Commissioners' Court - Regular Meeting

Y'all have 30 more seconds. We keep talking. Okay, it is 9 o'clock on Monday, August 24th, 2026, and I call the private attorney commissioner's court to order. Today we have Alan Copeland from Central Baptist who will do our invocation. If you would please stand for that and remain standing for the pledges.

Let's pray. Father, we love you today and thank you, Lord, for your love and goodness to us. Thank you for Jesus and his shed blood that paid for our salvation. I pray today, Lord, that you would take control of this courtroom. May your blessed Holy Spirit guide and direct each person, each thought, each action. And, Lord, may you be honored and glorified in all that we do and say. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.

Thank you, everybody. Next on the agenda is the recognition of minutes from the August 10th and August 12th Potter County Commissioner's Court. Is there any changes to that? If not, so recognized. Number four, budget amendments to consider and act upon a budget amendment request for fiscal year 2526. Brandon.

Yes, Judge. This just has to do with the property swap. There were some closing costs that needed to be considered. This just allocates the funds to allow the closing costs.

Okay. Any questions for Brandon?

I need a motion, please.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Opposed, same sign. That passes 5-0. Number five, vouchers to consider and act upon the approval of the vouchers as presented by the county auditor's office. Check numbers 223444 through 223680 and wire transfers 2534 through 2540 in the amount of $4,387,824.33. I will need a motion and a second to discuss. I have a motion and a second. Any questions or comments? Okay, all in favor? Raise your right hand. And that passes 5-0. Number six, insurance and resource. Judy, you have anything? Judy? Do you have anything?

I have nothing to report unless you have questions.

Anybody have any questions for Judy? All right. Recognized. Thank you, ma'am. Number seven, Treasurer's Monthly Report. Good morning.

Our general fund as of July 31st, Amarillo National Bank had $3,901,962.63, earning 3.89%. Logic had $2,320,049.44, earning 3.79%. Texas Class had $13,709,386.29, earning 3.78%. Texpo Prime had $14,733,793.75, earning 3.81%. And Multibank Securities had $20,225,000. for a general fund total of $54,890,192.11. Okay.

Anybody have any questions for Brooke? Thank you. Thank you, Brooke. So recognizing that. Number 8A, discussion and possible action related relative to 8A tax increment and reinvestment zone number 2. TO RECEIVE A REPORT AND DISCUSS THE CURRENT EAST GATEWAY TIERS NUMBER TWO GOALS BOUNDARY AND ACREAGE AND DISCUSS RECENT TIERS TWO BOARD DIRECTION TO EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES TO INCREASE THE ZONE CONTINGENT UPON CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL AS ALLOWED BY CHAPTER 311 OF THE TEXAS TAX CODE.

GOOD MORNING, JUDGE AND COMMISSIONERS. Drew Brasfield, Assistant Director of Planning for the City of Amarillo, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here and discuss with you the current research we are doing on the possibility of expanding the tiers to the East Gateway Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone boundary. While we get the... presentation up, I'll go ahead and continue on. This zone was created in 2016 by Ordinance 762, and there was a small boundary expansion done back in 2020. This zone's goals are to relocate, redevelop the Big Texan, the original goals were, and add new retail and entertainment venues and RV park and several other things. Currently, the zone is bounded on the north side by East 3rd Avenue, on the east side by Lakeside Avenue, on the south end at its southernmost point, the southeast 34th, and on the western side, ironically, is Eastern Street.

Okay.

So the current zone is a mix of vacant, undeveloped land retail. There's some hospitality and limited residential development. It's currently comprised by almost 1,400 acres, and about three-fourths of that is undeveloped, vacant land at this point. In 2025, the most recent tax year, the value of this zone was a little over $117 million, which was a $77.6 million increase over its 2016 value. On the positive side, we do have the Big Texan Steak Ranch out there, several other anchor businesses, FedEx, Xcel Energy, the Premier Truck Group, and several other things. But on the downside, we have numerous vacant tracks, closed businesses, blighted conditions, poor drainage, and undersized and lacking infrastructure, those being the two biggest of the negatives. There's currently four outstanding or active commitments. The longest of these still remaining is nine years. And why are we looking at an expansion or the possibility of an expansion? Towards the end of 2025, we had several prospective developers approach the city interested in developing in this part of Amarillo. primarily in the area of Airport Boulevard and I-40. Most of us have probably stopped at least once at the new Buc-ee's there, but as it should be, development begets more development. So with Buc-ee's coming in, there's a lot of interest in developing around that area. And so because of those, we went to the tiers board to discuss the possibility that of doing an expansion. And the direction from the board was to examine several different boundaries. So we went with this to kind of went back to the drawing board to look at what all is in this area. I know this map is a little hard to see because it contains a whole lot of information, but the red hash marked area is what the current zone is. The blue and the tan areas are the parcels that we are examining as potential to add to this zone. The east boundary on this would go all the way out to the east city limits. The north side would still remain southeast third, and the county line would be the bottom, the southern boundary of this expansion research. So all in all, we're looking at 211 parcels. So the potential, if all of them were added, would be almost 2,100 more acres to the existing zone. For the parcels that we are examining, the 2018 value of these parcels was almost 69 million, and their 25 value was a little over 116 million. So there's been about a 47.8 million increase in that eight-year increase. timeframe between 2018 and 2025. There are three large projects that have occurred in this area. The Utility Trailer of Texas location, the Road Ranger Travel Center, and of course Buc-ee's, adding $19.9 million to the researched area. Of these parcels, I've broken them down into what their values, how we group those. We've got 38 of them that had negative or completely flatlined growth during that time period. And I did want to point out, too, that Potter County's current revenue off of the 211 parcels being researched is currently at $689,000 a year as of 2025. So if these parcels were to be added to the tier's boundary, Potter County would still continue to collect that revenue based off of those parcels. Anything above and beyond that that's part of that incremental growth, only that portion would go into the TIF, the tax increment fund. In conclusion, each parcel is being examined for its potential growth. Like I said, we have a lot of issues with utilities, water and sewer, and drainage. The infrastructure extensions could be reimbursed by the tiers to the city if the city opted to go in and extend those utilities to that area. It would also aid in projects where interest has been expressed. It's already been expressed. It's not pure speculation at this point. We think that this area has a lot of potential for growth. It's become very stagnant on that end of I-40, and we have been going and talking to all the different taxing entities, and I still have a presentation that I'll be giving tomorrow to the Amarillo College Board of Regents. And so with that, I would welcome any feedback, discussion on it.

Well, I think it's a wonderful idea.

So the city is going to vote on this council?

Eventually, that's the plan. We will take it to the city council for a new ordinance to expand the boundary, and then we would come back to each of the taxing entities to request a participation agreement, similar to what was done in the past.

So how long are we tied to this TIF?

So in this expansion, we are not looking to extend any of the time the... Zone ends in 2046, I believe.

When did you say? What year was that?

I believe it's 2046. I could be. I think I have that in my notes. With three of them, it's kind of hard to keep track sometimes.

That's okay.

Just a little bit of a gear change. How long does a Tier 1 zone last for?

believe that one goes till 2056.

Can you give us an example or two of what has already been done with the tears to like maybe the Whitaker piping where they added the pipeline underneath Whitaker there are 40 and some things like that.

Yes, sir. So the tears to has reimbursed the city for like you mentioned, Mr. Schaefer, the the water line extension that I believe went under I-40. And again, going back to the four commitments, there's a hotel, the Home 2 Suites, Premier Truck Group, and then there's a couple of Tootin' Totems that have been incentivized out in this area. I don't know prior to my arrival what smaller projects have been done. We did just recently incentivize partially the slug bug roadside attraction for Route 66 out in that area as well. Parking lot and landscaping, that kind of thing.

What do you anticipate the cost of the county's going to be? Do you have a figure?

The cost to the county? There would be no cost to the county. No, sir. No, the county, all the taxing entities would continue to collect the revenue that you're currently collecting. Anything above and beyond that would then be allocated to the tax increment fund to be reinvested back into that zone.

Well, right now, the tiers one, we're losing about a million dollars. And tiers two, we're losing about $500,000. Is that correct? losing money in what way? Well, we're not getting those tax dollars. We're not getting to retain those tax dollars. It's costing us $1.5 million a year for both these, both tiers one and tiers two. I understand it's a good thing for our area. I'm not against it.

I'm just saying that

that um as we move forward today we've got a we've got a large tax increase coming and so i just think we need to be mindful of that and i hope that y'all will be too it's a it's a project for potter county this is the only way we can can um can fund our counties through tax dollars the city has other modes to do that we do not and so it's a it's a difficult balance for the county to

and the taxpayers on these these uh adventures i i would say that uh it's a deferment on the collection of any of the incremental increase to any of those parcels in that zone rather than losing it you're you're deferring taking that revenue in to a later date well that probably wasn't a good word but i'm just talking about

as in today's dollars and what we're looking at needing to do, I just think we need to be mindful of that. And so with that, I ask that you do the same. I know you are. Yes, sir. Just basically making a statement that we're losing about $1.5 million in tax dollars each year. Okay.

Thank you, Drew. Is there anything? We don't need to take action on this. It's just for information. No, ma'am.

This was strictly for discussion and feedback. Okay. Thanks, Drew. All right.

Anybody else have anything for Drew? Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. Number 8B, elections to consider. Yeah.

I had asked if you could skip to 8K.

You did. Thank you for the reminder. 8K, fiscal year 2025 audit to recognize the fiscal year 2025 audit reports issued by Hankins and Estep. Good morning. Good morning.

