Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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can I entertain a motion to come out a close session move have a second second start the vote with Mr Bryant yes Mr Horton yes Mr early yes Mr Moore yes and I vote Yes I'm going ask all the board members to certify um where as a Carol County Board of Supervisors convene a close session this state pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and on the motion to close the meeting in accordance with the Virginia Freedom of Information act whereas section 2.2 371d of the code of Virginia requires a certification by the Board of Supervisors at such close session was conducted in Conformity with Virginia law and we went under Section 2.2 3711 D A1 A3 and A6 now therefore be it resolved that the car County Board of Supervisors hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia freedom of Information Act were heard discussed or considered in a closed session to which his certification applies and only such business matters as were identified in the motion by which this close session was convened were heard discussed or considered in the meeting to which a certification applies I'll start with you Mr early IO certify Mr Bry IO certify Mr Horton IO certify Mr Moore IO certify and IO certify next on the agenda ocation and pledge I'll ask Mr Brown if you lead to snap please dear Lord we come to come to you tonight Lord we just thank you for allowing us to be here we ask you that you'd help us in our decision making for the county and we give you praise and glory in Jesus name amen amen pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

and next on the agenda is Robinson farmer Cox I ask you to come up please good evening Mr chairman members of the board it's going to be with you all this evening my name is Jordon Jones and I'm the partner I'm not the partner anymore I'm manager in charge of the audit um start filling B all the way down here so go through this too quickly just let me know and I'll try to slow up you should have a couple documents got my presentation and you should see the financial statements um I've pulled everything we need in this presentation document so we won't need to refer to those financial statements unless of course you want to all right start out on page two of the presentation this page summarizes the reports that we issue as part of your financial statements there the auditor reports there are three of them there's the independent Auditors report which can be found on page two it's unmodified cing report the highest level of assurance that you can receive uh and luckily this year we had no new gby pronouncements so should be pretty straightforward from the previous year if you consider these financial statements straightforward the other report that we issue as part of your financial statements is independent Auditors report on compliance and other matters uh it's on page 126 of your financial statements uh this is also referred to as the government auditing standards report for yellow book opinion uh we had no material compliance matters that were disclosed but we did have one finding related to adjustments those adjustments were adjustments for the school books uh the

County's books had some minor adjustments to but uh the count the school board's adjustments uh were material enough that I didn't feel like felt like we needed to put AIS in and I'll talk more about those adjustments as we proceed for this presentation any questions about that before uh the the last report is the uniform guidance report this is on federal funds that you all receive uh either directly from the federal government or through the state uh this report's required when you extend funds in excess of $750,000 it's federal funds in excess of $750,000 it's a clean unmodified report no inter controls know that there no material compliance M re question cost there any questions about those three reports okay over on page three you have our communication to those charged with governance and this is our communication to you all at the end of the report it's also required at the begin at the end of the audit excuse me um it's also required at the beginning of the audit we do that through the engagement letter which you all probably saw back in May hopefully this is just a summary of the audit process it's a clean report other than we do note the adjustments that we had for the school board that's noted over on page four and if you'll turn over with me to page six the adjustments that we made as part of our audit start there and there's six pages of adjustments and basically what that means is when we receive the financial statements um from uh Justin or from the school board we we can't adjust them as your Auditors they want us to be independent

from the from the reporting process they want the financial statements to be your financial statements and if as part of our audit we find adjustments and we make those adjustments to agree to gener accounting principles and that may be something that we reportify govern does that make sense um so why the adjustments uh I think number one uh the consultant that help school board was new um somewhat new or four years he's done um and I you know I guess just like all the rest of the accountants out there we're just too much work and not enough time to do it but you know these adjustments aren't indicative of fraud or anything like that it's just getting the financial statements to agree to and and it's a common finding to have in the report um you all haven't had a finding like this in a couple years Justin has been getting the books ready and of course he got the books ready for the county this year they decided to use the consultant for the school board and to adjustments were were need any questions about those adjustments okay um that's the that's the technical side of things now we can move on to the fun part um page 12 um page 12 you've got a balance sheet for the pull statements that's off the top that's under that blue schedule there it's exhibit one if you if you look in your financial statements this is a summary of exhibit one and at the bottom uh you have exhibit three shows five years of that at the top you have more of a long-term perspective uh it's

full ofr includes all of your long-term assets for example this building it includes all all of your long-term debt uh for example the the debt you issue to pay for this building um about third down the page you see net position net position for the county is about 60 million 277 318 17 million of that is net investment in capital assets that's just the assets that we're standing in for example minus the debt you have some restricted funds of about a million and in your unrestricted are your funds available for ongoing operations about 42 million below that you have exhibit three you have five years of data uh I will note that your current ratio is about 35% that just means your your current assets are 35 times your current liabilities which is a very large number your debt equity ratio is3 six that you want that number to be as low as possible so both of those numbers are very very healthy numbers um down the bottom uh exhibit three showing five years most people when they look at County financial statements they look at the modified acral basis it's more of a short-term perspective um doesn't include a bunch of estimated liabilities some people might say made up liabilities that are included on the full control statement so these financial statements or the balance sheet in exhibit three might have more meaning to you than maybe the maybe the top one does it uh in column four uh column all the way to the right under 2024 um just about all the way at the bottom of the page you have fund balance fund balance for the county uh including

