Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

No, just comments. I really appreciate the extended hours to 7 o'clock. I'm sure people are really appreciative of that. And then the fire station, number 4. What did that replace? Which fire station were you all using prior to that or location?

I can look at it before. ISD? ISD, thank you. My apologies on that one. And it's so far out, too. I mean, this is a better location. Thank you. Yeah, great job.

And as far as that fire station, the parking is... IS IT ENOUGH? BECAUSE I JUST REMEMBER IT BEING JUST KIND OF SMALL.

I KNOW THAT THERE WAS A FIELD, YOU KNOW, WHEN THEY HAD THE GRANT OPENING. I DON'T KNOW HOW RELIABLE THAT IS OR, YOU KNOW, BUT ANYWAY. Hopefully it'll work out.

Just one question on, I know we're having the budget workshop later, but do we have a presentation prior to that, a presentation?

I was just wondering since it was on the agenda. Yeah. We had a separate item, so it's fine.

Sure. This is actually being done in response to a request from the Belterra subdivision itself and the Water Supply Improvement District there, or the Water Control Improvement District.

It's just an increase in cost of labor and materials and I guess some redesign of easements.

I believe we have public comment on this, but so many.

Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Judge. Before we get started, I just want to give a little bit of background on this project. Within the last, I guess, probably six years, seven years, we've considered this project a number of times, at least in part and parcel. different portions. But by way of background, as far back as the 2013 transportation plan, it was recommended that there be at minimum a center turn lane added to Darden Hill Road. Right now it's a two-lane roadway at places I'm not even sure how we're able to do a center turn, or pardon me, a center strike because we don't have drainag

Okay. One of the concerns that she listed was the fact that the address for Doucette is on Highway 71. I know Doucette's parent company, Klinefelter, is located in another state, and I think that they probably carry the insurance. My biggest concern with her comment is an accusation that I have some type of business relationship. I haven't had any business relationships in Hayes County with anyone in over eight years. And if there's any accusation similar to that, or if there's anything I want, I would love to have it brought out in court publicly. We can discuss it. I'll address any of it, an

And Commissioner, I don't know your precinct as well as you do. But I recall that there was a road, and I don't know if it's this one. I don't remember. I don't recall. but where we were going to make some safety improvements because a lot of people did come out into the courtroom. It's you. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. I just wanted to make sure. But you mentioned 500 school students on this roadway in the fall of 2020. 5,000. Oh, I mean 5,000. That's what I have. I'm sorry. So I would imagine, have you spoken to the schools?

The schools are very supportive of this. And what I would say is that, and forgive me, I just want to clarify here. If you look at the corridor, the Sawyer Ranch, Darden Hill corridor, in our bond, we actually have a number of projects that all culminate at that point, specifically because of the school. I think some of the concerns that the public have seen or have raised I think is very interesting because it shows a Whenever we do a really good job of educating them as to why certain improvements are needed, then they understand it, but they still may not like it. And I say that, for exampl

And so I think you answered my question. So there's no money for construction. It's just this is just a utility and right away relocation or anything like that included.

No. What I will tell you is that whenever we did our public outreach for the bond, it was anticipated that we would have one hundred and fifty million dollars and CEOs for right away. If you remember, that was part of our public outreach. This was one of those named projects that would have had right-of-way on it. This is not included in the bond, no right-of-way. But go ahead. Commissioner.

I mean, well, and that's what I wanted to know. I mean, there's no construction money allocated to this project specifically. It's just for the design. I haven't. And public engagement. Okay. Traffic counts are going to be. Done. Okay. Okay. Those are my questions.

Right, and then I think, you know, Commissioner, you shared that this, you have, I mean, schools have reached out, they do.

The school district has reached out. The city adopted their master transportation plan with this as a part of it in 2021. school district has reached out since that time and added two schools to this roadway and they are eminently concerned and i think aaron can speak to this but they are eminently concerned we're working directly with them to ensure that the east portion of this is completed at least functionally before the start of the school year in 2028 and the road bond lawsuit has put all of the projects that we have that were half two projects on a certain timeline in jeopardy and this

The project delivery, the timing is in jeopardy, not the project.