Honorable County Judge, commissioners, thank you for the opportunity for serving Porter County. My name is Juan Santana. I'm an audit director of the firm Hanking Seed Stuff. So basically, we're going to go over the annual comprehensive financial report and the single audit report. Both of those you should have a copy this morning. If we go to page one of the financial report, You would see the independent auditor's report, which is the only piece of this report that belongs solely to the auditor. You would see an unmodified or clean opinion. That means that the figures included in this financial report are materially correct, and there were no significant deviations at all. The only new item in the report would be in that very same page one, the fourth paragraph. It starts with emphasis of the matter, change in accounting principle pertaining to compensated absences. There was a new GASB, or Governmental Accounting Standard Board, statement number 101 which required prior period adjusting entry but our opinion was not modified as to this respect that GASB 101 what And that happened all across the nation to all governmental entities. It aims to lower the accrued compensation amounts or liabilities included in the statement of net position to a more precise and accurate number. That's basically what happened. The rest of the report contains the very same sections as in prior year. It is comprised of the Management Discussion and Analysis, or the MD&A, which is basically a comparison of prior year with the current year, in this case 2024 and 2025. After the MD&A, the basic financial statements which are comprised of the government wide and the governmental funds statements. After the governmental funds, the report includes the proprietary funds and the fiduciary funds. The next section would be the notes to the financial statements. And after the notes, the report includes, as in prior year, the required supplementary information as required. If we go to page seven of the MDNA, You would see the components of the net position, which includes the revenues and the expenses of the county. You would see that there was an increase in total revenues of approximately $2 million, which responds to a slight increase in the property and the other taxes. The expenses show an increase of approximately $3.7 million from $91,581,024 to $95,286,025. And that increase responds to the net effect of ups and downs between those different categories. But we have to point out that it looks quite similar to the increase in the judicial expenses line item, which increased by $3.7 million. Those increases in the judicial and the other categories were or respond to increases in salaries, expenses incurred during the year. So at the bottom, you would see that the net position from 2024 increased approximately by 3.8 million to 160,028,000 by the end of fiscal year 25. If you could please turn back to page six. The most significant changes when we look at the assets and liabilities, would be the line labeled net pension and OPEB liability, you would see a significant decrease of $7.1 or $7.2 million, and that responds to a better performance of the amounts invested in such line and also as per the amounts determined in the actual report of the TEC DRS. So that decrease, it's a positive. VARIANCE FOR THE COUNTY WHICH BASICALLY YOU WOULD SEE THAT THE TOTAL NET POSITION IS MAINTAINED AND IT IS PRETTY SOLID FOR THE YEAR ENDED OF SEPTEMBER 30TH OF 2025 AT $160 MILLION. If you could please turn to page 14 to the statement of activities that's part of the government-wide statements, you would see at the very bottom The beginning net position at October 1st, that would be the closing net position of fiscal year 24. And you will see a line that states restatement, that restatement of 1.2 million, which is also positive. It is comprised of both the prior period adjustment for the compensated absences. and change in the estimate of the depreciation expense for the year resulted in that positive increase of the net position at year end. The explanation for that, and that would be the only addition to the notes to the financial statements, If you could please turn to page 47. In page 47, you would see the note on the restatement and the explanation for the amounts that I have just mentioned. That will be the only part of the notes to the financial statements that would be new this year. The rest of the financial report is pretty much the same as in fiscal year 24. The required schedules for the pension and OPEB, the comparisons between budget and actual. the combining statements for the non-major governmental funds. And another change from prior year would be the fiduciary funds. If we could please turn to Page 23. Page 23, you would see that the county received $5 million on behalf of the city of Amarillo for the emergency operations center. As on behalf, so it was included as part of the fee to charity funds for the year. Any questions so far with regards to the information presented in the report? If we could please then go to the single audit report The single audit report includes two reports. One report deals with what we call ICFR, internal controls over financial reporting. And the second report deals with the compliance with major programs. Both reports, as you can see, are unmodified. Those opinions are also clean. The findings that were coming in from prior year were addressed and eliminated from the report as they were adequately taken care of during the year. Ended September 30th of 2025.

And just to remind you, that just happened to be back in the 22-23 audit. In the purchasing department's Documentation for the zero to 50,000 range, the prior purchasing agents requirements for how to handle multiple bids and to document that wasn't adequate for what we needed to do to make sure that we could show that we were meeting our requirements underneath the purchasing policy of getting multiple bids from that $10,000 to $50,000 range. Wholesale changed the way that happened, and we haven't had a single finding since that was implemented. And so it's certainly not a, I would say a kudos on Allison's part for making the changes in the department. These were policies that were in place long before she got there.

Thank you. In addition, the Singularity Report includes two separate schedules, one for the federal awards and the second one for the state awards. The federal awards show an increase from prior year of approximately $1.8 million, and that's basically the expenditures for the ARPA funds. And on page seven, the expenditures for state awards also increased by approximately $1.3 million, and it's basically a combination INCREASES IN THE MOTOR VEHICLE CRIME PRIVATION AUTHORITY AND THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, WHICH BOTH OF THOSE SHOW A COMBINED INCREASE OF $1.1 MILLION FROM FISCAL YEAR 24. AND YOU COULD SEE IN PAGE 11 of the report that in the schedule of previous findings and question costs, you would see that both of those previous findings appear as corrected and now out of the report. So any questions with regards to the single audit report? That would be the end of my presentation this morning for the financial results of Porter County. Again, thank you for the opportunity of starting the county. And have a great rest of the day.

Okay, thank you, sir. Appreciate you being here. You're welcome. All right. Number 8B, elections to consider and approve the following for the November 3rd, 2026 general election. Order appointing election officials and rate of pay and order appointing officers for Central County Station. Good morning, Christy.

Good morning. Okay, so we have first, we have our order appointing election officials. We have... We got these lists from our party chairs, and they both approved all of these workers. And then if you'll see on your third page, We also have backup judges listed here in case we need emergency replacements. We have central counting station judges, and we have early voting ballot board judges here. And this is something that we do every couple years, and it will include this election coming up. Okay. Do you have any questions? Okay.

Any questions for Christine? Okay.

And then the next one we have will be the order appointing officers for the Central Counting Station. And you do notice that I gave you this morning your order of election. This order of election was already signed by the judge. It's something that's statutorily required, and so the judge has already signed that for this election. But we do have to go ahead and appoint the officers for Central County Station. And so these officers, it is myself and then other members of my staff. We always are appointed as the Central County Station officers.

All right. Any questions for Chrissy? All right. Okay. You have to vote on it. I know. I need a motion.

I move to approve as presented. Second. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Opposed? Thanks. And that passes 5-0. And number 8C, elections to recognize early voting and election day polling locations for November 3rd, 2026 general election.

Okay, so for early voting for the election, we have two weeks of early voting, which includes weekend voting. The Santa Fe building, our main location, will be open the last week of early voting from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The branches will be open 8 to 5 every day, the Monday through Fridays. Except for the last two days, we're going to have those open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. That gives voters time to get off work and get their ballot cast before Election Day. And then we will have the weekend voting. The Santa Fe building will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on that Saturday. And then the branches will be open 9 to 3 and the same hours 9 to 3 for everyone on Sunday. And then on election day, we do have a change to one of our vote centers. Chaparral Hills Baptist Church decided that they did not want to be a part of the vote center program any longer. And so we looked, and if you've ever been in that area, you know that there's not much there. And so we finally were able to get a church called Behind the Chutes Cowboy Church. It is 2.3 miles away from Chaparral Hills Church. It's not ideal, but there's nothing else in that area. The school, we can't get in the school. The fire station's too small. So Behind the Chutes Cowboy Church is what we have chose to go with. It's not completely ADA compliant, but we don't have any other options in that area. And they were very glad to have us. And so that's what we're going to go with. Tell me the name again. Behind the Chutes Cowboy Church. Behind the Chutes. Yes. And we will post notices on Chaparral Hills doors. so that if someone shows up there, which we know they will, they'll show up there on election day to vote, but there will be a notice there that they can go to behind the chutes, Cowboy Church. And then there's Willow Creek Church, which is a little over four miles away, if they chose to go to that also. Okay.

All right. Any questions for Christy? Thank you, ma'am.

Okay.

Thank you. All right, number 8D, Panhandle Auto Burglary Theft Unit, PAB 2, Senate Bill 224, Converter Grant. Mr. McBride, how nice to see you again, sir. Good morning, everybody.

So we're bringing the statement of grant award for the SB 224 County Converter Grant for FY27.

We were awarded $378,200. We're bringing it for approval. Okay. Okay.

Any questions for Patrick?

Move to award, to authorize Judge Tanner to accept a grant award from the state. As presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor raise your hand. We'll let it go. We've seen some. That passes five to zero. And?

So the second one will be the auto theft, the actual auto theft grant that we've had for the last 11 years. We were awarded $491,215 from NBCPA for FY27.

Okay. Any questions for Patrick if not, I need a motion.

Second.

I have a motion and a second on that one. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed, that passes 5-0.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Number 8F, website hosting services to consider and act upon. approving the updated pricing plan and quote for the Potter County website hosting services for fiscal year 27-28, as provided by TACC IRA Julie Smith.

This is just the TACC Sierra website that we currently have new fees to go into effect, so those need to be included into the budget for the upcoming year.

Was it included in the budget? No.

Brandon? No, you just need to make a vote on it today. Okay.

Yeah, it's rolled into the, or normally, historically, it's been rolled into the IT budget.

Okay. Historically, is it still?

Might be history. I don't know.

Any questions for Julie on this? If not, I need a motion.

It's either that or y'all can go and look for a new website.

We'll just let you hang on to it.

Move to approve, Mr. President. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed, same sign. That passes 5-0. Number 8G, Rural Sheriff's Grant, to consider and act upon a request from the Sheriff's Office to apply for the Rural Sheriff's Office Grant, Senate Bill 22, for fiscal year 27, administered by the Texas Comptroller's Office, pursuant to recent legislation. Sheriff.

