Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

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. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Shawnee County Board of County Commissioners. It's September 17, 2026. On my far left is Lisa Smith.

Good morning.

Good morning. And on my far right is Rich Eckert, our county counselor. On my immediate right is Commissioner Kevin Cook, who represents District 2. On my left is Commissioner Aaron Mays. He represents District 3. I'm Bill Ripon, and I represent District 1. And Lisa, what's first on the agenda?

First on the agenda is item one, presentations. A, 2025 audited financial statements and single audit report.

Good morning, commissioners. Jennifer Sauer, financial administrator. This morning, our auditors are here from Forbus. Jacob Holman, I believe, will be kicking this off for us and presenting the completed audited financial statements and single audit for Shawnee County for last year.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is Jacob Holman, a partner with Forbis Mazars, and I was on the county audit, both the financial statement and the single audit. I lead our public sector practice here locally. With me today, I have Matt McCall, an audit director in our public sector practice. Our team focuses on the public sector, so we audit cities, we audit counties, really throughout Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, this kind of three-state region. So this is what we do every day, and we're excited here to present today. Today we have a short presentation for the county's audit. We're going to go over four main areas. So talk high level about the audit scope, some required communications, and really just a scorecard. Some of the most important things if we were sitting in your shoes that we would want to know about both the financial statement audit and the single audit. The second thing is really just the audit approach and strategy for the financial statement audit. A summary of the compliance report. The compliance report is the single audit. And then some high-level financial highlights and ratios at the conclusion of the audit. so with that i'll talk high level scope of the engagement and scorecard and then i will pass it off to matt mccall to talk through the rest of the presentation so we were engaged to do two audits the first one is a financial statement audit of the county's records as of 12 31 2025 and for the year ended 12 31 2025. so that is all encompassing of of all departments of the county um all funds of the county and not just the the main general fund that we talk the most about so i did want to point that out the second audit is a uniform guidance single audit so the county did have federal expenditures of over a million dollars anytime the county has federal expenditures of over a million dollars we are required to do what's called a single audit or a compliance audit so Really the goal of that audit is to ensure that you followed all the federal government rules and regulations that you're required to follow as part of spending those federal expenditures. So high level, just kind of a scorecard if I was sitting in your shoes, the things that I think are the most important. The first thing is we did issue a clean or unmodified opinion on the county's financial statement audit, and I think I did want to point that out. That's the highest level opinion you could receive as an organization. So that means we believe as auditors, as independent auditors, that your financials are materially accurate and all of the required disclosures that should be in there in accordance with professional standards are included in your financials. So I did want to point that out just as the things that I think really are the most important at the conclusion of the audit. The second thing I wanted to point out is your team was well prepared and very courteous to my team. So we spend a lot of time here. Our audit actually starts in the fall of the year. So the fall of 2025 and goes all the way through August of 2026. So if you think about that timing, we're working with a lot of several different departments, a lot of your accounting team for several months out of the year. And we really appreciate them just being prepared when we come on site and making it a priority so that we get really the most value out of our time when we're here. So I wanted to point that out. The last thing really is just from an auditor adjustment or control findings for the financial statement audit. You will notice that there is no auditor proposed recorded misstatements. And they're really from a required communication standpoint. No disagreements, no difficulties uncovered, and no unusual policies or methods. So I think that's good to point out. It was really a clean audit. It was a good clean audit and a good audit experience. The last thing before I pass it off to Matt, and he can talk through some of the accounting and disclosure areas, is there was one new accounting standard that we did have to adopt. Our professional standards setting body is called GASB, Government Accounting Standards Board. They have been very active. They continue to be very active. The next couple years, we will continue to have to have new accounting standards. Every time there is a new accounting standard, even if there's not a material change, there is a decent amount of new work that management has to do and our team has to do to really make sure that no material change is the right answer. So I just wanted to point that out. This new disclosure really, if there is a material risk or concentration of the county, We have to work with management to work through that and make sure that we agree that there is nothing that needs to be disclosed at the conclusion of that. That is the result of all of that work, is there's no new disclosures, but that's something we're gonna have to work with them on an annual basis and not just a one-time basis. So I did wanna point that out. And so with that, I will pass it off to Matt for the rest of the presentation.

All right, thanks, Jacob, and thanks for having us here today. So I did want to take a moment just to refresh us on our audit approach and audit strategy and really what goes into an audit. So as our first step of the audit process, we assess risk and we perform those procedures in the fall, as Jacob said, really starting in November. And as part of that process, we get an understanding of the county's internal control environment. We review preliminary financial statements and key financial metrics. And we also meet with members of governance and management to discuss if there's any concerns that you all have in relation to either the internal control structure or as it relates to fraud or potential fraud. And then also we review the board minutes for anything that may have impacted the county financially during the course of the year that we should consider during the audit. So ultimately the goal of the risk assessment is to consider the different financial statement areas, and we bucket those into various areas of risk between significant risk, higher risk, or lower risk. And based on that risk assessment, we design our audit procedures to address those risks with the ultimate goal of getting comfortable with the financial information in your annual report. So after we assess risk, we move into the risk response phase. And this is where the bulk of the testing takes place. We begin some of our testing as early as January, right after the end of the year, looking at the county's property taxes and considering the reasonableness of those amounts that are reported. And then intermittently throughout the spring, as management prepares various schedules, we receive those and perform audit procedures. But the bulk of the audit really takes place in the May-June timeframe from a testing approach. And then after we perform our testing and get comfortable with the balances that management provided to us, we move into the reporting phase. Management ultimately prepares the annual financial report. There's a lot of work that goes into the preparation of that report. And then we review it for reasonableness and we make sure that all the amounts reported in that report tie back to all of the testing that we performed during our risk response phase. We ensure that all the necessary disclosures that are required to be in there are included and that the information in it is appropriately stated and accurate. In addition to the review of the report, we have an independent quality control process where a partner at our firm that is independent of our engagement team reviews over us and they ensure that we appropriately assess risk and address those risks and they review the report again to ensure that it's reasonable and accurate. And then at the conclusion of the audit, we meet with management to discuss any findings or best practices or other opportunities that resulted from our audit procedures. I wanted to provide a summary on this page of the compliance report. So as Jacob said, the county did have over a million dollars of federal expenditures this year, which means that you are required to undergo a compliance audit. As part of that compliance audit, we tested three of the federal programs that the county has with special supplemental nutrition program, coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds, and the clean water state revolving fund cluster. So of the $4.8 million of federal funds that the county had in 2025, we tested about 40% of those as part of the compliance audit. And as part of that audit, we did issue an unmodified opinion. So that's a clean opinion. It means that we did not find any major instances of noncompliance and no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses to report around the internal controls over compliance. And then as Jacob said, I did include some financial highlights and ratios here on the slide. So the first is that total net position, about 277.6 million, that's an increase of about 3% from last year. General fund balance similarly increased about 4.8% from prior year, so it's 55.7 million. And there's about 3.3 months of annual revenues included within the county's unassigned general fund. And just for a frame of reference, the GFOA, which is the Government Financial Officers Association, which is a professional association, recommends a minimum of two months. So you've exceeded the minimum recommendation. So overall, really what I would point out with this slide is that the county has had steady growth year over year, but really remaining consistent. There aren't any unusual financial swings or anything unusual that we felt needed to be pointed out based on review of these metrics. So with that, that concludes the information that we plan to cover today, but would welcome any questions over any information that we covered or anything within the audit report itself. Mr. Mays.

