City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Alright. Good morning. Welcome to the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners work session. It's Wednesday, 05/13/2026, 10:07AM. My name is Ty Menser, chair of the board. To my left, vice chair, commissioner Wayne Fornier, commissioner Emily Claus, commissioner Rachel Grant, virtual, and commissioner Mihia is logging on, presently and should be joining us virtually in a moment. The meeting is being live streamed to Thurston County YouTube channel. Written public comment may be received up to two hours in advance of the meeting and distributed to the board. Action may be taken at this meeting. First up this morning, and the main item for the morning's work session is number two, twenty twenty six, twenty seven biennial budget amendment one. Our second review, I'm just gonna directly pass the county manager.

Thanks, chair.

I wanna start by thanking the board of county commissioners for their engagement on this topic. Also, special thanks to our fiscal budget manager, Summer Miller, and her team. I see Jennifer Smith at table and Dolly, who's just off, the public view, but also very much a vital part of what they're doing. Thank you for putting out the documents, with advanced notice and giving the commissioners opportunities to engage with you and to ask questions and spend your time answering those questions. We know that it takes a lot of work not just from you but from everyone throughout the county, all the departments and offices, budget staff, finance staff, and our auditors of financial services all working together to make this happen.

So we appreciate that. We appreciate the transparency and the collaboration. And I'll hand over to you, Summer, to take us through, today's presentation.

Thank you. Good morning, commissioners. Summer Miller, budget and finance manager, in your office. Today is the second and final review of our amendment one to the '26, 20 '7, biennial budget, and we thank you for allowing us to present today. And, I guess on the heels of what the county managers have said, we also are very appreciative.

I'm very appreciative of my team and all of the budget and finance staff across the county for their contributions and also their willingness to engage with us in conversations to seek clarity on some of these requests. So thank you. And we will move along. Much of this presentation is going to look like the last one with just some slight changes. On this particular side, we have reviewed this one for the last four minutes.

There we go. Okay. So we've reviewed this many times over the last year and a half or so, but RCW three thousand six hundred forty one hundred, three thousand six hundred hundred and forty one hundred and forty, and 03/4195 provides authority for the Board of County Commissioners to amend the county budget during the fiscal year. This is typically for a variety of reasons, such as supplemental appropriations because of unanticipated revenue receipts from federal, state, and local sources or grants and transfers or revisions within the departments. One thing to note is that with the amendment process, we do not currently do public hearings.

We have a notice requirement, which requires publishing, the notice once a week for two full consecutive weeks in the official county newspaper. So keep in mind, today is your second and final review. The decision package will be finalized by my team and myself today to meet our deadline late this afternoon to get this posted in the paper beginning tomorrow. So again, this is our second and final preliminary review. And if you have any decisions or questions that haven't been asked previously, we'd like to go ahead and address those today.

We're going to move forward. This is a slide that you've seen in prior presentations, and I would just like to remind you and the public that on the left, in the green and the red, it shows the adopted 2026 revenue and expenditure budgets and the adopted deficit there. On the far right, it shows the scenario of revenue and expenditures as they were submitted through this budget process, not including any of the corrections or errata items that have been handed out to you. Speaking of which, there was, as promised last week and through communications this week, an updated errata provided to you. It looks very similar to the one you had before.

The only difference is in the yellow section. The print figures are red to show you the changes. And that is coming to you now because there was some work being done between financial services staff and budget staff to reconcile internal service rates as they were submitted and approved and in the system for the beginning of this calendar year's budget. Okay. So this slide, again, it's a repeat from last week.

This is what you see on your operating recommendation summary. It is a roll up of the maintenance request and the policy request, both revenue and expenditures for both years. We notated last week that the $18,800,000 for all other funds and expenses for fiscal year twenty twenty six is a carryforward in approximately $14,000,000 in appropriations for projects that are funded by the 2022 and 2024 bond. The next slide is a summary or roll up of your capital recommendation that was submitted to you. And again, this is a high level overview of the maintenance requests and policy requests and reappropriations for both fiscal years showing revenue and expenditures.

I want to highlight again the importance of the budget cycles within the year. We have two additional budget cycles scheduled in 2026. Our midterm adjustment to the 2027 budget is scheduled to kick off with the call to budgets on June 23. Our Amendment two to 2026, which is essentially a cleanup of this fiscal year, not carry forward to 2027, is anticipated and scheduled to begin in early October. You can see right below that that our May review preliminary decisions has been done.

May 13, that's today. We will finalize this presentation. This is a budget amendment, which is a notice, but a public hearing is not necessary unless there is a capital budget change that requires an amendment to the capital improvement plan or out year project costs. Our next date would be May 14, the beginning of our public notice of intent to amend the budget, which by statute is allowed and is under the authority of the board. That'll continue for two weeks.

And then this amendment to the budget will be adopted on June 2. Again, public notice is our next step and then your budget adoption. And I'm happy to take any questions if you have any outside of the interactions that we've had recently.

Commissioner Klaus.

Thank you, chair. Thank you, Summer and the budget team for this presentation and all of the information you provided. It was extremely helpful. I do have one question about the CIP and the public hearing. So the budget amendment is noticed, but the public hearing I see is not required unless there's a capital budget change that requires an amendment to the CIP. And I don't wanna say too much, but we do have we're considering some storage space for evidence, and I'm wondering if that space is considered something that would require an amendment to the CIP since it's new and we weren't discussing it last year.

So I believe that we would need to address that in the revision to the CIP, would be presented to the board later this year. That typically happens in December. We can get more information for you if you'd like and provide you a more detailed comprehensive answer.

Depending upon the project, it might already be included. So let us do some research

on that. Think it's a great question considering what the county is contemplating. But to what assistant county manager Josh Cummings highlighted. I believe that the CIP, currently, has language in there about the, the acquisition and expansion of the sheriff's, operations and office. But we'll double check, and we can get that back to the full board response to your question.

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I'm I'm just concerned that if if there is something we need to be flagging or catching, we might be if we're spending any money before the CIP review that Summer mentioned later this year in October, I just don't wanna run afoul of the process. And I I I also am interested in having a public hearing possibly even if we don't need to, But I will wait for I will wait for more information from staff before I try to propose that because I'm just curious about where that lands in the CIP and that process. So thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. We'll do the research and share that with the full board.