The same one we've had the last couple of years. We've taken all that money and been able to put it into salaries with our employees.

Okay. It's kind of handy, isn't it? Yes, ma'am. Any questions for the sheriff?

Move to approve the vote.

Second.

A motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Opposed? And that passes 5-0. Uh, county clerk to consider an act upon approving the kind of records archive.

This is just something I have to do every year. Um, we collect a records archive fee and we've put in that letter what we, what we do with it, what we might plan to do with it. We have to get some bids from different vendors. So, um, we try to utilize that as the best way that we can.

Any questions for Julie? In motion, please.

Move to approve as presented. Second.

A motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed, that passes 5-0. Number 8I, tiers 1 and tiers 2, adjustment to consider an act upon approving an increase in cost for tiers 2. number one, in the amount of $16,945, and tiers number two, in the amount of $6,822, a total increase of $23,677. Brandon.

Yes, Judge. This came from the city of Amarillo. Those are the ones that collect all of the tiers money. When they sent the invoice earlier in the year, they made the calculation not using the prior year tax rates as opposed to the correct adopted tax rates. And so this is just reflecting that we needed to pay a little bit more based on the correct tax rates.

Okay. Any questions for Brandon on that? If not, any motion?

Make a motion that we approve as presented.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor raise your hand. I'll oppose.

That passes 5-0. Do they give these information before we do our budget? How do we know? The adjustment...

The adjustment happens based on what the tax rate is adopted, so I have a pretty good idea how close it'll be prior to the adoption. I don't know if that answers your question, but I mean, it does fluctuate based on how much you, what the tax rate is, and so like, Our payments that I put into the budget for tiers one and tiers two, I calculate based on, you know, if we're going to adopt a 6.1% effective increase, I take the prior year payment and multiply it times 1.0615. That's how I got what's in the budget today. If you all were to raise or lower that, I would raise or lower that.

to to reflect that so the expectation it's a sliding scale based on what gets adopted but just be nice if somebody made a error in our favor for a change so like we're always the ones that are making up the error i agree no fault of yours by the way right and ultimately this is this is um

This is money that we planned on spending. They just billed us lower than what we planned on spending. So, I mean, this just brings us up to where we should have been in the first place.

Okay. All right. I need a motion, please.

Move to approve as presented.

I thought we voted on this one. We just need a vote. Yeah, we voted. Just need a vote.

We already voted? Yes. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

I got you. I got that.

I got it all right here.

Put your hand in the air. Okay. So are we still okay working with the wire transfers now? AJ, wire payment FHWA to consider an act upon allowing the treasurer to issue wires to the FHWA going forward.

And so what this is is for the payments that go to the Federal Highway Administration for the project that's going on, and we received the funding from the Friends of Crossbar. Basically, they stopped allowing payments further by check, which is how we've always sent it in the past. per their payment instructions. They did advise this last week that they would take a check, but they're not going to amend their payment instructions. I would just feel more comfortable that we actually follow their payment instructions and not just take something verbally over the phone or by email. That way we don't potentially have a check floating around that somebody doesn't cash. That would be my preference on how we handle this. They publish how they want to be paid. The only two methods available are to either log into a website or to send a wire. I would suggest that we follow their payment instructions and allow for wires.

Move to approve as presented. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Okay, moving over to 8L, ERP system change order to consider and act upon a change order in the amount of $25,000 for the ERP project data connection. Brandon.

Okay, so this has to do with the ERP system and the grant management software that we have. In order for those two softwares to talk, some development has to be done on the ERP system that I did not anticipate, so this is a legitimate change order. I feel because this was not part of the original scope of work, so I will take the blame on that. I didn't foresee that we would need some development, but I guess call this a lesson learned when you're trying to get two systems to talk together. But ultimately, this is what it would cost. There's just not a way to, I've had both companies get together to see if there was a way that we could do this without some kind of development work, and they can't get the two systems to talk without this intermediate step.

Is this a one-time increase?

It's a one-time payment, yes.

Since you messed up, can we take that out of your paycheck?

I would prefer you didn't.

Okay, I need a motion.

Make a motion to approve the $25,000 for the ERP project data connection.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed. That passes 5-0. Brendan, do you want to skip down to Haskell County before we go to the budget?

Yes, I would prefer that.

So number eight in Haskell County to consider an act upon a contract to Haskell County for housing inmates. Sheriff, you want to talk about that? Are you same as usual?

We've heard it five times now, and it's all the same except for the amount of people that they're requiring us to have. They've changed that to we only have to pay for however many people we put there.

And how many do you want to put there right now?

As many as I can get over there. 50. 50? If I can find that many. Yeah. I really think we need to do this. The only thing that changes is they won't come and pick them up anymore. We'll have to take them down there.

Why did they change that?

Well, that was part of the first original deal. Got to cut their costs too. They'll still take them to TDC from there, but we have to take them to Haskell.

How far is Haskell County?

I haven't looked it up.

Four hours?

Something like that.

Do I have a motion on this? Any other discussion? Any questions?

I make a motion that we approve the contract with Haskell County for housing of inmates

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Passes five to zero.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, there are no employment items. Potter County Projects.

Good morning, Judge. Good morning. Just a very very quick update on where we stand with phase two across the street there Last week I was able to work with Tri-state they have gotten me all the closeout documents which included basically the all the attic stock for the tunnel There's not much left over for attic stock as far as the stair tower itself. It's all basically tunnel ceiling tile paint whatnot They got me all the attic stock stuff They were also able to supply a hard copy, a digital copy, as well as a hard copy. I requested that at no additional cost, a hard copy of the as-built drawings. They supplied the binder containing all the operation owner and operating manuals, a binder with all the letters of warranty. So as far as the close-up documents, we've received them all, and that's a big step. Like I reported a couple of courts ago, we're in the process of finalizing some missing handicap signage that was found during the task inspection for the parking lot project. I got word just this morning, checked in with Tri-State, got an update that basically the subcontractor that's going to be installing all the signage receive that stuff on Friday. So by the end of the week today, I'm pushing for early, if not today. This week, that stuff is going to get done. That's the additional handicap signage. One missing word and some stenciling there to complete that. Once they get that done, I will send notification to the same inspector that we've got those corrections made. He will follow up with the approval of the corrections and whatnot. We're going to be extremely close to being able to finalize the final pay request, which is releasing all the retainage, and we're basically going to walk away from the project shortly after that. So slow progress with this next step because we're waiting on a company to manufacture the signs to bring them to us and whatnot, but we're getting real close. So that's all I've got today, a small update on the project across the street.

Okay. Any questions for Chris? All right. Thanks, Chris. All right.

Thank you, guys.

Do you want to go ahead and go to the budget and then come back and do jail reporting? I'm going to go ahead and go through all that.

I'll just go ahead and do everything, and then that way we can finish with the budget.

All right. The jail today, we have 612 people in custody. 80 of those are female, 31 are housed and outside of facilities. So we have a total actually in our jail of 581 people. Lubbock has one male. Lynn County has four males. Deaf Smith County has 26, 10 female, and 16 males. And we have 523 felons and 60 misdemeanor cases. All right. Insurance. Nothing. No recs? Yay. Okay. Okay. There is no executive session. We'll come back to upcoming agenda items. So let's go back to the budget to conduct a public hearing on the proposed budget and make any changes necessary. Vote to adopt the budget. Propose a property tax rate. Set the date, time, and place for the public hearing on the tax increase. Set the date, time, and place for the meeting to vote on the tax rate and take any other action necessary.

All right, good morning, Judge. You know, as I spoke last week or two weeks ago or whenever that special session was, You know, we have three meetings that we need to get through to both adopt the budget and to set the tax rate at a minimum. Today's goal is to adopt the budget formally and propose a tax rate and come back at the first meeting in September to fully adopt that so we're on our second step in our road map to uh to get where we need to be for adopting the budget for fiscal year 26 27. um and so that does mean today if if y'all vote to adopt the budget um y'all will be setting at least the expenditures in stone and so the uh i do want y'all to take consideration that if there's any changes that y'all want to make today it's going to take a motion and it will take three of five of you voting to agree on that just like any other motion would so that's the general guardrails that I'd like to provide for this meeting I think we had a lot of discussion around salary and and very little discussion around equipment, because as I said last time, the general theme of this budget was if it was an operational item, you got it, and if it was not an operational item, if it was a salary originally, except for a few exceptions, that nobody got it. As of the last court, the all the changes outside of the 2% COLA were taken out. And so that really just left, that really just left the 2% COLA across the board for all the employees of the county. And so my suggestion would be, and we could run this meeting however you want, but my suggestion would be Unless there are some operational items that y'all would like to discuss and maybe education and travel for a couple of departments might be the only thing that I can recall. Maybe giving the departments an opportunity to speak about what they would like for the salaries since that seemed to be the sore spot. But again, it's up to the court how they'd like to. But that would be my suggestion on how to handle today.

Okay. So you want to let people get up and talk about the raise that they want, even though we're going 2% across the board?

I think that... I mean, in terms of what I've heard... There are some people that would still like to advocate and I think giving them an opportunity to advocate would be valid even if the court is not going to make that change. But again, this is ultimately your budget and I'm just advising you in what I think would be the most transparent way of handling this so nobody doesn't feel slighted that they were treated unfairly.

The issue is, though, we've already heard from most everybody before. So is there anybody out in the audience that didn't get to come and speak on here? Stacey? Come on up, Stacey.

Hello.

Hello. I'd like to reintroduce myself.

I'm Stacy Zavala.

