Neosho County Commission - Regular Meeting

All right.

I'll call to order the Board of County Commissioners of Neosho County, Kansas. This is Tuesday, June 30th, 2026. It is one o'clock and this is a regular meeting. We'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the invocation.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And you'll stay standing. Heavenly Father, as we mark 250 years as a nation, we pursue with gratitude. We pause for gratitude for the freedom that we enjoy and the sacrifices made for those who came before us. Guide our leaders with wisdom and integrity. Unite us as a people with compassion and respect for one another. Help us to pursue justice, seek peace, and walk humbly in your truth. May we never take our liberty for granted and may our nation continue to be a light of hope to all. In your holy name, amen. Amen. All right, do we have any changes to the agenda? I don't think I have anything.

All right.

Commission comments or reports.

I probably heard it. Parsons is having a meeting on the data center.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

There's going to be more of them. Mm hmm. All right. Public comment. Seeing none, we'll go on to the consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions or comments?

I don't.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda, which consists of accounts payable of $366,540.38. Department head leaves request there are two and tax abatements from 6-17 to 6-30. I'll second it. All those in favor. I motion carry. And we don't have any scheduled attendees. I would right here at the beginning like to thank the clerk for the new video cameras and paying those out of her little. And Dave and Trevor from the sheriff's department helped put them up. And hopefully then those watching, it's a better experience. So we're trying to get better on technology. So. I guess we're ready for department heads to see if there's anyone else. So did you get a yes?

Good afternoon. I just have a quick update on the floodplain resolution. It was approved at State on June the 24th. So the next step would be to set a day in time for a public hearing to adopt the resolution. I looked at the dates. I don't know how soon they can get the publication. We have to publish a notice on the paper, so I don't know how soon that can happen. And if we can get it in by July the 10th or July 17th, then the August 11th meeting would be 20 days between tomorrow.

Well, good Friday's paper.

Okay. Okay. So then I guess the meeting at the end of July would be and it can be done during the regular Commission meeting it doesn't have to be a special meeting so so we need to okay okay do we need to give notice then of that well the notice will go in the paper okay but we need to set a time and then when's the last meeting of the month July 29th okay July 29th I'm sorry July 28th I have too many things on my calendar okay and a time 130 okay I will email Chastie the notice that goes in the paper okay that's all I have thank you

All right.

Gabby?

Hello. So I have the agreement, the contract agreement between me and the individual that will be helping us with the VFA cleanup.

we also need to talk about where the funds are gonna count come out of so this will actually be on this year so it will probably have to come out of general courthouse I know you would put some in your budget for next year but we're hoping that she gets done by the end of the year yeah and so we have not budgeted for it

yeah this contract is just for six months and then we'll just readdress later if we need needed so um and i'll always readdress it with you guys before we move anywhere with that so if uh we still have things to work on after the six months then um i'll come back to you guys and we can discuss it further to see where um because we can do the contract however we would like

I'll make the motion to approve the contract between our treasurer, Kathy Sands, and Linda Smith, dated July the 6th, for a six-month term, to help with cleanup of the treasurer's office.

With funds coming out of the courthouse general? Courthouse general, yes.

I'll second the motion.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Okay. Thank you, guys. Were there any concerns or other things that you'd like to discuss regarding the contract? We did try to set clear guidelines

What needs to be fixed?

Yeah, pretty much.

So I did get to meet her, so she's going to be very, very helpful and excited to help us out. So I'm just thankful that we can get this done.

Yes, I'm very excited to get this started and cleaned up and balanced.

so we also haven't signed the contract yet for the auditor for 25 oh yes so we have a copy in our packet you do okay yes I'm so sorry I didn't mean to bring that up and I completely forgot that so he has somewhat begun I think the audit but we still haven't signed a contract every year so this is kind of a formality I think it's about the same price as last year I think it must have been a little bit more for the budget this one has three thousand dollars on it so I think that's less so Chesapeake's doing a little bit more on the budget so I think that is a little bit cheaper but hopefully he'll get 25 done yes soon a couple months maybe

I've gotten everything completed that I need to by July 1st, so that will be a priority is getting all of those reconciliations turned into them and the bank signature documents signed and reach out to everybody that I need to. I plan on going on vacation. I won't be here July 17th throughout that week, so I'll be back. I forgot what day that was. Let me look. So I will be on vacation. It starts July 17. And then I'll be back July 27 is when I'll be back and I'm hoping to have a majority of everything if not all of it over to the auditor so they can begin what they need to. So that is my goal for the next couple of weeks.

