Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Okay, so I've got something that we can cut substantially. It's an update as well on the verdict center, because over the last few days, these conversations have really changed the way I'm looking at this project. And the first was with Stacey Decker, and I think Stacey and Judge Kuhn may be on, and I know they want to speak. Stacey has been telling us for some time that elections has outgrown the building, and she really took a lot of time to walk me through Senate Bill 2753 and what that means. Essentially, elections used to have several days between the end of early voting and election day

Judge. I didn't want to just ignore you. We took the 2.2 and everybody understands we're going to work together to design to the 4 million. But just real quick, did you want to add anything?

Currently, we have 300,000 dedicated to space needs study. I believe that we need to sit down with our department heads. We need to get an office plan of all of our offices we're trying to accommodate and sit down with department heads and actually go do that together and find out what offices have space in them, how can we utilize them better. I think we can do that in-house and save $300,000.

Can you tell us, can you tell us, we're at $7.7 million on the capital expenditures. What exact number are you wanting to see?

We need 3.7 billion cuts. That's a that's an whoever's listening. That's a big undertaking. It's not a small a small goal.

So where are we right now if we cut the 2.2 and you want to get down?

Jeff, what is our hard stop? I believe it's... And why is that?

Is this room going to be taken? What is the physical orientality that we have to stop at 10?

As much as I really appreciate the whole country by our coalition, I believe they've gotten their grant for $2 million. I know that they have a cash flow problem. Perhaps we can sit down with them and solve that problem by not throwing county money at it. So I would propose to take that out.

I understand. I believe now they're getting their reimbursement turned around, and that was the problem, is that they had a cash flow problem submitting their receipts and not getting the reimbursement. So let's work on solving that problem and not just funding something that we don't need to.

Okay. Which one did we... Can we shave $25,000 off for now as we move through this list and see if we can still get to the 3.7?

I think we should take the whole now. We're going to sit here and nickel and dime this and we're trying to come up with another 1.5.

Can we take off 125,000 on the fire blocker truck and put 75,000 in for a used one and it's not support effective?

any injections there being moved i do have a comment on that and i think sheriff auger brought this up but i'm not sure that there may be some cheaper ways to find a big bulky item to sit in that road was it the school bus sheriff did you mention that i mean you're just trying to have a buffer right between the equipment you still want to protect the firefighters but a buffer between the equipment and traffic does it have to be a fancy new thing no ma'am it's been brought to

So I agree on the foundation repair. Just help me understand the building assessment list. Is that making a list or is that money for addressing things that we find on the list?

Is that a, I don't know if it's a study or, I mean, surely.

While we wait for Jason, I do not want to ignore Judge Cahoon because I told her and gave her my word that I will help figure out what we need to do to have a permanent solution for District 4 in our justice system. So just remind me again, what did we say on space needs? Because she is correct. Those RFEs, Corinna, they were RFEs, right? Not RFQs? General Counsel, thank you. So we should have an idea of that number. So can we...

And I think I see it is that that's what we're trying to address right now, that district court. I'm not sure we need to go top to bottom throughout the county and inside out. And yeah, just, I mean, it comes down to, do we build a justice system here at our property near this complex? Yes. Or do we do it in the courthouse parking lot and have parking garage and offices? So, okay.

Do we know that we can meet the delivery with this budget? Or is this going to lag over until FY28? Yeah.

I don't know. Yes. All right. So another 420,000-ish we got to cut. Hmm.

how much is the library exactly that five percent what does that amount to i think they receive three percent

We could possibly look at cultural services, which I think that does the library fit into that? Cultural services, is that the fund 645?

Well, I think there's some debate among the public on whether or not the county should be funding these at all. So we could look at each one of these. I'm not sure if that's going to add up to $251,000, $233,000. That's, I think, where we need to be. But rather than cut public safety and fire and jail and the clerk services that we need, I mean, cultural, because the county legally can, but should we be funding these? Just throwing this out there for discussion.

What does it look like if we decrease this 5% across the board on 545?

