. Okay. Based on trends, obviously. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Just so you'll know, when I look at The line items, I look at what's budgeted for last year, what's spent to date. If there's a big deficit, let's do easy math, 12 months in a year, nine months into the year, we spent 75% of the money, so therefore we're gonna project to 100% pretty close. Now, we've only spent 50% of that money at the 75% stage, and I question, do we need that money moving forward? And what we don't want to do is have a run on the budget to spend it at the end of the year. So that's the way I look at every line item is what we spent so far doesn't make sense. Where do we need to go next year? Just for clarification for you all.

Very good. Mr. Cheek, can I add something? Sure. Those particular instances like you speak about, I just want you all to remember that we have sat down, Joey, myself, finance, with every single department head in here, and we have asked those same exact questions. If we've looked at that line and we see there's a huge gap, well, we don't know. Maybe there's an outstanding PO that's going to hit May 15th. You know, so we did go in. I just want it to be clear that all of the commissioners know we did go and check on every department.

Good point. Last year we had a different system in place. I saw it face to face. That's what exactly happens. You asked a question during the department head meetings where you take the budget and pare it down before you give it to us. So that's a good point. So I'm looking at it the same way. So you already cut a lot of stuff out that you can already. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, can I make a suggestion that we look at the summary of the general fund and We'll say the Board of Commissioners, for example. If the majority of us don't have a problem with that budget, we can go ahead and check that off and move on to the next item, which would be the Board of Equalization.

I have some items I'd like to cut from Board of Commissioners. So we're back to page one. It's appropriate.

So what do you have for Board of Commissioners?

Okay, so for other supplies, I'd like to reduce it from the $7,000 requested to $1,700. That's a reduction of $3,300. Yes.

Mr. Chairman, what I was suggesting is if the majority of the board has a problem with, say, the Board of Commissioners general budget here, then we can do a deeper dive. But if the majority of us don't have a problem with it, we can check that off and move on. That way we're not diving too deep in the woods.

It's the line items that are eating us alive, though, Ben.

Well, it's just a suggestion. I've looked at the line items, and I can check off the Board of Commissioners because I don't have any comment.

Is there anywhere that we need to be traveling to? Is there any educational experience? We're all core certified county commissioners, correct? Is there any other certification or training that we absolutely need to go to this year for us to be capable of doing our job?

And keep in mind that Julie's in that budget as well.

Can I ask where we're going with grants?

I would also remind you that you all attend the ACCG conferences and such things of that nature as well.

Right, well, I mean, that is a luxury.

The classes that they all, I'm just reminding you all that the conferences that you all attend.

Right, that is a luxury.

You know, they put those classes on for a reason, and that's so you can continuously learn from other county commissioners all over the state. There's always something you pick up from on those classes. Do we have to do that this year?

There is a mandatory class I have to go to in January.

OK. Do you know about how much the travel for that particular class is going to be?

It's probably going to be about $250, $300.

Is that including your rental and hotel, all that? OK. So I say reduce it down to $600.

I'm sorry, I believe there is one commissioner that still is required to attend some classes for certification. Are one of you not certified? Robbie? I'm done. You're done? Okay, maybe I was mistaken then, I'm sorry.

Maybe a different story after tomorrow night about who has to attend a class.

So if we reduce that from $10,000 to $600, there's $9,400 in savings. So I do think going line by line could be beneficial to us. That would also wipe out the education and training, except for whatever Julie needs for this mandatory class she has to take. And we'd also discussed, Shannon, when we met, because we did meet, we were together for like four hours, and I walked away with more questions than answers. A lot of them were answered, but of course more came up. There's a lot of training budgets that haven't been utilized this fiscal year overall. And we had discussed possibly if there's the option to register for those classes, that way it's paid for and it's done. That would help free up some of the training budget for next fiscal year as well.

I would also like to remind you that if According to the elections tomorrow night, we may have a new commissioner, we may not, so that training may need to be in place for that one as well.

That's a very fair point. How many classes do you think you, well, it'd be six months. We need to plan for six months. I don't think he's going to take all the classes he needs in a six-month period, so we could probably reduce it some. And looking at this, I couldn't tell you how much this represents. That'd be something Ms. Tiffany has in her spreadsheets about what everything adds up to. I'm not expecting you to pull it up right now. I just know that. I know we don't have that information tonight, but those could be some reductions that we have. You know, we don't need to plan for a full fiscal year's worth of training for a new commissioner if we're only going to have him for the first six months of this fiscal year.

So you want to go back to line by line? I just think it's cumbersome.

Do you have any notes or questions in Board of Commissioners on your list there?

I have questions for Julie's retirement, and I have questions for supplies.

Okay.

That's all it is. I'm willing to go. I'm willing to say the Board of Commissioners, I'm okay with that. Let's move forward.

I'm okay with it. I think there's $10,000 on the table, but I'm one person.

Board of Commissioners, we can put a check by.

We're going to put a check by that one, yeah.

Board of Equalization.

I didn't have anything.

I don't have any problems with that.