So thank you for your presentation, by the way, guys. Congratulations to audit finance on a good audit. Real quick question on the unassigned general fund. You said we have three point three months of annual revenues in there. And then you made a comment about the is it a recommended two month or a minimum two month?

They recommend a minimum two months. So the three point three months is not

outside of the ordinary of what you now do they have a maximum recommendation as well they do not have a maximum okay all right thank you

Okay. I think that it's just also important to note that if the general public or those present are watching, the 55.7 million general fund balance, that is not the reserves. And in fact, what we're really looking at is that's all the general fund balance. And so our actual reserves are substantially less than that. Jennifer, it's about Okay. But I just want to make sure that if people are, we're not mixing numbers. So, because unless we don't assign a definition to the numbers, it can be misinterpreted. So, and that's why I think that you have the assigned or unassigned, because your next slide over there says unassigned general fund as opposed to be just general fund. Yes, that's right. So, yeah. All right.

Well, Matt and Jake, thank you very much for your presentation. And I'd like to thank our staff, too, for doing a good job keeping the books. And thanks for helping with the audit as well. I know that's a lot of extra time and effort. So thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next item.

Next item on the agenda is B, recognition of Kosover Tennis Center as one of 41 winners in USTA's annual Outstanding Facility Awards program.

Good morning, commissioners. Tim Laurent, Parks and Recreation Department. You know, it's I've invited folks here before I get into my presentation from Topeka Tennis Association and racket and paddle, and I told him that you know they're very passionate about tennis and they're very passionate about crossover and and sometimes we have long, very lengthy discussions and and. I told them they'd be first on the agenda, but I duped them and made them sit through this audit report as my way of getting even. Just kidding, guys. I really thought we were going to be first. uh okay so the real reason i brought them here is to celebrate and recognize that kossovert just received this uh usta outstanding facility award alexis chapinski is with us i'll bring her up here in a minute but she traveled to new york to receive this award. And we just, we couldn't be more proud of Racket and Paddle and TTA and frankly, several of our staff members that have worked pretty diligently to get costs over where it is today. And certainly the support we've gotten from this commission. So recently with your support, we were able to add four more courts, revamp the lighting, completely resurfaced the entire facility, new benches, new shade structures, just a lot of improvements And we think that that costs over is the largest public tennis facility in the state of Kansas. And I think it's really something that everybody here in Shawnee County and in Topeka should be proud of. It is really a top notch grade a facility. So we want to thank you guys for your support. We do have 22 courts out there. And as I mentioned, we do think it's it's one of, if not the largest court in the state of Kansas. With that, I'd like to, I'm going to have a couple of people talk here for just a second, but I'd like to bring up Alexis Chapinski and let her kind of fill us in on racket and paddle.

Hi, my name's Alexis Japinski and I'm the director at Costover Tennis Center with Racket and Paddle. And those envelopes you guys got today, these folders, were some reports that I presented to Parks and Rec, but also for your guys' records. And in this report, I kind of list what we just have going on in terms of tournaments. And I know a big mission, especially with the renovation, has been trying to get a lot of out-of-town visitors and out-of-state visitors. And so I have some of those numbers there. And you can see that with all the upgrades you guys made happen was we are ahead compared to the previous year by about 1,500 people out of state visiting Topeka because of tournaments that we're hosting. And it's only September. We still have some more events happening that will increase those numbers, so that's something exciting to mention. We also have a handful of classes and clinics and private lessons that we run throughout the course of the year, and so I have numbers of people that are attending that in the report. I also have the staff that we have, the numbers of memberships we have, and then kind of our online presence that has been a big mission of ours this year is trying to be more active with our media blasts, whether that's through social media or through our emails that we send out. And then I also have the court usage that we have at Kosovo. We try to leave as many courts open for the public at all times. And so I kind of have a breakdown of when we have a lot of events and when we don't and kind of how often Kosovo is being used. And so you can kind of look through that and then overall my thoughts of where we are moving forward in the future. I also printed out a couple of the articles that were written about Kosovo. You have a little brochure of the different clubs that were recognized for this outstanding award through the USTA. And then a bunch of our flyers that we posted with the different events that we hosted throughout the year for the local community. And overall, I just think that this year has been, it's our third year here, racket and paddle. And it's been really amazing with all the upgrades that you guys did for us and for the community being like, it's so exciting hearing people come and see and participate the outpouring from people has been extremely positive and i really want to thank you guys for allowing that to happen so that we can continue to have national events continue to grow tennis in topeka and i really i'm truly thankful so thank you so much thank you thank you alexis

Bracket and Paddle does an outstanding job out there. I have three members of Topeka Tennis Association here. Mike Monahan is the current president of TTA. Greg Lutz is a Hall of Famer, past president of TTA. And then Mark Nordstrom also falls into that category. And I think Mark is going to come up and say a few words.

Thanks, Tim. Mark Nordstrom from Topeka Tennis Association. We wouldn't be standing here today without the support and the assistance along the way from each and every one of the commissioners. Aaron, Bill, and Kevin, thank you so much for your work. Certainly Tim and his staff have been instrumental in the design, and the finished product is much more larger and grander than Topeka Tennis Association envisioned when we stood around after we dedicated the clubhouse five years ago and talked about what the addition of a couple of courts would do and enable us to bring national tournaments to our county and to the city of Topeka, and it's resulted in a in an award from USTA, which stands for the United States Tennis Association. And that award was not only in New York, it was at the US Open recently held in Flushing Meadows. So we are so proud of Alexis and her staff making all of this possible. It really is proof positive of how a three legged stool can work with the help of the county, with TTA as helping along the way and certainly with racket and paddle as the administrator of the program. So thank you all so much. We appreciate it.

