County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

moving. Who wants to lead off here? Bill, Mr. Chapley.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so it's come around again. It's time for us to to launch into the uh the the budget cycle for this next fiscal year. And um you know what one of the things we're we've taken some money from the fund balance to to try you know, we will be taking some money from the fund balance for the transfer station. So we need to to bear that in mind that we don't want to raid that transfer I mean the that fund balance to any degree that that changes our um financial status as far as what we have in in the s in savings. So we need to be careful there because we've taken like we'll be taking like you all know a million and a half out of that fund balance for the transfer station. Um, and that's our number one priority from our standpoint is the transfer station. Ball fields very important. You know, something we're we're progressing along in. And we need to make sure that we uh have the money to be able to to do what we have set as our goal for this upcoming year in the ball fields arena. We're also very interested in the um the auditorium and trying to improve the HVAC system in the auditorium in the elementary school so that we can um it can be a place where we have events, concerts, plays, different activities and it holds I'm not sure exactly how many people but

do you know Timmy is it like 700 or 700? Yeah.

Yeah. And uh we are very interested in in working uh studiously on the whole concept of tiny homes um village or or villages and we want to continue to explore that and um I think there's some opportunities at the state level for some support for the tiny homes concept that I'll be fleshing out for you over the course of the year. We're just beginning to look into that that situation. Um we've also looked quite a bit into the whole recycling arena and kind of included that in our in the transfer station um approach. We think recycling not only is good for the environment, but it also reduces the weight that would be in the uh that we're transferring to other counties because glass being one of the heaviest of all the materials if not the heaviest.

Yeah. That shingles.

Yeah. That's being transferred to other areas. So, if we can re utilize the glass locally and not have to ship it out, we we think that we might be able to reduce the amount that's being shipped out by as much as 20%. Uh, so recycling takes care of two things for us. It helps reduce our our cost of dealing with with trash, but it also is good for the environment. So, those are the those are the major things that we're looking at in this upcoming fiscal year. And uh just wanted to set it set set the stage for you there and um and then let you all ask any questions that you would like to ask as we go into the into this next cycle.

Let's let's uh touch base a little bit on the cutbacks that we think is coming. Okay. That is that's going to affect our Yeah. one of the two of the areas that we really need to be uh cautious about um from a state and federal funding standpoint and we've been getting like warning signals from both of these areas. Social services and the health department just reached out to us uh today. I don't know uh Bobby if you if they've interacted with you but looks like there's some pretty significant cuts Yeah.

are going to occur at the health department. So we we need to we need to look into those and dig into that as quickly as possible because it could be very substantial amount of money that's being cut from the health department and from social services that we'll be asked to help fill in and fill in those gaps there. But that might be the for from me personally and I think maybe from our team standpoint that's probably the biggest concern as far as unexpected expense coming in and we're trying to make it into expected as much as we can and the only way to do that is to get more information from the from the state and from the federal government on what this actually means. But we're getting a lot of warning from the governor's office that we need to be alert to cuts that that are on the horizon here. I don't think any absolute final decisions have been made, but you know, we're looking at several hundred,000 that could be lost to these two agencies uh that they'll be asking us to try to make up. Um, I'm sure there's other agencies that are funded by the state and federal government that uh are going to see some cuts. So, we'll see others come to us about those issues, but in those two cases, it's a substant it could be a very substantial amount of money.

Is that a a timeline? I mean, our budget starts here before too long. Is there a timeline that they're dealing? Uh we're we're trying to get the information from them, but everything seems to be on a state level kind of hung up. Um I'm not sure. I mean, we got a social services and board member and a and a health department board member. I don't know what you're hearing in your meetings with them. They can't they pass along information, but until they do a budget,

we don't know. You know, they say, "Well, it could be this, it could be that." these couple times we've seen food and nutrition's big but at the same time everything we've seen in social service so far is not horrible but it will be there will be some changes they won't get as much money as they have been it looked really bad at the beginning of the first that's that's what happened they started passing out this information but it's not confirmed and so it keeps changing right until they pass a budget it's going to be hard for us to target it too and hope to goodness Well, this will be the short session in state, right, this year? I think so.

Hope to goodness that we'll get something nailed down so the counties will know what they have to expect. Now, health department has a request. Go ahead. What what's happening at the health department is all these may that maybe cut and the way that it's gone this past year, it looks like some of these are going to be substantial cuts.

Yep. But until the state and the federal government, you know, come up with their budget at at the best, I think that we ought to look at the worstc case scenario. And if that doesn't come to pass, then we can put some money back possibly. But with what they're projecting, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yep. And that affects, you know, three counties. And us being the smallest, we would get hit the hardest.