I will tell you this. There are seven elected members of the school board. There are five, forgive me for my ignorance in knowing exactly how many members are on the school board. There are a similar number on a city council. There are that both those organizations have identified this as a need in the area. There are 65,000 residents of our community that has identified this project as a need. They could have, if they didn't like one of those projects, they could have voted against the bond that this was included in. As members of the court, there's no less than eight votes that have included

I'll remind you you lied about that too.

Well, let me clarify exactly what I said in court, since you just lied about it again. And we can go back and forth all you want. I never said anything, not once, about the city of Austin. I never said the court supported it. You asked in this courtroom, have you spoken to anybody on the Travis County Commissioner's Court? I had a lunch the week before with two commissioners, both of which said, yeah, we think it's probably a good idea. We think it's a good project. Whenever you asked me to characterize it, I said I thought it was a positive conversation. Then you put out a press release sayin

My precinct is 35 square miles, so it's the smallest one geographically. Within that precinct, there are probably about 15 to 17 schools squeezed into that space. And I have firsthand knowledge of what it's like to have schools on what is barely a two-lane road. And my My fear for this project is, you know, yes, judge, you may not be getting any positive feedback about those who are for, but I guarantee you when that school is built, those parents are going to start calling because they call me now about our schools and how terrible our roads are unsafe and kids getting hit, you know, crossing

I'm more than happy to answer your question if you'll let me.

If you knew Darden Hill Road exists, you know that the extension portion of this project actually removes three dogleg right-hand 90-degree turns at the end of it. It improves Darden Hill Road, and if you'd like, you're more than welcome to look at our road bomb map. But it actually, about 80% of the roadway is existing right now that this would renovate it. would change it from a two-lane undivided or undivided roadway with no shoulders and very little drainage into a four-lane divided with a walking path along it 80 of it there is no way we have looked since 2021 at least to straighten out t

No, this doesn't. That's a completely different project.

No. Darden Hill does not touch 12 and 150. I know that. Darden Hill hits 150 and intersects at 150. There is nothing in the agenda item, there is nothing in anything relative to this that even mentions 12 because it's a completely different project. Two miles away from this project. Three miles away. Forgive me. How far is the 150 Darden Hill intersection and the 152?

That includes the elementary as well as those two.

OH, HOW I ENJOY SITTING BETWEEN YOU ALL. SO THE ONE THING I WANTED TO SAY IS I THINK THE CATALYST OF EVERY SINGLE COMMENT THAT WE'VE HEARD IS FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVE. LIKE EVERYONE CARES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT AT THE END OF THE DAY. SO WHERE ARE WE AT WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL VISIBILITY STUDY? When is that done? What is the pulse on that?

It would be included in this, correct. Okay, good. And I mean, we are road commissioners. That's what we do. So we have our precincts and we are put in charge of knowing the constituent basis and knowing where the quality of life needs to be improved for our constituents to make sure that they're not sitting in traffic for long periods of time. Winters Mill, perfect example. Nobody really wanted that road. Can't imagine life without it. Wonder World, nobody wanted that road. Can't imagine life without it. So there are these things that we have to understand and we have to plan for in the futur

Sure, go ahead, sir. I would just say that... Overall, there are commitments that we had, and I'm going to jump ahead a little bit when we talk about the ARPA positions, because I think those are not new positions, but they are full-time positions that we made a commitment whenever we created those that we needed to carry those forward. The other one that I would Well, there's two. One of them is mentioned here. The other one that I know I've had direct conversations with the Hays Consolidated ISD School Board, and they are, in their budget, currently supporting additional SROs for each campus

Countywide, and it was turned down. I know that they're going to carry that funding. It's something that we've always wanted to step up and assist with in the past, and I think I would be supportive of that. The one concern that I have, is that when we created, or the other concern that I have, is that when we created the Parks and Open Space Department last year, we made a strong commitment as to how that department should expand with the opening of Sentinel Peak and with the other duties that they've now taken on. I just want to ensure that whatever we do in the budget, we are looking at We

No, I mean, I appreciate all of the work that you've done. And does this item cover us to talk about the budget in its entirety? Jordan?