If you guys are amenable, we brought a small plaque that we'd like to have these guys come up and maybe take a picture or two.

Thank you guys. Thank you, Mark. Thank you.

I've had the opportunity to visit Kossover when they were having some of their tournaments this year. And the level of play has taken a big jump, or the level of the players that have been attracted to this facility. And so we're already starting to see some benefits from this improvement, all of our improvements out there. So very exciting. And it's been a good year. Good addition. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Come a long ways. I remember when I got on that commission, we didn't have adequate bathroom facilities at that complex. We had to bring in portable restrooms for any events that we had. And it was kind of a nightmare by the end of the weekend. So nice to see the investments paying off.

Well, before Mark slips out the door completely, he's promised me a US Open, or at least the Junior Nationals. And so I expect that he'll follow through with that.

Right?

All right. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right. What's next?

Next on the agenda is item three, consent agenda.

I would move that we approve the consent agenda second motions been made by commissioner upon second by commissioner Mays all in favor say aye those opposed motion carries 3 0 next item for new business a county clerk one consider all voucher payments

Commissioners, this morning we have vouchers that total $4,448,802.83. The highlights out of that voucher report, we had $1,510,896.62. That was for payroll benefits of our employees. $192,903.85. That was to Blue Cross Blue Shield for health insurance claims paid with the health insurance fund. $272,231.77. That was a progress payment to the Bettis Asphalt and Construction for the road work on Northwest 46th Street paid with infrastructure funds. $78,949.08 to Rarick Pacific Company for new walkout trash bins paid with a solid waste fund. $303,131.30 to Waste Management for contractual services paid with solid waste funds. I don't have any questions regarding the vouchers. I would move for their approval.

second motion's been made by Commissioner Cook second by Commissioner Rippon all in favor say aye those opposed motion carries three zero two consider correction orders I'll move that we approve the correction order second motion's been made by Commissioner Rippon second by Commissioner Mayes I'm sorry Commissioner Cook all in favor say aye those opposed motion carries three zero Next item.

B, bond council. One, consider approval of resolution R2026081, authorizing the issuance of an estimated seven million aggregate principal amount of Shawnee County, Kansas taxable hospitality revenue bonds, YBR properties, WG Topeka LLC project generally located at 1717 Southwest Topeka Boulevard.

Good morning, Bob Perry. This would authorize the issuance of the bonds to allow the owners of the Topeka Hotel to finance the improvements to the hotel or buy in their own bonds.

Questions?

Bob, why would we, how does this benefit the county, or why would we be doing this, if you could just explain maybe for the public?

Well, I think that hotel has had empty now for six months, maybe more, longer. It's been purchased by this Wichita developer who has an experience from what I've been able to ascertain from some research I've done in acquiring or building hotels in communities similar to Topeka that have a similar type of situation as we do with that hotel next to the Expo Center. And my discussions with Roy Arnold, he's the developer that I've dealt with. He has some probably other things that he'd like to do down there to attract more people there. Because as you all know, the hotels kind of sits on an island down there. And The city of Topeka has sold them the hotel basically for zero dollars. I mean, that's not accurate. They got paid some money, but nothing compared to what they had to purchase, what they chose to purchase it for. And from what I understand is the hotel has structural stability. It just needs an overall. And there's no reason not to have that hotel full. I know for a fact that I helped run a horse show at Domer for over 20 years, twice a year, and we would fill that hotel with a reigning horse association shows. Now,

That helps. Again, just want to make sure we have that out.

This doesn't cost the county a dime. That's right. It's not county money. Correct. Yeah. So. All right. Well, with that, I would move for approval. Second. Motion's been made by Commissioner Rippon, seconded by Commissioner Mays. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries 3-0. All right. Next.

Two, public hearing and considering approval of Resolution R2026082, levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots, parcels, and tracts of ground liable for such special assessments to pay the costs of certain street improvements in the Timber Ridge subdivision, Shawnee County, Kansas Street Benefit District as authorized by County Resolution 2023-8 and providing for the collection of such special assessments.

will have to have a public hearing and the people have questions. Okay, I have the opportunity to voice those any questions before we open the public hearing.

Bob, you want to tell us a little bit about what this is for?

Well, that's a good question, Kevin. I got stuck on it. You said 23, eight was what we're dealing with.

Yeah, this is a a 240,000.

11 benefit is in 2020 resolution 2023 dash a creative benefit district and timber Ridge. There's 11 lots. Each lot has an assessment approximately $22,000 a little less. This benefit district was created at the request of the developers, which is Chuck Dolemire, Roland Hagen We created the benefit district we put in the streets They built the houses people bought the houses some of them that are owned by individuals. Some of them are not they're still being sold and

When do people start paying off the specials? As soon as they buy the lot or when the house?

Once this assessment resolution is passed and approved and published, they will receive the assessment in November's tax levy. They'll be spread out over a 20-year period of time.

Bob, how do we ensure that we don't have – there's been quite a bit of publication in press for Lawrence Bay where there were specials for infrastructure. The lots weren't able to be sold because of changes in the economy. And then ultimately, if in a tax foreclosure, the entities lose out. In that case, the city loses out on the specials.

Well, Lawrence Bay was a little different, Kevin. You know, that was 2005, 2006 era, I believe. Am I right, Rich? Do you remember that? Plus enough, yeah. And the policy, that policy 20 plus years ago was different. We would do temporary notes. I mean, hell, pardon me. I can remember doing notes where we would do several million dollars of temporary notes. build streets and sewers on an interim basis. Then we take them out with 20 year bonds. Those days are gone. I mean we don't, those days are absolutely gone for this county. There's just, the market has changed, the demand has changed. And so at Lawrence Bay in particular, Yanni filed a petition to create street and sewer benefit districts that had like 40 maybe lots, may have been more than 40, but my memory is it's around 40. We created the district, we put in the streets, and it sat, and he, you know, I mean, so well if i remember i guess we just never built i started to say i really shouldn't be saying but so but in this case what is the risk and i guess ultimately my question is what we've done is the policy has changed we've gone down to smaller lot smaller benefit districts for 11 or so lots or 15 lots or maybe 20 lots or more but there's commitments for purchase of the lots okay

Well, there's a letter of credit attached to this, right, also? What? The project is bonded, or there's a letter of credit somewhere in this project.

Yeah, correct.