Commissioner McKier?

Yeah. In terms of the CIP, it was actually Robin Campbell has kind of lines that allow the county for kind of that flexibility of acquiring or remodeling buildings as well. So there are a couple of line items that are kind of historic, and I know we had many conversations in the past about some comments that were brought up. And Robin kind of always make sure, like, we had those two line items, and I think they've been they've have been continued to be added on our current CIPs as well. But just wanted to kinda give some perspective in in terms of the CIPs.

In terms of general questions, Summer, thank you so much, and thank you so much for sitting down and going through some. I I wanted to follow-up on some of the questions I had yesterday. And as I continue to look at the documents, the first thing, you know, I noticed in terms of the auditor's Eagle recorder upgrade, I was a little bit confused in terms of they say they're going to absorb the cost, but they're also asking for additional authority. Could you clarify? Like, I I was just a little bit confused on that piece.

Yes. So I did some research with my team and looked at the request. And so my understanding stop

you real quick?

Yes.

Just for the commissioner, this is line item one sixty two because I had a similar question. It just might help everybody follow along.

That is

It's saying that in the note, it says increase expend expenditures offset by fund balance, but then there's a $30,000 price. That's what we're talking about here.

Yeah. So just for context, it's in the five page document that is more color coded. It's the recommended to fund not fund document. And it's on page four near the top. As Commissioner Mentzer pointed out, it is line 164.

Two. 162. Thank you. So what I understand is this is not uncommon practice when there are costs for the auditors' M and O items, if you will. And so the funding is available in their fund balance, they're requesting that the appropriation be granted so that they don't go spend for those upgrades. And I understand from my team that that's not uncommon for these requests to come forward to get funding out of their MNO fund.

And I'm sorry if you just said it. But I know I had a question connected to that about that MNO funding where it's where is the source of the auditors MNO fund?

That is the fund.

So it's the fund balance that is in the fund, and they're requesting access to some of the fund balance.

Where does it come from?

The question is, what comprises that M and O?

Is that transfers that are coming in from Jennifer? And I don't know the

answer to that. So maybe, chair, what we can do is, brief the board later later date about the utters coming out.

Let me make sure I didn't make a note in here. I'm

sure there's a really good I mean, I know it's all I've heard of it. I just it's a quick answer.

Yeah.

So you don't need to necessarily Okay. Give the presentation, but I'd just be curious.

Got it.

Commissioner, can get back to you. Sorry.

Thank you. No. That was a perfect question because that was I was wondering. I was like, I know the auditor has come before and talked about it, and I was racking my head of, like, where where does it you know? So maybe just a refresher would be nice. Excuse me. Sorry.

You okay?

I was I was choking over here. Sorry. Okay. The next line items that I had questions about, Summer, that I didn't get a chance to ask you yesterday were in terms of the credit card rebates. And so as I'm looking at, you know, all the different rebates, which is great. Right? And we want to encourage that. I'm also wondering, like, you know, are they increasing, like, the budget authority? And, like, what's what's the policy in regards to, like, credit card rebates, and and how does that work?

This is a request to increase budget authority, equal to the rebate distribution. And as far as if that's encompassed in policy or how that works, I would request the ability to take some time and do some research and bring information back if that is okay.

Yeah. I would actually appreciate appreciate that because right now as we're counting every, you know, everything that that's coming back, I think having a conversation about rebates and and kind of how how we're working those through might might be a conversation that the board needs to have. And if there's not an an actual policy, maybe it's it's something that we we need to discuss and and set something.

Yes, ma'am. I will do that. I will get that information and then get something out to the full board. Is that how we would like to handle that?

Great.

Yes? Okay. Great. Thank you.

Is the concept that it's incentivizing the maximum use of the rebates because they have the incentive to whatever they can say they get to then spend on addition to their budget authority. Is that kind of what we've done?

Not having been here for the historical actions, unknown.

Yeah.

But looking at the submissions, I would say that is the context, but I'd like to do some research and provide you a

more It's not in writing, but maybe that's been the informal.

I'll I'll do some research and get back to you if that's okay.

That's in that would be good to know.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bahia, should I go to commissioner Grant?

Yeah. I don't wanna commissioner Grant has the question, then I you can come back to me, sir.

Sounds good.

Well, if if you wanna keep going, Carolina, you can, and I'll just go out when you're done.

No. It's okay. I'm yeah. I don't wanna go ahead, and then I can go after you again

for sure. Okay. Just circle around. Well

I my I had a question. I or I'm hoping you could just give me kind of a a full picture on on the errata. I'll just go to the errata. That on the errata, which is the list of errors or corrections on printed documents, I just I just noticed quite a bit of movement between millage and treatment sales tax and and just wanna get a better understanding or a full picture of kind of all and it was not just on the errata, but also also on the line items. If you could just give me a better picture of that, Summer, that'd be helpful.

Some background, and I know that assistant county manager Cummings has some background on that as well. So from a budget perspective, the Public Health and Social Services Fund, we call millage or it's quite frequently recall called millage has an exceedingly high fund balance. So we're shifting costs to that fund to spend some of that down while providing treatment sales tax fund the opportunity to build a fund balance this or during this biannual period so that it's in a better position as we move forward. The sales tax funds, as a reminder, have been experiencing a lower level of sales tax receipts over the last several years. And so there has been some thoughtful consideration on how to alleviate some of that pressure in the short term.

Yeah, I'd say that's pretty much right on. We're just working to right size the different budgets that public health has had after the last reductions when public health needed to shift away from the general fund and the county wide services. They took a hard look at the different budget lines that they had, and Milledge had some room to help support treatment sales tax. So that's what those shifts are all about, is rightsizing the different budgets that public health has.

Yeah, just a reminder that public health is taking cuts from the state. Their foundational public health funding, as the Board of Health received breaking news update about additional cuts, several 100 thousands of dollars of additional cuts, 700,000. They also were receiving some direct appropriations from the county general services account. And when those were removed as the board looked to adjust expenses, I really appreciate the leadership of Doctor. Jennifer Fryhite in coordination with our assistant county manager and the budget team to figure out how do they move some of the available funds to support key services so it minimizes the loss of service, minimized the loss of actually people being happy to be laid off.