Anybody else have a problem with it? Comments?

No.

We're going to check Board of Equalization off.

County Clerk, I didn't have anything. And again, I'm looking at what the decreases, I have the numbers in front of me, what the recommendation was from staff or from the department heads and then what the staff did to reduce that. So I have those numbers in front of me. So I'm not going through this blindly. Okay.

So contracted services, they're always going to be classes? That's really what that is? Not necessarily.

Not necessarily, no. It should be under training or whatever. Contracted services could be janitorial. I mean, there's a ton of things if you look back at them. You can look back at the detail, and it kind of gives you an idea. Repair and maintenance of office equipment, advertising and publishing, printing, travel, education and training, which is under contracted services for the Board of Equalization. So it's not all-inclusive.

And now for the county clerk, it's $29,000. Could you repeat that? That's all-inclusive, though.

$29,000.

I said for the county clerk, it's $29,000, right? For what? Contracted services.

That is for my next request software. That is also for our shredding events when we have to have a shredder truck come. All of those things are under contracted services.

Are you the only position representative in your budget?

Yes.

Can I then ask about the 5% versus the 2.5%?

Can you get closer to the microphone? We can't hear anything that you're saying with this noise back here. I'm in the dark here, and I'm going to complain about it until it improves.

I just need to come down there and sit next to you.

I can, you don't have to ask. I can explain that. So last year when I reached my 20 year milestone, I received an increase in my salary and that's what it's reflecting from, from last August. So it appears that I'm getting a bigger increase than I would only get the 2.5.

And that was my general question, not just for you, but across the board is that there were obviously.

Yeah, it was confusing when we were even going over it.

Thank you. So we're good with the clerk. I have no problem.

Administration?

Yes. You good? No. Advertising and publishing. You know, we spent $341 in 23-24. We spent $410 in 24, 25. 25, 26, we're only at $140. It's $4,000. I say we cut it by $500 and leave it at $500. That's just one item. I have one, two, I have four line items in administration I'd like to discuss.

Go ahead and discuss them.

Okay, so for travel... It did 11,241 in 23-24, 10,651 in 24-25. Year to date, we're only at 5,316 with it still being budgeted at 10,000. So I'd like to reduce that by 4,000 and put it at 6,000. So that'd be a reduction from 10,000 to 6,000. Education and training, there was also a reduction that I suggested from 11,920 to 6,000. and then minor operating expenses going from $3,000 to $1,000. And that is based off of, I mean, I didn't go through the past. Those cuts were mentioned with the keeping in mind the spending from the previous years.

I didn't go through all of them exactly.

But all of those are cuts that are identified a pattern of spending.

So education and training, you wanted what?

to go from 10,000, sorry, 11,920 to 6,000. And I do hear that change in the microphone now, Jim. I'm sorry about that.

That was budgeted at 10,000, not 11,000.

Oh, yeah, sorry. That's education. That was the parent budget. I'm so sorry. So, yeah, 10,969. So you reduced it by $951, but I think we can go even further to 6,000.

Well, you've got to remember, our administration is basically brand new. They might need...

to go some of this training um well you know it's an interim role and because we decided not to do a search for someone that might already have that experience i mean we are having to pay for it you're correct i just asked you all keep in mind this is about me it's about everybody we have mandated certifications and so on and so forth that we have to keep up to be

a solid government, and it sets us apart from a lot of different other governments. So just keep that in mind is all I'm asking, that we keep our training, our certifications, everything up.

Can I ask what certification you're needing to get to perform the role?

You all have asked me to get my CPM, so that's one.

I didn't ask you to do that.

Oh, yes, it's in my contract that you all agreed upon.

Certified professional. So we're paying for that? Yes, sir. Okay. Absolutely.

You also got to remember the administration budget, even with these increases, is 25% less than last year. It was. Okay.

Talking about last year, I know you want to keep pointing back to last year. Did we not have to balance the budget with fund balance because we were operating at a deficit last year as well?

Yes, and you just said before the meeting started tonight that basically we wouldn't be in this place if you didn't say it.

You're right, I didn't say it.

But it was about the tax increase last year.

No, it wasn't actually about that. You can flip it however you want. What that comment was in reference to was us, Jim, Martin, Robbie, and myself, not you, Ben, agreeing to that increase to the JDA year over year.

Yeah, that's another one too.

I mean, that is a big one. I'll take my share of the blame for that. That's part of the pickle that we're in right now. The employee increases across the board is a large part of that deficit overall. So I mean, yeah, nitpicking line item by line item is so that we can ensure people are still getting their pay raises that we're trying to do for them. It's ensuring that we can still try to meet our obligation with the JDA. So it's not to be nitpicky on anyone. I've identified with my line items about $1.5 million in cuts that we could make to this budget. But if people aren't willing to give an inch on anything, we're not going to get anywhere. I'm just one vote. Likewise.

So back to administration. Back to administration. Well, and so, yeah, so you found 1.5 million?