And the health department that is required by the state statute to have a health department. And fortunately, we're in with two other counties, and Lata, Ash, and Alabama share that. But uh it it's been a a concern and what concerns our board is is this unknown factor of not knowing when the state's going to make their decision. Yeah. And when the federal government's going to make their decision,

right? Well, in response to the request from the health department, uh Lisa is setting up a meeting that would include um we're going to have Rita as part of the financial review in this fiscal year. So, Rita and April and myself and uh our two representatives from the board. Uh we're asking you all you you all to participate in a meeting with uh uh is it Janine? Jennifer Jennifer

Jennifer and her team uh for them to tell us what they know about they've about where things stand at this moment. So we're setting that meeting up as soon as we possibly can to we probably need to do the same thing with social services if she has enough additional information to give us a heads up on what's what the worst case scenario could be. Yeah. One one of the one of the concerns that the health department has is, you know, we're trying to get a budget pretty well together. So, we're asking them

to just sort of guess what's going to happen, right? And because of our timeline, so you know it, you know, you you could we could be in June or July before the state I know, right? And notoriously the states been September and October before they have a final budget, but you operate on last year's uh budget. Yeah. So, you know, that's what complicates things.

Yeah. Sure does. So, we've got we've got quite a task ahead of us. We're going to have to be monitoring and making sure that we are keeping up. It looks like the governor's office is going to be sending us regular updates on what's happening. I'm getting them now about every every two weeks. Uh, and I'll be glad to share those with the with the full board now that we're getting into the budget cycle. So I think that is going to that's probably the biggest issue that we have going into this upcoming fiscal year is the budgets for the for social services and the health department. Well, we just want to take each one we got list here that's discuss talk about transfer station. We're I guess close to being able to send out for bids. We are um matter of fact I have I have the proposal here that um they have sent to us to look over with some questions uh highlighted in this. So we're going to be over the next few days we're going to be going through this and and answering these questions for TRC so that we can get this um bid out this proposal for bid out. Uh that way we can we can carry on with with that. That's that's like a I don't know how many pages it is, but it's quite extensive. But um we'll be going through that in a a few days and and get that nailed down so we can get that back to Wendy and they can get that put out. So um we're looking at at um other avenues of for funding and and different things. So uh as Bill said, we're looking at recycling heavy um we're trying to reduce cost. So, we also have that'll

come back up at the next board meeting the uh a bid from Republic for waste disposal and transportation. So, with that, it's it's going to be um more than what it was the last time. So, we're having to pay more to have it transported, having to pay more to have it disposed of. So, we're trying to cut costs and uh look at all kind of avenues. April, April's been really instrumental in in working on some of this and Sam and all all our team, Rita and Lisa and Bill, we've all been putting our heads together and brainstorming, trying to figure out what we can do and how we can get that accomplished. So,

is that transfer is that a yearby-year basis? It's a fiveyear. So, we haven't done one in five years. Mhm.

And one of the things that we're hoping, no guarantee on this that will happen is, you know, we've Rael's been like all over seeking out grants for us. And these guys have put together some of the grants were imminent when she came on board. And so it took a lot of work to try to get all the data that was needed in order to apply. and we've not missed a single one due to these guys to her telling us precisely what she needs and then these guys responding to it and and getting it out. So, let's keep our fingers crossed. These are substantial grants. You know, most of them are over over a million dollars. So, um that would be a great help to us coming into this this upcoming year. Take away additional expenses that the taxpayers would have to do rather than and do this through with through grants. Yes, sir. on the transfer facility. I think it might be good for the public to know how that is funded. That is it's funded by itself. It's a proprietary fund. So if David or April want or you want to explain how that how the money comes in that runs the transfer station uh aside from aborn taxes that it's supposed to be able to fund itself.

Would you like that presentation now? Well I mean a brief rundown on how that happens.

Yeah. Okay. Um, well, first of all, it's an enterprise fund and that is heavily regulated by the state of North Carolina with general statutes. It is just like a small business. So, the revenue has to match our expenses somehow. So, at the end of the year, um, I know he was talking about the disposal contract and the transportation. um we need a fund balance with that fund because most of the time at the end of the year with the transfer facility uh disposal comes in over our projected expenditure. So it is an enterprise fund. It runs just like a small business. So on the revenue side, we do have the residential solid waste availability fee. And I'm going to look at Rita because we've been having these discussions about the different fees and and what where we need to move forward with these fees. And then we have a commercial tonnage fee, a user fee for the commercial. The commercial $75 per ton and that's part of our revenue. And the residential is $98 per improved property. Just residential, right, Rita? Okay. Takes a team here. So and that and that is our two main revenue sources with transfer facility. Now there are some other things that come from like department of revenue. We have a solid waste fee. We have a scrap metal. We have scrap metal that we actually sell.