And they did a lot of work. This is the outworking of those decisions. And that's why you rightly see it's a great question, Commissioner Grant. You see that movement in some of those funds. And, it mentioned in the errata as well.

I might add that we're not we're not done yet. We're not out of the woods. With those cuts that are coming from the state, there will be more difficulty to come for the commissioners to understand.

And doctor Freiheide is I mean, this information is, like, a day and a half. She received it. So she's working on putting that together, and we'll come before the board and talk about that in detail.

Is that, like, sort of is that from the legislative session? And we're just sort of figuring out the impacts locally?

Yeah. What we heard at the Board of Health last night from I don't don't recall her name, but she

works Jamie Boden.

Yep, there it is. She did give a great presentation, very thorough presentation about how the funding works, but then talked about it's their hard task when the buckets of money are shrinking from the state session, how they have to come together and then distribute that out to all the counties in the state. And Doctor. Freidheit is on the cutting edge of hearing that information and learning about what the county's proportionate cut will be.

Commissioner Grant, back to you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That yeah. That really does help. It it does make sense. And then the other just quick. I just kinda wanna get a better understanding. I'm kind of having a hard time wrapping my head around the the, the rate study, allocation. So on the errata, I'll just refer to that one. I know it's in a couple different places, but line item 13. So I just wanna make sure I'm clear. So we're saying we're gonna be increasing our out you know, increasing our budget authority by 252,000 for a rate study?

No. Let's so for clarity, the errata is the figures that are here and the the transfers, if there's transfers and funding, replace what is in the original reporting. So if Got it. Yeah. So anything that's on the the created recommend to fund list, system generated reports, if it's on the errata, the errata is editing or replacing that information. So the total cost for the rate study is the $252,000 which was presented to the board as it's shown on the errata.

Doctor. And I think that's a Jennifer, correct me, I think that's an up to an amount, right?

JACKSON: Correct.

It's not to exceed.

Doctor. It's not to exceed. They'll get in and assess the level of work and engagement they need to do commission grant. This will be a foundational work product that then helps us to build all of our internal rates on a much more professional and calculated manner, and then that'll be what we use to charge internal and also external stakeholders true cost for customers.

That was my other question. It's just to make sure. So so it is external. So, eventually, this could be, you know, an investment that will bring return because it's the external rate as as well. Right?

Correct. It will definitely see a return on that investment as we look to recalibrate, most notably, with district court and their engagement with a number of jurisdictions. And some of those rates have not been touched for years and have old contracts where in some cases there's caps. It allow us to really understand what the true cost is and then to recoup those, additional dollars as appropriately, allocated.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Commissioner McGeehee.

Thank you. And then I my next question was in regards to it wasn't on here, but as I was kind of reviewing this, I I think it would be great to have, like, the ARPA positions. I know those are, you know, set to kind of level out kind of by the end of the year. And so I think it would be great to get an update on kind of what's going to happen with those physicians, what's the plan and how do we move forward?

Another great question. And I think it's timely to ask for that as you're correct, Commissioner Mihir, the there's a wind down process taking place. So we'll look forward to bringing that back to you, County Commissioners.

Thank you. And then finally, I know that, Summer, when we talked yesterday, you were gonna follow-up with the public defense with Patrick in terms of you know, the prosecutor is asking for upgrades on on acts and licenses. I know that in a way both the prosecutor and public defenders are using kind of a similar system, and so just wanting to be sure that, you know, if the prosecutor is getting kind of that upgrade that all of a sudden public defense has got, you know, having to upgrade theirs too and and that we're we're kind of on that same level.

Yeah. So I was able actually to connect with my team and then who connected with the prosecutor's team and then IT. So we didn't extend that to public defense because the understanding is that this upgrade is to that version of software that was not included in the Axon package, if you will, that came to the board maybe eighteen months ago. The prosecutor's staff will have this upgraded equipment to be able to do redaction on evidence. And that evidence then has a downstream flow to public defense as well.

So at this time, it's not necessary to upgrade the equipment is what we've received from IT on the public defense side because they will enjoy the benefits of the redaction as it's

Doctor. Commissioner Mihiel, I'm looking at an email that was provided by county manager just before I walked in. Basically, this is about the redaction which the prosecutor does and passes to the public defense in the same case. So at this time, it's not necessary for public defense to have the same feature because they don't have that same obligation to manage the evidence. They don't have the burden of proof in the case. So that was

Perfect. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure if one of our offices was upgrading kind of a system that they both use that then we weren't gonna be, but understanding that. Thank you so much for for following up on that.

Yeah. We and we appreciate you looking out for a public defense and not wanting them to be left behind from from a technology standpoint. So I think a good perspective.

Those are all of my questions.

Okay. Other commissioner questions on budget items?

Chair, might be a good time for Summer to provide the board an update on the productive conversations that we've had with the prosecutor's office and the clerk regarding a collaborative approach to identify ways to fund the clerk's reopening limited reopening of her counter service. And I'll hand over to Summer to communicate what has been worked on.

Yeah, thank you. As the county manager said, we did have a really good productive meeting yesterday morning. And I must say, I had a really good impromptu phone call this morning with the clerk and with Edison. So I really appreciate the outreach as well as the collaboration. So we met the clerk, prosecutor, human resources, myself, the county manager to identify the staffing and funding solutions to support the domestic violence services and the counter capacity challenges that we're having currently with the clerk's office.

And the plan is going to be a phased approach as we move forward. The intent is to administratively shift to domestic violence positions. The actual classification of those positions may change as we go through these steps. But you'll see in the position resolution and your budget documents, the final documents for adoption, that they will be at the existing position that we talked about initially. So those positions will shift from the clerk's office to the prosecutor's office as far as the funding mechanisms at this time.