Yes, sir. And I'm sorry it's on a tiny sheet of paper. Like I said, I printed it on my way here. Looks a lot bigger on the computer. Here's, I mean, I don't want to offend you by handing you this, because I'm probably not going to be able to read it.

Does everybody have one?

We can, yeah. I made one for everybody.

You have one.

And then... There are actually two sheets. This is your second sheet. Yeah, I can send it to the gentleman in the back if they want to put it up. It's a PDF.

That's safe enough to... We're not going through this line by line tonight.

I can print it on ledger paper for you if you wanted me to tomorrow.

Let's go... So where are the biggest cuts, if you look at the total?

Oh, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, public safety. So that'd be on the second sheet. And so what I did here, and there's more information on this than what you have in your budget, because I also included the adopted budget for those years where it shows activity. So looking at the trend of the funding for, and this is, I don't know if this is just the way we've done things. I know we have a new sheriff as well, and maybe they've adopted the same counting system. I don't know the situation there. But what makes it hard to decipher is when you look at patrol division, school resource corrections, and jail, administration isn't really identified in the budget. It's kind of, all lumped together with patrol. So it's hard to know what we're paying for as well sometimes. But looking at the trend, I would like to increase it 5% across the board for all of the, from the parent budget. So looking at the parent adopted budget, I'd like to increase his budget by 5%. Salaries, contracted services. What's the other item there? Supplies in all of his departments. That gives him an increase. It's more than he had to work with from the past fiscal year. And this is just operating. I know there's some vehicles that need to get replaced. That's going to be on capital. That's why I was asking about the school resource deputy's vehicles. So this is purely operating. And keep in mind, there are currently positions that are unfilled that are funded as well. So this is more than he was working with previously. and he has vacancies currently. Okay.

So back to administration.

Back to administration.

We're going to go line by line, or category by category, mark off the ones we're done with. Are we done with administration? I'm good with administration.

Well, I'm good with administration.

We have four good for administration. This is not a vote, but we have four that's good for administration. Let's move on. Elections. So the poll workers, I think I see the numbers here, but we've got a general election coming up. This election, the primary has not been accounted for yet. So we're, my 75% structure discussion is not there yet. So that's what the differences are. I'm good. I'm good with that.

Yeah, correct. Yeah. Most of, we haven't paid hardly any of the poll workers yet, especially not for tomorrow. So yes, sir.

Okay. Then janitorial, that's because you've got annexes coming up, got other janitorial. This is a general question about janitorial. They're scattered all through almost every budget. I guess it's prorated by space allocation or by building allocation, and that's why it's different all over.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay. Same thing with power, water and sewer. It's the same kind of thing. It's all prorated.

Correct. I'm sorry, go ahead. When I did our budget for elections last year, I didn't budget in the power for the annex and for our office here. Same with the lighting bill as well.

Okay. So that explains those increases in this budget.

Can I ask what the miscellaneous purchase is normally? I know you buy something and it gets coded one certain way. What would be coded miscellaneous?

We try to code it like the chart of accounts says. Sometimes it might be... treat for the poll workers. Sometimes it's poll worker training expenses that we might have if we're putting together something for our poll workers to show appreciation. I don't know if Rock has any other, remembers any of the other pertinent items on there. But generally also miscellaneous I believe is for like food, Culligan, things like that. Yeah, badges, nameplates.

We had budgeted $1,000 this fiscal year that we're currently in. I see we're up to 2036. Are we expecting to go over next year?

No, next year we should not go over.

But you're good with this, Ben?

I'm good with elections and registration.

Everybody good?

I'm good. Special appropriations. My question is about the grant match. We always allot some money to match grants throughout the year. There's zero, unless I'm missing something, there's no money spent to date on grant matches. And I know we've matched grants through this past year, so I'm not sure if I made a mistake or something.

No, this is just the appropriations. So after she splits it up and applies it to the grants that they go to. Okay, okay.

That's why it shows zero, okay. Okay, I understand that.

I had to go back and look at the previous budget.

So I was looking at 150 for last year. I know we spent most of all of that, I suppose, and we're going to 175 this year. So I'm not, that's okay. That's just a point of clarification.

Yeah, that increase was, I believe we approved that, I believe, during strategic planning. Seems like we did, yeah, yeah.

Any other special appropriations questions?

Contracted services administration. So what do we special appropriate for that? What are we appropriating? Is that for, are we planning on hiring? So like the 78,201, I think, right? Because I can't tell by looking at this. Maybe that was some engineering for the soccer complex or That number looks familiar, but I don't know what it is here. So do we have a plan for the $55,000?

I believe Lisa's getting you some more information on that line item.

Thank you. What is it we agreed to in strategic planning that is a $25,000 increase on grant match funds?

What is that $25,000 increase? $25,000 to match a grant. We don't know what kind of grant she'll get yet. Well, maybe we can cut it this year.

$150,000 is still a lot.

I'm not in favor of that cut. If we're going to cut it and it goes over, we're going to come back for it anyway because we're not going to give up grant money because we don't have a match. So I say go ahead and budget it, the additional $25,000.