So do you have the original paperwork then? i do of of that yes because let's see management needs to sign in governance so i don't know who needs to sign it exactly so we can approve it yeah i believe uh your signature on the line okay and whenever that gets signed i'm happy to email that over to jingo okay I'll make a motion that we approve the contract with James Gordon Associates for the 2025 audit with a fee of $45,000 with an added $3,000 for budget review to be taken out of Courthouse General.

Seconded.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carried. Okay. All right.

I should have that by the end of the commission meeting today or tomorrow. That's to get over to them. Good. Okay. Sounds great. Thank you, guys. I appreciate you. Have a great day. We appreciate you. Thanks.

So do you want to get original and then we can sign it? Okay. Before I leave. All right, 911 director. Tasha, almost 911 director. How many more days do we have? 31.

Okay. 31. I actually do not need to speak to you about the Advantage contract that is for cybersecurity. We called and got that clarified, but I do need to talk to you about a resolution. Lori stated that she believes we need a resolution to appoint me as director on August 1st. Because she said if she remembers correctly, you had to do a resolution for her when she became a department head underneath the commission.

That's when I was going.

Me too. Paul, do you remember? I think she's right.

I believe her.

Okay.

And I'm not sure if... A few years ago.

Yeah, it was 2018, so you're supposed to remember that like yesterday.

I do believe that.

And I figure Brett would have more information than I have.

I'll look into it. Just saying.

I don't know if we've appointed anybody.

All right, everything else going okay? Yep, everything's going great. We completed our audit. We are in compliance with our tech audit. just day-to-day right now hopefully soon we'll have an assistant director hired and then we will have another position open so if you know of anybody all right thank you

We have a prior employee credit card that I would like to have changed over to a current employee name.

If I could have that done, she'll be utilizing it for classes a lot this coming year. It's just a 500 listing on it.

You're just transferring it over? Yeah, we're just transferring it from one to another. Give the name so I can put it in a minute so we can give it to the bank.

It was under Monet Westhoff and it's going to Katie Malone.

I'll make the motion to transfer that over. I'll second the motion.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Thank you. We're not sure what happened, if it was weather-related or... what but here a week ago, we discovered that the GIS server had failed. So we did an emergency order of a new one. We could not replace the parts and pieces in the one because it was too far old and they didn't have the same to replace it it was 1900 approximately i've got it i've got a bill upstairs but wanted to know if the commission would consider taking that out of whatever you take a computer equipment out of this is our backup server that backs everything up to desk other option is taking that out of my budget but if i fall short for education purposes at the end of the year it may sorry let me find the account we only have sixty eight hundred dollars in there that's unaccounted for six thousand eight hundred dollars so it's nineteen hundred i don't mind it coming out of my budget i just making you aware that we are doing a little bit extra for education so you know that was not budgeted for okay so why don't we do that for now okay that will work I spoke with Garrett Sharp yesterday. As you guys know, there's a proposed R.H.I.D. going into schnoot at 29 West Main. I think it's the address. I don't have that down here. So this is going to be apartments. on the upper floors the bottom floor right now is going to be possibly office space it'll be commercial at least on the front there's a possibility that maybe the back half will be some other apartments that are handicap accessible apartments we're not really sure how the RHID works what we've been able to read it is the upward construction that's covered but not ground floor but that does say commercial so I do have a request in to Carrie Filetti who handles it at the Department of Commerce to kind of give us just some understanding of how that works and what is and isn't eligible Right now, I know there's been some question about the length of time that the commission is going to consider, whether it's 18 years like the new housing LLC that's going in right now out by Walmart or the 25 years, which I believe is being proposed at the meeting on the 13th through the city.

and i didn't know if anybody was going to that meeting or if that's something that the commission has even discussed yet but so there's a notice of a hearing which our next meeting is the 14th so we don't want to get caught in the same situation that we had last time I don't know if it states the link in here.