Perfect. So I have no intention on increasing our tax rate, and I know that our budget office has done a really great job balancing that budget. That being said, The way that it's balanced isn't truly setting us up for success in the future, pulling from the reserves to cover certain items here and there. So I do believe, I mean, if I was Bill Gates, I would give everyone raises. I'd approve all of these. But unfortunately, we're working with the taxpayer dollars, not at the end of the day. And I have a hard time going to them and increasing taking food off of their table that they have to go

For me, I just believe that it is important for everyone to be presented with the bare bones of the budget, what it looks like with no tax rate. So I have more of an appetite for a small tax increase to help cover a lot of the programs that are going to help us move forward in Hays County. A lot of the initiatives that our departments are spearheading that they want to be able to see, we have to prepare for the future. And so I truly want to hold my comments for that for the workshop. I don't want to dive into anything at the moment, just me personally, until everyone sees what the budget look

Yeah, and... Thank you, Judge. In my discussions with Scott, the budget officer and our county administrator, you know, I've also have been just really cautious about what we're doing. I know that it is a very tight budget year. And, you know, my direction has been, yes, let's look at a NO TAX RATE INCREASE AND LET'S SEE WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE. BUT I ALSO BELIEVE THAT WE NEED TO ENSURE THAT WE ARE STILL GIVING THE RESOURCES THAT OUR DEPARTMENTS NEED TO FUNCTION WELL. YOU KNOW, WE WANT TO ENSURE THAT IF THERE ARE ANY SAFETY MEASURES OR ISSUES THAT ARE NEEDED THAT WE ADDRESS THOSE. BUT, YEAH, I AG

But I think it's smart to utilize those ARPA funds if we have those funds for those positions that we continue on with that.

I know, but don't we need to be in workshop to have these discussions? Because I think we need to see the whole budget first before we start saying that we need to freeze everything, is my thought.

I would agree with you, but I would have one suggestion, and I've been thinking about this quite a while. We get these piecemeal requests for new positions and piecemeal requests for upgrade or regrade. And it's always been the bane of our existence outside the budget process. And so we look at a mid-year budget update that Scott does and Vicki did every, and we do our quarterly updates, those kind of things. As part of the budget process, and I'm not talking any dollar figures here whatsoever, I'm just talking as part of a process. I think it'd be very helpful and it would give good direction

Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the freeze situation, I agree with both my colleagues. I do think that there needs to be a time and a place for it. I do think that if you did a freeze and you instituted a freeze, from one budget cycle to the next and just approved at budget cycle new positions, I think that that's something I could get behind. I also believe, I mean, we as a court said, whenever we started this process, we made it very clear that if you wanted a new position, justification and data were one of the things that we really wanted to see consistently. I believe Judge Smith has done

I mean, and I agree with that. I mean, and that's what I was going to ask about the contracts. I guess we're going to have to come back and renew those or establish those once again.

I'M TALKING ABOUT LIKE COMAO COUNTY, GUADALUPI COUNTY, SOME OF THOSE ARE WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. IF WE'RE BRINGING THEM BACK CLOSER TO HAYES COUNTY, AND I AGREE, IT WILL BE EASIER FOR REPRESENTATION The families, I know that families have been concerned about having them out there. It worked for a while and it still is, but if we can get them closer to home, I think I'd appreciate that. And the families would too. So would we have to reestablish those contracts with the neighboring counties?

And I wanted to make a point. I don't want to sound like I'm just completely trying to get the budget at all costs. But when it comes to outsourcing them, it is actually cheaper. But us as a court have determined, isn't it cheaper? Let me just ask that. Is it cheaper to outsource the inmates in Haskell County?

It was 95 in the first contract. I thought it went up to 115. Is that not right?

No, it is cheaper from that perspective, right? But it's important to the court that they're here. It's important for various reasons. So that is something that I just wanted to make a point of, that us doing that doesn't necessarily save money, but it is something that's important to every single one of us on the court.