Scrap metal. We have um they send money in for scrap tires. Um white goods tax that comes back. um we do all of that and we we um charge for um brush and debris because that cost us to get it removed and and ground up. So with that um as they as they come in for um uh deceased um farm animals, all that that comes in as they go out, we have a charge for most everything. And then um some things that we um we look at is being able to take like right now for Valentine's, they're killing us with cardboard. We've got cardboard that's coming in like crazy right now, but the bottoms fell out of cardboard. So it's not bringing a lot. But um irregardless, we've got it to get rid of. So it's not going in the recycling center. So, um, with that, we we work very hard in trying to do that and and getting things. We we entered one today. So, that was the second one that we had that was an invoice for that. But, um, all that all that comes in has as as April said, it has to to match or be better than we have to have a balanced budget.

The bottom line, we just got to have a balance balanced budget. And the last time for the residential uh the fee right now is $98. Yes. Yeah. And we've had that fee for several several years. Several years. And Rita can probably tell us exactly how many. I can't tell you exactly seven years. Yeah. Yeah. So that fee hasn't increased. No. In a long time. No, it hasn't. But to break even, we have to look at all the income that comes in versus our expenses. Yep. Correct.

And do we ever take money out of our fund balance to help the uh transfer station? Now, we haven't the past five years other than the one and a half million allocation that's going to help improve and rebuild that trans the transfer facility. That's the first time I know in five years that we've taken anything out of the general fund. So, how does that make it where it's self-supporting if we're having to subsidize it? That's a capital improvement that the countyy's got to do for that critical infrastructure.

That that's the reason we can do that. We're we're getting ready to have major capital improvements. I just, you know, the only complaints really I hear about at the transfer station is having to pay for these tires that come in. A lot of people don't understand if you got one vehicle, you got four tires, you can bring in so many a year, but there's a lot of people that sometimes bring in a pickup load of tires, you know, and have maybe I don't know how they check that when they come in to the transfer station,

right? So, um, the public is able to bring in five tires a year per vehicle free of charge. The sixth tire you have to pay the $2 for. Um those people that's bringing in large amounts of tires is those dealers that are um operating in the Alageney County and they have the proper paperwork for the state to be able to do that and bring those tires in. So with that, we we um we never break even on the tires, but we are able to uh twice a year uh apply for grants for um scrap tire disposal, and we are able to recoup some of that money. So, but but they pay for the disposal fee when they buy their tires and and that's they're they're paying for the for the six, but the state allows them five.

Yeah. But when you buy a tire, you pay that tax. And if you have more tires than four per vehicle, then you pay another fee to get rid of them. Well, after the fifth one. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. After five. Yeah. A lot of people just don't understand that, right? Yeah. What is that fee after five? $2 a tire. That's I get a lot of questions about a lot of the a lot of the farmers. They've got these tires laying around old bumper silos. All the dairies are out of business and they're looking for a way to get rid of them. But that's a lot of tires.

Well, when when you when you look at at those things and all the tires that come in and goes to New River Tire Recycling has to be clean loads. If it's not clean loads, then they charge us about twice to per ton. And they they just they just have went up. So I think March the 1st will be the the increase in it for $135 a ton for tires now. So we've got an increase coming. And with that, they will they will charge us additional money for tires that are not clean because the weight of it. There's there's dirt, there's there's mud, there's water, sand, all those things that's in those tires. and they really don't like taking them, but they will.

How much does How much does the state lack of charging enough to get rid of these tires? When you buy a new set of charge, you speak $2. It still is. Yeah, it's $2. Is it still $2? Yeah. So, the state's lacking on that end as far as charging up to um Yeah. Rid of them. About 10,000 a year. Well, go back to the recycling. How much it going to cost us to start recycling glass and stuff? Um, if we can if if we can get the grant that we're working on right now. Rael is working on a grant uh to get that. And actually, I think that grant submitted already. And um