It says up to 25 years. And I don't know if somebody has to actually attend that meeting to make your likes and dislikes known or if that's something that can be sent in a certified letter. that I don't know if I talk to Carrie I can find out about that it might be just a call to the city to find out how that's handled with them too I think that's the biggest right I do too I think this is going to be a good project

And there's still going to be taxes. There will be.

Yes, the commercial will still be tax income to the county.

plus i'm assuming the original building has more tax value than the land that was so the land is not part of it um no i'm sorry from the other i'm sorry i'm ex but the other comparing it to the other oh to the other one yeah which we just had a primary that was undeveloped where this one is an actual building yeah to save the downtown yeah

I think it's going to be a good project. I really do. I don't, you know, I just need to know how it works exactly. And there's so many little parts and pieces that you can read an exception here, an exception there. So, you know, before I really speak to it very strongly, I'll get with Department of Commerce and find out what their opinion is on it. it's kind of depending on which municipality has adopted them they're all a little different throughout the state i mean yeah but i think they still function under the same rules yeah my question on this is the fact that it says it's it's the vertical construction that can be part of it but they don't specify that if there's residential on the ground floor that it can't be So that's where my question lies. I know the commercial cannot be part of it. So that's clear. It's just whether the residential on the ground floor, I think regardless of whether it can or can't be, this project is still gonna go. It's just what is eligible for the program and what's not.

I think I'm fine for the twenty five years on this project that's what the state is is asking that's what the program is set out for it is a little bit different with that commercial we will be receiving some money at the county level unlike the other project we wouldn't receive any money until yeah I agree

So I doubt if there's anything that the commission needs to do then if you don't have any objections to anything. Correct.

Got this for the public hearing. So then if it's like last time, they'd have a public hearing and then they actually have the final draft and that we will approve.

I do need a 10-minute executive. Possible litigation? with the commission, myself, and Brett.

I move to recess into executive session to discuss matters deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship regarding the appraisers for 10 minutes to include the commission, counsel, and the appraiser. So we'll come back at, let's say, 1.30.

I'll second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried. 135? Sorry, 135. I need all the help I can get today. All right. We're back in session and no action was taken.

All right, we're ready for county clerk.

Okay, so two things to kind of cover in this. First is setting the work sessions of anything

Does any of the department heads need to get out of here? Why don't we do the schedule here, the new business.

And then just a couple of dates for the public. We have early voting starting July 20th in the clerk's office. Starting at 8 a.m. goes to 4 p.m. every day up until the day before the election. So that would be August 3rd.

In your office.

In our office, correct. We need to set the campus date as well. We can do that at a later time. Voter registration is closed July 14th with a reopen date on August 5th. We plan to hold the LNA testing July 7th. So that will be posted hopefully by the end of this week or beginning of next week. on Tuesday. I believe this is the newspaper. Is it Monday or Tuesday? Tuesday. Tuesday. So probably the morning of. And that is, oh, party affiliation opens back up September 1st after election. So those are our important dates for election.

All right. All that's coming down soon. So Cindy, Greg, did you need on the agenda? We'll do the resolution.

This is the original copy.

Okay.

I didn't speak again. I mean, I changed the name of the fund referenced in Section 7 to match what she has on her sheet. This is a resolution to address the daily cost of housing and housing inmates that...

He used to be about $35 if I remember right back then. $35, $40.

So this will increase it to $81 a day? Yes.

Do you have any comments?

I think they allowed for up to $120 a day, but it's only fair to charge everybody the same amount. That's actually what the true figure was to the true figure if we're at 40 inmates, which that may change soon, but anyway. You can't hardly get a hotel for less than 100. It was long overdue to increase, but we house for two municipalities, Erie and Chanute, and DOC, so.