So under that contracted services, there was the comprehensive financial review services done by Davenport.

That was $28,000.

The audit. Okay. And then let's see. This is the $78,000 number?

Yes. Do we have plans for the $55,000? I guess that's what I'm asking you.

Well, if we move forward, yeah, if we move forward, well, as a matter of fact, I'm meeting Davenport in the morning, but if we move forward.

And that's a good point, but can't we use the $10 million we're raising in SPLOST 9 to do any of those items you'd be budgeting here?

That goes towards the jail per the SPLOST, the building of the jail.

Yeah.

Can you hear it, Cody? Okay. Not the engineering services, yeah.

Well, yeah, the engineering services, you can pay for those out of the SPLOST funds.

I would be very careful. I'm very careful when it comes to SPLOST. I mean, I'm not saying you can't, but I would definitely have to follow up on that to make sure we can.

Okay.

I'm not saying we can't. I just want to make sure.

Engineering services on what now?

If we proceed, well, when we proceed to move forward with the jail, the bonding services with Davenport. Yeah.

Okay, good point. Everybody good with special appropriations?

No. I am. All good? We're good.

Finance and budget? The only question I had, there are some increases in travel and education, but I think because you're new, we need some money in there to help you get trained up, so I'm good with it.

It looks like a big increase in annual software, too.

Yeah, software is a whole different...

It's mind-boggling and extremely difficult to understand how much money we have to spend for software through the IT department.

Right, and it's Tyler Technologies. Correct me if I'm wrong, Janice. You want to come up and speak to this? We are planning to move to the cloud, which is where everything's going with Tyler. Other places I've been, it's the same thing. And I think, you know, I'm not the IT person, but I do know that everything's moving to the cloud. It's more secure, and it's also during hurricane season and, you know, any time that you have any power outage, that kind of thing, you can work anywhere remotely. So it's a great tool to use for, you know, going to the cloud is a great tool when you're going to be remote or during disasters especially.

Cloud is just another name for a data center somewhere. Careful.

Cloud data center. Let's be careful. Finance and budget. Everybody good?

I'm good. No.

Moving on to county attorney. Oh, yeah. I have a suggestion.

If everyone else is only getting a 2.5% increase, I realize she's a contracted employee, but I think it's only fair that the county attorney only receive a 2.5% increase. So that would be... Well, you've got to look at what's in our contract. Are we contracted to give an increase? I don't have it in front of me.

I had a two-year contract and it was just up for renewal or to the board's pleasure as to whether or not I continue on come August. And so that was just going to be part of my requested contract that would be certainly up for negotiation back in August.

That's where that comes from. Is it August because that's when the agreement was signed?

Yes.

Okay. I was watching the meeting and I remember Sean had said to like June 30th and that's why I was confused on that.

That's why the budget only shows the $11,000, but yes. Oh, okay. That's why.

All right. But is a percentage or a certain increase contracted within that?

It's not. There's nothing that spells out any specific increase or not within my contract.

Well, if you choose to continue to be our county attorney... It's not anything personal. I don't think you deserve $11,000. I just think if we're being fair to the rest of the county employees during a tight budget season.

Certainly.

Might be more responsible maybe at 2.5%.

Well, I think that's the point of negotiation when it comes up in August. We'll beat through that number, but for now, at least leave it in the budget. If we don't spend it, that's okay.

And that's the thing about putting it in the budget is now we're going to have to balance this budget. Yes, we will. So that's going to be... How much do we want to take from fund balance and continue to operate at a deficit?

We could say she gets no increase and not put anything in and then come back and get $11,000 later once that negotiation has taken place from fund balance. So it's either or. We do it now or we do it later. And she's asking for $11,000. Maybe we negotiate it down. We don't know that yet. That's a contract negotiation issue.

Have we cut anything yet? No? Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you.

I've got a question on legal fees. We've got $125,000. We've only spent $58,000. Ask for $120,000. We're going to leave $120,000 in. That's just another placeholder in case we have any legal fees to pay.

That's correct. Yeah. And I know that we'd taken out a line item with regard to potential settlements as well. That was where the 167 had been removed from the budget.

Yes, we're working. If we have any settlements, anything to cash out, we're going to work against 120.

Right now.

When I say placeholder, all that is is a line item in the budget.

Correct.

In case we need it.

Right.

Okay. All right. Again, it goes back to the point, can we reduce that? No, we will have to go to fund balance later.

And it really all depends upon what litigation's going on, what suits maybe, what annual item notices, what settlements are kind of happening at any given time. We've had some larger settlements, we've had some smaller settlements go on this year.

Do we have to pay for mediation also?

We do, and that often comes through my expenses, my legal expenses, such as if I'm filing or using Peach Court. Those, I believe that that's where that's going through.

That's the legal fees?

I got you. Right.

Well, I say we reduce the 120 to 70. save 50, knowing we may have to go back to fund balance if we have an issue. So that'll save us 50 grand.

It's up to the board, though. Are these the same legal? I have a question about them.