CIP including the general fund uh not including the school board it's about 42.5 million um 132,000 that is nonspendable which is which are prepaids or note receivables you have some restricted funds of about 360 million excuse me um and and restricted funds are just funds that are that are restricted by an outside organization say the state uh or could be enabling legislation uh committed funds 11449 million uh committed funds are funds that are set aside for specific purposes uh these are restricted by the Board of Supervisors uh to be able to uh change any of those funds there it would require action by the Board of Supervisors a sign fund balance of about $7.4 million that's again specific purpose funds set aside uh but um someone uh like County Administrator can move those funds if need I believe that that can be could be Justin it could be Mr Watson it could be you all if you walked on to designate yourself as those people able to move assigned funds unassigned fund balance uh 23.2 million and you can see um if you look back 5 years to 2020 you had 18 million it's more than double fund balance over that 5year period um that that first year 2020 was the first year you went to twice your collection so that really kicked off the increase in fund balance that year and we'll we'll talk a little bit more about fund balance here net governmental expenditures is about 105

million that includes the school board uh so total fund balance is about 40% of that 105 million unassigned fund balance is 22% that 22% right in The Sweet Spot what we what we call The Sweet Spot you typically want that unassigned thumb balance to be about 22% or about 20% 15 20% person person might say something say 16 or 17 any questions about that I probably spent too much time on that anyway I I guess bottom line is County's financial statements are very very healthy they look look very good and The Improv over the fiveyear period's just been amazing personally I think anyway uh over on page 13 uh this is the general fund fund balance general fund income statement on a modified acal basis and you can see the numbers for 2024 in the column to the right um those growth rates to the to the right are a little skewed because 2020 was the first year that you went to twice your collections with real estate taxes so some of these items um you know may make sense may not make sense and also over that fiveyear period since Co received a lot of covid-19 funds so it's hard to get a trend get Trend information when you have those kinds of of items happen in the past uh expenditures um 42.8 42.9 increasing about 3% uh Debt Service Debt Service is below that debt service at about 2.17 million you can see that number it's been

decreasing nicely over the fiveyear period and I'll talk a little bit more about debt you'll see why those Debt Service expenditures have decreased significantly uh total expenditures increase in about 1.6% over that 5year period you got some transfers out the CIP fund I believe a 3.7 change in fund balance for fiscal year 2024 and the general fund was 1.67 Million increase uh you ended up with $ 34.3 million in the general fund fund balance ending cash general fund a little over 30 million and you can see over that fiveyear period what cash has done 13.7 million in 2020 over 30 million below that um we do these calculations people typically ask us how much fund balance is too much how much is too little uh general fund balance we we like like I said to be about 20 15 to 20% summer net range if you look at the cash balance you're at about 28% the fund balance is 32% that includes all of the funds in the general fund though so at 32% it's a little high But it includes all the funds you set aside is either committed or assigned restrict any questions about that and again that's based on net governmental expenditures of 105 million um the school and includes the school board the school board had a lot of construction funds this past year with the funds and the constructions they receive state I I have a quick question yes the growth rates that are shown here is that year over-year or is that over the 5ye period that's over the 5e period okay but I was trying to explain there a little

bit estate right so when you look at revenues and they decreas by two% probably not a good indication sometimes I'm probably better off just to exclude some of those but you know the expenditures are should be I mean there should be decent numbers to look at uh overall expenditures increased by 1.6 over that five five year period thank you I'll just flip through these U graphs revenues on page 14 and you can see that property taxes in that blue that's where you ra twice your collections expenditures on page 15 um looks pretty consistent expenditures uh for the education uh the transfer to the schools was 26% 2020 it's 22% 2024 the school board has been receiving tons of money but they've received a lot of money from the state from the federal government so those numbers can fluctuate sign uh 16 just shows revenues compared to total expenditures the general fund obviously if revenues are more than your expenditures your fund balance increase same type of information over on 17 and 18 these are just about bar charts 17 is a revenue 18 is expenditures or expenditures over on page 19 uh real quick and I'll finish up um this is a summary of the debt for the county um something I like to present uh total General long-term obligations of the