that'll be a $5 million grant. So with that money is what we're going to use for startup for some of this stuff that we're going to be doing like glass and shingles and buy our own tub grinder and doing our own things for that to cut down on the amount of waste that goes in the waist stream that we send to Kova County. So if we can get that grant that's that's that's going to be the key. We're not going to be able to afford these things if we don't get the grant. But we'll we'll still we have a glass crusher already. So, we can we can crush the glass and we can dispose of the glass. We can we can get rid of it for recycling, but we want to do it um we have a process that we are interested in to produce glass mulch so that we can um bring the glass in. people has somewhere to take their bottles and and jars and things and then we recycle them into glass mulch with a tumbler to smooth the edges and then we can sell the mulch. So, we're looking at at not just avenues of trying to reduce the waist stream, but we're also looking at avenues to try to bring in a little more revenue, too. But it's all it's all going to stem on whether we get this grant or not. Um, and in the first grant that we received uh a couple of months ago, we do have the tumbler incorporated in that grant. Now, the tumblers, I believe the cost was around $41,000.

Like David said, we already have a glass crusher out there, and the guys are going to get it hooked up. We're we're actually collecting some glass now and they're going to get it hooked up and make sure that it's working properly and what that looks like when we get get that process going before we do anything with the tumbler. Any other questions on the recycling? On the commercial fee? Yes. Tonnage fee? Right now at this moment, dollar for dollar, it pays for itself, right? Yeah.

$75 a ton. But if it goes up like you're talking about like the transport and always and the the fee goes up then that will be that could change that. It could change that. Yes. Do we know the increase we're going to get in March? Um the bid the bid for that is uh 6250 plus $2 solid waste tax which would make it 64.50 50 and then they have incorporated in at a 5% increase for an annual cost. Okay.

I got a fund balance question going back to the fund balance. Last meeting I guess whenever Scott was here doing our fund balance and it was in the mid40s. Yes. had come from 645 to the mid-40s because just so everybody understands that just because the county has to front the money for the school, right? That is You want to explain that? Yeah. We put the money up front.

Yes. We're we're up fronting all the bills for the new high school project. So part of that was a timing thing and part of it is the debt that the county took on for the new high school. So, yes, that fund balance will go back up, but we're having to rotate that money in finance to be able to upfront because we're getting significant bills in now for the high school project. They're not 60,000 to $90,000 bills. We're getting $6.3 million bills. We're getting significant bills in. And it's it's pretty much a six-w week turnaround for uh Missy and Sid to get the bills approved to get them to us. We pay the bills. We we reconcile everything on our side and do the reporting, send it to DPI. Um it goes through a process with them to make sure everything is balanced and then they will turn around and get our money back to us. And it is a good six week process. Did they get all the grant money for the school?

That's that's the process that I'm talking about. We got approved for all of that, didn't it? Yeah, they got approved for uh it's 59 million and the rest of the project is a $6.8 million loan that the county took on. But when our money comes back in that fund balance, we got to rotate this. It will be back to 63 or four at the end of the project. Yes. Right. Right. 2028. Yeah. They said a three-year project. So, we started December of 24, I believe. Well, I think it was October 28th. That

20 first phase. Well, it's 20 months from that's a year ago this past December. So, 20 months is the first phase. Yeah. He said the whole thing go October 28th. Okay. Good. Moving on down. Any more questions on transfer? Anybody? Moving on down next to ball fields. Where where we at on the ball field project? Well, we Go ahead, David.

So, with the ball fields, of course, we had the survey done. We've got the lean lifted from that portion of property for Sparta School. um we have been in the process and that RFQ is ready to go out for professional design for those ball fields. So that is uh in process and uh we'll be sending it out shortly. Um past that then we'll have to we when that comes back in then we'll go to the next step which is be the design and then make get all that approved and then we'll go to um contractors and put out an RFP to get that accomplished. So, um, with that and if if anything else that you want to add, of course, certainly. But, um, that that process is is in in the works and we're staying right on top of it.

Anybody anything? I have a couple of questions on on the finance part. The money that we appropriated in this fiscal year, is that is that can that carry over into the next fiscal year if we haven't spent the money? It would just be a budgeting process. Yes.

Okay. Any other questions? Is the grant writer she working on anything for the ball fields grant wise? Yes. Thought she was. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Auditorium. Actually, the I don't want to jinx it, but she thinks that one we have a pretty pretty good chance of. That's good. Hope she's right. Auditorium Sparta High School auditorium.

So, the auditorium, um, we've been working on the RFP with that. Sam has, uh, been working with me on that to I got him the information. He's putting that together and that RFP is just before being ready to be sent out to or actually, yeah, that' been RFP. That's to uh what does that consist of?