I am going into my 27th year practicing law, and currently I am doing that as the Potter County Guardian Ad Litem, which means I am the attorney for all of the children who have a CPS case that originates out of Potter County. Potter County is a little bit different because we, as you know, have both hospitals. So that also means that any time child is born possibly drug addicted, has to have some sort of CPS intervention. That comes through Potter County, not Randall County. We are a relatively new department. It's myself and my certified paralegal, Kelly Deaton. Kelly keeps us from having to hire a second attorney. Attorneys are expensive. And I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe I am the lowest paid attorney in the county. I may be wrong with that. So let me tell you a little bit about what I do. On a daily basis, we have about 300 clients. We have new cases that start all the time, cases that close, but pretty much I've got 300 clients on a daily basis. The law requires that I meet with those clients. My clients range from infant to, actually I've got some young adults up to 21, that I meet with them or speak with their caretakers if they're very young every time before a hearing, every time. Every few months, When our cases start, we've got the adversary hearing, 30 days later we have another hearing, a few months later we have another, and then a few months later we have another. So a lot of my time is spent in court. I've got court Tuesdays and Thursdays, but a lot of my time is spent meeting with the children and their caretakers and meeting with their teams at CPS who are advocating for them. Anytime that a child gets moved from a placement, If there's any kind of termination decision in terms of parents, I have to make a recommendation on that. I am extremely proud of the work that we do in Potter County. We've got a very high caseload, higher than the surrounding counties. The last that I saw when I look in 2023, the Randall County position that does the same thing that I do was listed as 123,000. It also is important to note that We've got a heavier workload than they do. I mean, there's no getting around that. Luckily, the county attorney's office was not hit with some of these changes, but since this department was created, there have been some legislative changes that required a whole new type of case. Those are family-based cases. Those used to not have counsel. Now we've got these new family-based cases where I have to represent the children in those cases as well. Parents are also given attorneys in that point. Luckily, the county attorney's office didn't have to take that hit because internal DFPS counsel covered those cases. I am still covering those cases on behalf of Potter County for the children. Um, I do think that for the work that we do, um, our office is still underpaid. I am asking simply for a salary of 115,000, which I believe is a 7% increase. I would also like an increase for Kelly Deaton because she keeps us from having to hire another attorney, which is the bigger expense. Thank you very much.

What is her Kelly salary?

I apologize. I do not have Kelly's.

I'm sorry? $54,000.

$54,000.

Okay. So, Stacey, what do, what are, maybe you can tell me, what are other attorneys making? Why is she making so far under?

I mean, the why just has to be, it's a function of where the position started and, you know, the COLAs that were given and then there was a one-time vote. I mean, it's just a matter of the math. Ultimately, that is something that is within the court's prerogative, just like anyone else's salary. And so, you know, this is... You asked the reason why I wanted to bring this up. It's just because I wanted to make sure that everybody came out of this meeting knowing that it's going to be locked in place with the opportunity to speak if they so choose. And again, it's up to the court if you want to hear it.

Stacy, we gave you a bump.

Was it last year or the year before?

I think it was the year before.

I believe I'm at 105. I could be wrong on that number. I believe that's correct. So somebody tell me, what is the starting salary for an attorney, like a first-year attorney?

You're not first-year, but I mean, what is the starting salary?

It varies by department. Pick one. Okay.

How many attorneys? Where did y'all's attorneys start off at? Around 80.

Where do you finish off at? What's the top?

I believe there are two positions posted right now. I don't know what they're posted at.

I can personally testify that you guys are busy. I've never seen anything like it. I mean, you're very rarely, you're gone all the time.

One of the things that's different about our kind of law is that it does require us to be out of the office very often. And because most of our kids are school age, in order to meet with them, that requires lots of nights and lots of weekends, unless I'm going to go and pull them out of school. And I try very hard not to do that. There are times when I do have to meet with children at school. Summer is an easier time for us because we are a little... We've got more flexibility in meeting with the kids. But with vacation schedule, things like that, there's no way to avoid nights and weekends. Two weekends ago, I did six visits in Amarillo on Saturday and 12 visits in Lubbock on Sunday. That's a pretty regular thing for me, that I am in Lubbock at least once every two months, if not every month. And I pretty much work every weekend, maybe not all weekend, but every weekend when I'm in town.

And to judge, to answer your question, it's really hard because there's budgets on positions, but there's so many positions that are not at the full salary and so i i mean it's a loaded question for me to speak on behalf of of the three department heads i mean what they start their people out i can just tell you that a lot of you know none of them start their people um seemingly at the at the full budget for the position so you've been practicing law again 27 years

27 years.

Magna cum laude from Texas Tech.

Well, I forgave you for that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But, no, whatever.

How long have you been doing this, this position?

So this position was created in 21, and so I've been doing it since then. But I've been doing this type of work for probably about 14, 15 years.

Stacy's in a unique position, too. Her department is overseen by the commissioner's court, unlike other legal departments that are headed by elected officials. So her position's a little unique in that respect. And so my recommendation would be to look at, you know, to get apples to apples. It would be a Randall County or another county's counterpart doing a similar position.

And a search from 23 before this change in law that increased the work. It does show Randall County had it at 123. And that was in 2023?

23.

Josie, I'll make a motion. I believe she's correct. And I've also done some checking as well, and I think she is underpaid. I hate to open this can of worms, but I think it's fair and equitable. We are paying other attorneys with less experience that are working in an office. She's running an office with it all by herself, and with her help, with her... With her assistant, I think she's actually not asking for enough, so I appreciate you taking that into consideration. I'll make that motion that we increase her salary to $115,000 as asked.

The guardian ad litem is very valuable. I work district court and from time to time they just have to call out and find a guardian ad litem if they could find one. Sometimes some of the D.A. guys would have to be the guardian ad litem. So I think it's such a valuable position. I know she runs all over town. I've heard about you. I've seen some of your work. I've come in tact with some of your children. So I know what you do. And I believe on a couple of Sundays I just missed you leaving from where you were leaving. So I think it's a very valuable position. And I think she's very underpaid. So I think we should.

So what was the amount again, Stacey, that you want? $115,000.

Judge, I made a motion. And I shall second that.

I'm going to have a very difficult time with this decision because we're going to open up a can of worms. You're going to have some people come up here that are going to have similar stories and deserve those raises. However, I'm going to have to, I'm going to be on the other side because I think the 2% for everybody is where we need to go. Piecing out things like this, it's going to be a problem.

I understand that. This is a very unique situation. She doesn't work in a group, in an office full of lawyers.

I agree she deserves it. I'm not saying that she doesn't, but this is going to be a problem.

My opinion is I think that's something that we do have to look at. Is everybody individually? It's going to be hard. We're not going to make the right decisions on some of these people, but I think they all need to be heard on where they think they need to be paid and where we think they need to be paid. We need to make those decisions and hear each one individually if needed. Because 2%, that's taken us basically a pay cut by almost 1.5% if you count inflation. And a lot of these people, like I said, they've had job duties added on to them, trade-ins more. Their jobs have changed since the last time they have had pay raises or pay adjustments. And I think we do need to hear them and consider each one individually.

And unless you all have any more questions for me, I'll go ahead and sit down while you all discuss. Okay.

I just think this is a unique situation. Julie, do we have a motion and a second? All right.

I'm still talking. Not to be greedy, but I would ask that Kelly be included in any kind of race. If we need to move mine down to move hers up, I would ask for that.

I was very interested in starting this position, actually. I've talked to you about it, and I thought it was necessary that we saved money by hiring counsel inside, and we did save, I believe we saved like $100,000 by doing that. I agree with Mr. Kelly. We're in a quantity, we're looking at a a tax increase that I've never voted for before like that. I don't think any of us have. But we've got a problem when we've got an attorney not making... If she could go work for Scott's office doing the same job, she'd make probably $140,000 if it was open. If she went for the district attorney's office, I suspect she'd make around the same thing with her... Sir, with her skills and abilities and time and grade, probably Randall County. That's why I'm supporting her.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second? Yes, ma'am. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed? Passes 4-1. Congratulations, Stacey. You deserve it. I know you do. I'll watch you. You're never there. You cross the hall from me, you're never there.

Okay.

But it appears that this court has money for the public defender's office.

It's got money for the guardian ad litem, which is great. I appreciate the fact that they have tough jobs. So do my folks. I came here and asked you. So you don't have money for cops and you don't have money for prosecutors, but you have money for all the other lawyers in the county. Wholly unfair and ridiculous. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else want to get up and speak?

So I still want my 3% and the $100,000 I asked for, please.

Hi, Sheriff.

Hi. I know where you stand, but I'd be remiss if I didn't come up here and fight for the people that worked for me. I've got four people in the process of looking for other jobs. They can go other agencies and make way more than what they're making with us. That's not counting Pentax. There's no way you can compete with that. That's a lot of money out there. But these are looking at other agencies that are right here in the city. And it's a huge pay jump for them. So I've got four looking right now. I'm four short in the field. That's not even counting whatsoever in the jail. We've got about seven that are short in the jail. So like I said, I would be remissed. I know where you guys have been. I sat through this the other day all day long. I understand. and you got a tough decision, I do, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least get up here and fight for them.

Okay, thank you, sir.

Thank you, Sheriff.

Yes, sir?

Well, I support what you're doing, looking out for employees at the same time. I'm making $20,000 less than any fire chief in the area. My guys are at the bottom of the pay scale on everything, and just retaining them is going to be very difficult in the future. I think I would be remiss if I didn't get up here and remind you all of the same thing. I make a lot less than the Randall County Fire Chief. We have a higher call volume. We have more equipment. We have less people. That is one of the other things that we look at, too, is pretty much every fire chief in the Panhandle area that we're comparing ourselves to has more staffing and less responsibility. So it's something to look at with every department. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks, Richard.

Commissioner Kelly was right. He's going to open up a can of worms.