Do you have another copy? Well, this is the original.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to adopt resolution number R26G, resolution providing the daily cost of housing of an inmate to be charged to the inmate in the amount of 81 dollars.

I'll second the motion.

Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Thank you. I did have one other thing, I guess. We did have two car deer accidents over the weekend, patrol vehicles. I don't know what the estimate would be yet, but since I do, I'll forward that to you guys.

Okay. Is it our new vehicle?

No, they were two of the older ones. We do have an old stripped one that the engine is no good. The body panels are fine on it. We might be able to save some money by stripping. Not that I want a cobbled up truck out there, but we might save some money that way to pull the hood and We'll talk to the body guy. It just depends on what insurance says at the end, how much damage there is.

I see your one deputy kind of had to go fishing yesterday on Elk Road. Oh.

But it was a ride that those people in that car had to take. So that's, I think, the third accident in the exact same place within just a couple of months. I'm not sure. I went out there and looked at it. The fire chief from Chanute asked. It's marked well. I really have no idea why people keep going off right there unless they're just going way faster than they're supposed to be. Speed limit signs are up. It's marked very clear.

Looks like they skidded before they went off the road. I don't know. I came up out of the head and aisle or something.

Short of guardrails, and I haven't talked to Mike, I don't know what else a person could do there to make it any safer. But it's much nicer than it used to be. It's pretty deep water. They were lucky. Yeah, I think that's the third one that's ended up in the water there.

All right, Cindy.

Good afternoon. Not a whole lot. I do need probably a 15-minute executive regarding non-elected personnel in the 911 department to include myself, commission, council, and the assistant director, please.

So I'll move to recess into executive session to discuss personal matters of non-elected personnel regarding 9-1-1 for 15 minutes to include the commission counsel, 9-1-1 assistant director, and HR director. So 2 o'clock?

I'll second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Okay, we're back in session and no action was taken.

I'll make a motion to approve the promotion of one New Show County 9-1-1 Communications Department employee from the rank of Communications Officer 2 to the rank of Assistant Director effective August 1st, 2026.

I'll second. Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

And I'll make another motion to approve the transfer of 40 hours of sick leave from one employee to another in the 911 Communications Department effective date of June 30th, 2026. I left that at 40.

We need to switch it to 80.

I'm sorry.

I mean, you correct that to 80?

80. I'm sorry.

OK. That's not your fault. We did.

Yeah, 80. 80 hours of sick leave. I'll still second that.

Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Thank you for dating those.

Absolutely. I try to make things easier when I can. Okay, and then just a five-minute non-elected executive session regarding personnel in Roden Bridge to include myself, commission, council, and Mike.

Okay, I will so move, and we'll be back at 2.06.

I'll second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. We're back in session and no action was taken.

Okay, one more. This time it's a non-elected regarding the appraiser's department for five minutes to include myself, commission, and council, and Tonya, please. Two minutes? It'll be two minutes.

I will so move and we'll come back at... 210. We'll give you 210. We'll give you a little walk time.

I'll second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye.

Motion carried.

I will have Kelly send you the link to the entire file and I will tell you and I think when you see it you will agree that it is quite luminous. I don't know that you want to read all of it, but I thought that the executive summary kind of bottom lines the thing for you.

I think the estimate is like around 129,000 that Brandon estimated should have been paid to the county treasurer.

That may go a little bit up or down, because the first thing I want to do is get busy distributing the money. We're going to start with people that Brandon discovered are owed victim restitution. And I guess maybe you know whether that's getting to it. They're still the same owner for years and years, because I have to figure out who was the owner at the time that all that damage was done. and they have All the money that should have gone to the clerk of the court, the money that should have been paid for charitable contributions that the witness will require to make, all of that is all mushed in there together.

So we'll be sorting that out.

And Brandon, we have discovered, really did a very creditable job. My volunteer's here. And we're discovering more and more things that he's included spreadsheets that will be useful in determining then going back to section two, which is Tiana's account and all the cash that went deposited into her account at the start that doesn't have any documentation about whose money is that. So it feels like we're getting some progress.