I don't necessarily have a problem reducing that. But, you know, we can't keep using fund balance because if we use that fund balance, that's going to mess with our bond rating when we go. It will. to get a bond for the jail.

So just Board of Commissioner legal issues. So like this doesn't account for, I don't want to keep picking on the show. If something were to happen with a firefighter and they got in an accident, Is that representing the board of care?

So workman's comp is completely different than a lawsuit because of a car accident.

Let's say we're responsible, so liability.

Right, right. So employee workman's comp under a line item in the sheriff's budget or fire budget is completely different than the line item that I'm dealing with if there's a car accident or another issue like that. That would be more in mine.

In the legal fees? Yes. Okay. So I don't think we should cut it because we don't know what could happen.

We can keep it. Yeah. No problem.

Thank you.

So we're good with county attorney?

I am.

All good? Let's go move to IT. This is a general comment. We have an IT department. We see computers, different things, software spread out through the different departments. If that was all under IT, would we save anything? That's a general question, not for tonight, but bring everything we can under IT, this IT-related software, computers, the whole bit. That way we're not accidentally double-dipping in things like that. Is that... Make sense?

Yeah, Chairman, you bring a very good point up. There's things that we have identified as a team, things of that nature as well that we can bring up under one umbrella to save the county money and be more efficient as well. So that is a very good point.

Also to that point, I think it would be helpful for us to get a list of all of the county equipment like computers, all of those items, and kind of get the age on these computers that we're using. I know when I first got here, they gave me, it seemed like a 2,000 arrows brick. So let's identify who still has old equipment, and so maybe we don't have to keep buying computers every year. I'm not saying this is the year to cut them, but maybe get a better hold on our computers.

If I'm not mistaken, Willie, you have a list of items such, right? He does.

So the question is about an IT asset list. Is there an IT asset list for all the county equipment that is under IT, is that correct?

I guess what I'm more interested in is like the replacement schedule. So like how often are we buying new computers and who still has old computers, that type of situation?

Yes, all of the IT equipment and assets. So if it's a computing piece of equipment, computer equipment, For instance, it falls in a refresh cycle, and those refresh cycles are heavily based on not just best practices, but how long we decide to purchase a warranty for those pieces of equipment. We have those numbers right now, and I can share them with you. It's quite a large list, if you can imagine. There are a lot of IT assets. I can give you a list, but I would caution that it would require context, so we can spend time together at any time. Anybody wants to come and have that time with me to go over those items. we can. But when it comes to how often we purchase IT equipment, that IT equipment falls within its warranty that we purchased with the piece of equipment when we got it. And when that piece of equipment's warranty is done, you have to consider whether even if it's still a useful piece of equipment, if it's end of life, or if we can realize that losing it in the middle of the year and having to replace it for that person. So if, for instance, that laptop or any of the laptops that are at the commissioner's disposal right now, if those things went down in the middle of the year, we would have to figure out how to replace them if they were outside of their warranty. And that's how a lot of the IT equipment is refreshed.

Thank you. Yeah, I'll take you up on that sometime. We'll get together and Go through that?

Absolutely.

Willie, the constitutional officers, they handle their own equipment, correct? Or does that fall under our umbrella, the constitutional officers, the jail, the sheriff's department?

As it sits, there is a mix between who has elected to work with the Board of Commissioners for their equipment. There's a lot of dual systems when it comes to equipment. I've seen in our environment, the clerk's authority, for instance, they might have their own system and they have their own set of equipment and then we also have ours that sits alongside of it. The constitutional officers have equipment that we manage and pay for, but not all equipment.

That's a conversation for another day.

Yes, and we can spend as much time as you'd like.

Thank you.

Anything else on I.T. ?

Willie, thanks for doing a good job of keeping up with his software and saving us some money. We see that through the years. I appreciate you all doing that.

It looks like his budget is actually down 10%. Yes, it is.

Yep. Yep. Phenomenal. Okay, we're good with IT.

Human resources?

I don't have anything.

We all good? Tax Commissioner?

I don't have anything on that one.

Tax assessor.

I didn't have anything on that.

Employee health.

I didn't have anything on that. Stop me if anybody has any questions or whatever.

Katie, you're going to help me get this blown up, correct? When I send it to you?

If you just send it to me in a format that I can change the settings on it.

Okay, I got you. I'm going to submit these in my cuts to you all, so I don't want to get in the way of your conversation, but I'm pretty dead set on it.

So we're at employee health benefits. Anybody have anything? We're going to move on. Workers' compensation. I don't have anything on that. Anybody have anything? I'm good. Risk management. It's a big number, but it is what it is, I suppose. Anybody have anything?

There's not a whole lot we can do without liability insurance and all going up.

I think staff did a good job of going from 17% to basically no increase. Yeah. On-site wellness. I don't have anything. Facilities management?

I think that the increase in supplies is because of we're taking over the county owned parks. Yeah.

I think overall looking at the ASPERS where staff made the cuts, they did a good job of being pretty efficient on that. So in spite of what we had to take over. Okay. So we're good with that. Moving on to judicial, the Superior Court. Don't see anything there. They actually came in under budget. How did that happen?