That will consist of putting in a new heating system in the auditorium. Um there is some money there, but that money that was set aside in the auditorium was for seating. And all of that money has not yet been spent. So, they're still looking at still replacing some of the seating in there. But we're we're looking at hopefully going in uh thirds with the TDA and the school system and being able to put this new heating system in for that. There'll be two two uh heat sources that will be installed there in in that auditorium. You're doing AC too.

Yeah, heat and AC. Yeah, it's heat and AC. And um Rael is actually I think she's looking for a grant possibly to help with that, too. So, um, we'll see what happens with that, but we're very close with that RFP on the the seating for the auditorium. That's $25,000. That's what was set aside. That was a donation from Mr. Joint. And that's been sitting there for at least six years, right?

And not been used. And when that project was proposed, the friends of the auditorium and the school system at that time was looking at the state prisoners to build the seats. Now, it's been a long time. I don't know if they still do that, but that was one of the one of the reasons that uh Mr. Jones put that money in there. Yeah. So I I don't know if that's still a possibility or not.

Well, we know that that money is still there. Um so Sid and I have talked about that and in the process of getting this heating system and cooling heating and cooling system put in. Um they are going to look at replacing the rest of or as much as they can with that money that is there in replacing those seat those seats that's existing there now. Well, that was the seats that were just had cushions. It wasn't the seats. It were all hardwood, right? Yeah. But that money is specifically for the seats.

Yeah. And we're we're looking at incorporating that in this process, too. So, when the construction's going on for this new system, we're looking at going ahead and and taking care of that at the same time. So, it's all done in one motion. Yeah. Bobby, wasn't they buying cushions to go in them seats? The what? Wasn't they proposing to buy cushions to go? They were going to rebuild the whole seat. The whole seat? Yeah. Each indiv individual seat for some reason $35 sticks in my mind. But that's like I say five or six years ago. But it wasn't just for cushions. It was to replace the whole the hardware and everything.

The water to one add a lot of lot to the county. There's a lot of history out there and and I don't know exact number used to hold up towards a thousand. I think they've used a little bit of the space like 900 or something like that. Still 9. That's the biggest 68 968 maybe something like that. That would be a great great asset county to get that where we use it. Anybody else got any questions on the auditorium? All right. Excuse me. Next up is the tiny homes bill. That's your department. Well, the tiny homes piece we've been exploring for probably what two or three months so far.

Yeah.

Um three concepts, you know. One is um concept of having home, small homes for uh elderly adults that are not on uh needing to be in like a nursing home that they would want to be within a community of folks in the same age group as them with a uh a kind of a centralized health care type facility that could be available to them should they need it and a central place for people to have meals if they wanted to have meals together. Um, and it's a concept that's it's happening in throughout the the country and it's something that I'm very interested in trying to see if we if we can find uh an entrepreneur to come in and do this sort of thing and maybe help them with some seed money or help them with property and and again it's just beginning. We're just starting the process of discussing it. the from what Sam has been able to get from them from the state the state is very interested in trying to support an entity such as that and support I'm trying to get the definition of what that means you know what what is the support is it financial support is it tax related support what is what is that support so that's one one piece of the tiny homes concept a second is to try to create homes that might be available for firsttime buyers, you know, like for young people that can't afford a $400,000 home, you know, right off the bat, but maybe could afford an 80 to $160,000 home as a starting point. But combined with young people wanting it, there's a lot of um people that are older people that want to downsize and might be interested in being in a

tiny home and uh living in a community that in which they don't have to do so much yard work and all the things that that go with, you know, maintaining a a regular sized home. So, the second concept is affordable uh housing for for anybody that might be interested in downsizing and saying, "I just want to have a a smaller piece of a smaller home to take care of and less less hassle." And then a third concept, and I'm listing these in order because I think the first one is the most important, the second one is the second most important, third one is the third most important. And that would be the idea of uh tiny homes, maybe high-end tiny homes that people that live in the city or other parts of the state or outside the state might want to purchase as a place for them to get away on the weekends. Um so there could be you could have high-end tiny homes. and we've reached out to uh uh two of the different two entities or two organizations that sort of specialize in the tiny homes concept. Um it's interesting that some of the hotels are moving to not tiny homes but tiny rooms concept. There's they're like Marriott is now looking at and I've just recently stayed in one of these. Um it's a tiny home that is movable that you put in a in a uh attractive nature related spot, maybe on a lake or in the forest and you uh have a campsite and a place where you have a fire and outside chairs and stuff. So, you're camping, but when you go to sleep at