They'll be funded through public safety sales tax. And then there will be a reactivation of a third position that was previously eliminated as part of budget reduction exercise in late twenty twenty five. The prosecutor would like to have all three positions classified as a victim advocate position because of the workload allowances there. Again, that's going to be worked out with the clerk's office through a collaborative MOU. HR, myself, and the county manager have offered our assistance with that if necessary.

They would like the positions to be embedded within the clerk's office to ensure continuity of services. It is important to note the third position may be funded by restored funding from AOC. If not, there is a placeholder appropriation request in this amendment. If funding comes from AOC, then we will work to remove that. And then let's see.

Workflow supervision, supervisory, and service delivery will be formalized in that MOU. And it's really important to note that this is kind of a restructuring to free resources in the clerk's budget to activate two counter positions in addition to the positions that I just talked about. They're also included in Amendment one. Those counter positions will be established without immediate funding. There will be funding in the budget itself, but we're going to be working on reverting that back with the clerk's office.

I will meet with my team and the clerk's budget and finance team monthly to make sure that the reversion amounts match the position amounts. And I think that moving forward, we're looking forward to see what the next steps are with HR doing a review of the positions and classifications and seeing if we need to come back to the board for any revisions in those classes or potentially amending the budget appropriations up or down depending on where everything lands.

And the PAO's office and the clerk of the court's office will start drafting framework while HR reviews the victim advocate classifications. This review will include updating, specifications of Encompass DV duties and evaluate current staff for potential reclassification. This coordinated approach will aim to stabilize the DV services and improve overall service delivery for both offices once final funding determinations are made. I just want to give a special thanks to our county commissioners. I know Commissioner Grant was instrumental in helping the brainstorming process of coming up with a creative solution.

And then I know Commissioners Menser and Commissioners Fornier had meetings with the clerk to kind of talk about how do we move this forward and what's a way that we can work together to best meet the needs of the community. This is really a great example of when government works best in working together, working in unity. Special thanks to our prosecuting attorney, John Thunheim, for his flexibility and creativity on how to identify resources that may have not been fully utilized in the public safety sales tax and to utilize them in a real pressing need. And I know that all the commissioners have been supportive of addressing this issue. And that clear direction to staff has enabled us to sit down with the prosecutor's office and the clerk's office in coming up with this recommendation to the board.

Summer, when you mentioned you made reference right there in the middle to AOC money, that's a potential new grant or something. We're not talking about

What I understood was that it was put in as a restoration of some funding that came before. So it could potentially fund that position, the third position that was previously eliminated.

Yeah. Christy has identified that the county will be receiving funding from I think it was legislation that was enacted. We just don't know how much yet.

Okay, just want to it's not actual impact fees. I just want to make sure there's no confusion there. That's yeah. Okay. So that's great.

And we'll know sometime in June what that funding amount is.

I just before I get to commissioner for you, I just wanna say that, like, thank you to everyone to work together. If you're if you're at home concerned about this issue and not understanding any of what we're talking about, it's totally okay. This is, like, super inside baseball complex funding streams, colors of money. This is a lot of creative stretching and a tentative solution. I just want people to understand like this is is being really creative and hopefully it works.

But, you know, we can't promise the long term viability because we have a dynamic economy and dynamic revenue projections. So we're hoping that this will work out. And I think it's a good effort to try to find a solution in the short term at least. So I just want folks to understand that this is like a lot of what you just heard will sound very confusing, but it's really just us trying to manage our different revenue streams and meet all the different needs that we have to manage. The clerk's office has obviously bubbled up as something that we're we have a gap as we finish the budget work from last fall.

Commissioner Freund?

Yeah. Just I guess thank you to everybody that's been involved in the discussion. We all know that there's a lot of community interest in this. I think it's very important that we continue to publish and provide press narrative for the ongoing effort because there's a lot of atypical things that we're doing here. We don't typically get involved in the operations of an independently elected office, but, you know, we've, you know, we've we've gone in there with the the support of the clerk to try and help figure this out.

I I feel that it is imperative that the board have a unified message that is adopted, and we continue to push that out to the public. There's been several times when this this, whole conversation has kind of been exploited and politicized, And that doesn't help us move this forward. That doesn't help us have these conversations when they're uncomfortable. We need to be able to all get together and talk. So it would be my request that our public relations press department is constantly considering how to get this narrative out and how to tell the story of the ongoing effort.

Commissioner Grant?

Oh, yeah. You know? And I, you know, I just wanted to to say, you know, thank you to the county manager and to my seatmates and to and Summer and her team for all of the incredibly hard work over the last several months. This budget amendment and the the documents that came out with it, the various you know, getting a copy of the errata, the, proviso language, all of these pieces have been so helpful. You know?

And I think that I think that, it really goes to show that we're moving forward, and we're getting all of these pieces put together. And so that we were able to, you know, think creatively as a as a board, you know, because we had budget reports this last time. You know, we were able to really, you know, look at, you know, is there funding available, you know, that that could help someone out. So I just wanna say thanks, and I think I'm I'm really was impressed with the budget team and all of the work that the budget team has been doing, And it has just been very, very helpful and appreciative. So thank you.

Sure. I think there's an important part just for the public and for the commissioners that I'll have Summer go over about the proviso language and how those positions will work out. Summer, do

you want

to cover that?

Sure. So I'll just

Before I get to commissioner Klaus? Oh, sorry. Yes. Let me get to commissioner Klaus, and then, Summer, you'll you'll hear about the senator. You. Commissioner Klaus.

Thank you, chair. We can cut well, I'll ask my question real quick. We can come back to it because we're kind of on the train of thought. I don't wanna interrupt. But I'm looking at the rec sum for the operating budget. And on page 21 of that rec sum, there's a little piece about the sheriff's office applying for a grant from the tribe for plot cameras and that the money would be used for the helicopter. And I just wanna come back to that. I'd like some more information on that when we're done with this current question.

And that

initially, the submission was made to the Nisqually grant for flight cameras. And sheriff that was granted. And then the sheriff spoke to the Nisqually tribe afterwards and said that he's no longer interested in using the funds for that grant, and he asked that they be allowed to transition that to equipment for the helicopter.

Okay. Thank you. I have some some thoughts about it. But like I said, I didn't wanna get us off track because it we were on one train of thought. So we can come back to that.