So Lawrence Bay, if I remember right, the developer was undercapitalized and asked the city... Undercapitalized, and we only required, you know, actually we required 30%. of a letter of credit and i don't think he posted it i don't remember well i think the vote that was so at the time uh controversial controversial is that he was asking to waive that and yes and that's what happened and so with no bonding and no letter of credit the disaster came.

We don't do that anymore.

If I was to be approached on the street by a taxpayer, which we are all subject to doing and it happens whether we're in the grocery store or at a restaurant or just in a parking lot, I anticipate that I would get asked did you expose the county to risk even though this is a 11 lot this is a smaller project but did you expose the county to risk if those lots don't get sold and my answer to them would be this is 11 lots they're bonded the county is protected we're not looking at any sort of risk to the county

That's true and that's also, this is a great catch 22 is why you three sit there on that side of the dais and I don't. The policy is what's more important. Do we take a little bit of risk and split it over 180,000 people so that we can have new people move in and new homes, new streets, new sewers and growth or do we do nothing? I mean, that's kind of the policy decision that gets factored in here, that the people that you talk to, your constituents and the electors, but also the press, nobody factors that in. You've got to factor it in without taking a little bit of risk, and this is minuscule. I mean, our assessed value is almost, what, $2 billion?

I mean, it's... Yeah, but Bob, at the same time, I mean, we have, as commissioners, we've questioned voucher reports where maybe we're looking at an expense of $5,000 or $6,000. And I can recall a department head asking me, are you really questioning an expense report of $5,000 out of a budget of $150 million at that time? But if we every dollar does count and it's the little dollars that add up. And so as the commissioners were the stewards of the tax dollars and ultimately we have an accountability to the taxpayers to make sure that we are able to understand what it is that we're approving. But in this case, by approving this benefit district, we're having the infrastructure for the houses. We have a bonded commitment. The rest of the county is does not exist. And so this improves the community and adds more people to our community.

People that use these streets are being assessed for the cost of the streets.

That was the question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sorry, I apologize for getting on the mace.

Also, when we talk about Lawrence Bay, it's not a we did that. One of the problems with that neighborhood was it was built too much. I mean, it wasn't incremental at all. We put all the roads in and then expect everybody to come, and that didn't happen because the housing market crashed also.

2008 occurred.

Yeah. So but the difference also is that, you know, you can go to Timber Ridge and then in item four, you can go to Sterling Chase and drive around and see these are fully developed neighborhoods. This is just an expansion and they're nice neighborhoods and all of the homes for the most part are occupied or on the market. So I think that's the big difference. This is also a reputable builder that's been around for a long time and And we've seen evidence that they're successful. So I guess, do we have a motion to go into a public hearing yet? Not yet. I'll make that motion.

Second. Motion's been made by Commissioner Mayes, seconded by Commissioner Cook. All in favor say aye. Who's opposed? Motion carries 3-0. We're now in public hearing. If we have anyone here who would like to speak in favor of this project, this is your moment. Seeing none. Anyone opposed to this project? Seeing none. All right.

Well, I'll make a motion that we close the public hearing and approve the resolution.

Second. Motion's been made by Commissioner May, second by Commissioner Rippon. All in favor say aye. Those opposed? Motion carries 3-0. Next item.

All right, next item is item three, public hearing and considering approval of Resolution R2026083, levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots, parcels, and tracts of ground liable for such assessments to pay the cost of certain street improvements in Timber Ridge Subdivision, Shawnee County, Kansas Street Benefit District as authorized by County Resolution 2025-52 in providing for the collecting of such special assessments.

When we created this benefit district back in 2025, there's 18 lots. Each lot's assessed about $30,000, $31,000.

I'll make a motion to open public hearing. I'll second. Motion's been made by Commissioner Cook, seconded by Commissioner Rippon. All in favor say aye. Those opposed? Motion carries 3-0. We're now in a public hearing. Anyone here wish to speak in favor of this project? Seeing none. Anyone opposed to this project?

Seeing none. All right. Motion to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution. Second.

Motion's been made by Commissioner Cook, second by Commissioner Rippon. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries 3-0. Next item.

next item is item four public hearing and considering approval of resolution r2026084 levying and assessing special assessments on certain lots parcels and tracks of ground liable for such special assessments to pay for the cost of certain street improvements in sterling chase subdivision number five shawnee county kansas street benefit district as authorized by county resolution two zero two four dash two two in providing for the collection of such special assessments.

Same speeches before a different neighborhood, though, I'll make a motion that we open the public hearing.

A second motion has been made by Commissioner May, seconded by Commissioner respond. All in favor say I was opposed. Motion carries three zero. So we are now in a public hearing and asked if anyone would like to speak in favor of this project. Anyone opposed to this project? All right. I will make a motion then to to close this public hearing and approve this resolution. Second motion has been made by Commissioner upon second by Commissioner Cook. All in favor say aye. Those opposed. Motion carries three zero. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Sorry, I got on a tangent.

Hey, no, Bob, any time we can pick your brain and have that public discussion is good. So thank you. All right. Next item.

Next item is item C, Health Department. One, consider approval to enter into the Kansas Office of Early Childhood Subrecipient Agreement for SFY2027, contract C2026325 that will provide $85,000 for Shawnee County Health Department Universal Home Visiting Program for the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027.

Good morning, Missy Middendorf, Family Health Division Manager with the Health Department. And this is an agreement with a new Kansas Office of Early Childhood that was just established as of July 1. We've always had this universal home program, universal home visiting program for about two years now, but it was under our KDHE maternal child health. grant and so it's just been moved over to a different entity with the Kansas office of early childhood and so we will be providing home visitation but it's not the long-term home visitation and so it's a little different than our nurse family partnership that you've heard about before open to any questions questions

I'll move for approval.

Second. Okay. Motion's been made by Commissioner May, second by Commissioner Cook. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries 3-0. Thank you. Next item.

D, Audit Finance. One, consider approval of the Shawnee County 2027 budget and CIP.

All right.

Good morning, Commissioners. Jennifer Sauer, Financial Administrator. if you guys I wanted to give you a quick update I guess first on our CIP you when we left off last week we had some questions about a couple items some research was done into those items and we have some good news and I think a potential path forward So our IT department, the county's IT department, spoke with the court's IT department and got some more detail on this data cabling project that was requested. In doing more research into it, the majority of this work has already been done as part of our, throughout the courthouse remodel. So the remaining balance of what needs to be done on this project is under $50,000. And so that would not qualify for a capital a CIP project. It would be a small item CIP project, which is under 50,000. So we can actually do that to this project for the court data cabling. So we will just readdress that when we get to small items CIP later in the year, which then means that the amount that we are over for 2027's budgeted CIP is 22,000. In speaking with Brian Cole at the DOC, he believes that if we could, that we would still be able to get the elevator controls upgraded if we would subtract 22,000 from his 250. And change that to 228,000 for 2027 CIO cap outlay, which would then bring us to the $2.5 million that we have in our budget.