night, you go into this kind of tiny home area. So you have a mixture of the camping and the and the with it combined with a nice place to to sleep that might have little kitchen in it, a a bed, a small little table and then uh shower bath and bathroom. So that concept is also of interest and so I'm I'm exploring those. As we get further into it, I'll bring you more details about it and and have some folks do some presentations to see if you're interested in diving a little deeper into it. I'm not talking about the county funding these these entities. I'm talking about the county inspiring the development of these entities. And so, you know, finding the groups that might want to come in and do create something like what I just described to you. Um, but there's not really money that needs to be budgeted in the next fiscal year for it. I'm just making sure that you knew that this would be this was something that was going to be ongoing over the course of the of the fiscal year. And it could come down to, you know, say, you know, putting 25 or 30,000 in to help with uh some seed money. That's a possibility. and we we will have a county manager contingency fund like we've we've had for years that we might be able to tap into should a great opportunity arise in the tiny homes arena. Um that's it on the tiny homes that that just short thinking that tiny homes deal could be something that hospitals and nursing homes could really be interested in for their traveling people at this know that they

and today I met with Telina Pipes from the community college and we talked about uh the tiny homes concept being something that her people there might might be interested in getting into the construction part of the tiny homes concept. And also talked a little bit with the schools about is there a role that could be played by the high school and the community college in helping to develop the whole tiny homes concept and the building of the tiny homes. The school used to build a house every year when I was in high school. Really? Really? Was it a tiny home town?

Oh, they built a regular house once. Uhhuh. But I think that would be great to involve the tiny home. Yeah. Involve the the schools in the process of of developing these this tiny home concept. I think our setting is perfect for it. You know, the beauty of the county and uh almost any piece of land that you could get is attractive in this county. I'll bet you'd be surprised and read it probably can tell you more than I can how many tiny homes there are in the county already. It is growing. Really? It is growing. I know. I've had one for 10 years almost. Yeah. Yep.

Have Have we discussed this concept with the planning board? Not yet. because I and I'm not sure when this conversation took place, but it's my understanding that a developer had already talked to members of the of the planning board and had tried to put forth a plan for development on Collins Road, but it it didn't pass. Oh, really? Okay. Was that the plan? Was this recently, Gary? I mean, within the past year, I hadn't heard anything about that, but I'll look into that.

Um, yeah, definitely to be on the same page with with the planning board on that on that aspect. Um, somewhere near the wellness center, I think, was the proposed site. Okay. Uh, in that area. Okay. We've got over the subjects that we was talking about there. Has anybody got anything? I've got Go ahead.

Uh to be considered in this budget, we talked about the veterans part several times about uh creating a space for the new bricks and then also about the ceiling of the parking lot and restriping it. Now I think that needs to be in have serious consideration for the veterans part.

Okay. Another thing is uh what we're doing at the fairgrounds. The black building has needed a a lot of work for the last I don't know when you were on the board before we even talked about it. six, seven, eight years we've been talking about the same thing on the black building. Uh painting or putting vinyl or something uh on parts of the woods that it's exposed and then the uh where they show the animals, you know, that area is there's boards missing, there's nails sticking out. They've been that way for eight, nine years. So at one point it needs to be looked at

and you know the gravel you know we need to always keep putting gravel down on the parking lot and you know maybe someday we can put some asphalt down on you know parts of it and do it over a period of time possibly. But uh the fairgrounds not only supports the farmers in the community, but it supports the whole community, town and and the county. Yeah. When we have some of these some of these uh exhibits they put on bring in thousands and thousands of people who spend money.

So I think we need to put money back into that facility. Um, as a followup to the to the black building discussion, we just had a a really interesting meeting uh with Appalachin State University, with the high school, and with the community college about grant money that Appalachin State is seeking. And it's money that uh could be utilized by within the discussion of our group to expand and improve the black building. Um and so we are we just had one meeting. Bill was there. Anybody? It was just no other.

Yeah, David was there. And it was exciting opportunity that they were talking about. I think they said $10 million for our our area. So, and we identified the black building as an area that um we'd like to focus on within the concept of what they're what they're saying. And what they want to do is the the the uh the the complicating piece of it. not complicating, but it needs to be done through the community college. Has to be something the community college is heavily involved in in order to get the grant money. So, we're trying to creatively think of how that can happen. And that's one of the things that uh when I met with uh Telina Pipes today that we talked about is how can we make sure that the community college is heavily involved in something that we could do in the expansion of opportunities and the building itself and the upgrading of the building itself in the black building that we've only had one discussion on it so far but um they just wanted Appalachian State just wanted to know would we even be interested and we were like, "Yeah, we, you know, we'd be interested in grant money that's going to help that building."