And I will agree with... our DA and our sheriff. If we're gonna consider being the only one in office or never in office or whichever else and always out in the field, your consuls are out in the field. We're the lowest paid elected officials in this county. We only ask for a small raise to even get up to a probably, I think, a corporal deputy with the sheriff's office. We're not asking for the $30,000 of the salary gap between us and the JP and the commissioners and every other elected official. So if we're going to look at that, please consider that as well as an elected official and law enforcement.

Who else? Okay, I have. Someone in the audience, Alexi Kidd that would like to speak on the budget. Good morning. Good morning.

Yes, my name is Alexi Kidd. I'm the Executive Director of the Apartment Association of the Panhandle. I just don't think there's been a lot of appreciation that we could have been showing for the constables, and I wanted to give that appreciation today. So we represent almost 400 members and over 21,000 rental units in the Panhandle, most of which are between Randall and Potter County. So I'm here to recognize and express our appreciation for the Potter County constables and the essential role that they play in our community. For those who own and manage rental housing, constables are not simply another government service. They are an important partner in helping us maintain safe and professional managed communities. Private rental housing providers interact with the public every single day. With that responsibility comes the occasional situation that requires assistance. I want to emphasize that we understand these responsibilities are not always easy. An eviction, for example, is just a legal process on paper. There are landlords, property managers, residents, and families involved, so emotions can run high. And having trained professionals who know the law, understand the process, and know how to maintain order during those situations is incredibly important For property owners and managers, knowing that we have the constables as a resource provides a level of security and confidence that's difficult to put a dollar value on. But perhaps just as important as the services themselves is the relationship we have to develop with the constables. They help us provide education to our members, they come and speak to our members, and they really show how valuable their office is to us. I've had so many members come to me with just praises about our constables and how they help handle situations with tenants. So I want to ask the commission to recognize the importance of the Potter County constables and the work that they do for our community and encourage them to continue to support them and their services by providing their necessary funding.

Thank you. Great. Thank you, ma'am. Also, Kristen McClure wants to speak on the budget. Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Christian McClure. I'm a property manager at Rock Island Apartments. So I oversee 360 units, roughly about 700 residents. I'm here to speak on the behalf of our rental housing community and again why the constables are so important to our industry and to the communities that we serve. As property managers, my job is not simply to manage buildings or collect rent. We're responsible for maintaining safe, stable communities for, again, my roughly 700 people. Every day we deal with situations involving lease enforcement, civil processes, evictions, and residents who may be experiencing difficult situations. Having dependable constables available to assist with these matters is incredibly important. Constables provide a service that directly impacts the rental housing industry. They help execute civil processes and enforce lawful court orders in situations that myself as a property manager can't always safely do. So their presence provides a level of professionalism, authority, and safety that is necessary when dealing with difficult or potentially confrontational situations. For property managers, an eviction is never just a business transaction. There are people involved, and emotions can run high. Having a constable there to carry out a court order ensures that the process is handled accordingly to the law and helps protect everyone involved, including the resident and my staff. Constables also serve as an important bridge between the courts property owners in our communities. Their work ensures that court decisions are actually carried out in a timely and appropriate manner. When the process works efficiently, we all benefit from that. I understand that the county commissioners still have a difficult decision to make when it comes to budgets and public resources. but I would ask you to consider the broader impact of the constable's roles. Their work supports not only property owners and management companies, but also represents neighborhoods and the overall stability of our rental housing district here in Amarillo. We need constables who are available, properly supported, and equipped to continue to provide these essential services for us. On behalf of the rental housing industry, I want to say thank you to our constables for what they do, and we truly value them and all the help they give us in our industry. And you all, thank you for letting me speak. Thank you.

All right, the next one is Christine Euford? Euford.

Euford, sorry.

Good morning, everybody.

I just wanted to also visit about the constables and speak from experience on evictions that I can't tell you what a crap shoot it is, you never know what you're gonna get with an eviction. And when we have to enforce one, we may have a totally compliant person that is willing to move out, but we also have squatters that are unmet and who knows what else, and there's no telling what they do. And I've encountered this. And having the constables as a command presence diffuses a lot more than just, you know, showing up. They've helped me personally not be injured when I'm trying to protect the owners I represent and their property. They've kept me from getting bit by animals that aren't allowed on the property but are there anyway. And so, you know, It's very personal to me as a property manager and as a resident of Potter County that we keep these people, we keep these good people who protect us, who protect our property owner's rights and protect the neighbors and helping us evict those who would do us harm. So I would advocate that they need a raise We need to keep what we got. We actually need more than what we have. The homeless population has just exploded around here, and our eviction rate, they can tell you, has exploded by the same amount. It's gotten crazy, and I do appreciate you guys letting us come and speak for them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Judge, we have another one that just came in, Melanie Scott.

Okay, Melanie, right here.

Good morning.

My name is Melanie Scott. I am a realtor, been in the business since 94. I'm a property manager. I'm also a landlord. And what I want to speak to y'all about is not in disregard to our sheriff's office, our police department. They do a phenomenal job. However, they're limited with their resources, just like everybody else when we need them as constables. And this is in the city limits. for evictions, for writs, for well checks. Sometimes our police department, our sheriff's department can't get to it. They have too many other duties. If you're familiar with Senate Bill 38, we have a limited number of days to serve these writs now. Our constables is who we call. We rely on them for safety, for holding things in a timely manner and getting it done. And it's not in any disregard to any of our other departments. But in Potter County, that is who they go to and they get the job done. I am very concerned that if we were to not have our constables or have less of our constables, fewer number, this wouldn't be happening. And investors in Amarillo, people from all over, I can't tell you, California, Utah, Montana, I have investors that invest in Amarillo because they respect the law enforcement that we have, They respect that they can get these people out in a timely manner. They respect that things are done safely and we're on top of it. I'm afraid if you reduce the number of constables, that is not going to be the case. And we're going to be in a position where Senate Bill 38, we're going to be refiling and refiling and refiling. And that's just because the manpower is not there. We have more population outside of the city limits now that our sheriffs are responsible for. We see them patrolling. They're doing a great job. They're at the schools. The fire department, that's another one. They're out and they're busy, and it's because our populations have grown by leaps and bounds, and it's not stopping. So my plea to you is to really consider our constable's positions and understand what their duties are. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Good morning, Commissioners. I told you all at the last budget meeting that I would have an update for you. So we had our TIDC quarterly meeting. And we received word on Friday, so it was not an agenda item. I will bring this and put it as an agenda item coming forward. But we were granted $341,804 as a county offset for this coming fiscal year. now that will be divided up amongst our six counties by the same percentage of the budget that each county puts in and just so that anyway i'm aware brandon the april 13th vote on our budget is still intact as was correct yes okay but how but i'm how does this offset affect your budget It doesn't. It just increases the amount that TIDC will reimburse Potter County by $341,000.

So you're not talking about additional expenditures?

No, I'm not talking about additional expenditures. I just told the court that I would update them, and I will set this for another agenda item for y'all approval if y'all want that money.

Thank you, guys.

Anybody else? All right. So, Brandon, let's continue on with the... We'll come back to all that. I'm not asking for anything. We're going to go... David, can you... We're going to go office by office. I asked for a 2% COLA. That's all I ask.

Correct. So, like We said last time there's really no changes here, and there's just the 2% COLA. The same thing for the commissioners. There's just 2% COLA. Nobody wanted anything additional. Human resources, it's the same as last time. I... IT budget? I did check, or at least I pulled it up. I haven't had a chance to double check, Julie. Yes, the TAC website's already included. No, it was in here for $6,000. So we would need an additional $7,000 added to the IT budget.

I'm sorry, Brandon. Did we get added those Azure licenses from the last quarter?

We did that last time, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Do you want me to keep a running tally of things that you all want to add and do one motion at the end, or how do you all want to handle that?

I think maybe the running tally, and then we can decide. I didn't know we were going to just go over every step of it today.

Well, I thought you just said now we're going to go over every line item.

No, I don't want to do that. We've already done that. Okay.

I thought that's what you had said, so I...

I mean, I want to know what you wanted to do because you put this together. So do you want to do that again or no?

No, no, that's typically not what I would recommend in this situation. And it's not normally what we do at this. Normally what at the second meeting is we resolve any discrepancies from the first meeting where there were – People who wanted to advocate again, give them another chance. Things of that nature is usually what happens at our second meeting because we've spent the entire day discussing this last time. And so going back to my point, my point really was in terms of operational items, That was, you know, if they asked for it, they pretty much got it. And so I didn't think we needed a really long discussion today about going through the operational line items again unless there's something somebody from the court wanted to bring up. I do know last time there was some discussion about the... TRAVEL AND EDUCATION FOR A COUPLE OF DEPARTMENTS. I THINK THE TAX OFFICE WAS ONE THAT WAS NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT IT, IF MAYBE THEY COULD TALK ABOUT IT. THAT WOULD BE ONE LINE ITEM THAT I DO RECALL THAT WAS KIND OF OPEN-ENDED. THERE WAS A $6,000 INCREASE FROM $11,000 TO $17,000 THAT MISS MCCOFFEY, YOU HAD WANTED TO BRING BACK. Did you all want to go ahead and talk about that? I'm happy to do that.