Good motion to approve.

I'll second, but I do have a question. I guess on the small item CIP. Yes. You know, How many requests do we have for that already, though? Do we have room in there for a 40 $50,000 addition?

And that project also could be possibly split over multiple years. He doesn't think that they necessarily need to do 50,000 in one year, so it would be a smaller increment each year as they tackle each of the remaining.

I think there's three spots, Mark.

But my understanding was that The most of that work is going to happen in the clerk of the court's office, which is a bigger job.

The small IMCIP happens in the discussions that occur. Between now and then, we'd be able to get more accurate quotes to be able to see what the different areas we need to address are and be able to bring those at that time since we have a little bit more time than we had from last week to this week for evaluating if this was a large project or not. But by November, we'd be able to have actual numbers to what that would cost.

Okay.

And just to clarify, we haven't even approved, I mean, we have $100,000 set aside for 2026's small item CIP, which we have not, that's what we will discuss in November, then we have 2027's. So we have some time to get these projects in over the next, I would say, 24 months.

OK. All right. Any other questions? Then I would move. There is a there is a motion to.

Yeah, we have a second second by Commissioner Mays.

All right. Motion's been made by Commissioner Cook, second by Commissioner Mays. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries three zero. OK. All right. Now we get to the budget.

okay so that brings us back to the 2027 uh budget for Shawnee county when we left off last week we left off with um 2 million 27 234 dollars worth of adjustments to the department requested budgets for 2027. which leaves our budget right now at $163,696,681. I do not have any updates that have come to me over the last week, so I will leave it with you guys on where you would like to pick up.

Jennifer, just again, I know that we've already covered this a couple of times, but for those that are present, those that are watching at home, our economic forecast for the next year, we're anticipating less revenue than we have in the last several years. Most of our revenue comes from property tax. Why are we expecting less revenue?

Our revenue trends are lower. Our interest... is forecasted to be less next year for a couple of reasons one the interest rate that we were had been experiencing in 2024 and in 2025 we were already seeing the decline in 25 it is continuing to go down due to the interest rate as well as we had balances in our accounts over the last three years for the arpa money that we had received from the federal government those expenditures were almost 100% spent at the end of last year. They will be 100% spent at the end of 26. So in 27, there will be no ARPA money left in our bank account for us to be earning interest off of.

So with an economic downturn, we're anticipating people that are maybe less than full payments on their property taxes, less collections than what we're currently having?

I believe our delinquency rate is essentially the same as last year. So we really haven't experienced a downturn or an uptick in our delinquencies. We budget for what is projected. Most of our revenue projections come from the state as far as non-property taxes. Our property taxes are created based off of the assessments. At this point, we are not seeing any other increased revenues coming to us. We do not get a lot of revenues through fees for services. We do get some. We are looking at our fees to see if there's any place that we can increase those. We really don't have much of an increase there. And even if we did, it would have a very small impact on the mill.

The city of Topeka this last week, the city manager discussed having a tax ballot question on a sales tax. The county, we don't have that by statute opportunity or ability.

um there is a limitation to what the county can um can contract as far can levy for sales tax uh shawnee county themselves only takes part in the half cent or half percent sales tax that we get through that we contribute to jato and then put back in to our economic development There are a couple other state or countywide sales taxes that are used. One is for our Gage Park sales tax. One is actually levied and the money goes directly to the library. Washburn. And Washburn University.

What about roads?

Do we have a... That would be the JADO, Economic Development. Okay.

Yeah. Also, counties don't have the ability to go straight to the ballot with a sales tax question. We have to go get permission from the legislature in order to do it. And then it has to go to the voters after that. So I mean, even if we decided to do a sales tax, it'd be A year and a half probably before.

I just thought it would be important and pertinent to talk about what's the difference between a city and a county. Absolutely. Gotcha.

Yeah. And that's very true. I think a lay person would think that all government is funded the same way. And it is not true. The cities are very different than the counties. We don't have water department. There's lots of things that we don't have that the city has. And there's lots of things that we do have that the we have we support all of parks and rec the city does not support they have no parks and rec department we don't have a fire departments it's either done by the city or the townships

But we are in charge of the ambulance. Correct.

We are counties are considered the administrative arm of state government. So we are the ones that do the work on behalf of the state of Kansas, typically.

So roughly what is our percentage of our what percentage of our budget is from fees?

Oh, I think and I would think it was just even on the auditor slide. 73% of it is of our revenues are from property taxes.

Okay.

It's it's it's.

So I'll go back to the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about the health insurance. And we had discussed some possible changes that might save us some money. But we're kind of waiting on information for that. Assuming that we were to implement those changes, Um, how would that affect this budget or would it at all?

It would not, it would not affect this budget because the increase that we are seeing for this is as a response to results of the prior two or three years. Um, we talked about reserves and we talked about needing to have, you know, that in your funds, the county has a fund balance policy and included in that fund balance policy is, um, a specific fund balance for a health insurance fund. Our health insurance fund is now down to the point where Shawnee County has to make a movements to get that fund up it is we have not increased our rates for our employee or the employer significantly over the last seven years we have um in an effort to keep the mill levy low and to keep the budgets low which affects the mill levy that has not taken place over the last few years so this year we are now up to the point where we have to we have to get some money into that fund this increase to the employee portion specifically would help get that fund back where it needs to be. That would get it at a, that fund is supposed to have enough to have two months worth of expenditures. And as we discussed, our expenditures for just one of our, just for our claims are currently sitting at 15 million a year. So that is a sizable expenditure for that fund. So we need to get it up. This $3 million would get it back to where it needs to be, so where we could feel secure in our health insurance fund.

Is the problem, is it increased medical expenses or is it more trips to the doctor or both?

It's everything. It's everything. Yeah. We have a few more employees. We increased our employees for the... for the mental health facility. A couple departments have maybe one, two extra employees that we didn't use to have. Our prescription costs, when we researched that, they are coming in lower, but we have more people on prescriptions than we had previously. And our medical claims are higher in addition to the prescriptions. It's just the industry itself is I think I think industry wide we are seeing increased health insurance costs for everyone. And as and as employees are the largest part of our budget that that has a drastic effect on us.

Other comments? Not on the insurance. Anyone else have any. Suggestions comments.