Well, I know at one time when Dr. Cox was still at Wilks, we had talked about improving the show barn part, okay, where the people in the community. Right now, we don't have a place to sell chickens, you know, goats, pigs, small animals. you go, you have to go to uh uh one of our cattle sales place. They have like on a Wednesday or Thursday, they have a night to sell rabbits, chickens, or goats or whatever.

And Wilks community has a program for prevet school and they've had that for several years and that was what Dr. Cox was trying to integrate with the show barn. Okay. And the high school, you know, we have competition where we show the different cattle, dairy cattle, uh, and beef cattle, but we have to travel all different places. We can't have it here because the facility is not built for that.

I see. And it was put Timmy three or four years ago that the uh True Ron Trust was going to help us with some of the roofing and the uh and the infrastructure for the framing and everything. Yeah. But that sort of went by the wayside. The high school high school was going to build it the carpentry class. But we got it all put together but never got through. Okay. So, I think there's a lot of interest especially in the agriculture people of the county uh you know to upgrade that also while we're doing the black building.

Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt you on that. I just thinking that I wanted to make sure I added it into that piece that you were just talking about. Yeah. Another another thing comes to mind on the black building and I think David he can address that better is the heating and Hback system is not adequate. Yeah. Uh Dave, you want address that? We had the shelter out there and those ladies very

So we put in a new heating system. Uh so we put two two heating systems for the large area there. Um, however, we did discover that the walls was insulated, but some of the insulation had been taken out overhead. So, all of the overheads, not uh completely insulated. And then the large rollup doors, they're not insulated. And they have our gaps. We have we have tried to caul as much as we can and close off as much of those air gaps as we possibly can. But I think now I I would recommend that we take at least the side doors completely out, block them up, maybe put in some walkthrough doors, and then put an insulated door in the back one. Take all all four of the rollup doors out and put a insulated door in the back so that we still have a garage door to go in and out of. I think that would I think that would benefit us about as much as anything. Um because the heating system just can't keep up with the wind, especially with the wind blowing when we was trying to do the shelter. Uh the wind was just blowing around those doors and it was just causing um the building to cool back down. Um you can go out there right now with the wind not blowing and have it set on 63 and it'll be 63 in there. But with with all of the air gaps, we got to close up some of that stuff. Yeah, I was going to add what Bobby said. What we found when I was trying to do the the redo out there is those doors are killing us. And I don't think it's the the units are not big enough. It's we're losing got too much heat loss. So the side doors need to go away like you said and put in something or either just close them in and then the the end doors need to go away except put one in for an insulated door. If you do that and you do all of the get all the insulation and sealing,

I think it'll be sufficient because it's killing us on those big doors. What was it? 58 degrees. 58 degrees. Yeah, it's 58 degrees in there at night to go. And when we had this real cold spell, they had set up CS and tables to if anybody needed to go to a place. Yeah. You know, to get in out of the bad weather. And I don't know. I mean, with the wind blowing 40, 50 miles an hour. Yeah. And it being zero and two or three out, I'm sure it was warmer than some people would have had, but it was Yeah,

it wasn't the best of situations for emergency shelter. Yeah. Unfortunately, we did not have to use it for anyone, so only staff was there. Yeah, we definitely need to take care of that. And then I got one more thing. Uh 90 South Main Street. We finally finished it a few years ago, but I've been trying to get in God we trust put up there for years and years. I would like to see some money. It it can't be that expensive, you know, to get like we have at the courthouse some big letters at the very top of the 90 South Main. In God we trust.

Okay. We have we have looked at that um Bobby and we made um allowances for that to be put on the sign out front that rock the rock sign that we made that has the three entities in there that's in that building. So this year my plan is that if I've got money left at the end of the year that's going to be on that sign. Well, I don't think people can see it down that low. If it's up high, like it is at the courthouse, like it is on our building here, people can see it. If you put it down low, when one car parks, there's two parking spots there.

When those vehicles are parked there, you can't even read those signs. We can we can look into that and to see what that would take. It needs to be up top where people can see it. anything.

Do we have any projections on what our uh revenue is going to look like? It looks like it's going up like 5% every year from 21 to 25. Do we have any projections on what our ad adorum and other tax revenues may do in this coming year? That's part of the bud budget process. That's why we start in March and we look at the numbers historically from past couple of years and then Rita pulls reports for us on abarmor and vehicle tax and we sit down and we look at that.