I know this isn't capital. But would we delay the hiring of the new employees the six months into the new year?

Let's look at that. I would rather try to keep the way we've set our employees and what they're getting in steps and rates. I'd like to leave that alone. We have imaginary people.

What was the increase we gave, you know, county employees?

The question was how much did we increase our payroll across the board? I don't really want to mess with that, but if we delayed hiring the new people, it would possibly get us below where we're trying to get.

So just to close out the employee, I would advocate that we delay for a year. The admin free position development management and Brady's office will have to come up with some other solutions. Just on that until next budget year.

The remaining... Could we talk with... There would be two deputies, which I would not be in favor of doing that. I think that that's critical. But that's open. Talk to Donnell about his mechanic... Animal control. I mean that's just going from that's not gonna be anything So maybe hear from Donnell about the mechanic and the JP's about the clerk The clerk would be

Are we at 167, 233 if we get rid of that admin? I mean, we're close.

Delayed everybody and cut the admin or keep the admin in delay three months? Delayed.

If we just delay three months, four months, where we need to be without making any other adjustments?

And to clarify, you want to cut the admin three or delay admin? We cut admin three. We're at 167, 203. I don't have that.

employee. I mean, we have to talk to the DA because she's that employee is already there. Stephen's already there. And then she'd have to absorb that. That's going to affect her numbers on her using her SB funds for employees. So maybe we don't touch that one. Could we get Donnell on the line?

We want to hear from Sheriff Archer what that would do delaying hiring of deputies.

looks like delays are probably going to be the easiest way to make this work versus more cuts so commissioner are you changing what you're thinking now keeping the admin three but that would be in the delay a six month delay i mean if you have to just i mean we gave everyone four percent increase we moved people around on staff

So the current budget right now we have, and I know that we don't know exactly where we are, but we're safely in the $17 million fund balance range already before doing any other changes right now. All Kendall County employees have received a 4% increase plus their staff increase. For those that get a staff increase, we've more than taken care of the Kendall County staff. And so this is where it gets tough, you know. But these additional staff members, this goes into next year and the next year's planning as well. Every time we add someone, it's another $84,000 per year minimum added to the fu

So if we delay, just say for three months, a clerk, two deputies, an admin, three, and a mechanic, do you think that that would get us there? I think it would. Realistically, is it going to take three months probably to get all those people on board with this?

On those four positions, a deputy, a deputy, and a mechanic.

Five for three months, and he'd say what?

I think you're right. I mean, we've added How many new employees since this is our fourth time? 35, 40. That's the fastest growing of this county in our history. We've also increased pay by probably 3 million a year more than the number before, which is a lot faster growth than this county has ever seen. We definitely put the brakes on what we're doing overall, but we're not going to be sustainable. Yes, sir. It would be nice to have it. I mean, this guy's been struggling back there for a long time. I mean, I know it's understandable. It's hard because if you don't get it this year, you're goi

So when did you get a more exact number? I was just playing with an average of 84,000 times five divided by two. 85,000, like just an average of each of these five employees, what their salary would be for a year, then divided by two just for six months. I got 210. That's very rough.

To the average taxpayer, they're going to ask us, the question is, when is enough enough? And That means people aren't happy. That means departments aren't happy. But that's what you do in the real world. And you get by and you work harder and you. I know I'll get lots of flack for saying this, but that's the real world when you pay people really good pay. There's a point where we are not even compared to the real world with our county government. And so I'm I could go either way on this with putting a hiring freeze on or not right now.

So you're saying no new employees this year? Not yet. If we wait six months for hiring, that gets us to 16,233 is what we're lacking. So I get it.

Can we agree to not hire anyone and reassess at six months? Is that something we can possibly do?

Correct. She's saying we could budget it for six months on starting and then reevaluate at six months to see if we want to move forward.

I just applaud everybody for the good hard work and making do with what we have, making do more with less and cutting the tax rate. I think that's a commitment to our citizens who are feeling the pinch as well. Thank you.