And the things that Brandon developed while he was doing his audit will be useful in solving some of those mysteries that are in part two.

Part one is just pretty much I've got it pretty much done. And I should deliver somewhere around $20,000 to the treasurer from those the three envelope incident or whatever you want to call it. And then I'm also requesting, and this may need an executive session, to discuss the possibility of moving the county attorney's office out of its present location and the judicial center, which might involve purchase of land. So I think that might be necessary. And I don't know how many minutes to request. I would say maybe 15.

Sound good? So I'll move to recess into executive session to discuss the acquisition of real estate regarding the county attorney for 15 minutes to include commission counsel, county attorney. Come back at 2.30? Fine.

Second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Oh, goodness.

Okay, we're back in session and no action was taken. Okay, are we done with you? Rest up. All right, Mike, I think we're ready for you.

Good afternoon, everyone. I don't have a lot on my list today.

We've been battling the torrential rainfalls that we've been getting lately.

We're still trying to recover from those.

We'll dry out one of these days.

Yeah. last couple days yeah we hit that last uh flash flood event last thursday there were reports anywhere from four to six inches of rain so everything we've accomplished so far got wiped out again pretty much I did, Chris notified me that we're getting low on rock at the quarry, so I'm going to ask that we request that we make another blast at the quarry with Explosive Contractors, Inc. Ever since I've been here, in an amount not to exceed $50,000, and I have a motion here.

I'll second it. Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carried.

Thank you for that. Nick and I spoke since the last meeting regarding the agreement with KDOT and we're going to do another traffic count on Queens Road to kind of hopefully help our cause a little bit more on asking for additional funding.

I don't feel that we're being treated fairly.

Okay, and that's fine. That'll take us, if we do it the same as we did last time, it'll take us two weeks to do the count anyway. We're going to do it the same way, put one on Queens south of 40th and then do another count north of 40th to show that 40th is catching a lot of traffic. That's kind of where we're at on that. The bridge letting, let's see, that's coming up. I need to double check on that it's coming up in July though so let me that won't be in this meeting that's a K dot letting but I think it was July 17 but please don't hold me to that but anyway it won't be here like some of them are so But I'll get more information on that and get it to you. Forgive me on that. That's really all I have on my list.

Speaking of traffic count, do you ever get there between Tregel and Udall and 140S?

No, I have not yet. We did one over on, the most recent one was on 85th Road, Watermelon Road. We did one over there.

Well, when you get to that. Hey, I got three things here that's being turned in. Mike, here. I got them wrote down. You can go check them out.

OK.

And that one, Mike, that one over 170th board east of Grady, it's really dangerous.

There's like a two or three foot drop off. There's some water that comes out of that north field and hits that side of the road. It's just heated out. It's

yeah and we've we've got washouts yeah it's been it's been yeah it just keeps getting worse yeah okay we'll take a look at it i wanted to mention i had done some research just last week um

So just making sure that the North River Bridge project is complete and I wasn't getting the last deposit from KDOT. So we did some research and the last invoice from KDOT has not been paid, which they acknowledged also. It was in their system and they haven't issued a check. but usually also they hold back $500 until everything's taken care of and like CFS or whatever, there are certain things the state needs with the new bridge. So is CFS working on those or do you believe they have all the paperwork they need?

I'll check with them. They should have all the paperwork there.

So Gabby said at this point that we have not received that $147,000 yet. KDOT's acknowledged it's in their system. So we should be receiving that last payment minus the $500. So we originally approved to put $2 million into this project from the pilot fund. We've only put $1 million in at the end of 24. And we actually did not transfer any in there from in 25. And as you can see at the end of 25, we had a negative balance of $321,000. But to actually clear the account when we get everything from KDOT, we really only need to transfer 210,000. So I think we should note we have a 25 audit going. See if we need, we may have to transfer the full 321,000 to clear the balance and then we can put the other 110,000 back into the pilot fund for this year when we get all the funds. But I just wanted you to be aware of that. I had kind of dropped the ball the last couple of months on making sure that we had that last payment and we didn't, but Jessica was really good about calling the state and figuring out where we were, so now we're just kind of waiting. So we really should any day, Gabby said this morning that they still had not received we haven't received that payment. So anyway, these projects just kind of have to keep an eye on it. So that's where we are on that account. At the end of 25 also the special highway account was about $30,000 in the hole so I just got some transaction reports from Chasity today and I'm gonna look into that as to where we're at and why that one is short also at the end of 25. So just kind of wanted to let you guys know what was going on there so. else is looking good and hopefully with the road sales tax I'm a little bit better track of that but we'll have some more grants from KDOT so just making sure we stay on top of all of that so I don't know if that's my job but anyway I'm more than happy to do it track everything so that's all I have