I would just add that I know that the Sheriff's Department has been working diligently to try to end that contract. I know there's a timeline during the budget process. Are we going to hear what that current timeline is? I know Chief Bailey's here. I'm just wondering.

No, I'm looking for when, if we say 50, is that doable in the first year? quarter of the fiscal year is that in the second quarter of the fiscal year is that how many do we have there now you see what I mean I mean we can't really make a good decision I don't think until we have a timeline as to what facilities will have ready here and what what surrounding counties I think the biggest concern I completely agree I'd much rather have those inmates closer the biggest concern that I have is that when we were outsourcing the vast majority of our inmates to those surrounding counties years ago They

then we can make that a better determination.

And I think a good example of that is whenever we had the broadest, an associate's contract, we were like, hey, we're not going to be touching this for a while. We've spent this amount of money. This is how much is left in the contract. Let's terminate now, and then we can always talk about it later. Exactly. So things of that nature.

So I, everybody hold your breath. This is something we're going to actually really agree on. I'm not joking. This is a concept that I came up with about two years ago. And I say that because I know many of us have familiarity with the Burke Center, which is located in my precinct. And in dealing with them and with some budget shortfalls they had, they contacted me and said, we're really interested in housing juvenile inmates for Hayes County because we have contracts with, I think at that time, six other outside counties to house juvenile inmates. And we don't have one with Hays County. Why is

Are they all in county juveniles that are facility right now?

Yeah. CURRENTLY AT OUR FACILITY, ARE THEY ALL HAYES COUNTY JUVENILES?

AND THAT'S WHY I'M A LITTLE BIT CONFUSED, I GUESS. WE'RE ALREADY HOUSING OUT OF COUNTY. And so I... Are we getting paid? What are we asking here?

So that's my point. What's the current capacity of the facility?

So my question was the capacity that they have right now that is extra capacity in there that we're having these outsourced juveniles in. I think the numbers that I looked at, and Judge, you may have better numbers than I, because these have been a couple of years old that I saw, is that we would completely fill that facility ourselves within five to seven years, I want to say what the estimates were. And so if we know that we're going to fill that facility in five to seven years and we're going to have to start outsourcing and we are going to or we're going to have to expand the facility, if

Okay, and I understand that. It was just the way, I guess, the agenda item was written. You know, I wasn't sure because I thought we had out of county, and it just says to house out of county juvenile inmates, and so I...

And I just want to add, I'm more interested in prevention and reform versus expansion, honestly. Not a way to generate revenue for the county, right? So my hope is that the court truly invests in those resources than the other suggested, is my thought.

Yes, and I believe, Scott, in our conversations, I know that Jeff McGill looked at that and recommended what he believes is necessary.

No, I know that we're going to be in a situation in five to seven years where we're going to have to expand it. Just because after speaking with our county court law judges and others over the last two to three years, we are getting a much, much larger number of juvenile cases. And so that being in serious cases, not... Not the cases we saw 10 years ago. And they do require some type of detainment. So that being the case, we know if we can see that that's coming on the horizon, then preparing for that I think is the best thing to do. And at a bare minimum, I'd like to see us look at at least h

Yeah, so this is an annual update that we are required to do within the PID, I guess, statute or agreement that we have with LACIMA, and P3 is here to kind of give us a little bit more information and details on each of those.

Thank you for your two and a half hours.

MATTHEW IS GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE ITEM.

So, Matthew, just a couple of questions. So, I guess this is a more specialized approach. assistance that we need? I mean, we have a great grants department, but does it go kind of beyond their scope and this is more specialized?

AND THEN JUST WHAT SPECIFICALLY COUNTS AS AMOUNTS GENERATED FROM THE PROGRAM? BECAUSE I KNOW WE HAVE 22% IN THERE, BUT IS IT 22% OF THE I mean, you know, are there any other reimbursable that can be added to above and beyond the 22%?

Okay. So no other reimbursables or anything like that?

Okay, thank you. Matthew, how much revenue do you estimate that we might receive within the fiscal year?