Yeah. You you probably speak to the sheriff, but that's the that is the gist of it. Let's

go to summer.

Okay. So I guess I was of paraphrasing the entire statement. But should I read the statement from the beginning or just the Yeah. Okay. So this was agreed upon.

This was submitted to you, and it's suggested by, our clerk and also agreed upon by the prosecutor's office. So, leadership from the clerk's office, prosecutor's office, human resources, and budget met with the county manager on 05/12/2026, to identify a collaborative staffing and funding solution to support domestic violence services and restore counter capacity within the clerk's office. The proposed plan administratively shifts two existing DV positions from the clerk's office to the prosecutor's office, uses PSST funding to support two of these positions, and reactivates a third previously eliminated position. The prosecutor intends for all three positions to be classified as victim advocates and embedded within the clerk's office to ensure continuity of services. Funding for the third position may be provided by the state, though this is tied to the loss of crime penalty assessment revenue with specific details expected from the AOC after the June 1.

Consequently, placeholder funding amounts have been submitted through Amendment one to ensure this funding coverage, operational details regarding the workflow supervision and super service delivery will be formalized through an MOU to be drafted in the coming weeks. Additionally, this restructuring is anticipated to free resources for the clerk to activate two counter positions in addition to the positions above, which are also included in Amendment one. These two counter positions will be established without immediate funding and dependent on anticipated reversion. Provisal language will reflect funding the two judicial court proceeding specialists at an amount just under $200,000 with the remaining 2026 budget reduction of $82,000 for a total of $280,500 This amount will be committed as reversion back to the general fund at year end. Budget and finance teams on both the clerk's and commissioner's office side will meet monthly to monitor sustainability of the plan.

And moving forward, leadership in the prosecutors and clerk's office will begin drafting the MOU framework while HR reviews the victim advocate classifications. This review will include updating specifications to encompass the domestic violence duties and evaluating the current staff for potential reclassification. And this coordinated approach aims to stabilize domestic violence services and improve overall service delivery for both offices once final funding determinations are made. Apologies for not reading that directly from the beginning. But the important part is that all of this language will be tightened up in proviso as well as the MOU moving forward.

And that proviso language will be sent to you with the resolutions in advance of adoption on June 2. We're working with legal still to make sure that we have everything worded just the right way.

So I'm confused about the you were saying earlier that the prosecutor wanted one of them like three this whole idea that three of them are victims advocates, but one's going to work at the counter? I'm getting

confused there. No. There's two separate pieces here, which the clerk wanted to make sure that we clearly stated. There's two pieces. And I'll send the email to you. One is the domestic violence positions and then changing the funding and how that's structured between the prosecutor's office and the clerk's office. And in addition to those two positions that are currently in place, reestablishing a position that was eliminated.

Then That was already from the prosecutor.

No. So in the budget process, the clerk deleted one of those positions. What we're doing is taking the two still activated position in the clerk's office and moving them over to the prosecuting attorney's office. Then with the PSST funding, they will activate the position that was deleted. So there'll be a total of those three positions servicing DB.

And then with the when those two positions are moved out, that creates budget capacity for the clerk to activate two positions to help with the front calendar. And then in addition, we're activating two positions without funding that they will look to support with reversion. And we're going to work with the budget team and the clerk's office to determine can they actually fund both. There'll be provides a language that says that those positions will not be funded with reversion amount. We believe we can get one, but we'll determine whether or not we can get two. And then the second one can stay on the books with the hopes that as the county's funding dynamic changes that the county can fund that at a later time.

I'm glad you guys worked all that through. I mean, I guess a subsidiary issue and Commissioner Meehan, I think, both asked you about it was about just, obviously, public safety sales tax is newish. And we're obviously relying on your team to give us updates on capacity there and their ability to handle the new expenditures that were there. And you gave us confidence that that's going to ongoing keep us aware of making sure that we're staying solid there with the public safety sales tax capacity. Just Yeah.

Because that's one more. I mean, the initial conversation was about two. Right. Now you're saying two plus reactivating a third. Great. If that if we can as long as we can manage that. Right.

And the third one that's been activated will come from the it says right here funding

for the third party will

be provided by the state. Though this is tied to the loss of crime penalty assessment revenue with specific details expected from the AOC after June 1. That third position will have provides a language that unless the funding comes, the position can't get activated.

I see. Okay. That's Okay. Crime victim. Yeah. Because there's been a lot of legislative work on that.

So there really is only two that are touching the PSST funding. And Summer is in regular review of that fund. And before this conversation launched in full effort, she reviewed the fund to identify that there is capacity there.

Okay. Any questions on that proviso or that piece before we pivot back to Commissioner Claus' question? Okay. Hearing none, let's go to Commissioner Claus. You said you had follow-up based on what Commissioner Forney said.

Yeah. Thank you. I so I appreciate that commissioner Forno knows a little bit more about this and was able to provide some context. But for me, I'm just curious. I mean, this is the first time I'm seeing that there was a grant application for flight cameras.

And so if the application was approved and then the money is available to be used for the helicopter, I'm just a like, I don't have any other information aside from what commissioner Fornia shared. There's no, like, email briefings or anything. So I just wanted as much like, whatever information can be provided on that. Yeah. If it's a sheriff question, then maybe we it's something to discuss at a later date, but hopefully soon because I would like to know a little bit more about that before moving forward with approving the whole package.

Where are you for my benefit, Commissioner Klaus, where is it that you're seeing what you're referring to?

So it's in the rexum, the operating rexum, page 21 of the rexum. I believe

it's Where? Page 21?

Yes. 21 of 24.

On the operating, yes. And there's a narrative. Right? So the the budget figures are in the beginning, and then there's narrative towards the end.

Is this under

It's at the very top,

and it

says f y 26 a one two hundred ten. That is the narrative as it's provided to us from

Page 21 of the thickest of these where is page 24? The top piece, budget authority from Esquale tribal grant. I'm just gonna read it so we're on the same page. Spending authorities requested for the grant we received from Esquale Indian tribe in November 2025 in the amount of 100,000. Revenue was received in November 2025.