Morning, Judge, Commissioners. Hope you all are having a wonderful Monday. It's been a lot of fun. Too late for that. Yes, ma'am. So our proposal, I think you've seen, we tried to make several reductions in line items this year because in our meeting with the judge, she said something that kind of stuck with me. She said, you know, if you want something, you're going to have to give something back. And we're really aware of that. And so we tried to give back. We are kind of, unfortunately, at the mercy of the increases on our postage and our stationery and supplies. And so we weren't able to produce quite as much as we wanted. But the only thing that we're asking for that is kind of a want more than a need is the increase in in our education travel budget the primary reason we wanted to do that as we wanted to send a couple of our bookkeepers to the property tax conference that's going to be held later this year but that was primarily it the other thing is we'd like to have the flexibility to reimburse mileage for some of our staff when they go out and inspect properties for the sheriff sales but that's primarily the reason if the court would feel more comfortable with a lower number we could maybe massage our budget a little bit to make a lower number work we just want the flexibility to be able to provide more opportunities for education for our staff and to reimburse them when they go out to inspect properties So I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Well, I'd certainly be interested in what you'd be willing to lower to. I don't know. What are we at right now? We're at 6 point what tax increase, Brandon? It's about 6.1 and a half. And so, well, $6,000 isn't going to do really anything. I also think that other people have asked for things and we've said no. Sure. And that stayed in there and I had some questions about it. So Would you be happy with a $2,000 increase? Would that work? Will that get your training so we give you two and take four?

I was actually going to suggest cutting it by half, so whatever the court's interest would be.

Well, certainly you can send two people $1,000 apiece.

I think we probably could. It would still provide some difficulties on reimbursing the mileage, but I think that we could definitely make the tax conference work with two.

If you want that in a motion, I'll make that. Do we reduce that amount by $2,000?

I didn't answer the question.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I fooled you. Thank you.

tell the public what they're going to get for your two thousand dollars as far as uh what we specifically intend to do with that well you'll send them to conference right yes sir what are we going to get from that so we want to get more training on the property tax law for our staff particularly as it seems like it's kind of a moving target every year you know things get changed in the legislative sessions and then they don't go into effect maybe a year or two later on a lot of the property tax stuff. So we just want people in our office who are knowledgeable about those things because having people in our office who are knowledgeable about the changing field of property taxes and the law and the mechanisms that we have to work with means that that's less time that we have to waste going out and acquiring that knowledge after the fact or having to bother the county attorney's office for opinions or having to bother uh purdue brandon for opinions so having that knowledge in our office i think is helpful does that answer your question yes sir yes you have any other questions i'd be happy to answer all right thank you you know i think it's good to allow

The department has elected officials to send their employees to training. It also kind of breaks up the monotony of the job. I benefited from that. I think most people would. And so my motion is to reduce his ask for training and budget from $6,000 to $2,000. So reduce it by $4,000. It went from $11,000 to $17,000. So if you want to reduce it by $2,000 from his ask, you would reduce it from $17,000 to $15,000.

or if you want to only give him an additional $2,000, you would go from $11,000 to $13,000.

Then my motion is for him to have $13,000 for his training budget.

$13,000 total? Is that what you said?

That's the number that's correct, right?

Yes, $13,000. If you're wanting to give him $2,000 more than last year, then yes, the correct number is $13,000.

Mr. Warren, would that help you? Where'd he go? Yeah, there you are. Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Passes. All? Yeah. Passes five as a rule. Okay. Anybody else?

Would you all like to go ahead and vote on the TAC website since what we had in the budget was for $6,000 and what was on the agenda today was for $13,200? We would need that increase into the ITS budget as well.

Can you explain why that is? Let's talk about it one more time. Explain that again.

Why did it increase? We're on the DOJ.

In 2027, we have to be ADA compliant on our website. They extended that from this year. And so TAC's just offering some different services. I can almost guarantee you if you went out to somebody like Civic Plus and those other ones, you're going to be paying a lot more than $13,200 for the website.

So the increase is from $6,000 to $13,000?

Yes, yes. And all counties that have the TaxSara website, they're facing this challenge as well. And there have been some counties that have actually gone out to other vendors and they're coming back to tax.

I would say the tech has been a good partner in terms for pricing compared to the open market and things that I've seen. So they are a, a not-for-profit entity, and I think that gives them an advantage in terms of they're not trying to, they don't have investors that they're trying to increase their investment on. They're simply an entity that tries to help Texas counties And so I'm not advocating for them, but in terms of pricing, I would say that that's a reasonable thing to assume that if you're getting your service from a nonprofit entity, it's probably going to be cheaper than going out on the open market.

Do you need a motion for that?

Yes. Mike? Just because we need an additional $7,200 in the budget for the ITs. Let me give you the exact name.

While he's looking at up to the same question, what are the constituents in Potter County going to get for this?

A website that's easily accessible. I think that we do a really good job of keeping everything up to date. It's easier to use than it was whenever we first migrated over to this particular website. We pared it down from hundreds of pages down to what we currently have now, so just the ease of access. Um, and everybody that the great thing about the tech website is that, um, I'm the, you know, Courtney and I are the administrator on our page. I'm the administrator for the whole county, um, county attorney's offices, their administrator, you know, whoever else wants to be the administrator for their webpage. So they actually get to maintain that and have it look how they want instead of having just a, um, or, or putting out there what they want instead of having, um, to rely on somebody else. And it's Texas-based, too. I'll have to put that out there. We currently have a system right now that we try to talk to people, and they're not within this country. So it is interesting to have a Texas-based website owner.

What's the increase again? What's the number?

The number that you'll need to vote is to increase the IT department's software maintenance account from $705,585 to $712,785. What's the actual number for this? What was it, $6,000 or something? $7,200 is the increase. I'll make that motion.

Okay. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor raise your hand.

I feel like we're slowly making that tax rate go up. Okay, I have two more people that want to speak.

So there was some questions about my car, like $5,000 difference from mine in Constable Ford. I round it up because I always look, well, you know, it's coming fully rigged, but there's other things that have to be done. I'm assuming the Sheriff's Office will be able to do those things. So that's $5,000. Do you put mine equal to what Constable Jackson's vehicle is? Was there a $5,000 debt? Yes. Yeah, just take that out and put it equal to what hers is. I think with a new car, if I get it. It'll be covered under warranty and I won't have to spend anything. The big problem is my car's having problems again, so I'll make it last. So if that'll help out any, $5,000.

What kind of problems does it have?

I don't know. I was serving paper Saturday, and it threw a check engine light and died in the middle of an intersection. But it started back up. There's $5,000 to help out that you can take off the mine.

Okay. This will come out of the capital outlay for the constable. constable one and it will go from 96,000 to 91,000 and the reduction is $5,000 and that will put it in line with constable floors purchase you need a motion on that yes all changes need a motion I move to approve that that's presented second

All right, I have a couple more people. Tiffany Billflower wants to speak. Tiffany, come on up. Or come on down, whatever. How are you today, ma'am? Good.

How are you guys this morning? I came in a little bit late and trying to play a little bit of catch up of what's going on as far as constables go. So I really just have a basic thing to say. The work that they do for me as a property manager, they help us a lot. We deal with a lot of interesting characters. um in property management with some tenants and the way that they respond to evictions and things like that and i can say these constables have had our back and helped me with some pretty unique situations and i'm just really grateful for the work that they do i don't know if our community really understands what they have to deal with day in and day out and some of the videos that i've seen with houses that they've had to go in and clear out and things are Worse than some of the ones that I've seen. So I just really want to say how much I respect our constables. And I think the work that they do is immeasurable. And I could not do the things that they do. So I just really appreciate them and just wanted to make sure that it's known that what they do for us as property managers, it matters. And we're just grateful for that. So thank you, guys.

Ray Greathouse. Good morning. Good morning.

It's hard to follow up after that because she pretty much said everything I was going to say. Even better, but literally two weeks ago I had a writ of possession and these two wonderful constables showed up. And the guy was very aggressive. And so as a female property manager that has to manage her own properties and a few others, it is very difficult. very well received that they show up for us. So I just want it to be known as well that they are very needed in the real estate world and property management and rentals for us because they support us getting the homes back and keeping it safe. So thank you guys for what you do.

Thank you. So where are we now, Brandon?

Judge, there was one other small item that was brought to my attention. There was a request for an increase to the awards and recognition line of 7,000, 5,000. That did not make it in the budget. Is there any consideration that you would want to increase that from the entire court?

Is that your deal, Julie? Is that your deal? It's not yours. Well, no, it's not my deal.

I think it's the Employee Appreciation Committee.

Is Brooke still here?

Yeah. They had a meeting. I wasn't at the meeting, so.

Okay, Brooke, do you mind explaining that to us? I mean, I know you want to increase, but can you tell me?

So we're wanting to go from an evening event to a daytime event, and it's my understanding that the Coors Cowboy Club won't cook for us during the day, so we're going to have to have a little bit of extra money to feed the employees. We feel like we'll have a better turnout during the day than we have in the evening. It's kind of dwindling.

Will it be a weekday?

Yeah, it'll be during lunchtime.

Who's going to cook on the log?

We'll just get sandwich, catered box lunches or whatever.

Kind of, yes.

Just an idea we're tossing around. We used to have more money in that line item, I believe, and then it got lowered.

No, it was at $5,000. $5,000. And then it got lowered to $1,000. And then it got raised back to $5,000.

So I think we're just requesting two more.

$2,000 more.

Well, that's true, but this is for the employees, and so this is something that we try to do every year to offer to the employees. You know, it's an employee appreciation dinner, so that was just something that, again, like I said, I wasn't at this meeting, but I've been on the committee for a long time, and it's just a way to show the employees that they're appreciated.

I'm also on that committee, and, you know, I... I kind of disagree with you wanting to change it from the nighttime to the daytime. I don't know that it's going to increase participation or not. Anyway, I just want to let you know that I would like to keep it during the night, in my opinion.

We just discussed that a lot of people can't come because they can't bring their children. We feel like we'd have a better turnout during the day because employees are already at work. Our offices would close for just a little while for lunch and allow them to go.

Yes.

So maybe a better opportunity for them to attend rather than an evening event.

Yeah. I get that. Okay. Okay. We need to vote on this too.

Is there a motion for changing the budget?