Correct. And the reason I put this on the agenda and the reason that I wanted to pull it out of exec for a conversation is there are certain questions that... If we attempted to have those in EXACT, it would be attorney-client privilege. And I wanted to make sure to hear straight from NDS some of the answers to those questions, and they would not be allowed in our executive session. And so I know there's representatives from NDS here, and I know that we also have some representatives from both our district courts and the district attorney's office. It's I intend for this to be an open conversa

No, I think that's fine. Just a couple of things, and you answered a couple of my questions. So you feel like the coverage for the clients was unimpacted?

Have you completed your negotiations, or are you still in negotiations?

Okay. When we signed this contract, y'all were not a unionized facility. Is that correct? So given the fact that I assume that those negotiations ended with various increases in different costs. Correct. We have a contract, and for people who want to ask legal, when is the termination date on the contract? Do you know?

Okay, so we have an additional year on the contract. Correct. There's not any anticipation that the cost for the services provided to the county would be increased?

Okay. Okay. And then really my last question is, are there any concerns or were there any concerns expressed by either the judges or the DA's office relative to, and I'm just going to say these attorneys walking out on their clients. I mean, are there not bar concerns there relative to the service and standard of service that they have agreed to on taking on those clients for representation?

How was that received by those that you were negotiating with?

Well, Meenu, thank you for being here. I mean, I'll just say that, you know, it was very concerning when we received your email that this was happening, and I was actually really surprised that there was a union. I mean, I had absolutely no idea that, you know, that was what we were dealing with here. And so when was that formed and why?

And can you share with us what the final negotiations were regarding the health care benefits? When I saw that, it's extremely rich. I mean, I was even surprised at that. But can you just let us know what the final? Conclusion was on that sure.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, if there's others that want to speak, I know that, you know, we've just kind of been hearing some concerns. And so I just want to hear from others maybe what those are going are. And but thank you again for being here and sharing.

I just want to say I do think a public defender's office is is crucial to our criminal justice system. So I don't want to discount or discredit anything that you and your office do in any way, shape, or form. How much advance notice did you give us in that email from when the strike happened, from when you heard that it was a potential or you heard threats of it happening? I just want to know that timeline.

You didn't hear any rumblings before that five days period?

Judge, before that, there's just one more follow-up before you sit down. I think the concerns that I have, we work with other groups that are unionized. I mean, all of our law enforcement is unionized. And I think my largest concern is how many months ago or years ago did you know that this contract was going to expire? When you signed the initial contract at unionization, you knew this contract had an expiration or a renegotiation period. Did you not? Exactly. When did you actually start negotiating?

So from April until the walkout, what notifications did you provide the county or anyone who works with us to notify us that we could have had an interruption in service?

I'm not saying you were trying to hide anything, but my concern is if you knew that this would be a problem, where you knew that this was a possibility, or you knew it might have an impact on our contract as you being our vendor, if that's going to be the case, why did we not, if you've been in negotiations since April, why did we not know until a day before a walkout happened, even though five days prior you had been notified that we could have had, that it was a possibility? At a bare minimum, even if you didn't notify us that you were in negotiations with our service providers, the moment t

I don't have anything for Judge Tibby. I appreciate her openness, but I also see that Greg Cox from our DA's office is here. And if there was any interactions that you might want to share with us, you're more than welcome to. If not, that's fine as well. But not yet.

I would just probably reiterate the fact that I'm glad that y'all came to terms when you did. I would, if that were to be the case in the future, as soon as there's any type of rumblings or hearings or anything that is going through the grapevine of this being another potential, just to be able to reach out to the county as soon as possible and just let us know, because we just want to make sure that everyone's being taken care of.

No, but Sherry, Tibby, thank you so much for being here. No, I just wanted to thank you for being here and sharing that. And I agree. I mean, I think that just whenever we know something, you know something, we would appreciate a heads up as soon as possible.

I would probably save any comments or questions for the exact portion. Very good.

Go to the little thing. Are you trying to do presentation?

I have a question because yesterday when we chatted, it was $2.5 million with 40% of funding. What happened to the $500,000?

I will say, Court, too, if we did a 3% blanket across the board, just so y'all are aware, because that's what has happened in the past, it would be $1.8 million.