So some of this request is not is a request of various cities. There was as I recall, there was a joint kind of a multi city request that went into the Nisqually, charitable grant. So some of those funds, maybe it just may be a pass through to, those different cities.

Commissioner Claus, I don't know that our budget team has even the details that Commissioner Fornier has. So we can talk to the sheriff and get some more background on this. Would that be accurate?

That would be accurate because the request to submit for grant was sometime last summer. So that was

I why just know because I was asked by the city's or the sheriff's firm to write a letter of support, I believe. And it was talked about at some steady meetings. So we

can round that up for you. I think this case, this comes in from the office and populates. But if the background that's provided isn't sufficient for your understanding, we totally understand. And we can talk to the sheriff about getting some additional information for you.

I think that's an important distinction with this is that everything as submitted comes directly from the departments and the offices. My team will include notations with their initials when I do a first round of review and have my own questions or they have their own questions. We don't manipulate, delete, or edit the information without sharing that and we don't enter. This all comes directly from the budget finance staff in those departments.

Okay so thank you. I think my next question on this would be when we grant budget authority for something so we say hey Sheriff's office, you can utilize this $100,000. And the narrative we're receiving is that it's being used to assist with the cost of getting the helicopter airworthy. Once we grant that budget authority, we don't really have any say over whether or not it gets spent on the helicopter or flock cameras. Is that correct?

I think

We would have to look at the specifics of the grant and work with the sheriff on that. I don't know that we have the specific details.

But the sheriff wouldn't be able to individually sign some kind of contract with Flock or anything like that, right? Because that's a discussion that we've had before when kind of before all the community wide apprehension and as we've understood these things a little more. Two years ago, the discussion came here. And it seemed pretty clear to me that the sheriff's department couldn't go into any kind of agreement with that company or any other company without the board's approval. So even if the money comes in and I know that the sheriff has been very adamant that he has no interest in taking on the flock systems.

It was discussed. We'd all discussed it at length. But my understanding is that it is off the table for the sheriff's department at this point.

We we would just need to get more information. I don't know that our staff can speculate. So, we're happy to bring the sheriff, or our team can talk with the sheriff and answer your questions. They're all good questions.

Okay. Thank you. I just the question I'm asking, I think, has a clear answer unless what I'm hearing is that it depends on what the grant agreement says. But in terms of county policy and procedure, once we grant budget authority that, the office who which is run by an independently elected official has that authority to spend those funds. And so we wouldn't be able to No. Control whether or not that funding is actually used for flock cameras, which is what the application was for.

It's not true. I'll let Summer

Can staff answer my question? Because Yeah. Yeah. That'd be more helpful.

Please, Summer.

Thank you. Yeah. So you grant budget authority or appropriations, and that money can be spent. That is true. But there are statutes, and there are resolutions and ordinances and policies in place at the county level that require any professional service or tangible equipment that's purchased over a certain threshold has to come forward to the board for authority if there's contracts that require the board's authority.

So they kind of go hand in hand. The board would be notified of any, we'll say, a significant purchase or capital purchase or contractual obligation to either execute that contract or provide direction to the county manager or someone else to execute that contract. And then I'm going to look to our assistant county manager Walker, who I know from a public works perspective may have some input on this as well.

Yes. So there's the terms of the grant itself that need to complied with. And then depending on what the what they're contracting for and what that dollar amount is. So they have up to a certain amount, but that's why generally, you'll see items become before the board where they're asking the board to approve the contract and authorize the director or the elected to execute that contract.

We'll do the research on this and get back to you.

Okay. Yeah. I still I don't feel like my question is being answered, but I guess I'll bring it up next time we have a public meeting because I I do think that this should be something that we clarify in a public meeting because this has a lot of public interest. And so I'm I'm nervous to be moving forward with a package that has this in it because my understanding is once we grant budget authority, that that money can be used. And I'm hearing if it's over a certain dollar amount, it will come back before the board. Do we know what that certain dollar amount is? I know it depends on what kind of purchase it is, but do we have a dollar amount that we understand is the threshold for it needing to come before the board?

We can pull the policy and send it to the board. There were some revisions to the dollar amounts, I think, a couple years back that maybe increased professional service costs from or maybe small purchases from 5,000 to $10,000 There were some increases from 10,000 to $50,000 But I don't know exactly where those lie off the top of my head because I don't specialize in procurement and contracts. But I'm happy to find the information and send it to you.

My question

For any kind of software, it's 50,000.

And this would be

Okay.

Thanks. And this would fall under that.

My question about it is a little different. I just want to highlight that I'm curious about the spending, but that's not really the sentence that says, in July 2025, office in partnership with its small cities applied for funding from the Esquale Indian tribe for flock safety cameras. That statement. That's a statement. As Commissioner Fornier pointed out, well before July 2025, we had heard that the sheriff wasn't interested in that technology.

And the board had concerns about that technology. So I'm just curious about that application. I mean, I'm fine with them using it for the helicopter or whatever. But why would they have applied for it for that if that's not what we're being told that they were pursuing. So that causes me that seems like a disconnect to me.

I think the conversation evolved. It is 2026, considering these things, is different than it was, I would

say, in 2024. Or 2025.

Or 2025. It's early, late, whatever. So my feeling is that the conversation has shifted, and comfort with these technologies has changed. It was said that we should talk about this in a public meeting. I just want to point out this is a public meeting and this amendment will continue to be discussed in public meetings. So that will occur. That is us doing our business. So I just wanted to kind of state that. And what I have heard and what I understand is that you cannot enter into contracts without board approval. There's even special language regarding cameras being purchased.

And it seems like any camera that is purchased at all in the county needs commissioner approval. So let's continue having the discussion. But I don't know that the safeguards aren't there that, you know, we're wanting there.

Chair?

Yes. Can Commissioner Klaus rephrase the question? If if we're not answering it? I just wanna have a better understanding of what the specific what the question is again.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's sort of being touched on in the last couple statements that are that were made. But my question was, if we grant budget authority for this $100,000, we have this narrative that says it will be used for the helicopter. But once we grant that budget authority, it can be used on different things at the discretion of the independently elected official. So that was my question. And then it's being kind of answered by commissioners that if it's cameras, it'll come to us and, but, you know yeah. So that that my my question was essentially, like, we grant this budget authority, but then the elected official has the discretion to use it for other things.