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, that is all of our department heads.

Okay, I still have alternative energy on there. I think everyone's talking about Parsons now is getting the data center. Crawford County's getting the data center. There's a lot going on in the area. I haven't heard a word. from anyone about anything in Neosho County. But we did want to renew the moratorium that we had that expires. You guys should have a moratorium in here that we had put on.

A year, okay.

Okay. So this does say renewable energy, which includes solar and wind, is that what that, data centers would be separate, which we just put a moratorium on that also. More than anything, this just gives us space if someone did try to come into the county. I think some of these things are being done so quickly and commissioners are signing off on things before the public knows about it or that the commissioners have really researched what is being proposed and this just gives us time to make sure that we get the public to know what's going on and we become more aware of it or you know we can just say we're not interested but i think moratoriums are important to keep on the books and we just keep talking about these issues as things come up but yeah and since i've been on for the last eight or nine years i keep losing track i haven't had one person from out in the county say we want to be zoned and all of that we did all through the wind farm i think um maybe there's some people out there but i know that labed has looked at that other counties too but i haven't really gotten that from anyone like i think what we're doing and doing moratoriums so far is working for us so so this will be for a year um Let me see if I have another one. Sorry. I'll second it. Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Motion carried three to zero.

So do we have an original with H or? I stapled mine together. Right, so I appreciate you doing that, Brett. So I did want to bring up one other thing. It's not on alternative energy, but property tax. In your packet, there's an article that I copied for you guys, and it's another article on property tax around the state, and Neosho County looks pretty good again. We are mentioned in this. This one's from Kansas Policy Institute. Affordability, this is number one issue. Property tax increase far exceed most Kansans' change in personal income. So that first page shows the property tax, how it has increased across the state compared to how much personal income has, which is pretty scary. But if you look on the second page, then it has a graph of how much the worst counties and the best counties have changed in residential property tax and real per capita personal income. So the highest county, their personal property taxes increased 72% where their capital income was at negative 4%. So their affordability gap, they have an affordability gap, it's like 77 points. Whereas Neosho, Our property tax, so this instead of the last information I gave you was over 10 years, this is just for the last four years. Our property tax was down, I'm sorry, our property tax was up 0.1%. And our real per capita income is a negative 3.4, which the affordability gap is only three points. So sometimes all of this talk about property tax, I think the citizens in Neosho County don't know that it's not as bad as it could be. Then there's another chart here that's countywide, and you can see where we lie there. It's just a very interesting article. So we are named the gap across three counties, Barber, Chautauqua, and Neosho is in the single digits in three other counties. Steven's Grant in Hamilton has property tax changes that are smaller than the change in real per capita income. So it's just when they have a statewide article like this and we get mentioned. I just want to remind people that I think we have been very frugal with our money as far as the county and that we are trying to make life affordable here. That doesn't mean that we can't make some improvements, but it's a very interesting article to read. Yes. That does include a year when Chenute did away with it. So we can't say we've been flat for those four years. And I also don't know how they do Neosho County because the city of Chenute compared to the city of Erie is not the same. So I don't know if it's just an average on countywide. I don't know if those that live in Erie would say that their property tax is at the same rate that the city of Chenute is. with them doing away with their tax.

But we're trying.

So it'll be interesting this next year. I wonder if they're measuring county tax and not city. Not city? OK, it's just county?

You know what I'm saying? If they're measuring county.