So basically what they're saying, because I didn't understand this, y'all probably did, but instead of doing a 3% across the board and them getting their step, some people may not get any increase, some people may get more than 3%, and just going from there.

But who would determine how much this one-time payment is? What is the one-time payment?

Yeah. But we are not, just because I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all, because we are not increasing the amount that they have to pay for insurance, correct? Correct. That was my biggest thing.

And to me, that was a really big deal because someone that's making less than $50,000, if they got a 10% increase, that would be eaten away completely by the cost of them having to increase what they pay for insurance. Rather than someone who's making $100,000, that would be the same amount as someone making $50,000, so.

No, I was just trying to make a point. So if someone saw that they weren't going to get their 3% and got 0.96%, that also their health insurance wasn't going up as well.

We were currently, for our month of reserves in the general fund, we were at what, 4 point?

And for good bond ratings? Four. But our goal is six. Yeah, I know, but that's like the very, very bottom for us to.

Commissioner Smith, we'll start with you. It's going to be a hard year, and I appreciate it. In our conversation, the clarification on whenever we went through the slides and the presentation to actually, instead of have a percentage of the penny to put in there, what the actual impact on the bond rate would be. So the general public and the members of our court, whenever, I think that was the last meeting yesterday, whenever we kind of got an overview of this, I said, I think it'd be much more direct if we had those numbers in front of us where we can say when we get into conversations, look,

Over the next month, but I think it's a I think it's a good start Commissioner hammer Us saying no to certain things it's hard because everybody has their departments their job is to fight for their departments to fight for their staff to fight for more services and to to benefit the Common good of our citizens, but the end of the day That common good for our citizens also affects our common citizens pocket in there and what they take home, right and So it is hard. It's hard to make, you know, we have to make tough decisions every single day. So I know that I believe some of my colleagues are

Well, first, I want to congratulate you, Scott, on your first budget presentation.

Yeah. This is the way to, you know, this is going right out the gate with the fire. So I appreciate the work of not only you, but, you know, Candice and all the staff that put this together. Scott, thank you for having those conversations.

Thank you so much. You know, I think this was very important for us to see, you know, what a no tax rate would look like. Right. So we needed a baseline to start from. Right. And so it is it is hard. It is gut wrenching. But it's important. We needed to see the big vision here of what this looks like for everybody. I think what makes this budget year a little different is that we actually have a strategic plan to be our county's moral compass for the next three to five years. And I've always felt we haven't had that kind of a mechanism in place to help with some of these decisions. Um, so I am

your work scott and and and all the staff for what y'all did for this thank you commissioner commissioner inglesby thank you judge um yeah scott congratulations and i i do want to also just thank everyone that had a hand in this i know there was a lot of work that was put into it and you've done a great job scott i like your presentation um yeah and i you know agree in some aspects with all my colleagues and their comments that they made It is going to be tough, and we're going to have to make some decisions that may not be popular. But we know that we're in a tough year, and we're trying to d

Yeah, I just want to say, first of all, I love what the Mental Health Court does, and I think it's important that we are invested within it. The $58,000 were for contract services, correct, to increase our spend there. THE PEOPLE THAT CAME UP AND SPOKE THIS MORNING, ARE THOSE SOME OF OUR VENDORS THAT WE PAY FOR WITH THOSE CONTRACT SERVICES?

Okay. They were just speaking for the better of the county?

Commissioner, did we pay for transport services to get them here today?

Okay. My concern was whenever we had one of the participants speak this morning and said that we paid for the ride to get him here to lobby on behalf of funding for the court, there's definitely an ethical problem with that, and so I wanted to address that. I'm really excited about the work of the court. There's been so much work that went into it. Even prior to Judge Brown, she's done an amazing job. But Judge Zellhart and Judge O'Brien both truly believed and cared in trying to make this work from the onset. Looking at some of the overall expenses on those costs, I appreciate where you all h

THANK YOU. THANKS FOR BEING HERE. I DO BELIEVE THAT IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US TO CONTINUE TO LOOK AT PROGRAMS THAT COST A LITTLE AND HAVE A LARGER IMPACT AND BENEFIT IN THE LONG RUN. SO I APPRECIATE YOUR SHARING THAT.