county is about $ 20.4 million 24 20.5 million that includes things like net pension liability net opab liability um those are those uh estimates or madeup numbers that they add to the full approval statements so um your interest bearing debt is that General obligation debt of 3.75 million uh that's that uh hcab money for the schools that will be paid off in 2027 I believe so I think there's only two payments left on that those lease Revenue notes uh that's the county complex and also some money for school facility uh PSA long-term obligations are noted there 20.8 6 million uh Schoolboard obligations the school board can't really have interest varing debt generally speaking so all the debt for the school board most of the debt for the school board that's interest bearing is showed on the county side but they've got some of these estimates that I've talked about net o noep net opep liability of 84 million their net pension liability is about 25 24.7 million and then their compensated absences are about $926,000 uh total long-term obligations of 34 million for the schools and again those are all numbers that are provided to us through actuaries uh and they have to be added to your financial statements based on gasby 8 68 gasby 75 gasby all kinds of G gasby stands for governmental Accounting Standards Board that to tells us how to report your financial stand population of about

28,800 debt per capita for the county 2616 in 2014 uh for 2023 the state average was 3636 your debt is relatively low uh down at the bottom there you have debt payments debt interest and principal and interest uh for this year it's 2,171 th000 it's less than 5% of your total expenditures so the county I guess what I'm getting to here the county has relatively low de compared to others um and then lastly real quick the government accy Standards Board or gasby always issuing new pronouncements likely this year schol year we didn't have any uh but uh for 20 fiscal year 25 we have this new gasby related to compensated absences gby statement number 101 uh it just requires you to come up with the estimate for compensated absences differently than we have in the past in the past you looked at June 30th and said Gordon Jones has 20 hours and he gets paid an hour so his liability is $400 get the math right there uh you get the idea um now what you do is look in the past see what what has Gordon taken over the past five years and come up with some sort of estim that way gets frustrated dealing with some of this stuff uh gasby statement 102 certain risk disclosures I don't think it's a big deal uh there's a new financial reporting model statement Number 103 uh

that's fiscal year 26 so we got a ways to go on that one and then 104 certain Capital assets also F year 26 we got a raise for okay I'm sure you all have had enough any questions anyone have any question I know you're just not getting these you're probably just not if you're looking through it you have any questions feel free to email me email or call me okay thank you appreciate it next on the agenda is Citizens time sign up okay next on the agenda is approval of minutes I entertain a motion to approve A and B together or separate I make a motion we approve A and B together okay have a motion to approve by A and B January 13th and January 22nd 2025 together to have a second second okay start the voting with Mr Mr Horton yes Mr Bryant yes Mr early yes Mr Moore yes and I vote Yes next on the agenda is the consent calendar I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent Cal I'll make a motion okay have a motion do I have a second second okay start to vote Mr earling yes Mr Bryant yes M Mr Horton yes Mr Moore yes and I vote Yes next on the agenda is invoices I entertain a motion to approve invoices A and B together be 117 2025 and

23225 or separate I'll make the motion to approve A and B together okay have a motion prooving together to have a second a second okay I started voting Mr Bryant yes Mr Horton yes Mr earing yes Mr Moore yes and I vote Yes next on the agenda is new business uh the road abandonment resolution that you received in your packet you want to have have any questions on it I do uh Mr chairman yes sir Mr deran do you have a copy of what was recorded as far as the uh easement is that available to be read I Mr Newman has a copy yeah here here's a cop if you if you'd like to look it over but I I looked at the um version of this before it was put to record but I don't think there's been any changes since I looked at it well the uh the uh Cliff noes version I saw looked fine I I mean I'm sure that's what it says in the resol OR in that document yes it's a it's a mutual reciprocal easement each one has rights over the the um property of the other to the extent that it was consist being abandon well if you don't see a problem with it I don't I didn't okay entertain a motion to approve it I'll make that motion okay I have a second second okay start but Mr

Moore yes Mr Bryant yes Mr Horton yes Mr early yes and I vote Yes next on the agenda is the hazard mitigation resol resolution you received in your packet um it's a resolution of car County adopting the Mount Rogers Planning District 2024 Hazard mitigation plan I'll make that motion okay have a motion to have a second a second okay start the voting Mr early yes Mr Bryant yes Mr Horton yes Mr Moore yes then I vote Yes next on the agenda is the letter of support that you Reed in your packet for the beat application I'll make a motion to approve the letter of support for zel for the beat application okay do I have a second I'll second okay start the voting Mr Moore I do have a couple questions on yes sir go ahead Mike or Jody y'all both are on that um I know citizens is doing a lot in our community too why can't we have uh support letter for them as well can it just be one no um you can write as many support letters as as the as the county would like what the sport letter does is we're going to have other people applying for it but the support letter is gives you more points is what it does so uh in the past over the last several years we've worked with itel and when we had our last U committee meeting it was determined that we want to continue to support the company that would um that we worked with all this time that's put a lot of leg work in in order to to do this so no it is it's possible to provide um as many of those letters as