So last year we used some my reserves. Might be worthwhile to to look at that number and see if there's any possibility of doing that again. We heard that we had a healthy. Reserve earlier today.

The, Jennifer, before we really get into that, can we go down to the very bottom, right where you've got your pointer, where you've got the double asterisk?

Yes. The 8%.

Can you explain that again?

Okay. So our our budget itself, 163 seven is approximately 5% higher than 2026 is budget, which was right under 156 million. However, not all of that budget of 156 million was covered by the mill levy. We took $4 million out of reserves. Therefore, the amount that... we actually recovered by the mill levy was 152 million, essentially. And so when you compare your 164 million to that smaller number of 152 million, then that is an 8% increase. So a lot of numbers just say the mill levy increase would be an 8% increase versus the 5% that our budget is going up.

if we continue to take from reserves and take from reserves and take from reserves. And this is the problem that the commission got itself into in 2010, 2011, where our reserves were down to a very unhealthy critical level. We had less than $3 million in reserves when I came on in 2013 as a commissioner. We were looking at putting ourselves at a negative balance by the end of that year, which is why those of us that are still around, remember, we had to make huge cuts in 2013's budget. The Health Department wound up laying off individuals, the Department of Corrections. We had layoffs throughout the county, and to build up that fund balance to the reserves there are now, If we continue to borrow from the reserves, doesn't that just dig us a bigger and bigger hole every year to try to catch up to that budget? So next year, instead of it saying 8%, it might say 12%. Yes. And this is the problem the city of Topeka has themselves. Again, I don't want to... get into an argument about city versus county but the problem the city has with their negative deficit and their problem is they continue to borrow from the reserves and they've now put themselves in the hole that it may not be able to get back out of and i don't want to see the county do that it does that and it also additionally it's our reserve balance and the low amount of our current debt the two combined do two things that helps drive our credit rating

Our credit rating is currently as high as it can be for our local government, which is good for us, especially if we're looking at currently going out to get more debt. That is a critical time that you would want to make sure that you have your reserves in your pocket, in your goal. And our goal is 20 to 25% of our expenditures. That is what is in our official fund balance policy.

I mean, but I think we're back to that point, that if we want to make that cut to the mill levy to get it to be a lower mill levy, we need to talk about are we willing to start layoffs? Are we ready to start a reduction of force for the law enforcement? Are we looking at reducing services that are offered by Parks and Rec? Maybe the pools are only open several, I mean, not as, I mean, a couple of days out of the week, or maybe they're only open on weekends. Maybe the treasurer's office, the clerk, the register of deeds, maybe they're only open four days out of the week instead of five. Are those the cuts that we as a commission are willing to make? I think that's where we're at because most of our expenditures are employee related. Absolutely. It's the benefits, it's the salaries that we are looking at that are driving up our costs.

Yes, and sorry, I didn't have the number directly in front of me, but I know the auditors talked about what GFOA and GASB's goal or trends are, and that's at a two month or two and a half month. But if you look at OMB's guidance, which is for federal funds, sorry that recommends three months and then Moody's investor service for bond ratings for their finance factor in order to get to the strongest percent rating it would be greater than 30% an AA which is a strong rating they recommend reserves of 15 to 30% so we're right in that we currently don't have a problem with excess excess reserves. We just within the last few months have had our reserves reach the level of having some excess reserves. So and that's that's a new thing for us. And that's something that we will be looking at how the commission wants to address the small amount of excess reserves that we do have.

So I guess my question would be, are we willing to have that discussion about reduction of services or reduction of force? So that's the only thing that I see left on the table for us as commissioners reasonably to reduce the mill levy. And I hear the calls from the citizens. I read the comments, emails, and people are concerned about the increase of the mill levy, the increase that not just Shawnee County, but from every taxing entity. And the issues that we see are everywhere we go, whether it's even to McDonald's or, you know, Hardee's or Burger King, there's an increase there. If we walk into Dillon's or Aldi, we look at an increase there. If we go to the gas pump, there's a huge increase there. And as citizens, we're getting hit from all angles. And I think there's a call that at your state government or county government, can you reduce the property taxes? But in order for us to do that, we would either have to reduce services or reduce force.

Sorry, as you were talking, I was finding the most recent excess reserves amount that we pulled up. And this was before the commitment was made for the election equipment. But at that time, our excess reserves that was projected at the end of this year was 1.5 million. And I know we committed approximately that amount for the election equipment. I don't have that number off the top of my head. so right now we are currently on par for having essentially no excess reserves at the end of 26. using which number our excess reserves at the end of 26 so our that's using right but using the 25 or the 30 that's excess so excess would be anything over the 25. so we that will still that leaves us in our fund balance policy at the end of 26.

When's our deadline for having this?

Seven days from today.

Next Thursday.

That is this body's deadline. I want to clarify that is not a documented deadline anywhere. It's just the last day that we will have to get the budget completed and get it to the county clerk prior to the October 1st deadline.

running out of places to cut here. well it looks like we're at a standstill here we either approve this budget as it's presented right now or push it back another week I don't know if we'll find anything between now and then but what's the pleasure of Fellow commissioners here, if you have thoughts.

Well, I doubt that we're going to have any department heads coming to us to tell us that they're in favor of reduction of their services. And I doubt that we're going to have any department heads that come to us and tell us that they're wanting to reduce their workforce either. I doubt that the sheriff or district attorney is going to come to us and say they need less people. so it's either going to be a tough cut by us or we we've got the budget to the lowest level that it is here without making those changes to services or people

And we're at 5% right now.

It's roughly a 5% increase to our budget, yes.

But to the taxpayer, they see an 8% increase. Yes. So I would rather us be transparent and say it's an 8% increase to the taxpayer While it's only a 5% increase from last year, it's 8% because, again, we used reserves last year.

Correct. That is right.

So I just would rather us be transparent and honest to the taxpayers.

So I look at this and I think, you know, our reserves are rainy day fund and I think that this is a situation where you know I mean this is not an easy year for us budget wise I would I think we still ought to use a little bit of the reserves and enough to you know not enough to damage our bond rating but I still think there's still a little bit of not four million dollars but you know perhaps one million with one million even that would that bring us down even

Wow, struggling. Just second.

Takes it down 1%. Takes it down 1%.

Yeah, it had a reduction for the mill for the estimated mill levy. Now, this isn't the exact mill levy because there's the other piece of this, which is the assessments which will be finalized later this year. But that would bring the mill levy from 52.09 to 51.68. I'll make that motion. I'll second.