If you want, I mean, that's the thing. If you want to, if someone has to make a motion, I mean, at this point, any change would require a motion. Because right now it's at $5,000 and the request was $7,000. Because it did not make the budget.

All right. Do I have a motion on this? Do I have a motion? Well, that dies for lack of a motion. Sorry, Brooke. OK, what else?

David, can you unlock the screen again? I do know that there was at least a point to bring up of wanting to discuss. It was brought up to me this week to discuss the request of Constable 3 in wanting to add a position for security out at JP3.

Dennis here. He and I discussed it the other day and he says, I see, I see that you said no. And I said, yeah, because okay. So, um, if he's here, we can talk to him again, but he's not here right now. It's coming. We'll pass that one.

Does judge Jackson, do you want to talk about it?

Okay. whether it comes out of the center conference or not, I don't care. He was just saying, trying to justify the pay that he was asking for, that's why he's trying to hire me.

The next department then is the sheriff's department. I mean, that would be the... Is there any interest in entertaining this from the constable or the sheriff's department then?

We're still talking about the courthouse security? Well, I would advocate for the sheriff's office to do that. The problem is money. And if we allow a constable to hire a deputy, that deputy for courthouse security is going to make more than the constable. We've got some issues with that, but I don't think we can fix that today. I certainly wouldn't advocate for us to do that. I think besides that, the sheriff's office is responsible for courthouse security, and that's the courthouse. The sheriff got up and said he would do that. You know, you've got to find a person.

So, okay. So, Judge Jackson, do you have court every day?

We have court on average three to four times a week.

All day?

It's not for the court security. It's for the courthouse security.

It's for his office security.

Well, but the constable's required as responsible security of the courtroom. The courthouse security is responsible for the courthouse.

I know. That's why I was asking how many times.

Well, I'm sorry. I thought you were trying to see if we could do it with less manpower.

Sheriff, do you have somebody that could help out with that, or is that something for you, or no? Yes or no? So you would have to hire somebody? And what's the starting pay for a deputy? Okay, I'm going to let you all think on that, Sheriff. We're going to take a ten-minute break. All right, Brandon, I'll let you say what you're going to say.

Well, Judge, I just really wanted to actually give it back to the court. We have talked about the whole budget, and I really just would like to know if the court has any questions about the budget, anything that the court wants to bring up, rather than try to... to try to figure something out from my side. Because ultimately, this is the budget that y'all need to, um vote on and adopt so between between the the meetings we've had and the conversations and the the the last commissioner court where we have a special court and we focus today on this and and the discussions today is there any thing that the court wants to bring up any member of the court wants to bring up to be added to the budget or to take away from the budget

Yes, I'd like to bring up what we're doing with the firemen. We talked about trying to keep up or even move with the civilian market or other agencies, like how we're trying to pay the lawyers, at least keep them within a reasonable pay range. We need to desperately look at our fire department. I pulled up some numbers since we had our last meeting. Right now, starting pay for Potter County is $49,148. Randall County, which is our closest person, is $49,552. So about $404 difference. But then you start looking at Amarillo, you're looking at $13,171 difference. If you go to somebody like Lubbock, which is still within our range for where people are going to go be working for, you're looking at $20,000 difference. The fireman's job doesn't change just because you change the white letters on the truck, whether it goes from Randall County to Potter County, City of Amarillo. They're still doing the same jobs, and the hiring base of what they're doing is still the same. The fireman really hadn't gotten pay raises, per se, in a long time, even trying to keep up. And I know we can't compete with the city, but we need to keep moving that direction. Right now the city's talking about doing a 3% pay raise. So you're taking that $13,000. We're looking at maybe a 2%. They're looking at 3%. So let's bump theirs up to $14,000 difference now. And that's just the beginning. You move up to where compares to Randall County, which I don't like doing, but let's go ahead and do it just for the numbers. An assistant chief with Randall County, is making $22,094 more than we are here at Potter County. And when you're trying to replace these chiefs out here, assistant chiefs, even captains, lieutenants are making almost $10,000 more in Randall County. We're not going to be able to replace our staff when they retire or leave to go to these other places. And we're not going to be able to hire the new people to move on up in the ranks. You know, if you're a young person, 22, 23 years old, are you going to go to Potter County or are you going to go to Lubbock that's paying $20,000 more for the same job, same skills? These guys and ladies are extremely highly skilled with the training they're having to do. This isn't back in the 80s and 90s where you would just take somebody that wants to volunteer for the fire department, throw them through two weekend classes, and throw them on a truck. The training that these people have to go to now, the hours they have to work, on average, firemen's working an extra, they're working about 58-hour weeks compared to a normal person doing a 40-hour week. And we're paying a lot less than most, some even just a regular daytime job in an office. These guys and ladies are making a considerable bit less, and they're risking their lives. They're doing CPR on your grandma that's about to pass away. They're out there in the fires. The Emerald Tribune just did a great article on our Potter County Fire Department on how good they was doing on fire recently. And it was the experience that they were talking about on how well it was handled. And it could have been a lot different if we wouldn't have that experienced chief out there or assistant chief out there handling that fire. I think we should do a 5% pay raise for the fire department. And that's going to be nowhere close to even breaking even with the city. It would get us even with Randall County for the beginning firefighter. We would still be $18,000 behind on a chief, would be $1,000 behind on a captain, and would be over $6,000 behind on a lieutenant. But at least it would get the beginning person the same pay. So at least we could compete. on the beginning bottom level and move up there. There's something that's going to take multiple years to adjust. Like I said, coming up $22,000, and that's just comparing to Randall County. That's not comparing to the city or anything like that. The city would be looking at $37,000 behind when you start looking at the captain's pay. I mean, that's a whole other paycheck for a lot of people. But I think we need to look at 5%. That would take... For the general budget, it would add about $81,314. And to the CAD, it would add about $78,395 approximately. Brandon can maybe crunch the numbers better here in a minute if we do discuss this. But I think that's something we greatly need to look at. Or we're just not going to have a fire department shortly because we're not going to be able to compete. We're just going to keep falling further and further behind. OK.

Brandon, what's the current tax rate that we're at right now? What's the percent? 6.1. 6.1, I see.

We are looking at about a 6.1% tax rate increase, yes.

Okay.

So, I think... I don't remember who said it, but we're definitely not keeping up with inflation. We've got a huge tax increase we're looking at. But if we were, right now we're getting a 2% across the board, what would a 3% mean? What would that be?

I don't. know if you could even do a three percent across the board at this point right now um well okay let me let me phrase everything properly when you're talking about um the various um no new revenue rate the voter approval rate and the voter approval rate with unused increment you know our our voter approval rate with with the unused increment with all of our unused increment is about 6.8 percent effective And so that is only about another $479,000 that you can go up to without, from where you currently are. without triggering an election. And so you could go above that voter approval rate, but you would need to hold an election to do it. And so historically, we haven't ever gotten to that point. but it is within the court's prerogative to do that. The mechanics of it, I'll be honest, since we haven't done it before, I don't know what the next steps of actually holding the election and all the... It's in statute, so it's obviously something that you can do, but it is something we would need to consider that you'd have to take it to the taxpayer.

Well, the reason I ask that is because I understand that the... Randall County, our counterpart, is giving their 2% with a 1% discretionary. And so, I mean, they're also not doing a 6% tax increase either. But, so, thanks for answering my question.

Anybody else have any remarks? What Blair was talking about? I appreciate you talking about that, but I appreciate what you guys do. Fire Department, but.

I'm just afraid if we don't do something to at least move that direction, they are going to be coming back and asking for that 30 $40,000. It may not be next year, but it's going to be very soon. We're not even. We're not even staying close, even with our closest neighbor of Randall County. $22,000 difference in the same job. And the only thing we did was change an R and a P on the truck. They both still say county. And there's a big difference. The job stayed the same. The skills stayed the same. And what they're having to do with their emergency medical training, they have to require the wildland certifications, the structural certifications. It's just getting more and more each year. on their skills that they're requiring. And if we don't compensate them for their skills, knowledge, and experience, we're going to lose them to other departments and quickly. And I'm not asking to even get remotely close to the same pay, even as Randall County. I'm just asking that we move and not fall further and further behind.

Anybody have anything else to say about that?

I don't.

I understand what you're saying, Blair. I really do. I wish we could do it, but I can't do it. I cannot raise taxes. Right now it's 6.1. It's going to go up to 6.7 if we give everybody what they want. I can't do that. It's just not feasible. So, Sheriff, can you come up and tell me one more time about the person that works in my courthouse, and we could use one of those deputies to be the security at the JP3?

We're still one short in our courthouse security. We have in our budget to have two in the old courthouse. We could take that position and move that out to JP3, but we still have to find that position. So ASF does a great job over there, and I don't think he has any problems handling that kind of thing. Plus, he's right down here downtown. He could have backup pretty quick, even if somebody had to run from here over there. They've got law enforcement upstairs. If they needed to come down, they may be out running. I'm not saying that they're always up there on the floor, but they could help if they needed to. But I think we could be able to take care of that if we needed. But that just saves you by getting another person. We can move that one out there. He's got a machine out there that has been there for over a year that, Good Lord, I don't even know if it'll work. I'll have to send somebody out here to make it work. And that's their x-ray machine. It's just sitting there. And you've got to have somebody that's certified to be able to work on that or even use it.

So it's not working yet? No, it's working. Oh, okay. But they have to calibrate it and all that kind of stuff. Does it beep twice if they have a gun? Okay, so we can do that. That would give him what he needs. And that would save, I mean, we only need one at the courthouse.

And we've got. You've been running with one over there for a long time.

Yeah. So let's do that. That's one thing.