Do we need So Is a sub another way to phrase that is would we need to put proviso language on the acceptance of the grant that it's used for helicopter so that it's not used for something else we didn't know it was gonna be used for?

You could do that. Yeah. That's that's the board can easily do that. I think what we don't have at our fingertips is we don't understand the nature of the grant. And so we're at a loss. I don't think some of this conversation is productive because we can't answer the questions. And the sheriff is not available to join us this morning. But a proviso would narrow down the scope of what the dollars could be used for so that it's only intended for the helicopter and it doesn't allow it to be used other places. The grant may already do that. I don't know. But this would be belt and suspenders. Right.

Yeah, that's what I was going point out to some of the grant. Like the grant may do that already. But maybe there's grants out there that don't, and you'd want to put those side rails on in a particular case.

Commissioner don't ever accept money from an organization saying this is what it's for and then use it for something totally different.

It depends on what those yeah.

Well, if there's not proper side rails, you only get to do that once And they'll never give you money again.

Well, I'm just saying, though, it's grant by grant. Because with the auditor, it was like safety. Well, Okay, it turned out that at least one board member, if not more, said there were some safety measures we would like it spent on. Other safety measures were not. The grant said it's fine for any safety, late election safety measures. But maybe the Board of Commissioners said, well, we only want it to go to certain types of safety measures. And then we'd have to put those extra rails on because the grant itself wasn't doing it. Other times, it might be very much within a lane that we wouldn't even need to worry about it. But it's very much I think grant by grant. Commissioner Mahia?

Thank you. Yeah, I think for I guess the comparability maybe adding the proviso. My question is, like, these grants are have to come in front of the board to be approved anyways. Right? Like, anytime, you know, any office accepts a grant, so it has to come in front of the board regarding of whether their budget authority is there. They still would have to come in front of the board to have that con basically, that contract and that funding approved.

Typically, But again, we don't have the details of this grants or how it was entered into. We can the proviso language if the grant already doesn't, which I would be surprised if the grant doesn't specify because they would not ask to use money on something that the grant doesn't specify. But the proviso language that Commissioner Menser is suggesting would be a double protection to make sure that the money is only being used for the helicopter. So

Commissioner Klaus, I saw your hand.

No. I'll hold my question. That's okay. Thank you.

Okay. So we'll have maybe a follow-up on this one. Any other items?

Okay. So

what's the next step over this whole process? You said at the beginning, but let's restate it. We have you're gonna publish some you're gonna publish something tomorrow that then have that's public sort of a

Yeah. So, formal approval will be on June 2, but we need approval from the board, to move forward with what's presented to you or if there's any anything that needs to be changed so that my team and I can do all the final pushes, if you will, within the system to generate the final reports to get everything ready so that we can meet our deadline.

So you need a motion from us this morning to allow you to put the

We need you to tell us that this is what you want us to do even though

we're not adopting anything. We usually do thumbs up,

thumbs down on this.

If not, refer to slide seven of the PowerPoint. No additional changes to budget can be made once the public notice period. That date is May 14.

So in order to meet the public notification, thank you for that. I'm posting in the paper, we've got to get I'm to have to get our work done before 04:00.

So Chair, would be because you aren't taking final action on this until later. The board normally just says thumbs up on moving this package forward for public notice. And then of course, this item, once it's noticed, it will come back in a resolution for the board's final approval.

Mr. Claus has her hand. Up that you can't see.

Is there any okay, I'll get Mr. Claus. But just is there any out of the discussion we had this morning, I wasn't really tracking. Like was there anything that you would require to change on your end?

I did not receive any feedback to remove or change anything. So that's what we're looking for is if is there.

The only change would be they added provides a language for that item about the grant to make sure that it is spent on the helicopter.

But nothing different as far as the the funding amounts that are shown or what's been discussed or what was provided to you. Yes.

Commissioner Klaus.

Thank you. So I think that a couple of the questions that were asked today, I'm just kind of gonna look to staff for timing because one of my questions about the CIP and the evidence storage space that we're looking at, I think depending on the answer to that question, it might change this timeline unless I'm mistaken by that. But if we did have to do a public hearing I I know we think we don't have to, and I think we we're probably right on that. But if we did discover we have to do a public hearing or if we'd opted to do a public hearing on the building we're looking at, would that change this timeline? And then there are other questions that staff said that they would get back to us on that I didn't ask, but I wrote down.

And so I just like, the credit card rebate question, we I wrote down that staff would research that one. And yeah. So some of these questions, I'm just wondering if they're answered, will they change this timeline? And if the budget changes can't be made once public notice period begins, and then we find out that some of these answers to the questions need to change the trajectory of some of these line items, what do we do at that point?

So thanks for your question, Commissioner Claus. If we needed to do the CIP approach of the public hearing, we would have a completely different approach and even time frame. We would have had to start much, much earlier. We don't believe that we need the CIP approach. And if we do, for some reason, let's just say we do, we'd have to actually build that in a separate budget process.

The other questions that we heard about the researching of some of these items, we didn't take as it pertaining to I think Commissioner asked that question. We didn't take that as pertaining to changing what was being approved on the amendment, just that the board would like to talk about that and see if we need a policy for future.

Yeah. And that was my intent when, when I requested that. Thank you.

And if I may, the statutes shown here provide the board the authority to amend the budget during the processes without public notice. The midterm and biennial development require public notice and public hearing in order for the board to move forward with those final adoptions.

And that's not limited by certain time frames or numbers of amendments, right? Like if we were really hard, if we mess something up for some reason, we had to do another amendment that can be done.

We could, yes. If we wanted if there was an emergency situation, we could in all

I'm not going do that.

But in all reality, I've mapped this out before. We could do an amendment to the budget under emergency circumstances in a month. We did a couple of years ago. Had to do the capital for the roundabout at Highway 12. That was an additional amendment specifically for the capital budget.

Yeah. And it kind of is So worst case scenario,

if we find out that the item that you requested, background on Commissioner Claus, that needed to be added to the CIP, then we would move forward with a separate process.