Motion's been made by Commissioner Mayes, second by Commissioner Rippon. All in favor say aye. Those opposed? Nay. Motion carries two to one.

Commissioners, again, caution us on taking this route because this is going to make that hole deeper and deeper, and we're going to find ourselves in the position that the city is in where the deficit, where they're looking at negative reserves within a very short period of time. and absent the hail mary of a sales tax extension i don't know how they're going to get out of the hole they're in we're already seeing shift of services from the city that we're expected to pick up on the county they cut their law enforcement we're expected to pick up that law enforcement the state cuts theirs and we're expected to pick up the feds cut theirs and we're expected to pick up so us using our reserves is going to put us in the hole that we can't get out of And I don't want to be here when we bankrupt the county. It's not going to happen today. It's not going to happen tomorrow. But if we continue this path, it's where we'll be. So that's my note. So noted.

So with that, that brings our 2027 budget to $162,696,681. Anything else?

No. I'll go ahead and make the motion that we finalize the budget.

I'll second. Motion's been made by Commissioner Mayes, second by Commissioner Rippon. All in favor say aye. Those opposed?

No, for the reasons I stated previously.

Motion carries two to one. All right. Thank you. Wrapped up. All right next next item. Okay, I have 3 people signed up. Michael Bradley.

Mike Bradley 6, 7, 7, Southwest. Good morning. as I understand it at this time regarding post data center we are waiting for further information One, we are waiting for an independent engineering analysis of sound pollution, air pollution, water supply issues, wastewater concerns, and a health impact assessment among other analysis concerns. Two, to see how the COMPASS assessment in the latest revised CUP matches up with the pending independent engineering analysis. And three, we are waiting for the city planners to publish their completed set of guidelines for data centers and to see how the independent engineering analysis matches up with the completed city planning guidelines. The city planners September 14 public meeting was canceled. I am hopeful that the City Planner's data center guidelines will be published before the independent engineering analysis is completed. I'm expecting the guidelines would be based on rigorous consideration of compatibility with the established area community, verifying the site matches permitted industrial intensity, separating light manufacturing from hyperscale data center heavy processing uses. and can confirm that adequate local supply connection points for high demand electricity and water can be provided, including detailed information regarding specifics of where the facility's water supply and electricity generation are coming from. On a different note, there are other unanswered questions. In July, WIVW reported that a small data center was being looked at on MTA-A Forbes grounds. If it is less than 100 megawatts, then that might be one thing. If it is a large load, 100 megawatt plus data center, that would be another thing. Also, a couple months ago, Compass was inquiring about land outside their currently proposed site. Is Compass thinking about another data center next to their proposed one? How many data centers are looking at Shawnee County right now? Due to extended environmental effects and infrastructure needs, two or more intended data centers lying within about two miles or so from each other would need to be considered together concurrently, not separately. Concerning community frustration. Not being told the full truth of a situation, whether it be by Compass, Evergy, whoever, is why many in the community feel they are to some extent being either intentionally misinformed or maybe even lied to regarding area data centers. I think all of us in South Shawnee County are by now just exasperated by the omission of the full truth and lack of transparency regarding all these development plans for data centers that seem to be surrounding the already established residential and agricultural communities. Please, just tell us how many data centers are being looked at for placement in this county, where they would be, and how big they are. This information is needed for sound public consideration and debate of community, environmental, utility, and cost impacts surrounding any potential construction and development of the data centers. Thank you.

Sharon Gillette.

Good morning, commissioners, counselor, and ladies. My name is Sharon Gillette, and I live in unincorporated Shawnee County. I know you recognize a few of us who seem to come up to address you time after time. I want you to know that we speak for many of our constituents. The majority of the people you represent would have to take off work to speak at a 9 AM meeting. Others might have to hire a babysitter or leave someone behind unattended because they are a caretaker for a family member. Some might even find it difficult to manage parking fees and transportation down here. there is also a vast majority of people who are terrified of public speaking it's not easy standing up at a podium hoping you're talking loud enough praying you don't lose your place or your train of thought while you have a clock ticking away your four precious minutes I'm a retired elementary school teacher, and I'm going to tell you it's much easier to talk to a classroom of 25 children than speak to three commissioners. I've taken time at past meetings to praise Commissioner Cook for recommending a moratorium on the Compass Hyperscale Data Center. Thank you. I've praised Commissioner Rippon for his many years preserving our land to make our parks and rec areas a highlight in our country, in our county. Maybe our country too. Thank you. I would also like to acknowledge Commissioner Mays for stating his opposition to granting a property tax break for any data center proposing to build in our county. This is something he stated in a WIBW interview last May. I couldn't agree with him more. Yet, I'd like to carry that statement a little bit further. Why should data centers who are backed by billionaire companies get any tax breaks at all? If they want to be a part of our community, if they want our land, our resources, our utility, our workers, then they should pay the same taxes that all of us do. Not only should they pay property taxes, but on everything they buy, just like all the rest of us do. They can well afford it. And that tax money would help our county, our community in so many ways.

Maybe we should hold out just a little bit longer.

for a billionaire company that will pay all of its taxes, its fair share, pay its own way, just like the rest of us do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Amy Gillette?

Hello, my name is Amy Gillette, and I live in South Shawnee County, just about two and a half miles from the proposed Compass Data Center. And we've been at the last many meetings, so we've also been here for all the discussions about the budget and property tax. And there is that lingering thought in the background, ooh, this data center. It's the silver bullet. It's what's going to fix all of our problems. It's going to make everything better for us. So what I've handed you is a graph. I'm going to explain how we get to that graph. On Compass's website for our Topeka area site, compassdatacenters.com backslash Topeka, if you go down to their Q&A section, they have the study that this comes from referenced. It's from realtor.com, August 11th of this year. The reason that they quoted this study was from their website. The question was, will the campus affect property values nearby? And yes, this realdirt.com study says there's no appreciable effect. They acknowledge the methodology is a bit skewed for that one. If we accept that one, let's accept this next one. If you read down a little bit in that study that Compass linked, they also have a section about property tax, which is where this graph comes from. The study was pretty extensive. But the headline of this section was that property tax rates near large data centers ease at opening, then rise above baseline. So a little bit from that section. Whether any of this reflects the presence of a data center is genuinely unclear, and the data cannot answer the question. Property taxes are set at the county, municipality, or special district level, meaning near and far properties in this analysis often fall under entirely different taxing jurisdictions. Any rate differences could reflect those jurisdictions' individual budget decisions, reassessment cycles, or local politics, rather than anything to do with the data center. Even within the same jurisdiction, what a local government does with new commercial tax revenue is a political decision that varies enormously by place, and the benefits do not automatically flow back to nearby homeowners. Data centers are also sometimes assessed at reduced values through industrial exemptions or negotiated abatements, meaning the actual tax contribution to the jurisdiction may be smaller than the facility scale suggests. The very end paragraph of this study says, the practical upshot, anyone expecting their property tax bill to fall because of a data center opening nearby should not count on it. The evidence of a direct homeowner tax benefit is weak, and the causal chain between a data center's presence and a neighbor's tax rate has too many missing links to draw firm conclusions from this data alone. So if Compass is going to cite this on their own website, let's take them at their word. This nice little graph here shows exactly that. This black line. Or no, I'm sorry. It's not the black line, it's the red line. My apologies. You know, we go down a little bit at about the second year out, but then we raise again. There's a lot of reasons for that. I'm going to keep coming in and talking about what some of those reasons are and why that happens. But some of that is because some of this valuation is based upon the technical elements within these areas, or not within these areas, within these sites, which depreciate incredibly quickly. So there's rebound effects with the property taxes. There may be this very quick relief. Everyone will be excited, but it goes back up. There's also a very similar study from the University of Utah, also from August of this year, that comes to the exact same conclusion, that there's initial property tax relief accompanied by future tax shifts and volatility, leading to higher levels than before. That's not what's being claimed. Thank you.