There was a change in state law that changed the judicial compensation. That's why that went down. Well, I thought it was this compensation issue. Okay.

The state did us a favor instead of putting a mandate on us.

Four of those favors for sure.

Clerk of court, I don't have anything there.

The DA, we're essentially not giving him any more money than we allotted before.

That is correct. He requested two additional positions, which I did not. I wanted you all to make that decision, but he requested an intake clerk and another ADA.

Didn't we fund an intake clerk last year?

No, I don't think you did. He requested one, but I did question him or ask him who was currently handling that position, and he said the ladies in the office were taking care of it pretty decent.

We've funded several positions for him through the years and

Yeah, for some reason I had intake clerk on my mind for last year, and I don't remember exactly what circumstance it was.

I don't know what his staffing level is right now.

Robbie, I'm sorry. I think you did, but he was requesting another one. I do apologize about that. He was requesting another one.

I have a question. So I believe it was sometime in the last year. He came to us and he requested that we fund a position that he would be reimbursing us for through some sort of grant funding. Does that sound familiar, Jackie?

I do recall.

Do we still have that arrangement currently in place?

We do not have the MOU or other agreement with the district attorney's office at this time, so we've not accepted funding at this time.

We didn't do that.

We have not done it.

Okay, we're good with the DA, we'll move on the magistrate. I don't have anything there. Probate, anybody have anything? Juvenile court, public defender. And as I'm going through, I'm looking at what they asked for versus where the staff, where we ended up with staff. So staff's done a good job of pairing these numbers back. Let's skip for now public safety. Let's go to some of the other ones and we'll come back to that.

You want to jump down to adult probation?

Yep, adult probation. I didn't have anything there. juvenile justice i didn't have anything there it's like a zero something very small budgets um ems uh other than overtime which we have to pay i don't know i didn't have any comment about ems um

We've got to keep our pay to those folks up or we risk going back to how we were several years ago and losing a lot of people.

Yep. The coroner, we talked about the coroner already. I'm good with putting him on full time, and I think we've got a backup cooler we have to do through Capitol, but I'm good with that if everybody else is.

I'm good with it.

I think he needs to be full-time. I have discussions I've had with him. There's a lot more paperwork, a lot more activity that we know about than we will ever know about he has to take care of. So I say we go ahead and make him full-time and then get the cooler repaired.

uh animal control commissioners i'm sorry with regard to the uh corner position i did want to just clarify statutorily there is not a full-time commission uh corner role but we as the county can choose to fund it as a full-time position so i did want to be clear that it's not like he's being hired on because he's a constitutional officer, he's an elected official. But to the extent that the board chooses to fund him as if he is full-time and offer him the benefits that affords him, the board can do so.

That's right.

But statutorily, he's not an employee.

Thank you. Animal control.

Anybody have anything?

Are we adding staff, animal control?

No? Okay.

Emergency management.

Oh, you're going by that item.

Emergency management.

I don't have anything.

I had a question about the telephones, not cell phones, but I've got that clarified already. Radio systems, pretty good increase there. What's that increase for on the radio systems through repair and maintenance? Oh, there he is.

Good evening, Commissioners. I'll talk a little bit about the increase to the maintenance line item in the radio system. We are getting ready to do a ribbon cutting ceremony on our 800 megahertz system, which is going to place it into full operation. What we haven't done yet is renegotiated the maintenance contract for the 800 megahertz system. So I've put the money in there pending that's going to happen. Plus, we have to keep money in case we have an act of God. We have to have money to buy repair parts because everything that's in all the five sites, we have to purchase if it's damaged or it fails.

So none of it's warrantied?

The warranty is gone.

Okay.

Bill, you might want to mention to them that situation we ran across this year in terms of in the radio system issues with the ACs and all that.

Okay. Yes, sir. So what Joey Giacobacci is bringing to our attention is that we have had some issues with air conditioning failed. So we've had to have emergency repairs done on the weekends because if the air conditioner goes down, then the site itself will go down because of high temperature. So as part of our general if you look at the general capital that we've got some air conditioners that we need to life cycle because they are original units that came with the shelters and they are end of life. So that's why we're requesting some additional money in the general, I mean in the capital budget to replace, to stop rotating out and life cycling air conditioners. And in the future, we're going to have to start life-cycling batteries and things of that nature. So I like to keep a little extra money in the maintenance budget just in case we have a failure of something that we just can't take care of with ongoing maintenance.

Thank you. Any questions? We okay with radios?

I'm okay with it. The 800 system's been a long time coming. We've been working on this for years.

Okay, let's move to Public Works. I didn't have anything there. Moving on. Fleet Services. Looks like there's a pretty good decrease from staff on the original budget request, so I'm good with that.

If anybody else has any comment, let me know.

Move on. Health Department. Nothing there.

So did you go through Public Works? Were you doing Public Works?

I'm sorry?

Public Works. Did you say that one was okay?