I would say, Judge, that whenever we look at the mental health needs in the jail, that we don't, and correct me if I'm wrong, DA's office, but working through the BAT and those kind of things, those individuals that do have mental health needs, we're paying for those mental health needs in the jail right now, but we don't outsource those inmates. Those inmates stay here. We don't have the ability... In general, they will not accept those inmates if we outsource. So we're paying that cost here in our jail.

Not a whole lot of questions, but you said that you got with Captain Villapondo and you said that it was $163 per day for our jail? Yes. Gotcha. Thank you.

And I know what gen pop means, but she's saying general population.

Thank you, Jennifer, for being here. We can definitely hear you.

I see what you're saying. I am not necessarily for taking away autonomy within the department.

Yeah, I was like, I would rather them have their own budget than they do what they want with it. The one thing I can think of for positions, I know we have a lot of positions that have been open for six plus months. Maybe not a lot, but I'm sure there are some. I'd like to look into those and revisit, you know, hey, is there any other type of position that, you know, would make more sense? Or is it possible that you're good with how you've been operating? And just revisit those so we can give some flexibility. But my direction would be, I mean, I'm not for raising tax rates, so we're going to

The one concern I have is if we look at it from a departmental standpoint, the real problem is you have departments that have 100 FTEs or 450 FTEs, and you've got departments that have two or four. And at one position, they're automatically out of compliance, even if you put a 20% rate or something like that. So just from a logistics standpoint, we would... given the number of employees we have in some of these departments, you add one and it would double the size or at least 30% increase. Yeah, I have a three-person department. I understand, yeah. So I just don't think there would be a contin

So just your personal view, I know that you have to deal with these, and Eric, I know you're in this boat too, you have to deal with these pay grade job description changes, requests for new positions fairly often. Would a process or instituting a process like I mentioned earlier, would that be beneficial relative to, okay, we look at it quarterly or at the mid-year? And if so, what would your recommendation be just for our benefit as we start to look at this if we did move to something like that?

Or halfway through the fiscal year. Halfway through the fiscal year, April?

No offense. No problem. Earlier, we were talking about FTEs and regrades and how we have... We have had a constant battle since I've been here to have our, and I just want to be very, very direct. Most of our directors are very good about, look, we want to look at the fiscal year when we're adding, when we're changing job positions or we're adding, regrading or adding positions, right? But we're constantly getting, okay, well, three months into the fiscal year, we're going to have somebody come in and ask for a new position or a new... putting it on a schedulized basis where there's one opport

Yeah, I would just say no new grades, no new positions until put it in sometime in March, and then we'll review in April 1st.

Until I have time to go through this, for example, I know on Sentinel Peak there's at least one new full-time position that will be needed, that is included in this budget.

Maybe we can have an amendment to that and say that, because that will be covered by revenue, and so we will have to work with... Me and we've already had a discussion about how we can get that one in.

It... doesn't matter that we still have to include it as a full-time position in the budget so my point is I would say give us one week on that so we can look and see what new full-time positions were included in here because there are some in here and a chance to review with those departments you bet absolutely I'm okay with that but Sentinel Peak we can we talked about potentially getting it through

At the end of the day, the goal for our budget is for revenues to equal expenditures. Right now, that's not the case. Our revenue does not cover our expenditures. That's why we're dipping into reserves.

For your definition of reasonable time, what is that? The second one you said, if they're not going to get done in a reasonable time, what's your definition of reasonable?

On the third one, I think that it was pretty clear in the budget that those things, I think Jeff did that and scrubbed them already. And so I don't I mean, we can we can pass that. I think it's already in the budget.

I think I'm okay with the software, since Jeff has already looked at that. And on the studies, I'd like a list of those. I'm not opposed, but I'd like a list of what we're talking about.

Is it possible to also add in there, like, memberships? Like, we have a membership with NACO, we have a membership with Tax Association of Counties. I'm not saying that's one to... but just to look at all of our memberships and everything that we're a part of that we spend money on every single year.