Right, which is pretty, it's been pretty good.

Yeah.

Especially the last four years. So I did also wanna say, I hope you guys read the article in the Chinook Tribune. Tim Erickson did a three-part articles on affordable housing. And in the last article, he did talk about the breakdown on the property tax. And I think people forget Of course, this is on the city of Chenute, that 41% of those inside the city of Chenute property tax goes to our USD 413. The county gets 29% of the property tax. So what they pay, I think people forget, we have the college, and then the city has one for the library, and they don't have one for the city. They still collect a mill, half a mill something. So it just made me realize also that we need to continue. It's not just us that this falls on. This will also fall on education when the state comes down and decides things on top of the cap. So to talk about that, we need to start looking at our budget for 27. So did you print out a schedule, or you just want to? Okay, so our deadline, so we have one more meeting before the deadline of when we have to have the R&R to the clerk. Correct? Okay. So she does have a budget that she has started that we need to look at. So we need to set up some work sessions

we have to have figures right yeah i think we should have a higher figure

Yeah, what did we find? Because we made some more adjustments.

Oh, I see. From the first one, right?

I mean, there's just some things that we still need to fill in before we can actually get them.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you can set the time and end up eloping them, so.

That's just to make sure it does.

So we'll make sure you have time for your publishing of your name.

So that gives us from July 20th to September 20th. So I guess that's the question. Do we want to have a work session?

Like you said, there's some of these numbers in here that we need to figure out.

Yeah.

We've gone over them. If you're looking at those three that are more on the front page, go back to those pages. You're going to see I've entered them.

So do you guys have any time between now?

So July 20th is Monday. So maybe the week of the 13th? So we meet on the 14th, so. 14?

Yeah. Sounds good to me.

I think nine o'clock, let's answer as many questions as possible.

We've got, yeah.

Because I don't know, next week is just the holiday and everything.

Maybe we should just come in early on the 14th and get it done with then.

If we have to, we can come back on the 16th.

Um, let's see.

Setting the campus dates. So, I'm definitely going to be looking at this.

I'm not looking at either the 12th or the 13th. And then we can move the 11th name back to that as well. Whatever.

Is there anything setting back the meeting you want to meet at the same time on campus?

On the 12th, we still have our leadership meeting in the afternoon. But we have a regular meeting. We did a regular meeting.

Well, she's saying, do we want to do both of them at the same time?

Yeah. And so it would be the 12 and the 13.

So I would prefer Thursday.

Thursday?

Because we can't get a regular meeting.

So let's do 13. So what time do you want Canvas? 9 o'clock.

It shouldn't take very long, because it's just a primary. Okay, and now that we're looking ahead, in September, I don't remember why we changed, well, because the seventh is Labor Day, and so we were gonna go on Wednesday, and that we have a leadership meeting that afternoon so either do you want to have our regular meeting in the morning or do we want to change it to the 10th whichever one works i'll have to change an appointment but so we'll just do a regular time at one That's true. Whatever it takes to get there. But let's start with that. Yeah, we kind of asked them not to put personnel services in there. So at this point, it's what it is for 26. So if we want to change that or if we want to get HR to give us, I think she at one time did give us some different figures. But we need to see where our bottom line is.

Well, I know there's a position in the clerk's office as well going from part-time this year to full-time.

Well, then maintenance actually hired someone. And now we actually have someone hired for notches. We might want to look at that one again to make sure we have enough coverage.

So there's a couple of them that are being in addition to just the increases that you'll be looking at. I did it at 5 o'clock this morning.

There is no . They don't have .

They had it in 2025 or something.

Maybe it was contract labor that was ordered. I believe so.

I can look at it. Yep.

I just, pardon me, I just wanted to verify that the letting for the bridge on 30th Road between Gray and Harper will be July 22nd, and KDOT will handle that, so it'll be in Topeka.

And then they'll... Why is that different?

It's different funding. Probably... probably more probably could be way more than that but anyway that's just what i misspoke a while ago i thought it was the 17th but it's i just text lonnie and he said it's a 22nd

I'll move to recess into executive session to discuss matters deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship for 10 minutes with the commission and counsel. We'll come back. I need a five-minute also. We'll come back at 3.20, I guess.