Yeah. So I had questions about the health department. It says something about mental health payment. What mental health services are we getting for that amount of money at our local health department?

Do we have anybody there that can answer that, Joey? Do you know?

Are you talking about funding-wise? Yes. Sorry, you guys are going general. I'm thinking line item. Yes. What was the question again?

I'm sorry.

There is a payment to the health department for mental health services, but I'm curious what mental health services we're paying for.

Yeah.

Oh, I couldn't get that lucky if I tried.

It's a payment to Gateway. It's our mental health services.

So it goes through the health department to Gateway? Okay. Thank you.

Everybody good? Mosquito control, that's all contracted. Family and Children's Services. I didn't have anything there. Senior Center. Good there. Anybody stop me if you have any questions or comments.

I do have questions about the planned increase in minor operating expenses.

Which one?

Minor operating expenses on the senior center. There was a large jump, so I'm just curious what the jump was.

Good evening.

Good evening. The increase on minor operating covers several items. Products that we use for expenses, our attendance is up. So we may have to pay for transportation for seniors because the Area Agency on Aging, Coastal Regional Commission, gets grant money for coastal regional coaches. So therefore, all transportation for mental health appointments, doctor appointments, grocery shopping for senior citizens has been cut. Our budget in previous years has been cut about $150,000. And so our minor operating expenses have increased based off the fact that our overall budget has been decreased. If you look at our total budget, I think it's $242,000 is what we're budgeting for next year. Oh, it is up there. I'm sorry. Half of that money comes from the Area Agency on Aging through state grants. So the county actually gives... It's not quite half. It's a little less. But minor operating covers so many different things. We have to, according to the state, we have to buy foam products for plates, cups, any activities that we do. So where we were serving, let's say, an average of 27 on an activity, now we have, last week we had 42. So your expenses for each activity go higher. So that's basically how we figured it out based off of a last six-month trend.

No, thank you. Like I said, I just noticed, you know, when you're looking through here, you see different patterns and things jump out at you.

Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Anything else? Move on to countywide library. Brian Lang library.

How often is the Brian Lang historical library open?

I believe they're open by appointment only now. Is that correct? No? There are open now?

Now that the new Archivist Dakota has taken over, they're open from 9 to 2, Monday through Friday, unless there is something else that they're gone for, but they have appointments available. They'll open for appointments if you want to come in after 2 or at other times. So it is regularly open. Okay.

Is it frequently utilized? Do we have like a running count on how often people visit?

I don't know the answer to that, but I imagine that they do. I can find that out for you for sure. I know that a lot of their stuff is people looking into genealogy and things like that. It's actually a pretty proud place if you've ever been over there. 156 counties in the state of Georgia, only five of them have their own historical archives, of which Camden is one. It's a pretty cool thing. They've got stuff going back, obviously, hundreds of years, but it gets used a lot for genealogical reasons. But I can get that information for you as far as what customer traffic is, for lack of a better term.

That was just a question I had. Yes, sir, sure. If they had to be open five days a week.

Yeah, we just kind of recently taken, HR has just kind of recently taken over some administrative role for them for accountability was specifically for that reason because we were getting questions about, hey, we called the archives and they're not open. So HR has just taken on that role to ensure that we're getting their time off requests and things like that to make sure that we have some accountability to ensure that somebody is there when the customer wants to go use their location.

But there is a board that oversees.

Yes, a very large one. That board has like 18 people on it. Yeah. And there are for pretty long terms as well, but they do.

Private board?

No. I think they meet twice a quarter. It's not every month or anything like that. But Artie Jones and Kay Westberry and all of those folks are on that board. Is it a sub-board of the Board of Commissioners? No, sir. There's no commissioners or anything like that on it. But I guess in that sense, maybe it is a private board if that's what you're asking.

Yeah, what I'm asking is, is it a private organization?

Yes, they're not elected or anything like that. Yes, sir, that's correct. The board chooses who the next board member is going to be. We don't appoint them, as far as I know. We do appoint them. Okay.

There's two boards. There's the Brian Lang Historical Archives Board, and then there's also a separate foundation for the Brian Lang. So there's two different things there. I'm not sure on the particulars of how all that works, but we can certainly get that for you.

Yeah, absolutely. In the last two weeks, gosh, I can't remember what the gentleman's name is. Joel Williams. Joel Williams is the president, is their board chair. And he just asked within the last two weeks for HR to kind of take over for accountability for them so that he could make sure to the people that asked him that there was somebody there when the public wanted to use it. So we're trying to get them to have a regular schedule, which is the nine to two. But I can get a whole lot more information for you on that.

But you do appoint to that board, but they do have members that are appointed, but they also have permanent members. So there's quite a few people on there that are permanent members. But I can definitely email that all to you.

Yes, please. Thank you. Thanks. Yes, sir.

Okay, moving on to planning and development. County agents. Forestry Department. Code enforcement. And the JDA. Anything on any of those?

Well, unless you all want to rescind your MOU with joint development.