I would say this is the tightest and most transparent budget I've seen in Amendment one in a very long time. So well done

to Summer and the team. Agreed.

It's pretty darn good.

Okay. So I guess we need direction the for budget team and staff to go forward with the publication of this amendment one. Motion or no motion?

You can move to have them publish. Make a motion out

of that. Somebody want to make a motion? Publication of amendment one as presented. So moved. I'll second it. Second. Okay. Commissioner McGill seconds. Discussion on that motion?

I have one. Thanks, Chair. So, we expect this to be coming back for final approval on June 2. If there are between now and then if there are any changes that need to be made, what would that do to the timeline?

There are no changes after today. What we noticed to the public in the paper is what you will be presented for adoption on June 2.

Okay. And if a commissioner wanted to make a change what would that do to the process?

We would need I would assume I'll need to go back and research that we would need to go through a review process again and then we would need to do all of the background work that we do as a budget team and then we would need to yes Which would grossly impact the rest of this calendar year because

That's a conversation for the board, for the commissioners to have amongst each other during the adoption process that comes on June 2. If a commissioner wants to make a motion to change something, that's a conversation with commissioners.

But but it would start the process over, and, the decisions would be in abeyance until, that that that process ran its full course again.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And, thank you, commissioner or, I mean, sorry, assistant county manager Cummings. To your point, yeah, I I would of course, it would be a commissioner conversation, but I also wanna be mindful of the impacts on staff. So I just wanna make sure I'm clear on the process so that if I were to come forward, I wanna know, hey. I probably shouldn't come forward with this minor change because it's gonna totally mess up what staff are working on. So maybe that's a conversation for another day. So I just wanted to make sure I'm clear on the impact on staff at this point once we move forward today. So thank you.

We we appreciate it, commissioner Klaus. Also, there there will be other amendments, in the budget process. So if there's something that, you'd like to for the budget team to look at for a future amendment, that's also an option as well.

Yeah. I mean, just as an example, I had a couple of things in my review of this amendment that I flagged for the county manager it's something that that I'm gonna keep in on my list for future budget discussions with the board. So this you may have things in that category as well, which could cause.

Like all budgets, it's iterative, right? So you were the commissioners are doing a nice job of keeping an eye on the budget, and it changes over time, and you have other bites at the apple. So good job. Good job, everybody.

Other discussion on the motion, which is to, approve the amendment one for publication.

I have one more question. The proviso we discussed, if we decide we wanted to do a budget proviso for the grant,

Thought that, there was agreement among majority of the board to include that just

to be safe. If it's, yeah, if it's appropriate. Okay. Okay. Other discussion?

Go forth and publish.

We will. Go forth and publish. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Alright. Commissioner items, all we've got teed up is reports and external committees.

To go finish that up. But I appreciate it, and I will talk to you all soon.

Perfect. Thank you. Commissioner Grant?

No. The only update I I'll give is this transportation board added two new community members today and two new we appointed two new community board members, and so we're excited to have a full board. And that's it.

Okay. Great. Ishwiya?

Thank you, Chair. So for Board of Health, I think we heard a little bit about it today. So we had Jamie Bowden come in and provide a presentation on the legislative session. Jamie is the Mosulpho director, of course, a branch of of WSAC. And they provided kind of the status of of how this legislative session went.

They had a couple of wins, but, of course, the hit to foundational public health was the big part. We also passed yesterday a a resolution basically for repeat offenders. There's actually just been just as background, there's been one vendor who's has a very unsafe food practices, and so resolution was passed basically to be able to dispose of that food. And because they're you know, after they're getting shut down, they're opening in other locations, and they have been unwilling to get a food permit, and their practices are very unsafe. So that's something new that happened yesterday and so our environmental health team will be moving forward with that action.

Other than that, at this time, I don't have anything else to report.

Fisher for

here. Only thing really that I I did out of the ordinary for outside boarders commission was was, in the absence of commissioner Mentzer, I attended the canvassing board and the certification of April 28 Rochester School Board. It was yep. Yep. Capital and a a big capital budget proposal for a water system down there.

Their water system was failing, so their schools passed by it was something like 60 votes. It was a very narrow margin, and, they were successful in in securing the the funds to to redo their water system. So it's, it's exciting for Rochester and, exciting for that area and that school district, and the elections team did an excellent job. It was it was cool to get to be part of that. So your absence was was appreciated. Alright. Very good. Yeah. For me, I

don't know that I have just looking at my list of things. There was a there was a Alliance for Healthy South Sound council meeting. I I'm not part of the council. I'm part of the executive committee, but the councils were kind of substantive stuff is presented and our staff presented about our one water grant. And I wanted to see kind of how they were doing that.

And so a really good job by Derek Day and Kevin Hansen to overview what we're working on. And there were a lot of interesting questions from the group about it. So I think we got people's wheels turning in terms of how we're working on that and applying those funds to planning, watershed planning in the Nisqually area. Looking at other items, commissioner McKee and I attended a a forum at downtown about heat and climate. Doctor.

Gordon Wheat, who's presented to the Board of Health in the past, presented some of the same information and updated some of it. And it's pretty interesting stuff regarding the risk that Pacific Northwest faces in as climate change advances to mortality from heat, stroke, heat. There's different types of issues related to heat, and we're ill equipped to deal with them. I thought that was pretty interesting. It's pretty good turnout for that, including representative Parsley who gave a report on some work she's doing in legislature on that issue.

Didn't pass last session, but she's gonna try to bring it forward next session. Had a conversation at the at the conference I was at last week with the chair of the King County Council, who I had not met before. But she's knee deep in a battery energy storage system project, very similar to the one that's before us on a quasi judicial level. And she shared some insights about how she's trying to address that with the public and working through basically at a permit at the project level trying to give guidance to staff, King County permitting staff about how they can put protective pieces into the project in order to try to address community concerns. So that was pretty useful conversation.

And I may follow-up with her on some other questions I had. I would say that would be the only thing I have to report. Yep. So that's the end of that item. Any other commissioner items before we adjourn? Okay. Hearing none, thanks, everybody. We're at the end of the agenda. We're adjourned.