Second the motion.

All those in favor? Aye. We're back in session and no action was taken. Okay, what else do I have in my pile? One thing that last meeting you had given us, Brett, stuff on the opioid mediation that we have received.

I'll tell you how much we have in the fund.

We want to know how much is in the fund, but kind of some ideas.

Here it is.

Oh, we have 113,000. So, anyway, a lot of good ideas in this exhibit. A lot of different things the county can do. So, that'd be something that we can look at.

It'd be nice to start spending that money down.

There'll be some more things coming in, but we just don't find that the programs or things that are held for our country and things that your department does that, you know, That's what we got those funds for, and the idea of putting them to use.

Do we have to let them help?

No, they'd like to see some programs, but Basically, the fact that we've been discussing it off and on. We were looking at some equipment purchases, but didn't get those in the realm of that memorandum. And even though I felt they didn't, just to confirm, I contacted the AG's office, and they agreed that those wouldn't fall within the scope of that MOU. So that's why I bring it back and see what else we can use those funds for.

I think during budget time maybe we can see, do some funding that's something that we can apply. So I have another idea, I guess going into the budget. uh we had the oak grove schoolhouse come and talk to us and we as a county have never given them any money that i'm aware of um OK. Well, we do have another account. We're talking about different accounts today. We do have a special parks and rec.

And I think that's a special tax that's collected.

We haven't used that since I've been on board. And I'm wondering if this would fall into that. We could use those funds, and that would be outside of our budget also. I talked to Roger today. They've got a lot of things going on. but I think it would be good for Neosho County because it is located in Neosho County that we show our support and maybe at least give them part of that money, maybe some this year, maybe some next year, but that we can actually support them. But that wouldn't increase our budget. So we have, and I'm not for sure when this money comes in, but we have $7,400 in there. So somehow we had 7,000 to begin the year with.

So somewhere along the way we got, maybe every quarter we get so much.

We have that one in the special alcohol accounts. So I don't know where this special parks and recs money comes from. The special alcohol, we have $41,000 in there.

So I thought we had talked to Greg about... At the beginning of the year, we have $38,000.

So I don't know if anything has been taken out of there.

Anyway, we have a lot of these funds that we can, at budget time, see if some of these special... Yeah, and that we could... So anyway, Roger would be very happy if we wanted to support that, and I think that would be a great thing to be able to do since he did come to us this time. They've got a lot of great things going on, getting a lot of grants and stuff. So just thought I'd put that out there, and maybe we can... decide that here in our budgets of getting some of that we need to do a little bit of research on that exactly what that tax is for but we don't exactly have parks or recs on the county level so we might be able to take the museums out of that also some of that expense could come off of our budget so We need to maybe ask the treasurer exactly what that, it looks like it must be a quarterly paid tax, but I don't think it is. That's nothing to do with our 1% tax or anything.

I'm not sure if it's quarterly.

Anyway, I've been looking at some of those funds that maybe we can use to help us.

I don't believe I had anything else. So our next

Commission meeting then on the 14th in two weeks. We'll have a work session at 9 o'clock and then a regular meeting at 1 o'clock.

I talked to Jason.

I think he might be able to make it to that meeting about that. Okay. That's

Sure.

I was appointed to the district magistrate position in the Valley County, so I'll be resigning here in the next month. I'll start looking for my replacement here pretty soon. I really enjoyed the chance to work with everyone here in the county. We appreciate you. We try to get you in a good place going forward. So I appreciate all the support from the county and just look forward to this.

You're doing us a good job, Brad.

At least the first year, you know, he sat by me and I didn't. Well, I do want to take this time to say happy 4th. And glad that we have Friday off for our employees. I hope they all enjoy their day off and their weekend celebrating America and just appreciate what we have. We take time to just really stop and thank God for our freedom and the blessings that we have. Happy Fourth of July.

You too. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

All those in favor? Aye.

Motion carried.