All right. What's next on the agenda?

Next on the agenda is item six, administrative communications.

Anyone? Commissioner Mays. Nothing for me. Mr. Cook.

I'd like to address Mike Bradley. The word that gets thrown around a lot when we've been discussing data centers is the word transparency. And I think that we have to have a frank discussion about what it is that a commissioner is or does. As a county commissioner, we oversee a budget. We set a mill levy. We oversee roughly 1,600 plus employees. We oversee whether or not the checks and balances for elected officials like the sheriff and the district attorney We ensure the mental safety of our inmates at the Department of Corrections, health of our inmates, We make sure that there's adequate resources for the courts to be able to operate. We act as a landlord in many respects to the courts. They remind us that when they don't think that we're doing a good job maintaining their property. We oversee the county's infrastructure when it comes to computers. Our treasurer collects the taxes, makes sure that your tags are there. Our clerk makes sure that you have good service and that everything is properly accounted for. Your Register of Deeds, great service from the Register of Deeds office. I can't say it better. The Register of Deeds office, when you need a deed search, they're there to help. They are a very small office, but I appreciate all that they do. and that you have your elections. In today's age, there's a lot of discussion about are your elections accurate or not accurate. In our elections office, it comes out great in 100% in their accountabilities. Emergency management, when there's an emergency, do we have services that are gonna be deployed in the appropriate ways? But then we have this other function as a commissioner, which is economic development. a lot of what we do in the economic development isn't something that gets broadcast in a meeting i will have developers and we all have had a developer that will approach us and say i'm interested in building houses in this part of the county what services might i be able to apply for should i as a commissioner be broadcasting that joe smith is looking at building 20 houses He might never come back again. He might never use the services. He might not develop. What transparency does the public expect? I think that when it becomes public, that's when it becomes transparent. I don't know that you expect a commissioner to broadcast every meeting that they've ever had. because there are corporate entities that we've met with. As a commissioner, I've had an opportunity to meet with everything from blue chip corporate entities that are looking at expanding an operation in a county to people that are starting up their own small business. A lot of what we do is as a conduit, to be able to explain to everybody from, I'm starting up a mowing operation and I'm going to be taking on employees. What services might I be able to apply for as a small business? To realtors, I'm wanting to build a housing development. What things can I be able to do? My discussion often is to have them go talk with Bob Perry, where we're talking about the infrastructure. How would you finance the infrastructure for the development? But we also have, in today's age, we've had data centers that have approached us. Do I know how many data centers are looking at Shawnee County? No. Do I have a rough guess? Probably more than five. That's just a rough guess based on things that I have seen or heard within the community. How many applications do we actually have? One. We have a moratorium in place that there's no more in the pipeline. But we have one application we're looking at. And so until there is two, we should be concerned about the one. And that's what the Land Use Development Office is. And when the application is filed, we sit as a quasi-judicial body where every conversation, and I know that we're all taking notes, when we're approached, whether it's, again, in a restaurant, in a grocery store, or just on the street, I'm asking people, what's your name? Because I've got to write it down and be able to say at a later time who I talk to. and what their concerns were. And we take every account into heart as to that's what our job is as a constituents. We want to know what our body, what our constituents want and what their concerns are. So that's just my thought and what transparency really means.

I know a lot of companies that look at Topeka to, you know, expanding and they don't want their name out there. They don't want their competition to know what they're doing. They don't want people to know their locations and somebody to buy their ground out from under them. So, yeah, there is noise transparency, but that's not our job to... to make that transparent. If we did that, they would move on to the next town. They wouldn't deal with us.

Commissioner, just a couple of things. The level of transparency this applicant has had is much, much more than we have with Mars. Mars told us multiple times that if their name leaked anywhere up until the day we announced, they would walk. We did not sign NDAs, and to my knowledge, nobody in the county has ever signed an NDA, although I have not been county councilor the entire time in our 150 plus years of existence. But there are other organizations other than data centers that are actually much more concerned about the secrets. And so I hear what everybody is saying about transparency in the data centers, but that's an industry-wide not industry, that's all economic development. There are simply organizations, companies, who have extreme competitiveness and have extreme competitors that they treat everything like a national secret. They just do. The other thing I'll point out is that I go on behalf of the commission to a lot of these prospective meetings. They're economic development prospective meetings. Probably at least 20 to 25 a year. And I'm here to tell you the vast majority of them never make it to an application. They're here to sound us out. They want to see what we can provide. And the majority of them do not come to any fruition at all. It's a weird world and more and more of my personal job here is taking up by this economic development component. But like I said, there are a lot of contacts and the majority of them do not bear fruit, but you still have to have them.

Not not at this time, but again, email us. Send us comments. We'll write it on a postcard and leave it at the door. We'll we'll get it. OK, Mr. Cook, you have any other.

Nope. All right. I do have a thing I want to talk about here. Oh, there it is on the screen for you. Um, this Sunday at Gage Park will be a car show. All the proceeds will go towards the War Memorial at Gage Park. So be Sunday from 10 o'clock to two. So unless you get a better offer, see you at the car show. Uh, that's uh, uh, that's all I have for Administrative comments. Lisa, what's last?

Last is item 7, executive session.

We do not have a need for executive session.