one the only uh you know there's no harm to it it won't hurt to do other ones the only thing is it becomes uh uh less control of who would be able to provide the type of service you want within the county so um I was just curious I mean you know citizens were banking on them to run some stuff in the county and I was just curious if you could do that it's absolutely possible okay but I mean I trust the Judgment of that board it was just a question I had and if what I can do is I can schedule a meeting again with the uh Broadband committee to discuss this to see if that's something that they want to support and get a recommendation so what do they what does do you said something about knocking points or helping with points well the beat application um the way it works is a provider so if you have citizens itel uh brby Comcast all of them have the opportunity to apply without going through the county so they will not ask us for permission to do it as in body we picked a provider based on a certain criteria of how they how they uh build uh where they want to stand whether or not some got kicked out when we originally started because they didn't want to do the whole County they only wanted to fix certain areas yeah so uh in order for a way for the bead application to include some input from your community because bead takes away all the decision making for the county right what uh the bead application of the process does is gives the local government body the ability to recommend somebody for funding so they'll get extra points um other than the other ones won't so they still might uh we might write this letter of support for this one and they get the extra points but there might be another provider that

puts to a better application together gotcha and they'll get it no matter what we say but this is a way to provide some input okay if might add one thing um citizens has been very Innovative in their ability to come into your district and mine and I'm in full support of that right um you know I really appreciate what they're doing absolutely um so they've been able to get other grants like a community connect grant that allows them to do duur and Par I was just wondering if you know why that was you know I would definitely give as I tell you know I agree with giving them a letter I just wonder if we could do it oh I know yeah you know and apparently you can I didn't think you could but I guess you can all right yeah any more discussion okay so I had a motion and I had a second so I'll start the voting with Mr Mo yes Mr early yes Mr Bry yes Mr Horton yes I vote Yes next on the agenda is the EMS schedule entertain a motion for I'd like to make a motion like to make a motion to change the EMS schedule and to amend the budget appropriate funds not to exceed 300,000 okay have a motion have that be remainder of this the remainder this budget year this budget year okay 25 have a motion I have a second a second okay started voting Mr ER yes Mr Bryant yes Mr Horton yes Mr Moore yes and I vote Yes next on the agenda is old business uh the only thing we have is committee appointments don't think I we have any available right now okay so with that next on the agenda is

board member comments and I will start with Mr Bryant yeah I just like to thank the staff and the board and all those that work hard to keep the county moving I think we're moving in good direction and with our EMS and things like that thank you Mr Brown Mr Horton uh basically I just want to say everybody thank you for what you do um I think we we're moving in the right direction as well a lot of exciting comments I've heard about things that's changing the county and uh want to tell everybody thank you for what you do and staff appreciate it thank you Mr Horton Mr earing well for once I really don't have all that much to say but I do want to say thank you to uh the citizens of Carol County for for making it possible for us to do these projects and improvements because without their willingness to pay taxes it wouldn't happen and my goal all along has always been to try to keep that burden as low as possible it's going to be a challenging year but I'm going to continue to try to do that and then also thank you to obviously everybody who makes our job easy uh everyone in the County Administration fire rescue everyone I really appreciate what everybody does thank you thank you Mr early Mr Moore yeah I did know what everybody said and thank our employees and I want to get my hat to Justin he's worked really hard and it's always good when an audit time comes to see his hard work and cly appreciate what you do and Mike and Mr deran and rest of the board for for their efforts and uh just thank the employees and our EMS fire rescue Sheriff's Office you know they keep everybody safe and seems like a long time ago after the temperature today but we went through a lot of cold

cold C days and everybody's taking care of and out doing their job and just U want to thank them for all their efforts that's all I happened thank you Mr Moore and um I definitely want to thank uh all the employees everything that you do and uh looking forward to this new schedule for the EMS exciting times I know they are too and I appreciate the board willingness to um make that happen and Mr phelps's willingness to do it and employees um you know this is very exciting and justtin we do thank you on the it's always good to get a nice audit and uh appreciate all the work you mik do on everything um and that's all I have so Mr Watson you're next I don't have anything okay Mr Derman no comments Mr chairman no comments all right sir thank you with that I'll entertain the move forour so move I have a second second start vote Mr Mo yes Mr Horton yes Mr BR yes Mr ear yes you for