So that'll be coming. I mean I understand that but do we we expect that number to to increase as it has historically? Right. I don't think there's anything that's knocked us off course from you're going to see some some increase and a lot of that depends on how much the tax base is increased how much building you had things like so yes you're going to see some increase now the significance of it I don't know yet and can you refresh my memory when does the rebound take effect January of 2026 27. Okay.

Anybody else? Greg, that'd be a big increase then on it. Depends on what happens in the market between now and then. So, so that's when we will be able to see get our hands on it to see what it's going to do throughout that budget process in 2027 because those bills don't go out until August. Right. Correct. So, we've got January 1st of 202. That will be our time to figure out what we need to do. But we can certainly lower the mill rate, right? Absolutely. Yeah. We We don't need no tax increase.

That's it. That was it. Anybody else? Great.

Oh, Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, I just like to thank all the organizations that worked together through the ice storm. I mean, I think that our the emergency preparedness by this group was was done extremely well and and I'm proud of the the team. I think we we had good communication. We were set for it to be much worse than it was. And um it was bad enough as it as it was, but um I just wanted to thank the all the folks that were involved in all the entities I mean outside organizations that cooperated with each other. It was uh it was good to see that and you know we it gives us a good strong basis for addressing the next one when it comes

been a very trying time for the last three or four weeks and I was going to say I bet January sales tax revenue will be down. That's my prediction. That would be my prediction. It's been down for every business. Re anything? No. just um I had never been involved in preparing for a potential emergency and I was I was pretty proud of everything that went into it and knowing that you know worst case scenario everybody came together and and

we appreciate all everybody done everybody's leadership and putting all that together and and y'all done a great job and I just I got to say this I think DOT has done a great job. County maintenance has done a great job. All the EM emergency 911 services has done a great job. I mean, I've heard stories, man people, they slinging chains and stopping, putting chains on to get in, pick people up, and fire department's the same way. And and everybody just jumps in there and does what it takes to get the job done. I'm I'm very proud of that.

Anybody got anything else? The only the only other thing I I would like to mention um as everybody knows we are um minus people in the EMS system. So we have four positions that we have not been able to fill. Uh so we have come up with a plan that will um increase our budget just a little bit for EMS but to change the shift from 2448 to 2472. Uh, so I have had and Justin has had a verbal promise from some folks from paramedics that say they would come to work for us if we went to a 2472 shift. So, we've been working on that and we've got another meeting set up so that uh Tuesday, maybe Tuesday. Yeah, tomorrow we we we um next Tuesday we um we're working through that process right now, but that will be a budgeting process and it will be um a budgeting um thing for us to be able to do that with the people to be able to do an extra crew that we would need for that. And two, with EMS, um we we've got a lot better equipment now. Um we're we're needing one truck. So um we're working on that, too. But we're working through a budget process and trying to figure all these numbers out and figures out and trying to get our staff back up to be full staffed at EMS because right now we're working our part-time people to death. And um eventually those part-time people, they're going they're going to start saying, you know, no, I'm I'm not going to be able to work today. And I don't want that to happen. So, if we can work on a way to get um additional people in here to fill the slots that is that is vacant right now, then that would help us tremendously. So, we're working on

that and that will be budget processes as well. So, if you have any questions on that, we'll be glad to answer those. I think that's good process. I hear a lot of conversation about the 2472 seems to be very popular with employees and we we got this thing in reverse. We got it corrected. It should be full employment and a few part-times and it's right the other way around. But yeah, maybe we can get that taken care of on the budget. Anybody else? Mr. Chair, I had one more question for Rita. So, when will we have another opportunity to make a decision on our re-evaluation years? Like instead of six going possibly to four,

I can bring it before the board at any time. My thinking was um we could do it after um January of next year. Okay. So, and that would be soon enough. Yes. Okay. So, we could also go back to eight if we wanted to. You could. Um, so if we see a large increase this time and we're on a six or eight year and then something happens to the market and it goes down, we can't change it. Yeah.

So, that's the benefit of the fouryear. So, if it goes way up and something happens and you're doing a fouryear, you're going to readjust it in four years down or up, whichever way the market's going with you. Um, of course the state knows recommending a foury year and there's very few counties remaining on an eightyear because of that reason because right now we're seeing increases in values and so you don't you don't want to stay on a eighty year if the values if we're high and then the market starts going down and that's just the crystal ball I don't have the market. Okay. Anybody else? If not, call for a motion to adjurnn. Make a motion to adjurnn.

Second. All in favor. Thank everybody for coming today. Thank you all. Library weekend, friends of library morning. It is tomorrow. He's supposed to be there at 5 here at 5:30. They said the candidates.