I'm glad you actually brought that up. So I have a question about that. Have they expended any? We committed to them through an MOU that we were going to give them these funds. What are the options if we wanted to go back on that deal? Have they spent any of those funds that we've committed based off of the MOU? I think those are questions we don't really know the answer to yet. Unless you do. No, I mean, so we agreed to an MOU where they would get this increase in financing. Have they spent money based off of that assumption they were getting the money from us?

After speaking with James, I think they've... They've placed, they've, I'm trying to find the right word. Spent it as fast as they could. Yeah, they have placeholders for that meeting, but, I mean, money. But I don't know if they've actually spent it yet. They've anticipated it or encumbered it someplace, but I don't know if they've actually spent it yet.

I guess if you could find out if they've signed any agreements, then they have the obligation to pay with the understanding that we're getting the money from them. I definitely can find that out for you, yes.

Well, I think it's a bad precedent if the board, even though I was against allocating the $500,000 to them without some way of funding that, I think it sets a bad precedent to go back and take that money from them. So you want to leave it in there? I didn't want to put it in there to begin with.

You may be getting into a legal matter as well.

That's exactly what I'm trying to ask. I can find that out. How locked in are we?

I don't think James would have a problem sharing the finances. I know most of the money is going to the new industrial commerce part. I don't think it's going to the wrong places.

Well, I mean, the reason I'm even questioning it now, right, is I think one of their board members got up and spoke at one of the city council meetings in favor of data centers. And so my concern is that we have – they're appointed, right? They're completely autonomous from us. We're giving them all this money. We're not really getting truthful answers, I believe. I don't believe them to be truthful. We're not talking to anybody about data centers. I'm not talking to anybody about data centers. But then they're advocating for them at a Kingsland City Council meeting. I feel like we're not getting the full picture, and so it makes me hesitant to continue to fund them when maybe some of the projects that they're pursuing are counter the interest of the public, what the public would like to see as far as economic development in their community.

That was just one of their members speaking his mind. He wasn't speaking for the JDA. He was speaking for himself.

And he's in charge of making decisions on the JDA.

Well, he's a member of that board. But it's, what, a nine-member board? So, you know, that's one person that's in favor of it. This is a large county. I don't think, you know, we can get in this discussion tomorrow night during our meeting tomorrow night where you want to bring up data centers. But I'm not necessarily opposed to them. This is a large county. You can have industrial-type development somewhere in this county that will not be harmful to somebody's living conditions.

You're welcome to that opinion. So, Joey, the basis of my question is where we're at as far as being locked into that agreement and that they've spent money that we're now obligated.

I can find out. Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think that's it for the general fund. We're going to move on to curbside collection.

When does that go back out for bid?

The JDA MOU? No, no, no. Sorry.

That will be going out, I think it ends, it'll be going out.

I think that we talk about the RFP this week with Kelsey, and it'll go out soon. The contract is good, though, for another year.

Yeah, at the end of next year. Fiscal year?

Yeah, so June 30th of next year.

Can I ask a question about that? When you read that contract, it says that they have the right to request an increase. It doesn't say that we have to do it. Am I correct?

Yes, and that's what I'll be presenting tomorrow night.

Okay. But this fund doesn't really have a bearing on our general fund that we're trying to reduce, right? I'm just trying to get a... It's a different fund?

Yeah, these are all different.

Okay. So the deficit we were talking about has nothing to do with the curbside collection?

No. The deficit we're talking about basically ends with the JDA, so we're moving on to curbside. Now, we should probably defer curbside until after tomorrow night, the next meeting.

And something interesting I found out, this is just for general knowledge, the dues and subscriptions, you would think that was a subscription to some sort of association. That's actually the credit card fees that are collected so that we hold them there and remit them. So I don't know if that's something that can be updated to maybe more accurately reflect what those funds are. Because I'll tell you, dues and subscriptions, that's like $23,000. Let's cut those, but you can't.

Keep in mind also, Commissioners, that $50,000 will have to be supplemented if it's not balancing out. In curbside, which will be discussed in terms of fees and all that at a later date.

I saw you added $15,000 in revenues to curbside for fines and penalties. Where's that coming from? That would be a Lisa question.

That probably is because we probably collected more. I did evaluation on those numbers.

Because it was in your comparison, too.

Yeah.

Yeah, she added April and part of May as well.

Yeah, April and part of May, yep.

Okay, so move on to curbside collection.

I don't have a problem with it.

It's a balanced budget, so we're okay with that. Unincorporated tax district. We've got several departments in that fire. We have public works. We have recreation. This all falls under the unincorporated tax district. Oh, I'm sorry.

So you're looking at fund 270? Is that what you're looking at?

270, yeah. It's unincorporated tax district. Sorry for my... That includes public works, fire... uh recreation all the elements under the unincorporated tax district i didn't see anything necessarily on any of those

The only question I have about it is a question of concern. I would ask that Ms. Jackie maybe look into our ability to pay for all of the county owned parks out of the unincorporated service district fund. Because I know some of those parks lay outside of the unincorporated service district.

Yes, I will tell you that there has been discussion and we're going to check with our auditors