I mean, that's just another way of saving and helping you. Like I said, it's, I just think it's a good idea. But again, it's one way to take care of that. And like I said, these guys downstairs, if they needed to, they could run over there and be over pretty quick too.

All right. Judge, you okay with that? It doesn't cost us anything. Okay. All right. What else?

I mean, ultimately, my question still stands. I think it's really up to the court at this point to say if there's anything you all want to address about this year's budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Is there any way to move that 6.1 down? Is there anything that you see that you'd make a recommendation to the court that you could take something out? Maybe there's too much in a line item that there's something we're not thinking about.

Well... The only thing that I can think of that will move the needle in. And some appreciable way is. So we added $1.8 million to the to the line item and We also took, because the original presentation was going to be for there to be a Haskell contract because it really operated differently than all of our daily rate housing. And so to kind of fit that into the budget, We added the 1.8 million, which is the annualized amount for the Haskell contract. And the judge and I discussed reducing that daily rate line from the 1.2 million down to about 500,000, because the thought would be that they would probably still need some housing outside of Haskell. But where my issue is, I don't know necessarily how much because it it varies so much because the year before we were looking at almost a million dollars of of housing and you know this year to date without the haskell contract were around 500 000 so um you would think that with 50 additional people in haskell you wouldn't need the entire amount, which is why we reduced it from 1.2 million to about 500,000. There could be an opportunity to reduce this line item some because we won't need all of those contracts. But it's hard to give you a what will our future prisoner demands needs be. Because it just fluctuates so much. And so I could say that we could move maybe another $100,000 or $200,000 out of this line item. That would... You know, for every 8085,000 dollars you take out, you're looking at about. A 6.1% roughly that's a ballpark figure. So, if you, you know, you could take. If you took $100,000 out of this, you could take 0.1% out of that increase. And if you took $200,000, you'd really take about like 0.2 to 0.3, somewhere in that range.

So we could be at 6% or 5.9?

Yeah, you could be about 6% to 5.9, depending if you took... But it's a risk. It's a... I can't tell you for certain that even if we move 50 people, and I don't know, Sheriff, if you could even at this point talk, not from dollar figure, but just from numbers, how many people you need above 50 people on a monthly basis, because I know it fluctuates with the winter and with the summer. But that's, in terms of something that is going to have an appreciable impact on the budget, this number is was was a sliding scale move by by the judge and i had a meeting to facilitate the Haskell contract and offset a line item to get us to this number, I can't guarantee you that we'll spend all of it. We'll spend at least 1.8 million if we keep the Haskell contract and all 50 people. But there's somewhere about $500,000 in there that is for additional housing that we may not need. And that... That could be 200,000 we need. It could be 300,000 we need. And that would be a question that, again, I'm kind of saying the same thing over and over. But it's a variable I can't give you at this point in time in August. 500,000 is a cushion. You could push it down to 300,000. and see what we need to do next year with the budget amendment or something like that if we have to. If you're asking me what line item, this is the one because it's got some estimates that we put together.

Okay, so for the 6.1 tax increase, And what's the median value of home property that you got the sheet you put out? Give me an idea what that number is. Is it $200,000 and what the tax increase is for a $200,000?

So for the median home value, the median home value is $154,889. And that comes from Pratt. The... annualized increase for the median home value this year would be at a 6.1% effective increase would be $55.73 annually. Okay. And so if you're looking at somebody's escrow, like just to put it into if someone's making a monthly mortgage and they have to pay their property tax into escrow. At that value, the monthly increase attributable to Potter County's portion of the property taxes would be $4.64. Okay. Per year? Per month. Per month?

Because it's $55.73 annually.

Okay. That's on the $154,000 house. $154,889 because that is the median home value in Potter County.

Chair, can I ask you one more question? Are you planning on, since we're doing the Haskell contract, are you planning on keeping the contract with Desmet and Garza and everybody too?

Mm-hmm. We're not going to do away with those, but we don't have to pay for anything.

Okay. That's what I thought.

We would try to fill as many of those beds in Haskell as possible. Yeah. Okay. And just depending on this, we would like to use that for our TDC ones because once we get them there, they take them on to TDC. So we don't have to worry about that. Okay. I didn't look to see what the number was, but it was like 36 last week that we had that were paper-ready, but we had another 67 waiting.

What is the usual wait time for them to come get them?

Well, they have 45 days to come pick them up.

45 days.

They're pretty good about moving them out. But we're the hub for the panhandle, too. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Anybody else have anything they want to say? So Brandon, what do you want to do? Put everything together and have another meeting?

Say that one more time.

Put everything together and have another meeting tomorrow?

Or do you want to do it today?

Do you want to do it all today?

Well, I mean, the traditional route that we do is... Again, the roadmap would be is historically we've voted to adopt the budget at this meeting. If the court is ready to, unless the court is ready to make any other changes or wants to consider anything, I mean, the only other thing that I would say, and Commissioner Coffey, you brought this up at the last meeting, you know there's there's some cleanup costs that are not included in this budget and they're not included in last year's budget I don't know if we even have specifications yet of any idea of what that cost If we're looking at a large number, that would need to come out of the county contingency is my suggestion, or not contingency, but that we have a cleanup line item already prepared to take care of anything that would come up and that would just need to come out of fund balance because it's a one-time emergency expenditure. You wouldn't want to affect the tax rate on that. Okay. But the problem with that is I still don't have any idea what that is going to cost.

I can't make any movement until after that 9-1 deadline because that's where we're going to have all the piles that are going to be removed. That's when our deadline is. So I can't even have anybody give us an estimate until that deadline comes and goes so we know. And OEM is going to go mark the piles. From there, we can move forward, but I can't have any movement on that until after that deadline comes and goes.

So if we were to adopt the 6.1 budget today, we still have money in fund balance.

Yeah, but you have to have it on a line item to spend, is my point. And so just because you have the, you know, you have $45 million left at the end of the year, you can't spend any of it if you don't have an appropriated line item. And so my suggestion is before we adopt the budget that we have some kind of number there because once you lock that in, we're, I mean, i'm just saying if cleanup costs a million dollars and you ask me where it's going to come from i'm not going to be able to tell i'm i'm not going to be able to pull that number out of thin air because our county contingency you need a motion to approve the additional line it would need to be an additional line item to take to i would i would say you know that you need a motion for a certain amount of money to cover some some cleanup out in the county related to the to the stinky fire and it would be a new line item that would be created and you need to do it now not not after the budgets adopted so what what would you propose 500,000 or a million I would propose, because it's going to come out of fund balance anyways, that you just put a million dollars there and if you don't spend it, you don't spend it. It doesn't affect your tax rate calculation. It literally just allows you to pull from your savings for what you need. My, I guess my only concern is that if, if, if it ends up even being more than that, I mean, I know we've, we've, there, there's, there are some concerns about some, some hazmat material and is what could drive the price up on that. And that's why I was, I was hopeful by this meeting, we would have some kind of, of, of what am I trying to say? All park figure estimate and, And so that's the only other, I guess, big item is that, well, you know, if we're going to have to be responsible for this, we really do need some kind of line item to take care of the cleanup out of fund balance. And we need that in the budget before you adopt it.

Does y'all make that motion? Okay. I move that we take $1 million out of fund balance and add it to the line item in the budget for this year for cleanup for the Stinky Fire.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed? That passes 5-0.

Jackson, do you think there's any way that because of the ongoing investigation that they... City, maybe not the best time to talk about this. If it's not, I'm happy with you saying we'll talk about it later. But for us to recover any of these funds, obviously the...

It's a possibility, but it would just be speculating at this point. It is probably something better if there's a claim that we take that up in executive session. Okay. So right now, we have the proposed budget. To keep the ball moving forward, we need to adopt it today. I think that's Brandon's goal. And so we can either vote on it, or if there are other changes that the court wants to discuss, we can take those out.

Do you have a motion to accept the proposed budget, 6.1?

Is that correct? The number, the budgeted amount would be $94,901,273. Do that again. $94,901,273. Is that your motion, Commissioner?

That's my motion.

Say it one more time. Say yes, please.

I move that we accept the budget. $94,901,273. Okay.

Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Raise your hand. Passes 5-0.

All right. The second... The item would be to propose a property tax rate. Again, we're going to have three meetings, and so the property tax rate is going to be... I would like you to propose a M&O rate I'm going to ask you to propose three numbers. A maintenance and operations rate of 0.58590. Say that again. 0.58590. Okay. A debt service rate of 0.0390. 6, 7, 8. What was the M&O? 0.58590. You said 90. Yes, sir. And then the tax rate, the total tax rate is just the sum of those two, and it's .62268.

Okay, gentlemen, I need a motion on that.

I move to approve the proposed maintenance rate at .5. 8, 5, 9, 3 M and O rate at 0.5, 8, 5, 9, 0 debt service rate at 0.0, 3, 6, 7, 8 for effective tax rate at 0.6, 2, 6, 2, 8.

Uh, correction. That's 0.6, 2, 2, 6, 8. One more time.

6, 2, 2, 6, 8. Oh, sorry. 6, 2, 2, 6, 8 tax rate.

I just want to make sure that we got this for the record. So your motion was to approve the M&O at .58590, debt service .03678 for a total tax rate of .62268. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Did you want the M&O? Is that the?

Yeah, I got the M&O.

Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Opposed, and that passes.

OK. The next thing that we have to do is just announce that we have to set the date, time, and place for the public hearing on the tax rate, the tax increase, and then set the date, time, and place to vote on the tax rate. And we typically both do these at the same meeting. That would be September 14th, Commissioner Court, at 9 a.m. If you do not vote at the public hearing that we hold to have the tax rate, we would have to repost the meeting. So just be aware.

Okay. Is there anything else we need to do today, Brandon?

Nope. That's all I had. Okay.

So if we're done, we're done. We are adjourned.